MALABO - Equatorial Guinea is awash in oil, although little of the wealth has trickled down to the poor.Other parts of the world are pushing ahead with plans for fast, free - or at least low-cost - universal online access. Equatorial Guinea, a small reclusive state on the coast of central-western Africa, seems stuck in a time warp.
Equatorial Guinea has the most expensive internet in the world after Zimbabwe, according to a list published this year by Ecobank, a pan-African bank. "For 2,000 CFA francs, I can't even download an 80-second video," a local journalist told colleagues from central Africa who had come to Malabo to cover a regional meeting and found themselves caught out by internet problems.
The authorities have set up a "free, public internet network" along the Paseo Maritimo, a seafront six kilometres long in Malabo that is also used for sporting activities and leisurely strolls. A former Spanish colony, Equatorial Guinea is nominally one of the richest states in Africa thanks to oil income.
The slow service is especially paradoxical since "the country is situated in the Gulf of Guinea and so has access to a number of seabed cables", said Julie Owono of Internet Sans Frontieres , an NGO.