Now the $80 broadband connection
Wsj.com ran a front page article on Thursday about entrepreneur Greg Wyler, his company Terracom, and the dream to bring the internet to Rwanda.
The country is one of the least wired in the world and Wyler expects to provide internet service for $80 per month to citizens. Interesting as the average Rwandan annual income is $200. As mentioned in an earlier post, the US average annual income is $36,764. The US equivalent would be to spend $9100 a month for broadband. The citizens are certainly not signing up directly, at least not yet, but internet cafes will certainly be in vogue. Visiting the terracom site is an interesting experience; the page load times are extremely slow for a telecom company. Really demonstrates the current sad state of the Rwandan pipe. Wyler has the right idea though; as growing industrial nations continue the unabated search for vanishing commodities, Africa remains poised for an explosion in growth due to the abundance of natural resources. We’re about to witness the Gilded Age of Africa, people who position startups now to provide needed infrastructure to new businesses will be the Vanderbilts of our time.