More white people exploiting Africa
this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2026
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Seems to be quite the recurring theme
Remember when millionaire weirdos would brag about setting up internet access in random towns just to put people on their preferred cryptocurrency? They called it "banking the unbanked," but we all know what it was really code for.
tradition as old as time
What is the alternative to existing giant companies investing in the infrastructure? And why hasn't that alternative already addressed this issue before the tech companies arrived?
There are some really cool community owned WISP and mesh networks set ups in areas doing green fields tbh. As well as open source 5g networks (which for parts of Africa is cool because they have some pretty advanced SMS based services).
So WISPs and 5G networks address "last mile" access. According to the article Google and Facebook are building undersea cables which don't compete with last mile services, and in fact can help them as the existing backhaul circuits become saturated from continued new WISP and 5G users being added.
I think its fantastic that there are community built efforts to bring people online. However, it sounds like these are small pockets of efforts instead of national or continental efforts. If the WISPs or 5G service area are only in pockets, is it fair that millions of people should go without access to the internet just because they don't live in one of the areas served by those existing community efforts?
Mesh back haul can get some distance connecting some communities aa well.
I agree though, the intercontental circuts need major captial (fiber/satilite). Ideally, to me, that would multinational orgnization building common infrastruture for the collective benefit. There is no kind of org though, that doesn't have some attempted leverage gain, so its more about creating a balance of powers then denying them.
So local nation states and coalitions, the UN, Internatiinal NGOs like the Linux Foundation, Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI), The Internet Society, local tech industry, aid from countries like the US, China, and EU members, and finally western Big Tech. These can all be stakeholders but it's important that putting the power into the individuals and communities is a major bulwark to the intentional creation of digital underclass.
Mesh back haul can get some distance connecting some communities aa well.
I don't think community driven mesh networks are a realistically sized solution for the entire continental connectivity .
Ideally, to me, that would multinational orgnization building common infrastruture for the collective benefit.
Certainly that would be best for the many nations of the continent. However, that hasn't happened and high speed internet as a basic utility has been commonplace as a utility in huge parts of the world already for decades. So without the ideal of a coalition of NGOs, are the under served nations on the African continent just supposed to go without instead of the tech companies building the infrastructure, and maintaining the ownership that comes with that, to bring these services as is detailed in the article?
Thomas Sankara would like to know your location