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WEEKLY PUBLICATION DEADLINE: 12 pm GMT Sunday. ISSUE NO 191 THE CURSE OF THE AFRICAN E-MAIL CLASSES - WHAT IS IT?Yes it’s the word that starts in s and ends in m: the technical term is unsolicited bulk mail. Whisper it quietly because if we spell the word out this e-letter might be blocked by measures taken to prevent it. Every morning your e-mail browser is awash with unwanted messages from people offering you unlikely business offers (419ers) and various chemical and medical solutions to what me might euphemistically describe as “personal problems”. But this is a worldwide problem. What’s this got to do with Africa? Well because all round the world many peoples’ first encounter with Africa is through 419 e-mails. ISPs and cyber-cafes need to take the subject seriously if the continent is to get to grips with its share of world unsolicited bulk mail and cyber-fraud. Russell Southwood investigates and looks at how it might be combated. The SA (unsolicited bulk e-mail) Summit held last October in Johannesburg estimated that unsolicited bulk mail costs South African businesses between R7-billion and R13,1-billion per annum just in terms of lost productivity, according to Mark Walker, director for vertical programmes and Africa Research Group at BMI-TechKnowledge The Summit concluded that unsolicited bulk mail is a problem of global proportions with the bulk of it originating outside South Africa, in the USA, Europe and the Far East, it is impossible for local legislation and regulation to eliminate all of it. Therefore, education of users is vital, through the media, via Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and of employees by companies to ensure that people are aware of the problem and how to deal with it. At the West African Internet Forum (which took place alongside ACT 2003 in Abuja), Sunday Folayan of Ibadan ISP Skannet and Secretary of the ISPs Association of Nigeria showed participants a week’s analysis of the ISP’s traffic. In the table below, UCE stands for unsolicited commercial e-mail and NSM stands for Nigerian Scam e-mail (and all its variants from any other country):
Joseph Sanusi, the current governor of the Central Bank Nigeria (CBN), in a speech to an anti-Money Laundering group in Lagos, on 3 June 2003, took the view that the problem was declining: ”When the technology was installed, an average of 150 complaints per day on 419 transactions were logged on the CBN’s Web Site, following which Information of the activities of the scam group and advice on what to do was given to the complainants. The number has reduced to an average of 26 complaints of per day, as at the end of March 2003” However this reduction may simply represent a fall in the number of people bothering to report what is a largely unpunished scam. A recent correspondent to a mail-list complained: ”I have been receiving several offending emails, with attachment files which are obviously viruses, from someone who has registered an email address, which is a portion of my real address. The user’s email address is (address witheld) which is a portion of my own email address”. The culprit has hijacked the user’s address and is using it to relay unsolicited bulk e-mailings. In a speech at iWeek in Johannesburg, Greg Massel stressed the responsibility of ISPs and cyber-cafes to address the problem: ” Many end- users - both individuals and companies - lack the expertise to protect themselves. They find the inconvenience costly and unacceptable and can’t and don’t install (security) updates or patches in time. (Unsolicited bulk mail)is often offensive or contains content unsuitable for minors. This discredits the use of the Internet in schools. It reduces confidence in the Internet and e-mail and leads to reduced revenue for ISPs. Wasted bandwidth is costly to ISP’s and their customers. Traffic floods threaten the speed and stability of ISP’s networks.” So what can be done? Well there are a number of places you can block its intrusion at the network level: network devices, firewalls, routers, mail servers and proxy servers. Likewise on the PCs themselves: personal firewalls, anti-virus software and anti-(unsolicited bulk mail) software. Filtering can be used in the following ways: IP Filtering
The filtering on e-mail servers can be used to make checks prior to receiving message data and can offer: Relay prohibition
Checks on message data offer a further line of defense: Format errors (Header syntax & Mime errors)
At the PC level, users can use filtering on their e-mail clients to implement many of the same checks that have been listed for the server side above: User-specific filtering rules
None of these strategies offers absolute protection. The senders of unsolicited bulk mail will always be looking for new ways to avoid existing defences but they do allow you to cut down on the volume of likely unsolicited bulk mail. Sky 2 Net is the exclusive agent for PineApp AntiFlood. It is a dedicated appliance that offers defense against in-house spammers. It allows monitoring, isolation and blocking of in-house spamming sources. It prevents overload of the ISP’s or cybercafe’s upstream and it denies access to all web-based mail services when used by spammers to spread large amounts of mail. It comes with two licences: model 1510 for 50 computers and mode 2530 for unlimited computers. Over ten machines have been installed in Nigeria and Sky 2 Net is making a sales push in West Africa. But surely there must be some legal protection against this blizzard of unwanted messages? The Johannesburg Summit on unsolicited bulk e-mail concluded that while the issue of unsolicited bulk mail is covered by section 45 of South Africa’s Electronic Communications and Transactions (ECT) Act of 2002, there are several loopholes in section 45 arising largely from the lack of a definition of “unsolicited commercial communication” as it is referred to in the Act, according to Lance Michalson, partner at Michalsons IT Attorneys. The Department of Communications is likely to amend the ECT Act, taking in to consideration the fact that at the time at which the legislation was developed unsolicited bulk e-mail did not present the current challenges. The provisions in the ECT Act have, however, served to create awareness of the problem, according to Envir Fraser, senior eBusiness manager at the Department of Communications. However few African countries have legislation to combat unsolicited bulk mail and even fewer have the expertise to make a reality of legislation were it in place. According to Greg Massel, the European Union’s Directive 2002/58/EC offers a clear way to go. It places the following restrictions on automated calling machines, telefaxes, e-mails and SMS’es: marketers require the “prior explicit consent of the recipients” before sending unsolicited communications to them. In the context of a “customer relationship”, it is reasonable to contact the customer regarding offerings of “similar products or services” but, “only by the same company.” “The use of false identities or false return addresses or numbers while sending unsolicited messages for direct marketing purposes” is prohibited. But whilst the Directive has a pleasing clarity of intent, our browser and “unsolicited bulk mail” folder is still besieged by floods of unwanted mail of all kinds. If you have had bad experiences with unsolicited bulk e-mail or have found good ways to counter it please let us know. Our thanks to Greg Massel on whose presentation at ISPA Week last autumn the description of anti “unsolicited bulk e-mail” measures is based.
VIPER NETWORKS GETS LICENCE TO TERMINATE VOIP CALLS IN GHANAViper Networks Inc. announced last week that through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Mid-Atlantic International Inc., it has completed the purchase of the required licensing for termination of VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) traffic in Ghana, West Africa and expects to have the route completed and operational in the next 30 days. Ron Weaver, Viper’s chief executive officer, commented, “We are on a mission to obtain licenses and establish VoIP routes and sales activities within what we feel are the most lucrative international cities and countries in the world. We are in the process of completing the licensing and establishing a route for a second major international site that we expect to close and announce in the next week to ten days.” Farid Shouekani, Viper’s chief technology officer, commented, “The Ghana route, with our current operating international routes, and in addition to the 16 countries that are expected to be added with the acquisition of Adoria Communications, will further expand our global presence. This will not only accelerate the global growth of Viper Networks but also enhance the company’s bottom line revenues. (SOURCE: Ghana Web) CAMTEL IN DISPUTE WITH PRIVATE PROVIDER PASTEL OVER CONTRACTSince 14 August last year, the date of a conciliation meeting chaired by the President Chargé d’Etudes Jolinon Féraudy Ela Ekotto, state incumbent Camtel and Pastel, a private telco, have opted to take fight things out in public. The management of Pastel is sceptical of finding a judicial solution as the Court responsible for commercial arbitration has over 17 procedures said its General Manager Michel Job. For its part, Camtel, through its Director-General Emmanuel Nguiamba Nloutsiri wqould like to see a judicial outcome to the dispute. On 16 August 2000 Spaceline Communication, a company based in Germany, asked Camtel for a link to Douala for one of its clients. The agreement entered into specified a reciprocal link for Camtel in Germany. Because Spaceline did not have the skills to provide one it turned to Pastel. In due course on 17 November 2001 Pastel made a licence application to the regulator ART and signed a contract through Camtel with Intelsat for a 128 kbps link. The regulator asked Pastel as the beneficiary of the link to pay for the licensing. Pastel which had already obtained VSAT licences for Douala, Yaoundé and Garoua claimed that Camtel was behind this manoevre. In April 2001 Douala’s “tribunal de grande instance” signed off on the technical specification for the activation of the satellite link. The tribunal comdemned Camtel for signing before fixing methods of payment and how the lines would be delivered and ordered it to sort the matter out under pain of a 10 million FCFA fine. Camtel immediately appealed the decision but the Littoral’s Court of Appeal reconfirmed the decision only reducing the sum of the fine to 1.2 FCFA. Camtel took the matter to the Supreme Court of Appeal where the matter rests. After asking for ministerial arbitration both companies await judicial decisions. The tribunal de grande instance of Buéa condemned Pastel to pay 1,242,764,716 Fcfa. After the Presidential intervention Pastel suggested that it would pay Camtel 600 million FCFA to sort out the dispute. Local commentators have not been slow to point out that political pressure has been brought to bear by “actors in the shadows”. It has got to the point where the DG of Camtel describes himself as being in danger of being killed (“en danger de mort”). As with recent events in Cote D’Ivoire, it might reasonably be asked why foreign companies would want to invest in a country where the President, not the judiciary has to intervene to sort out commercial disputes? (SOURCE: Le Quotidien Mutations) LIRE EN FRANCAIS APRES 15.00 GMT, 19 JANVIER: KENYA’S CCK NARROWS THE SHORTLIST FOR THE SNO TENDERLast Friday Kenya’s telecommunications regulator CCK dropped two hopefuls in the race for the licence to run a second national fixed-line service, which it aims to award by June 2004. China Netcom Corporation (CNC) Ltd and a consortium led by Israel’s Gilat Satellite Networks Ltd. (GILTF.O) failed to qualify to advance to the next stage, the Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) said in a statement. Among the criteria used to shortlist five out of the original seven bidders was evidence that they manage at least 500,000 subscribers and had an annual turnover of $150 million. Canada’s state-owned Sasktel, a consortium of China Network Corporation International and China’s telecommunication gear maker ZTE Corp (000063.SZ), and Norway’s Telenor (TEL.OL) advanced to the next stage. Still in the race also are Germany’s Deutsche Telekom (DTEGn.DE) and a consortium of Kenya’s Pegrume Group Ltd. and TCIL India, Tata India. (SOURCE: Liquid Africa) THURAYA AND SUDATEL ESTABLISH NEW TELECOM COMPANY IN SUDANThuraya Satellite Telecommunications Company and Sudatel have agreed to establish a new joint stock company in Sudan called Thuraya-Sudatel. The new entity will act as Thuraya’s service provider offering Thuraya services in the North African state. As part of the agreement, the new company will be responsible for all sales, distribution, marketing and customer support activities. It will ensure to extend Thuraya services throughout the country, providing, mobile, fixed and rural satellite telephony. Sudatel began operations in 1994. The company provides fixed-line services throughout the Sudan and has recently launched a major capital expansion program involving the installation of some 5,000 kilometers of fiber optic cable, the transition from analogue to digital services, and the introduction of digital satellite networks. (SOURCE: Mena Report) IN BRIEF• South African mobile phone firm Vodacom said last week it signed up more than 627,000 new customers in South Africa over December and now had nine million customers in the country. • Following the successful launch of Oksijen SMSC in November 2003, Spacetel Benin has decided to extend its agreement with Oksijen to deploy EasyBridge, Oksijen’s multi-channel mobile multimedia services platform. According to the agreement, EasyBridge will go alive in February 2004. Earlier, Oksijen had supplied SMSC, multimedia services and bulk messaging platforms for another Investcom operator Spacefon, the leading GSM operator in Ghana as well. • Maroc Telecom looks set to benefit from the 3rd France-Maghreb Convention held on the 8-9th January in Paris where it was promoting itself as the ideal regional platform for outsourcing and call-centres for which it has set aside a special zone. As a sign of confidence in Morocco, several companies have already opened call-centres there including: Atento, Phone Assistance, Transcom, Euro-Call, Web Cad, CRM Value et Dell. • Algérie Télécom’s mobile operation has upped its mobile capacity to 500,000 to help it combat competition from Algérie Orascom Télécom. TELECOM RATES, OFFERS AND COVERAGE• Sonatel in partnership with Novavision has launched its “Sonatel 2004” phone directory with for the first time an internet enquiries option (see http://www.sonatel.com). The new directory offers numbers by region, “department” or “localité”. Novavision wants to put in place what it describes as “an international shop-window” through yellowonline.com which has 2 million visitors a day. • Econet Wireless Nigeria has extended its service to Owerri in Imo State. It has plans to extend to Ilorin and Abraka in the coming weeks. The company is installing additional switching in the country, which would shortly become operational and would further boost quality of service countrywide • Econet Wireless in Zimbabwe has announced plans to roll out 40 phone shops this year under the YourFone brand, to bring to 62 the total number of shops under this project. Econet Zimbabwe chief executive officer Douglas Mboweni said the current 22 phone shops were generating significant business. “Our phone shops around the country handle as many as 300 000 people per month. “These people generate an average of 350,000 minutes in airtime usage per month and this is equivalent to 6,000 Buddie subscribers,” Mboweni said. • The Egyptian National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority NTRA, reached an agreement with Egyptian Company for Mobile Services and Vodafone Egypt by which both companies will increase their prepaid cards’ grace period to 2 months for LE100 denominated cards. The agreement came following customer complaints over the mobile operators recent decision to cut prepaid cards’ grace period to ten days, which was to be effected on January 3, 2004.
SA’S TELKOM AND IS FIRST TO MARKET 155MBPS INTERNATIONAL FIBRE BANDWIDTHInternet Solutions (IS) says that it will be the first Service Provider to utilise the 155Mbps STM1 configuration. An approach to Telkom has resulted in the supply of broadband International Private Leased Line Services (IPLC) to IS on Afrolinque, the submarine fibre cable linking SA with Europe and the East. “We are now in a position to offer our clients a faster and more reliable service than before,” says Johann Pretorius, COO of Internet Solutions. The Afrolinque submarine fibre cable links SA with West Africa and Europe through the SAT3/WASC portions and with the East through the SAFE portion of the cable. The contract for 155Mbps is valued at R270m over three years. The bandwidth will be taken up in two stages; currently in use are 2 x 45Mbps to Johannesburg and Cape Town respectively, with the remainder being deployed in April this year, to Johannesburg. According to Pretorius, the reliability and speed of STM 1 over the fibre cable will prove to be invaluable to Internet Solutions’ more than 4 500 corporate customers, many of whom rely heavily on the Internet to transact business. Wally Beelders, managing executive of Telkom International and Special Markets, states: “Our IPLC product offers a lot of added value. The service is monitored 24 hours a day from our National Network Operations Centre in Centurion to ensure optimum performance and quality. We act as a single point of contact, facilitating single-end ordering and billing, taking care of the service from SA to the terminating point, which, in the case of Internet Solutions, is in the USA.” (SOURCE: ICT World) IN BRIEF• Nigeria’s request for an involuntary transfer of control over its .ng domain is about to be granted by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the United States body that manages the Internet domain name system. Legal Adviser, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Basil Udotai, said in Lagos last weekend that the government has received positive confirmation to this effect. ICANN maintains that it is still talking to the Government about what might be done. • A campaign, initiated by South African IT law firm Buys Inc., against South Africa’s new Convergence Bill will include a submission to the Department of Communication, detailing the potential results of attempts to regulate the Internet and other forms of electronic content distribution. “A draft Convergence Bill was issued for public comment by the Department of Communications on 3 December 2003. The current provision of the Bill has far reaching and restrictive effects on the use of the Internet and the free flow of information in South Africa - for example, a newspaper’s operations will not be affected by the proposed law, but the same newspaper’s website will need a license and be burdened with conditions and social obligations. As a result, the broader publishing and Internet communities are uniting around a campaign to prevent the current version of the Bill from becoming law”. Those who wish to know more about the campaign should email to reinhardt@buys.co.za
TOTAL ETHIOPIA INTRODUCES FIRST ELECTRONIC PAYMENT SYSTEMTotal Ethiopia officially announced Wednesday at the Hilton Hotel the implementation of “Topcard”, a new electronic payment system for the first time in the country. Topcard has been on sale starting from yesterday in 26 selected Total service stations in the country, of which eight are in Addis Ababa. Total Topcard is a modern pre-paid payment system similar to a credit card and is the first of its kind to be introduced in Ethiopia. Compared to fuel coupons and cash it provides good follow-up of fuel consumption eliminates the need to carry extra cash around to pay for total products and services and reduces risk of theft and fraud. When using the card, a receipt will be automatically issued in two copies, from the card reader machine indicating the quantity and type of services provided, date and time of purchase, name of the station offering the services, etc. TOTAL Ethiopia takes 30 percent of market share of the country’s oil demand. Its main clients are Anbessa city bus enterprise, Ministry of Defence and fleet owners. It has over 120 stations throughout the country. TOTAL Ethiopia has been recorded 50 years of service operating in the country for 50 years now. (SOURCE: Addis Tribune) MOROCCAN AGRI-BIZ CLAIMS TO BE BEST EQUIPPED SECTOR WITH ICTAgri-businesses in Morocco claim to be the best equipped in ICT terms according to a report in the last edition of Alimentareus, citing the results of a survey conducted by the Ministry of Industry and Telecommunications. Agi-business companies have a higher level of equipment in terms of local networks, intranets, presence on the web and e-commerce, according to the survey which covered 6,911 companies in the country. Neverthless only 24% of companies in the sector have computers, compared with 19% in the metals and metallurgy sector. There is now an average of 13 computers in a company compared with 7 in 1999. In these companies 75% use e-mail and 73% use the internet for research. (SOURCE: Menara) UGANDA PLANS ICT INCUBATOR TO ENCOURAGE SECTOR GROWTHUganda is setting up a USD600,000 (Shs 1.2bn) Information Communication and Technologies (ICT) incubation centre to help ICT businesses seek markets. It is hoped that the centre will enable those involved to penetrate regional and international markets. Incubation centres are avenues that support creation and development of technology-oriented companies involved in developing, realising and selling new products and services - after elaborate market research. “Uganda is setting up an ICT incubation centre because of its success in the ICT sector in the last five years,” said Mr John Musajjakawa, Uganda Investment Authority’s director of the ICT division. “The ICT sector is being used as a model for the incubation centre, if successful it will be expanded to other sectors,” he added. ICT business is expected to gain improved business linkages, attract experienced entrepreneurs, as the incubation centre will make this sector more commercially viable. (SOURCE: The Monitor) ZAMBIAN GOVERNMENT TO INTRODUCE ANTI-FRAUD COMPUTER MEASURESThe Zambian government will later this year introduce a new bill in parliament that will protect the misuse of computers and the protection of fraud in banks and other financial institutions, writes Timothy Kasolo. Legal Affairs and Attorney General George Kunda said this week that the bill would be passed in parliament this year upon approval. “This will be approved and in turn it will prohibit the misuse of Computers and the protection of fraud in banks and other financial institutions,” Kunda said. The minister explained that the bill has been long overdue and there was need to recognize the current laws of computer technology in Zambia. Kunda observed that law would be dynamic in the development of the country’s computer technology. This is the only law that will cater for fraud and the misuse of computers in Zambia. Last year in February ZamNet Communication limited Web Specialist Kunda Mwila said that there was need for the Zambian government to put in place laws that will govern and make sure that taxes are reduced when computers and being imported in the country IN BRIEF• A state-funded project to help South African IT entrepreneurs develop business skills says it has partnered with over 400 companies since its launch 18 months ago. Most of these are new IT-related companies. The non-government organisation, Bodibeng Technology Incubator (BTI), launched in April 2002 and offers free hands-on assistance in drawing up business and marketing plans, finding financial assistance, and developing and finding a target market. Unlike the Small Business Development Corporation, this organisation does not have its own resources and is supported by state and foreign funding. • Moroccan PC assembler DBM Maroc which puts together Accent branded machines looks set to benefit from getting an OEM licence from Microst, having just won similar status from Intel. The company is predicting 30% growth in turnover in 2004.
CELSYS ON THE PROWL FOR NEW ACQUISITIONSZimbabwean mobile retail operator, Celsys Limited, has confirmed market speculation that it was considering a number of potential acquisitions as part of a programme to diversify its rapidly expanding business. Company chairman Willard Zireva said Celsys was eyeing some “cash generative” firms on an equity swap basis. “It has been mentioned on occasion before that Celsys Limited has approached a number of companies with regard to acquiring them on a share swap basis to achieve diversification and additional growth prospects in the company. “These companies are cash generative and have huge growth potential,” Zireva said. Although he could not divulge the names of the firms under consideration as Celsys, whose half-year financials are due at the end of February, is in its grey period. Zireva said discussions that are underway “look promising.” Celsys was last year linked to a possible share swap with telecommunications firm Econet Wireless Holdings Limited (EWHL), although both firms shot down all speculation of impending nuptials. Market speculation was rife at the time that Celsys chief executive officer Gary Shane was on an aggressive buying spree on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE), and had built up a significant holding in EWHL as a result, sentiments Shane himself strenuously denied. The company has, to date, disposed of 15 percent of its investments on the stock market, a move Zireva said was in keeping with management’s deliberate move to dispose of investments in light of interest rate movements. Shane said although the rising interest rates made for a more hostile trading environment, Celsys, which had a gearing of about 20 percent, had taken steps to ensure that its growth and profitability was not affected. “Our gearing is under 20 percent at the moment, but then any gearing at this point is dangerous. Although the rates have not affected the growth of our business, management is taking a look at that aspect,” Shane said, adding that the firm had reviewed its credit models to take cash upon delivery for all business units. On other aspects of the business, Shane admitted that the rising tariff charges levied by the cell phone networks meant a reduction in recharge card volumes. He, however, said this had been offset by the volumes of cheques, which remained high. Analysts said rising tariffs and reduced air time purchases, coupled with the cash model for handset sales, posed a challenge for management and was likely to see a significant reduction in volumes. Cognisant of the mounting challenges on the domestic front, Celsys has had to look beyond the borders and Shane said the firm had recently struck a deal with Vodacom SA for the printing of 7 million recharge cards on a monthly basis, a factor which should more than compensate for any drop in volumes in Zimbabwe, as well as ensure a foreign currency revenue stream. Meanwhile, Shane revealed that Celsys had entered into discussions with Econet Zimbabwe over the USD600 million bulk supply agreement dispute that arose after Econet unilaterally terminated the contract in September. Shane said that an expert had been brought in to arbitrate in the issue, while some regional networks had expressed interest in pursuing a similar arrangement with Celsys. “We’ve had two major offers (for bulk supply deals) we would have wanted to finance through equity, but current market conditions are not conducive,” Shane said. Celsys was one of the best performing counters on the ZSE in its maiden year on the bourse following its April 30 listing, reaching a high of $100.The share price has since come down to $50, as the equities market slipped into the doldrums in the final quarter of the year. (SOURCE: Financial Gazette ) ECONET WIRELESS INTERNATIONAL: A BUSY WEEK ON ALL FRONTSEconet Wireless International (EWI) seems to be attracting attention on all fronts: • South Africa’s Altech is in talks with Econet Wireless International. Public speculation is inevitably over finding finance to action its shareholding option in Nigeria but Econet maintains the two have nothing to do with each other. Vodacom is one of Altech’s big suppliers, through subsidiary Autopage Cellular. Altech is also in the process of buying Nampak smart card business NamITech, which sells largely to the telecoms companies. But both Altech and Vodacom insist they are still good friends. • EWI says it will raise its stake in the third mobile operator in Kenya to 51 from 10 per cent. The Kenya National Federation of Co-operatives has failed to raise its end of the investment but is nonetheless mad at EWI for stating the obvious. An EWI source told the Nation:”The Nigerian experience has taught us a lesson; we don’t want that to happen to us in Kenya. This is why we’re requesting to be given a 51 per cent stake.” It is clear to any objective outsider that one of EWI’s former “cash cows” - its Zimbabwean operation - has been squeezed by the state of the economy there. If the company is to continue expanding it will need to go the market or find a sympathetic cash-rich partner. Also if it wins its various court battles over its Nigerian operation, it will need to cash there. Vodacom and MTN look like coming out as the victors of this pan-continental mobile sector fight. But it would be wrong to count out the underdog EWI. IN BRIEF• The World Bank has raised concern over the future of Telkom Kenya, describing the parastatal’s staffing and financial status as poor. The bank says that the corporation’s survival in the increasingly competitive Telecoms sector is in jeopardy unless it moves with speed to streamline its operations. • South African-based computer networking group Datatec said on Tuesday it was considering listing its U.S. unit Westcon in the first half of calendar 2004.
CORRECTIONSISSUE 190: NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT THREATENS “FORCED RE-DELEGATION” ON DOMAIN NAME BODY Please correct the error in this latest edition (190). It is the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC), not the National Communication Commission in your story on the .ng domain. I Efosa
Nice article about .ng. But one note: contrary to the first sentence, ICANN’s GAC is an advisory committee to ICANN, and plays no role in ccTLD re-delegations. The body that makes decisions, based on community consensus and input (including but not limited to governments), is the IANA http://www.iana.org, which is a set of functions performed by ICANN. Andrew McLaughlin
CONFÉDÉRATION AFRICAINE DE FOOTBALL PUTS UP ITS NEW WEBSITEThe Confédération africaine de football (CAF) has opened its web site and hopes that it will become the reference point for those interested in football. It provides a calender, a list of competitions organised by CAF, and a list of its Technical personnel and a list of its committees and their deliberations. It also provides an online version of CAF’s publications including its official journal CAF News and is competition publication CAF Flash. It also contains the statutes of the organisation and the rules for next African Nations Cup and the African Championships for those under 17 years old. (SOURCE: Le Quotidien Mutations) IN BRIEF• South African professionals in the UK have a Web site that provides them with a support network for essential services. Since going live last month, www.afinityplus.co.uk has had thousands of hits. The site was designed, developed and deployed in SA by Technology Concepts. • The Tanzania Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture (TCCIA) will create a national database and a website that will enable anybody to access business information on Tanzania. The TCCIA president Elvis Musiba told The EastAfrican that the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida) and the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (Unido) were financing the programme. Said Mr Musiba, “We want to establish a website that will have all the data on Tanzania’s business opportunities from the smallest branch in the country to Dar es Salaam.” • Globecomm Systems Inc. has extended the company’s relationship with African Virtual University (“AVU”) with a contract valued at approximately USD1.5 million plus potential additional options. The new multi-year contract expands the number of sites in the AVU network and includes options for future expansion. Globecomm has been servicing AVU with its SkyBorne content delivery platform for the past two years. • There is a new Website dedicated to the Forthcoming African Cup Of Nations of Football: http://www.CAN2004-info.com an initiative of http://WarmAfrica.com and http//Kortable.com both located in Tunisia).
A COLLABORATIVE LEARNING APPLICATION FOR LOW BANDWIDTHCollaborate is an application that has been designed to create a virtual classroom environment where hundreds of learners and trainers can interact and learn in real-time through slow internet connections.Its main features include: User Logon, User text colour, Bandwidth selector, User list, Multiple Text chat, 3 user Video chat. 3 user Audio chat, Shared whiteboard over the top of the shared swf/jpg It has Host Controlled features such as: Shared files (swf / jpg), Whiteboard opacity control, Whiteboard/shared file clearing, Shared cursor. Issues relating to traditional long distance communication include: The cost of phone calls & difficulty of setting them up, difficulty in illustrating points - currently a popular route is to create word documents, then email them to relevant parties, then print them out and talk about them over the phone, calls cutting off mid-conversation, MSN messenger is limited to text chat, goes through the MSN server and is unreliable, the inability to share information concurrently, you are unable to see the person you are interacting with, there is a lack of control over emailed documents / images Collaborate uses Flash Communication Server, a Macromedia product making it available to any internet/intranet connected user with the Flash player. It is currently hosted by FlashComstudio.com and is currently limited to 10 connections but has the potential for up to 5000 concurrent connections. Bandwidth is limited by the hosting company depending on the level of service required. Latency / upload / download speed are displayed on the application. There is a live administrative console to view connection information & usage. It is extremely easy to setup ¬ just drop the files on your server and it’s ready. Collaborate would be an ideal application for: Long distance Video and audio conferencing where infrastructure and equipment is not readily available.
Collaborate is in use in an eLearning company to help it’s branches in London and Mumbai, India share information, brief the development team, discuss feedback on course development and conduct video conferencing. The office in India has an internet connection equivalent to a home ADSL line which limits the bandwidth but video and audio conferencing between people is still possible. Collaborate has been used by Canon Europe to help train their technicians on new products; the trainer uploads an animation or presentation on a new printer/camera/copier and points out it’s features to the technician in another country. The technician can draw over the image of the product to illustrate any questions whilst talking to the trainer and seeing them face to face. This has reduced the need to bring trainers and technicians from across Europe all together significantly, and saved Canon a lot of expenditure in travel / accommodation and downtime.
PEOPLE* Free Software Foundation(FSF) founder Richard Stallman last week opened the Idlelo Digital Commons conference in Cape Town, South Africa, with a stinging attack on the open source movement. Stallman, well known for his unbending belief in free software, said that while the FSF is happy to work with the open source community on certain projects he “has never and will never be advocate of open source software” Stallman said that while the practical work of the free software movement and the open source community often overlapped there were significant differences between the two camps. “The disagreement between the two movements is as deep as it gets,” he said. The reason, he said, is that open source advocates are less rigorous in their understanding of the benefits and potential of free software. He said the open source movement was primarily based on the “economic values of software just like the non-free software developers”. In contrast the free software movement promoted truly free software that promoted and protected all the freedoms of users and creators. “If your goal is free software then any non-free software is dangerous,” said Stallman. “Open source advocates are generally satisfied if there is Œsome’ open source software in the application.” Stallman said the FSF takes the issue of free software very seriously and where it saw a non-free software application becoming popular in the community it would look to develop a free replacement of it. But, he said, this is not always ideal and the organisation actively looks to educate developers on the need to develop free software. Stallman said, however, that it is a “mistake to single out Microsoft. There are many other people producing non-free software.” Microsoft, he said, has just been “more successful at being evil”. In typical style Stallman railed against the widespread usage of “Linux” to describe the popular free operating system. Rather he said, it should correctly be known as Gnu/Linux. He said the use of the term Gnu/Linux was important to reflect the free nature of the software correctly. Linux is the kernel of the operating system while the free software movement produced much of the software around the kernel. • Indonesia’s State Minister for Communications and Information Syamsul Mu’arif bravely put up his hand and admitted:”At the moment, only about 1 percent of Indonesia’s population has access to the Internet; it will be impossible to increase this figure by fifty-fold in a little over 10 years.” Why has this any significance for Africa? He was admitting that he would not make the over-optimistic targets announced at WSIS before Christmas. A lesson here for all over-optimistic politicians who like making big announcements. On the move: Jean-Marie Blanchard is leaving Alcatel to become a consultant. He is being replaced by Souheil Marine...Sarina Scheepers - who replaces Judith Middleton as Marketing Manager at CITI - starts in February.... Vanessa Cowan is leaving Beachhead Media & Investor Relations EVENTSIMPLEMENTING THE WSIS ACTION, NAIROBI (25-26 MARCH 2004) Following the hectic pace and overwhelming volume of activities at WSIS Geneva, it is important that organizations take time to reassess the vast amount of outputs and project themes. The CTO conference will act as a follow-up to WSIS, focusing on “Implementation and Best Practices”. Following a three-month gestation period, we should be able to make more sense of WSIS outputs, by focusing on specific key topics in the relative serenity of a comfortable resort on the outskirts of Nairobi. You will be able to deliberate, plan and share common areas of interest. This event is aimed at facilitating the journey to WSIS 2005 in a creative, constructive way. The conference will have the following objectives: • Understanding and reviewing leading thinking and strategies on best practices, which can be shared between key member groups. Review how other stakeholders are going to approach similar goals and strategic objectives. • How to develop action plans which cascade through the supply chain. • Reviewing the role of stakeholder alliances between government, not for profit organizations/NGOs and the private sector, reviewing key case studies materials throughout the world, including a focus on procurement and the supply chain. • Uncover the challenges and opportunities of developing Private Finance Initiatives. • Assess how joint cross-border initiatives like skills and capacity building can work. Is there a common roadmap to developing “e-citizen” communities. • Share common challenges on modernizing Government agendas in relation to WSIS. Assess what external tools and resources exist which can support stakeholders in this endeavour. • How to enhance private sector investor commitment. The programme will include the following sessions: Implementing the WSIS Action Plan: The Challenge for Policy-Makers
Implementing the WSIS Action Plan: The Challenge for Regulators
Implementing the WSIS Action Plan: The Challenge for Development Partners
Implementing the WSIS Action Plan: The Challenge for the Private Sector
Implementing the WSIS Action Plan: The Role of Civil Society
Financing the WSIS Action Plan
Implementing the WSIS Action Plan across the Region
Speaking Opportunities
Sponsorship Opportunities
Kenya National ICT Convention The conference will coincide with the Kenya ICT National Convention over 22-26 March which is intended to develop a detailed consensus between government, civil society and the private sector on the country’s national ICT policy. In addition, the Convention with showcase East African national and regional ICT projects in order to attract donor support or private sector investment, this conference is not limited to region or country. The conference and the Convention will be opened with a combined plenary session on the morning of 22 March. Other combined activities will be a welcoming cocktail party on 22 March and a dinner on 23 March. Safari Park Hotel provides a five-star residential conference facility with a relaxed environment in a semi-bush setting (see www.safaripark-hotel.com . AITEC Africa has been appointed by CTO to organise the conference. For further details, contact Sean Moroney, +44-1480-495595; sean@aitecafrica.com To register as a delegate log on to www.aitecafrica.com 7th INTERNATIONAL DESIGN INDABA CAPE TOWN, 25 to 27 FEBRUARY 2004 With little more than a month to go, it’s full steam ahead with preparations for this year’s International Design Indaba, the premium design conference in the southern hemisphere. Now is the time to shake off the dregs of 2003, power up for a prolific and creatively rewarding 2004, and take full advantage of our 10% Early Bird booking discount of R300 off the standard three-day Indaba ticket price of R3 000. The special ends this Friday, so be sure to register online before then at www.designindaba.com to qualify for this offer. It’s a unique opportunity to see the likes of design pioneer Karim Rashid, brand consultant extraordinaire Mary Lewis and bleeding-edge magazine designer David Carson on the same stage. Running alongside the lectures and workshops is the Design Indaba Expo, a carefully curated ambassadorial gathering of South African fashion, film, digital media, architecture, décor, graphics, advertising, publishing and, for that which cannot be contained in square metreage, there’s a stage too. This year, the International Design Indaba moves to Cape Town’s new architectural marvel, the International Convention Centre, and beyond, with interactive tours of the city’s design landmarks. And what a city it is! Urban bustle in harmony with breathtaking sand beaches; to the one side, a mountain beckons to be conquered while on the other an endless horizon stills the churning mind. There’s no place like Cape Town in the summer, and Cape Town in the summer is Design Indaba season. Speakers Confirmed for the 7th International Design Indaba Peter Saville (UK), Mary Lewis (UK), Shubhankar Ray ( UK), Tyler Brûlé (UK), David Carson (US), Rasshied Din (UK), Vince Frost (UK), Fernando Guiterrez (UK), Shigeo Fukuda (Japan), Kenya Hara (Japan), Karim Rashid (US), Bob Sabiston (US), Graham Warsop (SA), Ross Lovegrove (UK), Happy Ntshingila (SA), Prof John Heskett (UK), Ilse Crawford (UK), Petra Blaisse (NL), Alexander Gelman (US), Luyanda Mpahlwa (SA), Veejay Archary (SA), Richard Hart (SA), Peet Pienaar (SA), Jaco Janse Van Rensburg (SA), Kassie Naidoo (SA), Andrew Makin (SA), Janina Masojada (SA), Nkhensani Manganyi (SA), Thomas Roope (UK), Andries Odendaal (SA) and Gavin Rajah (SA). Cost Special Offers • Full Indaba (3 days) Early Bird Registration (Registration and payment before 16 January 04): R2700 • Group Booking Discounts(Booking 5 or more Full Indabas): R2700 per delegate • Design Indaba Alumni Offer (Attended 2 or More FULL INDABAS): R2700 • Academic Indaba (Full Time Academics): R2550 Other price categories • Full Indaba (3 days)(Registration and payment after 16 January 04): = R3000 • One Day Indaba: R1250 (Attendance of any one day) • Two Day Indaba: R2250 (Attendance of any two days) The above rates excludes travel and accommodation. For all your travel requirements to the Design Indaba and Expo 2004, please contact South African Airways City Centre on 0861 007 747. Prices range from R1,990 per person sharing, which includes accommodation, car hire, flights from Johannesburg or Durban to Cape Town, as well as discount vouchers to the value of R5000 to be used at the Canal Walk shopping centre. Please note to mention you are calling for the Design Indaba and Expo travel deal. Terms and conditions apply.
JOBS AND OPPORTUNITIES- A Nigerian mobile telco is looking for a Senior Sales Executive. The ideal candidate, preferably from a telecom company, must be able to open and close sales deals and establish a large clients base for our products. For details contact: Miss. Phyllis Molokwu on 234-1-8049791 or e-mail her on onyeomam@starcomms.com - Applications are invited for an IT Technical Officer position with the Reflect/ICT Project in Fort Portal. Deadline for applications is January 30, 2004. For details contact the Project Manager, Reflect/ICT Project on 077662490 or e-mail: maiso@actionaiduganda.org • The prestigious Prix Ars Electronica is offering a new prize category of relevance to African readers.The category “Digital Communities” of Prix Ars Electronica focusing on the political potential of networked system will award two first prizes (10,000 EUR each) to community projects of great sociopolitical relevance and for innovative social software. For details please visit http://www.aec.at/de/prix/communities/communities.asp. Deadline for online submission is March 12. • South African echnology companies will soon be invited to bid for a tender worth at least R2bn to supply computers and printers to every government department. Government is expecting a deluge of bids, because any computer or printer supplier that is not approved under this tender will gradually be frozen out of public sector deals as more state departments procure their equipment centrally. The tender replaces the policy of government buying computers and printers outright. Now the State Information Technology Agency (Sita) will pay a fixed monthly fee to use the equipment, but the supplier will retain ownership and provide technical support.
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