The Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) in Kenya and South Africa's Internet Service Providers' Association (ISPA) are calling for more creative ways of selling mobile data for the benefit of consumers in the respective countries.

The prohibitive cost of mobile data has become a focus area for the internet industry across the continent in recent times.

The latest proposal, from the ISPA, is for consumers to be free to choose who they buy internet access or data from - irrespective of their service provider.

Dominic Cull, ISPA regulatory advisor says this change would be in line with the South African government's ICT Policy White Paper which requires fair and sustainable service-based competition in order to increase consumer choice, reduce costs and increase innovation.

"Unfortunately, only those top-end SA Internet consumers lucky enough to be connected to an open access fibre network have their pick of the country's ISPs and the benefits of real competition. That's great for the residents of South Africa's 'fibrehoods', but it's not good for universal service or consumer rights. As a consumer, you are free to choose the best telecoms package for your needs, and this is in line with the government policy of promoting competition in the provision of services. If a provider does not meet your expectations, switching to another one is relatively inexpensive and quick,"

The ISPA says more than 80% of South Africans use networks which limit their choice of ISP because being a subscriber to one of the country's big mobile networks means having to buy mobile data from that same mobile network.

The ISPA's call for a change to pricing strategies has been echoed by A4AI in its latest report looking into the gendered aspect of mobile data services titled Mobile Data Plans in Kenya: Quantifying women's access to the digital world. Among A4AI's recommendations is one for the marketing of service-specific and zero-rated data packages to Kenyan women.

"Service-specific and zero-rated data plans are more likely to be used by men than women, even though they provide access to websites and apps used more frequently by women. It is possible that this is because the service-specific and zero-rated services available are not sufficiently marketed to women, and/or do not cater to the interests of women. We recommend that MNOs invest more to understand what kind of content women consider useful, and to incorporate these insights into their services. After incorporating content and services that are of value to women, MNOs should make a concerted effort to market these services to women, and to educate women on how such data services work...," reads an excerpt from the report.

The A4AI found that high mobile data costs in Kenya mean that less than 20% of local citizens connect to broadband services and that a significant digital gender gap characterises internet use and smartphone ownership in the country.

Women are more likely than men to buy full-cost data plans according to the report as they often purchase smaller full-cost data plans (1GB or less) while men, when they do purchase full-cost plans, tend to purchase bundles of 1GB or more.