IEEE Spectrum February, 2013 - 59

jitter. A network with an MOS greater than 3.5 can generally sup- ing poverty, political corruption, and the lack of basic services
such as power and water. Even in the more stable countries, such
port VoIP services such as Skype.
By tracking MOS results over time, we can identify the approxi- as Angola and Kenya, that have built hefty broadband backbones,
engineers have yet to find a tried-and-true way to extend cheap,
mate date when Internet-based calling emerged between one region
dependable Internet service to rural communities.
and another. For example, it appears that VoIP calls between North
As PingER data show, there is plenty of work to be done.
America (at SLAC) and Latin America were possible beginning in
My hope is that the technology will bring awareness to over2003. Similarly, VoIP calls to the Middle East were first possible in
2004, and calls to South Asia started in 2009. Not coincidentally, looked shortcomings in Africa's communications networks, as
it did in Pakistan. And by expanding traditional cable networks
2009 was also the first year that I and my student collaborators in
as well as embracing "leapfrog" technologies such as Wi-Fi, low
Pakistan began using Skype for conference calls. I remember the
Earth orbit satellites, and mobile phones, providers will be able
event fondly because it meant I could stop paying $1 per minute
to deliver affordable broadband access to even the most remote
for a regular long-distance connection.
corners of the continent. n
Africa's Internet still has a way to go before most communities
there can take advantage of these savings. In
fact, Africa remains the only region whose
average MOS score hasn't yet surpassed 3.5.
I suspect, however, that considering recent
progress in other measures, this will begin
to change in the next few years.
Another useful performance metric is
throughput, a function of loss and roundtrip latency that approximates the rate at
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hosts. Given Africa's recent improvements
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Africa's throughput in 2009 was comparable to Europe's 15 years ago, and PingER
data suggested the gap would widen to
25 years by 2020.
Happily, throughput has grown dramatically since 2009, putting Africa just 14 years
Topics include:
› Information & Communication
behind Europe. If growth continues at the curTechnologies
› Biotechnology / Pharmaceutical
rent rate, Africa may even catch up by 2030.
›
Innovation
› Crisis Management
That's a big if, though. It remains to be
› Leadership / Negotiation
› Data Modeling & Analysis
seen whether this uptick in growth is just
› Radar
› Design, Analysis,
a short-lived aftereffect of the 2010 World
&
Manufacturing
› Robotics
Cup or whether new investments will sus› Energy / Sustainability /
› Systems Engineering
tain progress in the long run.

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if the fUtUre of information technology
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it is. The 2010 World Cup undoubtedly set
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as the continent continues to attract big
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projects, its Internet performance will
advance further still. For example, the
Square Kilometre Array, a massive radio
telescope being jointly built in South Africa
and Australia, will haul more data between
the two continents than travels through today's entire global Internet.
The reality, however, is that most Africans
still face substantial, and often unpredictable, obstacles to Internet access, includ-

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum February, 2013