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WEEKLY PUBLICATION DEADLINE: 12 pm GMT Sunday.

ISSUE NO 130

HALFWAY PROPOSITION - A STRATEGY FOR REDUCING AFRICA’S INTERNATIONAL INTERNET COSTS

THE HIGH COST TO AFRICA OF INTERNATIONAL BANDWIDTH

The Digital Opportunity Task Force (DOT Force), whose effort is complemented by the UN ICT Task Force, has identified several possible actions to achieve sustainable ICT development in poorer economies, and has stressed the necessity to "improve connectivity, increase [ICT] access and lower costs". The high cost of bandwidth is cited as a key inhibitor of Internet Development in Least Developed Countries (LDC’s). There has been a lot of research (www.itu.int/ipdc) into the root causes of these high connectivity costs and associated obstacles to reducing them. However it does not appear to address the subject of the reverse subsidies, nor does it appear to suggest concrete steps for reversing the situation.

Bandwidth costs in Africa in the 1990’s were characterized by, incumbent Telco’s and Internet operators, extracting maximum return out of their positions in monopoly or partially liberalized markets. During the last few years connectivity costs have reduced substantially due to increased competition resulting from the ongoing tide of liberalization. Today a benchmarking study of liberalized markets in Africa would show that end user prices are broadly speaking similar. There are regional variations and there are some variations resulting from the degree to which the relevant market has been liberalized, however none of these countries differ from each other in orders of magnitude. In all cases the service providers will cite their upstream bandwidth costs as their single biggest cost of doing business, and in all cases the average end user prices would be considered high if benchmarked against end user prices in G8 countries (particularly USA and Europe). So what is the root cause of this differential?

THE HALFWAY PROPOSITION: MAPPING A STRATEGY

The Aim of the Halfway Proposition is to articulate the root causes of high connectivity costs in Africa and to map out a strategy of how to tackle the problem.

Obtaining upstream connectivity requires African Internet Backbones (AISP’s) to purchase bandwidth from International Backbone Providers (IBP’s), which are largely network operators from within G8 countries. Typically 90% of an AISPs upstream cost is the physical link from them to the IBP’s country and 10% is the cost of purchasing IP Bandwidth once they get there. Whether the service is purchased as a bundle or separately the AISP pays 100% of the International carrier to get from Africa to the IBP network and then 100% of the Internet bandwidth cost. This amounts to a reverse subsidy of IBP connectivity costs by AISPs.

Both the AISPs and IBPs sell capacity to customers in their country. When an end user in Kenya sends an e-Mail to a correspondent in the USA it is the Kenyan ISP who is bearing the cost of the International connectivity from Kenya to the USA. Conversely when an American end user sends an e-Mail to Kenya, it is still the Kenyan ISP who is bearing the cost of the International connectivity, and ultimately the Kenyan end user who bears the brunt by paying higher subscriptions. The analogy can be extrapolated to all forms of traffic passing over the Internet. Indeed this unfair distribution of bandwidth cost sharing is actually driving traffic out of AISP backbones and into IBP backbones. Evidenced (for example) by the fact that the UN has a major headquarters in Kenya, and yet hosts all of its web sites in America, or the fact that 50% of Kenyan web sites are hosted overseas. AISPs are subsidizing the connectivity costs for IBPs. This imbalance can never be redressed unless there is a more equitable distribution of the costs of international connectivity between AISP’s and IBP’s. The challenge is to develop a realistic strategy for redressing the balance.

ITU conventions governing interconnection principals for voice traffic, where member countries each pay their own half circuit costs for International traffic, would at first glance seem like a reasonable starting point for Internet interconnection principals since it would result in an equitable split of the connectivity costs. The reality is that it wouldn’t work. Voice interconnection principals have been widely criticized. Monopoly telcos have in the past used them as a means of keeping prices artificially high, and global liberalization of the telecom industry has in any case made them redundant. Few International Voice carriers still adhere to the settlement rate system, and where monopolies are still trying to force the system, operators are simply being bypassed using illegal VOIP routes into the countries concerned. The system failed to achieve its aims for voice traffic and would most probably fail to achieve its aims for Internet traffic. More importantly it would be difficult to enforce since an IBP is unlikely to agree to pay half the connectivity costs to interconnect to an AISP.

"If you (AISP) want service you have to come to me, if you don’t want to come to me; that’s fine, I’m not paying to come to you."

A POSSIBLE APPROACH TO THE PROBLEM

ISPs in the Pacific Rim faced a similar problem in the 90’s, and it was compounded when they were hit by a recession which made paying for international circuits in US$’s even more problematic. Their approach was to say, "Why do we need to get to the USA anyway? Most of our trade is National or Regional. If we all peer our traffic within our countries and then within our regions we can dramatically reduce our connectivity costs". So the quality of local and regional connectivity increased, the quality of international connectivity decreased and costs came down. In the process IBPs found that the quality of connectivity that they were offering their customers in domestic markets was reducing. The only way for them to maintain the quality was to establish Points-Of-Presence at the national and regional peering points in the Asia Pacific Area. Problem solved. The IBPs bear the International connectivity costs not the Asia Pacific ISPs (it is interesting to note that the Korean Internet Exchange Point is today the largest in the world). This is a slight oversimplification of the many changes that took place in Asia but it is essentially accurate. More important is to note the approach that was taken:

- The process was driven by commercial imperatives not regulation.

- The adjustments took place through commercial negotiations not through imposed dictates.

- Connectivity costs reduced dramatically.

OBSTACLES TO THIS APPROACH

Using the same approach in Africa could yield similar results. That said there are some specific obstacles that will need to be overcome:

Satellite vs Fiber Optic Cables: The cost of operating Satellite Connectivity is inherently expensive, and in the case of IBS using it to establish global POPs, prohibitive. Furthermore even fiber costs are not necessarily cheap, if there is only a single cable owned by a single operator. Experience in South America (particularly Brazil) is a good illustration of this. When there was only one cable owned (or at least terminated through) the incumbent monopoly, connectivity over fiber was only marginally cheaper than satellite. It wasn’t until a second cable operated by a competitor appeared that prices began to tumble. South Africa is another example where they have had a cable for some time but owned by the monopoly telco and therefore expensive. The availability (indeed oversupply) of cheap fiber optic connections from Europe & North America to the Pacific Rim was a key factor in the decision by IBPs to establish POPs in that region. Furthermore IBPs had the financial resources (thanks largely to the telecom industry bubble at the time) to be able to own the cable infrastructure itself rather than having to purchase lit fiber from third party carriers. Without this prevailing environment, the commercial incentive would have been considerably less.

National Policies & Regulation: The telecom industry was relatively liberalized already, which enabled Exchange Points at both National and Regional Levels to appear quickly. Furthermore Governments were keen to facilitate the process and there were only limited regulatory or infrastructure obstacles to the emergence of regional carriers who were able to link exchange points in neighboring countries. The regulatory environment in Africa is far less enabling.

Commercial Incentive: Asia is a large market place with GDP several orders of magnitude larger than Africa’s. It will be substantially more difficult to make it commercially attractive for IBPs to want to establish POPs in Africa than it was in Asia. As with everything volumes drive prices down and the economics of the Internet are no different from any other industry. This is where the development community has a roll to play.

National Policy Of G8 Countries: Prevailing G8 doctrine, has globalization of trade driven by free market forces at its core (scrutinizers of EU and US policies on matters such as agriculture and steel will see the irony here). The Halfway Proposition maintains that the prevailing situation of reverse subsidies is the result of fallout from this doctrine, and is unfair. If one accepts these two statements as fact then one is lead to the inevitable conclusion that there is an obligation on G8 governments to provide financial assistance to help create telecommunications infrastructure in Africa. To date G8 Governments have researched causes, debated solutions but they have not accepted this obligation and there has been relatively little substantive financial assistance. This policy will need to change if the Halfway Proposition is to succeed.

THE HALFWAY PROPOSITION: BORROWING AND ADAPTING THE ASIA EXPERIENCE

The Halfway Proposition is a strategy that borrows the experience of Asia and adapts it into a realistic strategy for Africa. The strategy is driven by two underlying philosophies:

- First ­ The need for Traffic Aggregation. IBS’s have no interest in creating National or Regional IP networks in Africa. The size of our individual markets is too small to provide them with any real commercial incentives to do so. Indeed our aim is to strengthen AISPs and build our own infrastructure, not to encourage multinationals to gobble them up. Conversely what would attract IBPs is the ability to establish POPs at "Key Traffic Aggregation Points" so that they can improve the quality of connectivity between their networks and Africa as a whole. Creating these traffic aggregation points is therefore key and will require two things;

* Emergence of National Internet Exchange Points throughout Africa.

* Emergence of Regional Carriers interconnecting these Exchange Points.

- Second; The need to create Digital Arteries. Africa requires massive investment into creating fiber optic, digital infrastructure to carry traffic cost effectively;

* Linking Africa (particularly East Africa which currently has no international maritime fiber) to the rest of the world.

* Linking the major population centers within countries and regionally between neighboring countries.

NATIONAL PEERING (INTERNET EXCHANGE POINTS)

The first step in Traffic Aggregation is the creation of National Internet Exchange Points; IXP’s. Without an IXP, ISPs have to pay International bandwidth prices for traffic that is actually destined locally within a particular country. In most cases the traffic travels overseas through two satellite hops before it reaches its destination a few kilometers across a city. With an IXP present within a country, each ISP pays HALF the cost to reach each of the other ISPs, since they all meet at a neutral point in the middle. Statistics in Kenya show that initially between 20% and 30% of upstream traffic is actually local. Local data circuits cost a fraction of what Satellite capacity costs. Implementing IXP’s has an immediate impact in reducing costs and improving performance through reduced network latency.

South Africa has had an IXP for some years, although other African countries have been slow to realize the benefits. Kenya’s KIXP was the first IXP outside of South Africa and it has sparked similar IXP initiatives to get started in other countries including; Nigeria, Uganda, Mozambique, Ghana, and Tanzania.

Creating IXPs is not technically challenging. The challenge is to manage the human dynamics of creating an exchange point. There is a place for commercially run IXPs in more developed markets, however within Africa those IXPs, which have been successfully established and managed are those which are exclusively set up by ISPs for ISPs, and generally through some from of ISP Association (ISPA). The moment that other organizations get involved the whole proposition becomes complex and messy. Donors, Regulators, NGOs, Governments, ISOC Chapters are all major offenders in this regard. The message to these entities is; "Leave it to the Private Sector. Give assistance to IXPs but don’t get actively involved in them"

Efforts to encourage the creation of IXPs have been gaining momentum. The East Africa Internet Forum held in Nairobi in August 2002 was a landmark in this respect. It brought together many players from across the continent and saw AfrISPA launch its road map for creating IXPs across the continent (www.tespok.co.ke/eaif). There are currently 18 countries with IXPs in the making and more emerging by the day.

REGIONAL PEERING (PAVIX)

National IXP’s are the first "halfway step", next comes regional peering. Traffic that is not National is by definition International, but this does not mean that the traffic is destined for an IBP’s country of origin. Regional neighbors generally represent a large chunk of an African country’s international trade. So it follows that regional peering would also divert a large proportion of a country’s International Bandwidth requirements away from upstream connections to IBPs and into Regional Exchange Points where each country is effectively paying HALF instead of the arrangement with IBPs where they pay 100%.

Facilitating regional peering is somewhat more complex than peering at the National Level. Experience elsewhere (www.pch.org) suggests that a model where national Exchange Points in neighboring countries interconnect with each other directly, does not work. There are a multitude of reasons for this but what they boil down to is that the levels of trust that were required between ISPs at the national level, begin to break down when this is extended to regional peering. There is a danger that the costs of operating regional exchanges can actually drag the National Exchanges down. Therefore while the concept of a Pan African Virtual Internet Exchange (PAVIX) is an appealing one. The mode of implementing it needs to be thought through very carefully. There are a few options;

a. PAVIX Inc: Pavix could be established as a separate "for profit" organization whose sole aim is to link IXPs across the continent. This could be further enhanced by encouraging ISPs to take an equity stake in the organization. Experience elsewhere suggests that so long as the organization doing the regional peering is not directly linked to the national IXP it can work extremely well. That being the case a "for profit" model is more attractive than any attempt at a "not for profit super peering house".

b. Regional Carriers: Encouraging the emergence of regional carriers who establish interconnection agreements with ISPs in countries that have IXPs and then sell transit traffic to ISPs from different countries may be a more realistic and fruitful approach. This would in effect encourage the creation of African Internet Backbone Providers (AFIBPs) who would in turn have the ability to aggregate sufficient traffic and routes that the AFIBPs could negotiate with IBPs to provide them with POPs for transiting traffic into Africa.

DIGITAL ARTERIES (AND THE DANGER OF VSAT)

Beware of VSAT. Satellite communications in general and VSAT in particular have been touted by many (including the donor community) as the holy grail to solve the Digital Divide. Many western satellite operators are even being encouraged by their governments under a banner of "helping to bridge the digital divide" to target Africa with their services. Operators are keen to oblige since they are suffering reduced profitability at home due to competition from broadband cable operators. In reality when a VSAT operators takes traffic directly from an end users in Africa to an IBP’s networks they are actually "de-aggregating" traffic and compounding the problem. That is not to say that VSAT does not have a roll to play but it must be used for bridging connectivity problems between urban and rural areas within Africa using hubs within Africa. The impact of VSAT used the wrong way has far wider implications. It, for example, reduces hosting of applications within AISP data centers, in favor of hosting applications in IBP data centers.

The creation of Digital Arteries in and out of Africa will be a crucial requirement to allow Intercontinental peering to succeed. The current reliance on satellite communications has a negative impact on both price and quality of international connections. The creation of Fiber Optic Digital arteries in and out of the continent will overcome this. The absence of Digital Fiber Optic Arteries all over Africa is not because of technical obstacles. The problem is that the existing volumes of traffic will not generate sufficient financial return to justify commercial investment into fiber. Overcoming this obstacle an empowering the private sector to invest in fiber optic connectivity is a key part of the Halfway proposition.

WHO NEEDS TO DO WHAT?

ISPs/AfrISPA: AfrISPA is now a reality and has a road map for rolling out IXPs throughout the continent. The process is being supported by amongst others DFID, Cisco Systems and Packet Clearinghouse. For those countries who have not started the process of creating National Exchange Points, the time has come for ISPs in those countries to get together and to start doing so.

African Governments & Regulators: Regional Peering and the Emergence of Regional Carriers can only become a reality if Regulators and Policy makers allow the process to take place. They need to ensure that implementation of cross border connectivity within Africa is not hampered by regulatory obstacles. A policy that has created monopolies or duopolies on provision of International connectivity inevitably makes regional connectivity expensive. Where possible the "**opolies" should be removed completely. As a minimum, Regulators need to distinguish between regional and international connectivity to encourage growth of regional traffic and to drive down costs through competition.

Nepad/AU/ATU: The role of these various regional geo-political bodies should be to take the agenda of the Halfway Proposition forward. At the domestic level they need to promote the need for regulators and policy makers to pursue policies that will facilitate rather than obstruct the objectives of the Halfway Proposition. At the International level they need to take the Halfway Proposition onto the world stage to influence G8 thinking. G8 countries are actively propagating their policies of globalization and free markets. They need to be shown that while there may be benefits in some areas to pursuing these policies, there is also some fallout which is directly increasing the digital divide which they so often claim they wish to bridge. If they can do this, they may be able to create sufficient momentum to ensure that G8 countries do come to the negotiating table.

G8 Governments: The Telecommunications infrastructure in Africa has (for whatever reasons) suffered from massive under investment. Investment at the levels that will be required to achieve results will not be justified by the immediate commercial returns. That being the case there is no incentive for the private sector to make the investment on their own. Since most governments already have a budget deficit, the only other realistic solution is for G8 donor countries to provide grant funding that when supplemented with private sector funding will facilitate the required levels of investment into infrastructure. If donor grants and substantial loan guarantees are not forthcoming, then African countries will have no option but to address the matter of reverse subsidies on Internet traffic to Africa through the WTO and the ITU. It would be unfortunate and retrogressive if they were forced into this approach through a lack of donor commitment.

Richard Bell is Managing Director of Swift Global (Kenya) Limited (Kenya’s second largest IP Network Operator), Secretary of The Telecommunications Service Providers Association OF Kenya (TESPOK ­ Kenya’s ISP Association), a director of The Kenya Network Information Center (Kenic - Kenya’s ccTLD) and Director of AfriNIC (Africa’s Emerging Regional Internet Registry) Director & Eastern Africa Representative.

Comments on the article can be sent to him on: Richard@SwiftKenya.Com

CORRECTIONS

Issue 129 contained three errors, one of our making, two not:

- The news story "Afrispa decides to set up its secretariat in Mauritius" taken from a Francophone e-letter has turned out to be wholly inaccurate. A more accurate account follows in a subsequent issue.

- The Web News story "Kenyan Website for informal traders launched" taken from Kenya’s the Nation contained a URL that took readers to a porn site. Apologies. The correct URL: http://www.oasis-info.org Andrew Scott, ITDG’S International Programmes and Policy Director writes:"We shall be asking the Nation to publish an apology, and I hope your readers will also accept our apologies. We hope they will also be encouraged now to visit the correct site". Thank you to the many readers who pointed out this error.

- In the news story "France Telecom subsidiary becomes second national operator in Mali" where we said 26 million CFAs, it should of course have said 26 billion CFAs. Likewise its investment will be 110 billion CFAs. Thanks to Mouhamet Diop of Next SA for pointing this out.

DRC CONNECTS KINSHASA, LUBUMBASHI, MBUJI MAYI AND OPENS AN IXP

The Democratic Republic of Congo took two steps forward in connectivity terms. Firstly, private sector investors are beginning to roll out a GSM network. Secondly, a local internet exchange point has been established, beating many other African countries in far better shape.

This weekend three of the DRC’s ISPs in Kinshasa launched the Congo Exchange Point. The three ISPs are: InterConnect www.ic.cd <http://www.ic.cd>, Afrinet www.afrinet.cd <http://www.afrinet.cd> and Roffe Hitech www.jobantech.cd <http://www.jobantech.cd>. Initially it will be used as a default route and be optimised later: it is based on three ethernet ports in a linux box, using zebra.

Vodacom International Holdings (VIH), Cisco Systems and Plessey have joined forces to develop a much needed telecommunications infrastructure in Africa. The project, which was implemented in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) six months ago, is the first of many African expansion initiatives to be rolled out. Part of the project entailed establishing an Office Automation (OA) environment and a GSM network.

VIH and its partners have an aggressive approach to Africa, with the intent of changing citizen’s lives and contributing to the continent’s economy. The network infrastructure in the DRC reaches three areas, namely, Kinshasha, Lubumbashi and Mbuji Mayi "We realise that the immense demand for telecommunications in Africa brings a number of opportunities for corporate investment", says Alistair Maclean of VIH.

Vodacom Congo in the DRC, has been fully functional since May 2002 and the subscriber base is growing daily. This is the third African implementation outside of South Africa for Vodacom, which has existing operations in Tanzania and Lesotho. The DRC has been the first rollout for VIH incorporating a Cisco networking infrastructure. "We are in the process of educating our existing African stations on Cisco’s networking infrastructure, highlighting the value and benefits it has brought to the DRC implementation", says Maclean.

When selecting a partner it was essential for VIH to choose a company with a solid African strategy. "As both Cisco and Plessey follow a strategic policy to expand into Africa, this made them both preferred partners," says Maclean.

There are currently seven mobile operations within the DRC. The population is 75 million and the current statistics show that there is one landline phone for every 300 000 civilians. These figures explain why there is such a hunger for telecommunications.

The regulatory environment in the DRC is totally different to South Africa. There is an established regulatory body that ensures ethical practices in terms of frequency spectrums and license applications, however it does not restrict any form of new technology such as voice over IP (VOIP). The DRC is a country that has embraced new world technologies rapidly. "The irony of the situation is that African countries are seen to be slow adopters taking months to adopt or implement telecommunication initiatives. This is not the case in the DRC, adoption is immediate and the country is moving directly into wireless networking," says Maclean

"Even though the DRC is a very difficult country to operate in from a telecommunications perspective, purely because of underdevelopment and poverty, the country still embraces the right mindset for technology. Organisations keep highlighting business opportunities in Nigeria, however the DRC has enormous potential in IT and telecommunication markets. Yet there is still the lack of interest in the DRC. The DRC can go a long way in terms of becoming a hub in Africa," says Maclean

A NEW 8.2BN CEDIS DIGITAL PHONE EXCHANGE INAUGURATED AT KPANDO

A 4,000-line capacity digital telephone exchange valued at ¢8.2 billion has been inaugurated at Kpando. This brings to seven the total network of Ghana Telecom (GT) in the Volta Region after Ho, Amedzofe, Hohoe, Kete-Krachi, Denu-Aflao and Keta. Work is also progressing satisfactorily for a new switch to be installed at Akatsi, while efforts are also being made to extend 60 telephone lines from Hohoe to Jasikan and Kadjebi as a temporary measure, pending the provision of permanent new exchanges for the two towns.

(source: Ghanaian Chronicle via http://www.allafrica.com )

TELKOM SA TO PROVIDE TRAINING SOLUTIONS TO ANGOLA TELECOM

Several members of Telkom SA’s Centre for Learning and Organisational Capacity (CFL & OC) Division are currently in Luanda to assess the training and development requirements of Angola Telecom, following a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by both parties in August this year to pave the way for Telkom to deliver customized training solutions to its Angolan counterpart."In terms of the MoU, Telkom will make recommendations regarding customized solutions that will be delivered by our CFL & OC Division to Angola Telecom once we have assessed their training and development needs," said Telkom’s Group Executive of CFL & OC, Charlotte Mokoena.

MOROCCO’S FIXED LINE SERVICE STAGNATES

Morocco’s Telecommunications market has been on the vanguard of Arab markets considering the presence of competition in most of its sectors: GSM, Internet and VSAT. Nonetheless, the luster of the rapid growth in cellular services that duopoly competition and prepaid induced, is diminished by the very disappointing fixed line segment performance over the past two years.

A newly released report from the Arab Advisors Group shows that Morocco is lagging behind in its fixed services although there is no actual barrier to reach the PSTN usage level of either Jordan or Syria or Egypt, as an example.

"The monopoly conditions, and a focus on the GSM market by the monopoly operator, have resulted in negative growth even at low penetration rates: Between 1997 and 2001 the PSTN subscriber base decreased at a CAGR of 4 percent even though penetration was only 3.7 percent in 2001." Arab Advisors Group’s analyst, Hala Baqain wrote in the report.

"The current crisis in the PSTN market in Morocco is due to the attractive offers of the mobile operators. The growth in mainlines in Morocco continued until the entrance of the second GSM operator in 2000. In 1999, the number of mainlines grew at five percent while in 2000 the PSTN market witnessed a drop of five percent which continued in 2001 when it declined by a whopping 21 percent. This huge decline in the mainline subscribers can be explained by a substantial increase in the GSM subscriber base, where it grew at impressive rates of 585 percent in 2000 and 86 percent in 2001." Baqain added.

The Arab Advisors Group concludes that the Moroccan market can sustain a much higher penetration rate, and competition, but only if proper attention is paid to the cause of the current decline: Relatively high PSTN rates, making GSM more feasible and very low demand from Internet subscribers.

(http://www.menareport.com)

BENIN’S CENTRE SONGHAÏ NOW OPERATING VSAT LINK

The Centre Songhaï (www.songhai.org) has now been successfully operating a VSAT internet connection for two months. The connection was made with the support of the Research Centre for International development and the connection was put in place by Afripa Telecom: it has a connection speed of 64 kbps a second. To be precise, this telecentre at Porto-Novo has been named the Pamela Bridgewater technology center after the US Ambassador to Benin. (source: Orita)

IN BRIEF

- According to Orita, Benin has set up a tax free industrial zone to manufacture "postes televiseurs", cell phones and computers. An agreement has been signed between Ministry of Industry and Commerce and Champion Fund Holdings. A pilot zone will be established with three factories being built.

- The threat of legal action has prompted Telkom to back down from threatening to disconnect equipment that enables companies to route their phone calls over the cheaper cellular networks.

- When Storm’s Tim Parsonson said recently in News Update that Telkom had only one real choice faced with the grey market - if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em - he was not entirely joking. His UK parent company STWS has entered into an agreement with Telkom to provide it with a service that will help it to reduce losses from international grey market practices.

ZIMBABWE - ONLY ONE FIRM BIDS FOR GOVT STAKES IN TELONE, NETONE

Only one foreign company has bid for the government’s 30 percent stakes in phone firms TelOne and NetOne, said to be worth US$20 billion, raising fears that its plans to get a windfall from the sale could be scuttled.

Government sources this week said out of four firms which had expressed interest in the government stakes in February this year, only one foreign company had submitted a bid for the state’s shareholding. The sources however said because only one company had made a bid, this could weaken the government’s negotiating position at a time when it desperately needs to get a huge cash injection into its dry coffers.

The government wants to sell 30 percent of its stakes in TelOne and NetOne as the first phase of privatising the telecommunications firms. Four companies - DeTeCon of Germany, Mauritius Telecom, Mobile Systems of the Netherlands and MegaTel, a consortium of local business leaders and financial institutions - had initially made expressions of interest.

"There is only one bid for NetOne and TelOne and the government and Privatisation Agency of Zimbabwe (PAZ) are liaising to see how best they can dispose of the 30 percent government stake but it will be difficult negotiating with one bidder," one well-placed source said.

Previous media reports said the government had shortlisted four companies in February this year to take over its 30 percent shareholding and that a winner was to be announced at the end of last month.

But the sources said three of the four firms had cited Zimbabwe’s hostile operating climate for not investing in the potentially lucrative telecoms sector.

The Ministry of Industry and International Trade is now in consultations with the PAZ on whether the single bidder, whose identity is still to be revealed, should be given the shareholding or whether the process should be suspended.

The sources said the government had approached Telekom Malaysia to invest in NetOne and TelOne, but the company refused saying Zimbabwe was not currently conducive for such a huge investment. The government had expected the Kuala Lumpur-based telecoms group to at least show interest but the company felt that Zimbabwe’s artificially low exchange rate policy and difficulties in repatriating profits were deterrents.

Foreign companies operating in Zimbabwe, including those listed on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange, face difficulties in repatriating profits and dividends to foreign shareholders after the government ordered them to keep the money in local accounts.

Government efforts to shift trade away from traditional investors in Europe to target Asian investors, especially those in Malaysia, have failed to yield any results. The sources said Telekom Malaysia had also said that the telecoms industry worldwide was experiencing a lull, making it difficult to invest in Zimbabwe.

The PAZ is said to have impressed on the government to have a single investor for both TelOne and NetOne because TelOne is saddled with huge debts that make it unattractive to investors as a stand-alone company. TelOne owes Zimbabwean and foreign creditors more than $6 billion.

(source: http://www.fingaz.co.zw/fingaz/2002/October/October17/2885.shtml )

IN BRIEF

- The Cairo-based Orascom Telecom Holding (OT) has signed of a Joint Venture Agreement with Kuwait’s National Mobile Telecommunications Company (Wataniya Telecom) to jointly develop and operate Orascom Telecom Tunisia (OTT). The Transaction is subject to appropriate regulatory approvals and is expected to close prior to the end of October 2002. Wataniya Telecom has agreed to acquire 50 percent of OTT for a total consideration of $113.5 million including an immediate cash payment of $90 million. Proceeds of the consideration will be used to reimburse shareholders loans and finance OTTs operations.

- According to Monrovia’s The News, the directors of Liberia Telecommunications Corporation (LTC) were caught on the hop by the premature announcement of its sale plans. A Lebanese-based company, Tele Africa Ltd., is negotiating with the Government to manage and operate the Liberia Telecommunications Corporation (LTC) for a 12-year exclusive period. According to a proposal, the Lebanese-based company wants to own 80 per cent of LTC while the remaining 20 per cent would be owned by the Government. If the joint venture deal goes through, Tele Africa would pay US$5 million for the 12-year exclusive period. The directors’ press release said:"The LTC Board assures the government of Liberia, the employees of LTC and the general public that by the end of this month, it will come up with well thought-out proposals that will resolve the more pressing problems facing the Corporation". Make of that what you will.

A WEB BROWSER THAT SPEAKS XHOSA

A local project, started little more than a year ago and largely funded by the Shuttleworth Foundation, this week released a range of translated software including a Web browser and an Office suite.The Zuza Software Foundation has translated the Mozilla Web browser into Xhosa, Zulu and four other languages, and has completed work on KOffice in Xhosa, Zulu and Venda. The translated Mozilla browser runs on Windows, Linux and Apple Mac, and includes a browser, an e-mail client and an HTML editor.

The organisation behind the translation effort is Translate.org, a body formed little more than a year ago with the intention of translating a range of open source software into local languages. The organisation now has 16 translators and, with the technical aid of Obsidian Systems and Shuttleworth Foundation funds, has set up premises and a translation network.

With this most recent release, Mozilla is now available in Xhosa, Zulu, Venda, Northern Sotho, Siswati and Tswana. The open source browser is available for download from the mozilla.org Web site and the language packs are available from www.translate.org.za. The open source KOffice suite has also been translated into Xhosa, Zulu and Venda, and is available for free.

"This project is crucial to transformation in our country where language is a highly sensitive issue," says project director Dwayne Bailey. "The open source philosophy lends itself to making technology available to the masses. No commercial software vendors have adequately addressed the language issue in SA, but in one year the open source community has."

Bailey says many languages have been marginalised through the history of apartheid which has led to a lack of language pride. "Seeing Linux users working in German and French environments made me realise that this could do the same for South African languages. I hope that simply allowing people to use the computer in their mother tongue will stimulate pride in their language, plus the fact that learning something in your mother tongue is naturally easier."

Once the local languages are completed, he says, the organisation may look beyond SA’s borders for other languages to translate. "Open source provides a way for Africans to help themselves - not to have to wait for the First World - but to get up and do it themselves. Nobody else is going to translate software into Swahili."

(source: http://www.itweb.co.za)

IN BRIEF

- The WiderNet Project has a million-document digital library that we have installed at 4 Nigerian universities as well as one in Ghana and one in The Gambia. For more information about our digital library project, please see: http://www.widernet.org/digitalLibrary/index.htm

- Findajobinafrica.com in conjunction with Commonwealth Business Council will be staging the first African job fair in London England March 11^th and 12^th 2003. It is expected over 100 organisations (International. multinationals, national corporates, governmentals and NGO’s) who employ in Africa will be attending to meet with potential employeees. The event will take place later on in the year in USA, France and Africa. For further details check back later date at www.findajobinafrica.com

- Benin’s Ministry of the environment, habitat and urbanism (MEHU) now has its own web site: www.mehubenin.net .

- As part of the HIV/AIDS collaborative project, teachers and students of Chemu Secondary School in Tema, Ghana carried out their first Social Action Plan, by providing Counseling on HIV/AIDS to students and people from their community. For more information about this AIDS project at Chemu Secondary, visit their website at: www.angelfire.com/blues/chemuaidsweb/index.html

HF RADIO E-MAIL IN GUINEA

The big African connectivity challenge is to reach those rural parts of the continent where small numbers of people make most technologies too expensive to invest in or the physical challenges seem too great. The article from Linux Journal below by Wayne Marshall looks at one route that is beginning to be found in several places on the continent.

Deep inside the warm green interior of Guinea, centered in the frontal lobe of West Africa, field personnel in the widely scattered village-towns of Dabola, Kissidougou and Nzerekore now enjoy access to regular internet e-mail, directly from their desktops. Here we have bridged the digital divide, and there isn’t a telephone line or satellite dish in sight. Instead we are moving the mail over distances of hundreds of miles—over jungled mountains and high palmy savannahs—through wavelengths of high-frequency (HF) radio. Our project is called Radio E-mail, and here is its story.

As far as African countries go, Guinea is a calm pocket of peace and stability, and it generally doesn’t attract a lot of attention from beyond its own borders.But Guinea has quietly played a heroic role in the theater of world events in recent years. It provides a safe and welcome refuge for as many as half a million people displaced by brutal wars and civil upheavals in the neighboring countries of Sierra Leone and Liberia.

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) has one of their largest operations in Guinea, providing services and support to a population of up to 200,000 refugees quartered in many camps established throughout the country. I became involved with IRC when my wife accepted the position of Country Director for the program in the summer of 2001. Soon we were traveling on an inspection tour of the camps, making the long road-trip to visit the program’s three field offices up-country. Our first destination was a distant and dusty village, delightfully named Kissidougou—frequently called Kissi in the local vernacular.

Traveling outside the capital city of Conakry, one immediately finds that Guinea has little infrastructure, especially in the way of electrical grid and telecommunication systems—to say nothing of Starbucks and broadband access to the internet. So IRC field offices must provide their own infrastructure: diesel generators for electricity and high-frequency (HF), two-way radio sets to communicate with other offices and mobile units, up to hundreds of miles apart.

Expecting this isolation and general lack of connectivity, I was quite astonished when we arrived in Kissi. Here I found the radio operator using his equipment to make a binary file transfer from his desktop PC to another field office, wirelessly!

This capability surprised and intrigued me. On top of the operator’s radio set, connected to the serial port of his PC, sat a dingy black box simply labeled 9002 HF Data Modem. I noticed the operator used a proprietary, MS-DOS program to make his file transfers, but I immediately began wondering: if this device is truly some kind of modem, moving binary data over the ether of radio, why couldn’t we set it up with Linux and network with PPP connections as well?

After a little research and testing, I soon confirmed this equipment could indeed form the basis of a wide area network, providing full access to internet e-mail via the Conakry office for all personnel in each of the three field offices. Moreover, since IRC owned most of the equipment already—and since we would be using Linux and other freely available, open-source software—the system could be implemented at negligible cost, with no increase in operating expenses. For the price of some network cards and category 5 cable, we could connect our bush offices to the rest of the world. I developed a design and specification for the system, and the project we call Radio E-mail has been continuously operational since January 2002.

If you have been making the move to wireless lately, most likely you are working with the microwave, high bandwidth frequencies of 802.11b. If so, you know that on a clear day you maybe can get a line-of-sight connection out 10 miles or so. That surely won’t do for the vast distances and wild terrain we need to cover in rural Africa.

HF radio is another animal. Its longer waves roll out across the landscape, reflecting off the ionosphere to follow the curvature of the earth. This gives HF signals a range in the hundreds of miles. From Conakry to Nzerekore—IRC Guinea’s most distant field office—HF easily covers a straight-line distance of over 375 miles (600 kilometers.) The road that sometimes connects these two points is, of course, much longer—a gut-slamming, spine-jamming, two-day punishment for the damned.

So the great advantage of HF is it can go the distance, leaping the obstacles in its path with aplomb. Now for the bad news: where HF wins the wireless game in range, it loses its pants in data capacity. If 802.11b is considered broadband, think of HF as slim-to-none-band. The radio modems we are using here are speced at an anorexic 2400 baud!

And wait, it gets worse. Two-way radio is the classic half-duplex medium of communication; that is, you are either transmitting—push to talk—or receiving, not both at the same time. This, plus the robust error-checking protocols implemented by the modem hardware itself, means the actual link experience is more on the order of 300 baud. Does anyone remember 300 baud? Unless you measure your patience with radio-carbon, your dreams of remote login sessions will be dashed and splattered. As for on-line browsing, chat, video-conferencing and the like, well, best to not even think about it.

Yet for classic store-and-forward applications like text-based e-mail, the bandwidth limitation of HF radio is workable. We simply need to pay close attention to our configuration and try to optimize as much as possible. With HF radio, every packet is precious. .....

The Complete Version http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=6299

* The slow allocation of 1800 spectrum has been a blessing in disguise as far as mobile data is concerned, says Alan Knott-Craig, CEO of Vodacom. "The world has been waiting for phones that support general packet radio service (GPRS) and in the meantime the applications and the equipment have improved, so we have been able to use the latest technology in rolling out GPRS." He says Vodacom has installed GPRS everywhere where it provides GSM coverage. It has built a wireless application service provider gateway that will enable independent businesses to offer content services to Vodacom subscribers on a partnership basis. "We believe that some 1800 spectrum will be released by December, providing good capacity, although GPRS delivery is not dependent on this."If it does happen, it will coincide with the launch of Vodacom’s first GPRS offerings, that will include fun applications like photo-mail, says Knott Craig. Once GPRS is up and running on the network, PC users will be able to access their e-mail messages from their cellular phones.

* The introduction of general packet radio service (GPRS) technology to cellular networks will allow faster, more seamless data transfer and will run in parallel with the current circuit switched technology, says Gavin Penkin, CEO of ExactMobile. "Users will specify from their phone how they want to communicate and, if they choose GPRS, they’ll pay for the amount of data being transmitted." Contract users will probably have access to a certain amount of data for a monthly fee and will be charged over and above for additional usage thereafter. Traditionally, circuit switched data over the cellular network was transmitted at 9,6 kilobits a second, which is very slow.High speed circuit-switched data technology (HSCSD) was introduced to the networks in 2000 and boosts data speeds to 43 kilobits a second. Initially, GPRS speeds will reach only about 30KB to 40KB/sec, which is comparable to the current HSCSD, says Penkin.

* Tanzania’s eThinkTank-er David Sawe was in Ottawa for the eighth annual Strategic Information Management Program run by CIDA:" Some of ushave even initiated discussions with CIDA about holding such events on a regional basis in their areas—a prospect that we are also looking into for the Eastern and Southern Africa sub-regions (ie. over 20 countries). The challenge here is that not only the participants but also all the resource persons will have to be selected from a range of different countries".

* Satellife’s Executive Director Holly Ladd has a big smile on her face. Her organisation was co-recipient of the 2002 Stockholm Challenge Award in Health for its handheld computer project in Ghana. She says:"Building on this success, our plans are now to expand this project making this valuable technology available to the health sector in East Africa through our Healthnet partners". For details contact her at: <hladd@usa.healthnet.org>

JOBS AND OPPORTUNITIES

* Joanne Lisosky is an academic consultant at UNESCO with a small problem. One of the projects she is working on at this time concerns a community multimedia project in Burundi. The project has been in the planning stages for several months and what is now needed is a local community group willing to join with UNESCO to see the project to fruition. Funding may be available lined up if a community group willing to sustain the project can be found. Does anyone know of any community groups in Burundi that might be willing to join with us in the worthwhile project? She is particularly interested in women’s groups. The community multi media project would include computers connected to the Internet and a small community radio station. Contact: Joanne M. Lisosky, Ph.D. <lisoskjm@plu.edu>

EVENTS

AITEC EUROPE: THE AFRICAN ICT SHOWCASE AND BUSINESS PARTNER FORUM

AITEC’s first AITEC Europe event will take place at Chelsea Village, London, over 18-19 November 2002. This event is designed to provide a platform for African ICT enterprises to make contact with international clients, suppliers, partners and investors; to market the skills, products and services that they have to offer on the international market; to benefit from a wide range of educational opportunities; and to meet with fellow professionals and entrepreneurs from throughout Africa.You also have the option of booking an exhibition booth to promote your company. Full details are attached and can also be viewed on the AITEC web site: www.aitecafrica.com

SA’S LINUX USERS ASSOCIATION CHANGES VENUE

Due to unforeseen circumstances (the venue booked will not be completed in time to accommodate all conference attendees) South Africa’s Linux Users Associ8ation have had to find an alternative venue for its conference. The best it could find in such a short space of time is unfortunately only available for one day - 8^th November 2002. It has reshuffled all the topics, got rid of the ones that did not generate a lot of interest and fitted everything into one full day. The new venue will be the Pharmaceutical Society of SA’s Auditorium in Glenhove Road in Rosebank. The cost is also reduced to R278 which includes lunch and teas. If you would still like to attend, please book on the website : http://www.lua.org.za/event/

ICT POLICY AND CIVIL SOCIETY WORKSHOP IN AFRICA

The Association for Progressive Communications (APC), ARTICLE 19 and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) will be holding a five-day information and communications technologies (ICT) policy and civil society workshop from November 6^th to 10^th, 2002 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. For more details about the workshop please contact:

Emmanuel Njenga Njuguna
Project Coordinator, AFRICA ICT POLICY MONITOR PROJECT
Association for Progressive Communications (APC)
E-mail: njenga@apc.org or africa.rights@apc.org
Tel/Fax: +27 11 726 1692

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