having spent a considerable amount of time in the Horn of Africa, the reason African internet connectivity "sucks" is mostly obvious: lack of local talent, subs

having spent a considerable amount of time in the Horn of Africa, the reason African internet connectivity "sucks" is mostly obvious: lack of local talent, substantially increased costs, graft/corruption, and minimal use of peering infrastructure (plenty of peering fabrics, little to no engagement or use) while I certainly love the excitement this has generated, it's not as easy as "we'll PoP Kenya! We'll PoP Tanzania! We'll PoP all of Africa! 50ms for everyone!" you would think a place like Djibout with five submarine cables and terrestrial routes into Ethiopia, Sudan, and others, would have a vibrant peering fabric or CDN nodes. Level3 just put a CDN node in there, and Telecom Italia Sparkle has been there for a while. AFAIK the CDN node is completely under-utilized and Sparkle provides high cost MPLS services for private and governmental outfits; not as much general IP transit. More work needs to be put in getting carriers to peer at existing points of presence, and costs have to be lowered any way they can.