58s Senegal experiences its second internet shutdown in less than two months, virtual private networks (VPNs) have emerged as effective tools to circumvent government-led restrictions on social media platforms. But when governments in Africa take the drastic step of shutting down the internet entirely, such as in Mauritania last March, VPNs become ineffective.
Simon Migliano, the head of research at Top10VPN.com, an independent VPN review website, tells African Business about the effectiveness of VPNs in combating internet shutdowns in the region, potential challenges faced by companies implementing VPNs on a large scale, and the key VPN trends observed in sub-Saharan Africa this year.
How effective are VPNs in combating government-led internet shutdowns in sub-Saharan Africa?
VPNs are highly effective at bypassing restrictions on specific social media platforms, such as Facebook or WhatsApp. A VPN creates an encrypted connection to the internet via a remote server, which allows it to circumvent censorship.
In some countries, such as Iran and Turkey, we have recently seen an increase in attempts to reduce the effectiveness of VPNs by blocking access to internet domains operated by VPN services. Fortunately for the people of the region, this is not yet common in sub-Saharan Africa.
When a government takes the step to actually shut down the internet, whether that’s just mobile internet access or fixed broadband too, then VPNs are no longer effective as they need an active internet connection to function.
Can VPNs be implemented on a large scale for every computer from a company’s perspective?
For a company looking to ensure its access to the wider internet is uninterrupted then there are three main options.
The cheapest and easiest option is to simply install a consumer VPN on every device. A good quality consumer VPN can cost as little as $2 per month and be installed on several devices. The potential downsides are that the company would be vulnerable to any issues affecting the VPN provider, should it get blocked or its servers become overloaded during a major shutdown.
If a business already has an enterprise VPN to provide employees with remote access to its corporate networks then this can potentially be configured to also allow access to blocked content.
