At the AITEC Southern Africa ICT Summit 2014, Mozambique became the third African country and the first in Southern Africa to join the Alliance for Affordable Internet. Apart from the signing between A4AI and The Government of Mozambique (which included talks by representatives of A4AI, Mozambique, UK, USA, Sweden), #AITECMoz14 also offered discussions on a variety of internet governance topics.

Experienced professionals from the regional asked questions including:

• Why do rural people need connectivity?
• What is the role of the government, the private sector in delivering connectivity?
• Is Internet access a human rights issue?

A couple of facts on the decline of international bandwidth costs but inefficient national broadband network came up as well:

• The cost of 1Mbps from Maputo to London has gone down from $7,000 in 2008 to $1,000 in 2014 due to the arrival of more subsea cables
• It is reportedly cheaper to transmit data from Maputo to London than between cities in Mozambique (ie. Maputo to Beira)

PHOTO: Mozambique joins A4AI. #affordableinternet #aitecmoz14 http://t.co/jXkrndvSIO

— A4AI (@A4A_Internet) April 2, 2014