ISSUE NO 5

What follows is a short report on the internet in Madagascar. If our correspondent is "off the mark" or you have factual amendments, mail them to us and we will include them in subsequent news updates.

Madagascar

Roland Ramamonjisoa of  the Leland Initiative (USAID) writes:

Below is some information from Madagascar which might interest you.  As far as I know, no in-depth study has been conducted yet up to this point in time about the development and use of Internet in Madagascar.  What follows  below gives some indication of what is happening but is far from complete.

- The Internet business is conducted mainly by 10 local private Internet service providers which have been provided licenses 3-4 years ago by the local regulatory body. No multinational company is yet involved. Out of the ten, 5 play a  very dynamic role in the sector.  The US Government program, Leland Initiative, played a key role in creating and extending the Internet business.
(www.info.usaid.gov/regions/afr/leland/)

- Subscribers are estimated to number 8,000 to date.  One Internet account is sometimes shared by many persons.  The French Co-operation offers connection at low cost to Universities.  Demand is higher in this sector than others.

- About 200 sites are hosted by the above ISPs most of which cover the tourism (more than half), commerce and trade.  There are many other private companies, public institutions, NGOs, etc, who have their own website hosted locally or abroad.  Some of the daily newspaper of the capital city have their own web sites.  

- The telecom sector has been liberalized since 1997.  4 private companies are distributing mobile phones services to about 50,000 users.  International bandwidth used for access to the Internet is 2.5Mbps.  The rapid growth of the use of Internet is mainly hampered by the insufficient number of dial-up lines, leased lines, and connection cost (connection to the Internet through dial-up for one hour is from 2.5USD to 5USD).  Expansion of the internet competes with data transmission for scarce bandwidth.

Other snippets

- The seemingly unstoppable onward growth of Africa Online continues. It has recently purchased Swift Uganda. Watch out for its next purchase which on current cannot be far away.

- We have received a steady stream of e-mails from Zimbabwe protesting about proposed changes in Constitution and how they will impact negatively on ISPs.

Back numbers

4.1 covers Zimbabwe, Zambia, Kenya and Uganda

This latest news update also appears on Kabissa.com (www.kabissa.org), which is a Balancing Act pilot project.

For further information about Balancing Act and its pilot projects, contact Russell Southwood on southwood@boyden.demon.co.uk or ring him on +44 171 720 5993.