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STUDY ABROAD OPTIONS
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KENYA’S CCK CLOSES INTERNET EXCHANGE AFTER ONLY TWO WEEKS Two weeks ago, the Kenya Internet Exchange Point went live. Today, much to the surprise of the local ISP community a letter was received from the Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) instructing them to close down the KIXP and also instructing Telkom Kenya to disconnect all ISP links to the KIXP. KIXP has been treated with great hostility by the current monopoly national telco, Telkom Kenya (TKL) right from the start. TKL, in effect, claim that KIXP is a violation of their monopoly and exclusivity on operating a national backbone service. This raises many questions though, as TKL’s monopoly applies to operating a national backbone to carry "international traffic". The KIXP only carries "local traffic" that goes between the local ISPs. All ISP international traffic goes out over TKL’s ‘national backbone’. The problem of internationally routed local traffic has been one of the internet community’s biggest headaches (besides the frequent failures of the ‘national backbone’). Internet users in Kenya have had to suffer with email from one ISPs customer taking minutes and even hours to get to another ISPs customer. Web sites hosted locally are painfully slow loading due to the fact that the traffic has to go out over international links and then back into the country again to get from one ISP to another. With the number of operational ISPs at over 20 currently this has meant that the entire local internet community has had to suffer from this headache. The Kenya Internet Exchange Point was the "hope for the future" of the Internet in Kenya. In the initial phases of planning, the local ISP association, TESPOK, (http://www.tespok.co.ke) approached TKL and asked them to host the KIXP, colocate ISP routers and participate in the effort to improve the quality of local internet connectivity. This invitation was treated with contempt and thrown out by TKL. TESPOK then wrote an official letter to the CCK informing them of the background and intention to establish KIXP. The CCK then invited TESPOK to elaborate on the plans for TESPOK. This was done and the CCK responded by saying that there was no need for a license to operate KIXP and that KIXP in no way infringed upon Telkom’s monopoly as the monopoly was on International traffic. Today in a face to face meeting with the topmost CCK officials, the chairman of the ISP association questioned CCK’s change of position and reminded them of their decision to permit the formation of KIXP. The response from the leadership of CCK was "...too bad, next time make sure you get us to put it in writing..." (source: Brian Langwe For more information please visit http://www.kixp.net} TELECOM NAMIBIA LAUNCHES IWAY Prime Minister Hage Geingob says the launching of Telecom Namibia’s Internet Service Provider, Iway, is without doubt a further significant development in the expansion of the information and communications technologies in Namibia. Officially launching Telecom’s Iway, Geingob stressed: "Namibia has made progress in creating the necessary infrastructure to bring the benefits of the information revolution to our people. "The challenges posed by the global information revolution is leaving us no choice but to restructure, renew and reposition our telecommunications industry in order to meet the demands of our customers." (source: http://www.allafrica.com/stories/200011260003.html) AFRICA GETS INVOLVED IN ICANN The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) recently held it’s first meetings since the first ever open, public global election was staged on the Internet in October this year. ICANN holds four meetings per year, with 3 of them outside the USA and the last one at its headquarters in Marina Del Rey. Though the turnout from Africa in the ICANN elections was low in numbers, Africa was well represented by a united caucus, including the new ICANN board member Dr. Nii Quaynor from Ghana. Among the pressing issues addressed by the African caucus was the ownership and management of the .africa tld (top level domain). The stance taken was that geographic names should not be given out in new tld’s without due consideration and consultation to the communities involved. This position was subsequently formally adopted by both the DNSO (Domain Name Supporting Organisation) cctld (country code top level domains) constituency as well as the GAC (Government Advisory Committee). The Africa region may have the least number of participants, but it has the broadest representation as well as the most united region. Many participants from Africa received a sponsorship from various sources including InfoDev, the francophone (ACCT), the Markle Foundation, HBD and other organisations. Dr. Quaynor spoke out for the considerations and concerns of Africans in the decision making process at ICANN. Other participants attended from Senegal, Niger, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Togo, Nigeria, Benin, Kenya, Uganda, Angola, South Africa, Mauritius and Gambia. Pierre Dandjinou (Benin) and Alan Levin (South Africa) participated in the formation of an ICANN members group (see http://www.icannmembers.org). They will continue to serve on the Interim Coordinating Committee (ICC) which was supported by the consensus of the participants at the ICANN Members Forum. Alan also serves on the steering committee of the Civil Society Internet forum (see http://www.csif.net). A number of participants contribute in the cctld contituency where Adiel Akplogan (Togo) participated in the development of a draft contract between ICANN and managers. Calvin Browne (South Africa), Brian Longwe (Kenya) and Yann Kwok (Mauritius) contributed to ‘best practice’ guidelines for cctld administration with input from Charles Musisi (Uganda). Yann Kwok represents Africa on the administrative committee of the cctld constituency and was recently elected as an Alternate for the Names Council (another name for the board of the DNSO). Anne-Rachel Inne (Niger) participates in the Business Constituency (of the DNSO) where she has been asked to stand for the names council. They require a replacement for Masanobu Katoh who has been recently elected by the Asia Pacific At Large community to the ICANN board. Adiel Akplogan, Badiel Ali Drissa (Burkina Faso) and Mouhamed Diop (Senegal) also participate in the Internet Service Provider and Connectivity Provider (ISPCP) Constituency of the DNSO. Further, Akplogan is member of the image and web site redynamisation committee and his company CAFEnet is responsible for their web site (see http://www.ispcp.org). Thierry Amoussougbo (Benin) voted at the Non-Commercial Domain Name Holders Constituency (NCDNHC of the DNSO) where Zacharia Amar (Mauritania) is a representative to the Names Council. AfriNIC is a nascent African Regional Internet Registry (RIR) responsible for allocating Internet addresses. At these recent ICANN meetings the functions of an RIR were communicated to those Africans and others involved in the Governments Advisory Committee. Currently AfriNIC has delegated observers and listeners on the Address Council (AC) of the Address Services Organisation (ASO). AfriNIC will be working with RIPE NCC (the European RIR) to bootstrap AfriNIC. Much international support has been volounteered to assist the AfriNIC board of trustees establish AfriNIC as an official RIR. It was agreed in the African caucus meetings, to create an ‘AfrICANN’ organisation to act as an African ICANN group. This is to be made up of continuously active participants who will collaboratively promote the African perspective. This informal advisory group will be open, bottom-up consensus based, transparent and represent the African agenda. Key activities will involve the promotion and organisation of African participation in ICANN groups and activities. (source:Alan Levin) TELKOM CLAIMS TARIFFS FOR 2001 STAND INTERNATIONAL COMPARISON Telkom’s tariff adjustments for 2001 have come in well below inflation for the fifth consecutive year, comparing favourably with the telephony charges of a number of developed and developing countries according to a recent survey by independent telecommunications tariffs analyst, Tarifica. (source: Telkom. Readers wanting the powerpoint charts making these comparisons should contact us on info@balancingact-africa.com ) TELECOM EGYPT SELECTS ERICSSON TO BUILD INTERNET ACCESS NETWORK By placing a turn-key order for a Multiservice Access Network with Ericsson, Telecom Egypt has become the first operator to take a step towards changing Egypt’s existing telephony infrastructure from circuit-switched to a packet-based voice and data network. Ericsson’s Tigris MultiService Access Platform will off-load data traffic from Egypt’s telephone network and enables Telecom Egypt to provide easier, faster and better Internet access for its end-users. (source: http://cape2cairo.iafrica.com/b2b/b2bnewsletter/153723.htm ) VODAFONE DECLARES INTEREST IN NIGERIA’S CELL PHONE MARKET Nigeria may have become the focus of global mobile phone operators as the world’s largest cellphone operator, Vodafone of UK, has declared interest in operating in Nigeria. Final release of the programme for auction of four GSM licenses are prompting predictions that Nigeria’s growth for GSM services will surpass that of South Africa within few years of its take off owing to the huge market and affordability statistics. (source: http://cape2cairo.iafrica.com/b2b/b2bnewsletter/153711.htm and http://cape2cairo.iafrica.com/b2b/b2bnewsletter/153861.htm) SOMALI MOBILE PHONE COMPANIES MAKE COMMUNICATION EASIER MOGADISHU, Somalia, Dec 01, 2000 - Plagued by clan rivalry and factional warfare for nearly a decade, Somalis have also had to worry about how to make calls among three competing and incompatible mobile phone companies. http://cape2cairo.iafrica.com/b2b/b2bnewsletter/153710.htm SURVEY SAYS INTERNET USERS WANT INFO AND E-MAIL According to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), the majority of Internet users recently surveyed in South Africa are using the internet for researching information and sending or receiving e-mail. (source: http://www.itweb.co.za/sections/internet/2000/0012060837.asp )
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This page last updated on January 28 2004.
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