We have felt this way for some time now and we are happy that there is data to support this.
According to the Digital Quality of Life Index, Nigerians pay the most to use the internet.
This is not a survey carried out against other African countries but all countries in the world.
Looking at the current internet speeds available to the average user, bandwidth and data allocation to the cost, telcos have to step up their game a lot.
Putting the data into context, it is revealed that an average Nigerian has to work about 27 minutes and 55 seconds to afford 1GB of data. That doesn’t look too disconcerting till you know that the average for other countries is about 10 minutes.
The numbers get ugly.
For those who want broadband internet, they would have to work 33 hours and 42 minutes on the average. That is more than a full straight day of work, and about 4 days of normal work hours.
With these numbers, the digital innovation space in the country will surely not grow as much as it should be. Such high barriers of entry might not keep innovators out, but it will affect their potential customer base.
As a reference, we did a piece on MTN’s 2020 earnings which shows that the company posted strong numbers but suffered a decline in data users (up to 7 million). Now we know some of the reasons why.
