[faizshah]

Actually it's based on this data on mobile services cost: http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/ipb/

I included the data from 2011 because it includes mobile services cost whereas the other is newer but on data costs.

Not sure what your point is at all other than to be pedantic and obfuscate the general point to be honest. The point being that african telecom costs are some of the highest in the world and this would be one use for a satellite...

[filleduchaos]

My point is that "it's too expensive for Africans (from an unspecified country, because of course the entire continent of 1.3 billion people has the same socioeconomic status everywhere) to call people in the next village (and it being the next village is somehow relevant because mobile call rates are tied to literal physical distance, obviously)" is exactly the kind of poverty porn nonsense that Westerners lap up about SSA without thinking, and I make an effort to call it out everywhere I see it.

I am curious about your thoughts on satellites as a particularly cost-effective way to improve mobile telecoms, considering that cellular networks are largely driven by masts that are very much on the ground and (in West Africa for instance), backed by submarine fibre-optic cables.

As an aside, it's extremely interesting to me that in most of my interactions with Westerners they seem rather incapable of finding very easily discoverable primary sources on living conditions in Africa. It would take maybe ten seconds to pull up actual December 2019 call rates and tariff plans from telecoms companies in Ethiopia or Nigeria or Rwanda or Botswana or wherever, but I instead get linked to data that aggregates mobile device and data plan prices from years ago. Then again I suppose that if one unironically believes that people here are stuck unable to call people in the next village it wouldn't occur to them that this sort of information is widely available from Africans themselves.

For example, I use MTN and pay a flat rate of (the equivalent of) $0.0003 per second for calls and $0.011 to send texts. I'm on a 15GB data plan that costs $13.83, and the monthly plans go down to $2.77 for 1.5GB. There are also plans that will give you access to certain social media (Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, Instagram, etc) for a month for less than a dollar.

[faizshah]

> "it's too expensive for Africans to call people in the next village"

What's the point of using quotes if you're not quoting...

What was actually said: "I dunno how true this is but my african friends have told me that telecom in africa is extremely expensive and calling someone the next village over can have huge charges.

Again this is second hand info and I don't know much about African politics but telecom is clearly one important reason."

If we consider saying "in the midwest fiber optic internet is extremely expensive" to be poverty porn then I suppose I'm guilty...

They were Cameroonian btw...

[Zancarius]

I think the other poster is trolling and intentionally strawmanning against your mild embellishment you used to make a point. It's not worth continuing a discussion with that person.

5 seconds on Google reveals that, surprise, you're right[1]; mobile data in Africa (as an example) is more expensive than elsewhere especially when considering relative income versus other regions, and there are few providers with limited competition. I think most readers understand what you're getting at, so it's better to disengage if another poster is being impolite!

[1] https://qz.com/africa/1391084/1391084/

[filleduchaos]

Actually "the other poster" is a Nigerian that is beyond fed up with how easily Westerners swallow up barely coherent narratives about the politics and economics of my continent.

I do find it impressive how you link an article that talks about the actual solution already being implemented to drive down mobile internet costs in SSA - expanding the existent fibre-optic cable networks like MainOne and stimulating the growth of the local telecoms providers - to apparently support the idea that we're trying to launch satellites to get better internet (or, as per the original post, call rates within a country. Have you ever actually used a satellite phone?)