Few weeks ago the country’s Internet was blocked by the Congolese
authorities. While the Internet by satellite was reopen 3 to 5 days later, the
mobile Internet was still blocked three weeks later.
The reason to block Internet access was of course security issues according to the government.
They probably had in mind what happened in Egypt and other Arab countries
during the Arab spring. However, they need to remember that in Egypt the
penetration rate of mobile phone is more 112% compare to around 20% in the
DRC ! In those 20%, how many have smartphones ? And in those having
smartphones how many were demonstrating in the streets ? In my opinion, the excuse used was poor and
definitely not the real one. Maybe they wanted to hide something…
But I digress, this is not a political blog…
In this country, most people use their smartphones to access the
Internet. I am personally using my phone 3G connexion as a modem…
During the unrest, the government spokesman ask the population not to
worry and to continue their routine because everything was fine !
Can banks, telecoms, universities, travel agencies etc continue working
as usual without an Internet connexion !? Probably 30 years ago but not
anymore Mr. Minister. It gives us an idea on how our different ministries
operate…
But remember this is not a political blog but this stupid decision has had
a huge impact on the economy as you can imagine. For example, banks were not
able to connect with the Central Bank for several days, which means that most
banking transactions were impossible to perform.
A customer of mine who could not received emails had to cross the river
to the other Congo to print a document and bring it back to Kinshasa for his
suppliers. Renting the boat + visa cost for him was around USD 400 (this excludes the
time lost).
There are so many start-up created by young Congolese that are using
social media such as Facebook to communicate with their target market that are
losing money everyday because the Internet may be back but still no facebook,
Twitter, instagram etc. To use them you need to have a VPN installed and not
everyone knows about VPN (most of them are only free for a trial period
anyway).
That makes me wonder how many people will read this article as it is
usually shared through those social media L
2 comments:
This is just as crazy as it sounds... I won't comment the political part BUT in terms of economy, what a waste! ATM and POS couldn't work and considering what was happening, people had difficulties to go the the HQ of their bank downtown (Yes! HQ! Because no data means no connection between HQ and branches). And for SME, this was and still is terrible. Most of them have a "personal" connection, because it's cheaper than an entreprise one and as efficient for what they have to do. The government decided to reestablish full connections to entreprise links only. You can imagine the stress and the continuing loss for SME, which should be at the heart of our economy... #Sad
Everybody is claiming not to play politics but a bad politically motivated decision has a tremendous consequences on the weak Congolese economy. I was not in country when this happened but I wasn't less victim of this decision. My law office that heavily relies on internet to communicate with most of my clients got a considerable toll in terms of trust and finance. We should have our voices heard and let them know that such move will not attract investments that the country desperately needs to improve the well-being of our impoverish fellow citizens. Saying it is not politics.
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