TechCabal Daily – In South Africa, it’s lock-down and slow internet speeds

South Africans are dealing with slow internet speeds after another break in undersea cables

Many people have found that while a lock-down is necessary, the social isolation can be frustrating. In South Africa, a new source of frustration is slow internet speeds. 

The slow speeds are because of a break in the West African Cable System (WACS).

South African national research and education network (SANREN) partner, TENET says that “with the WACS outages on the east coast, SANREN users working from home during the lock-down may experience issues if their home providers do not have sufficient capacity via alternate sub-sea cable systems”.

An earlier break on the smaller-capacity SAT-3 cable, which follows a similar route to WACS along Africa’s west coast to Europe, has compounded the outage to some degree.

In Nigeria, many internet users have also complained about slow internet across mobile networks and broadband providers but everyone will have to hold on for a whole as the SAT-3 break is only likely to be fixed next week.

Decagon and Semicolon are two startups training Nigeria’s next wave of software engineers. While both startups have a different duration for training, they offer accommodation and physical structures where their students can learn. 

In the first place, having accommodation and physical structures are a way of working around some of Nigeria’s infrastructural problems, like internet connectivity. But a lock-down means that both companies must face what they have up till now tried to avoid. 

TechCabal’s Alexander Onukwue’s says in this article that it it time for these companies to prove their value proposition as most established companies have to do at some point in their existence. What was a straightforward process of learning at a small campus has now become become fully remote, albeit temporarily. 

What question does this article pose? Will this disruption affect the pace of learning which is usually six months for Decagon and the entire year for Semicolon? There are no clear answers yet.

Here’s an excerpt from his article: “Learning outcomes will probably not collapse at this point. But there will be a difference between being in the same physical space with your instructor and talking over Zoom with an unstable internet connection.”
 

Coronavirus is not taking a break and African developers are trying to stay a step ahead. Kay Ugwuede talks about the digital tools we’re using in the COVID-19 fight. 
 

Following its call for technology-based tools to help tackle the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria and across Africa, Ventures Platform has selected its first set of winning projects.

The seven startups whose tools have been selected from a shortlist of 15 will receive US$1,000 grants, work-space, legal services and mentorship from the Ventures Platform team.

What happens to the teams that didn’t make the cut?

“We will extend support to those who didn’t make the first cut by providing AWS Credit and access to the VP team, and a community of other innovators working on COVID-19 through a slack channel” – Ventures Platform

The good people at Zikoko have put together an important resource where you can see what progress Africa is making in its fight against coronavirus. 

Did you know that across Africa, 302 infected persons have recovered? 

Download our app at www.kwik.delivery – Lagos’ best last-mile delivery service!

3,600 schools in the Democratic Republic of Congo will receive 12-months of high-speed internet from Eutelsat Communications (ETL) through its subsidiary Konnect Africa.

Other things we’re reading:

+ Yinka Adegoke on how a health disaster might lead to an economic recession in Africa

+ The Four kinds of startups are most at risk because of COVID-19

+ TechCabal is making its healthtech report available for FREE