The spread of the Internet is an unprecedented success story in the history of communications. S o far it has made its greatest strides in the rich countries of the North: while low-income countries are home to nearly 60 percent of the world’s people, they account for just under 5 percent of the globe’s Internet users. There are a number of reasons for this slow progress, especially in Africa. Preconditions for Internet use are the availability – and reliable supply – of electricity, telephones and computers, a precondition hard to meet in most African countries. In part, this is due to prevailing settlement patterns, with many people living in villages with hardly any connection to the country’s infrastructure. And even if available, they would not be able to afford access to whatever may be on offer. But the wealth divide between (potential) users is not the only reason for the digital divide. Access to the Internet depends not just on the availability of telephone lines but, to an even larger extent, on their quality, which is very poor in most low-income countries. A number of technical solutions have been proposed to extend Internet access: local internet exchange points, telecenters and Internet cafés, wireless applications. However, economic and socio-cultural obstacles abound in a region where owning a book of one’s own to study at leisure – and not a notebook! – would represent a quantum leap forward. Given these difficulties, it would make more sense to rely on other media, especially public broadcasting, as forums for public discourse.