Monday, May 03, 2004
Cybersurf – Africa Telecom 2004 – Cairo
May 3, 2004
Hello, good morning and welcome to Cybersurf, coming to you this morning from Cairo, Egypt. I am your Cyberhost, Steven Lang - and yes, you heard right - coming to you from Cairo where I am attending the Africa Telecom 2004 exhibition and forum.
The International Telecommunications Union event – Africa Telecoms has already been held in Egypt before and at least twice in South Africa. The whole aim of the event is to have top technology manufacturers display their wares at an exhibition while at the same time there is a parallel forum where business people, government officials and other interested parties discuss policies, strategies, technologies, how to implement and how to regulate them.
The atmosphere here is bullish as Egypt is asserting itself as the new Internet leader in Africa. There is an air of self confidence as the country shows off the considerable strides it has made in recent years.
Later today, the ITU is going to release a fairly positive report about telecommunications growth in Africa over the last few years. The report points to the tremendous growth of the mobile telephone markets in Africa saying that this is the first continent where the number of cellphones has outstripped the number of landlines. It also says that the number of cellphone users in Africa has doubled between 2001 and 2004.
These figures are very encouraging, creating the impression that Africa has suddenly become a world leader in mobile telephone penetration, but in fact these figures look impressive simply because they are compared to the incredibly poor rollout of fixed line phones in Africa.
Fixed line telephony has in Africa been largely the responsibility of governments and more often than not the private sector has set up and operated the cell phone networks. It can, therefore be argued that if you want to help Africans get access to the latest information technology, let the private sector do it.
However, no-one is seriously arguing that a complete, laissez faire free-for-all would help bridge the digital divide – there is broad consensus that a free market system run under the guidance of a truly independent IT regulator - is the best model to maximise Internet access.
The real problem is that while most African governments do recognise the importance of a regulator and of well defined policies to help promote IT access, only about one third of the countries have actually opened their domestic markets and set up a regulator with teeth. Critics argue that because the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa, ICASA has been less than effective in releasing the Telkom stranglehold on telecommunications, South Africa is not one of the select group.
More on this and other issues raised here at the Africa Telecom in Cairo next week in Cybersurf.
Till then, keep on surfing.
May 3, 2004
Hello, good morning and welcome to Cybersurf, coming to you this morning from Cairo, Egypt. I am your Cyberhost, Steven Lang - and yes, you heard right - coming to you from Cairo where I am attending the Africa Telecom 2004 exhibition and forum.
The International Telecommunications Union event – Africa Telecoms has already been held in Egypt before and at least twice in South Africa. The whole aim of the event is to have top technology manufacturers display their wares at an exhibition while at the same time there is a parallel forum where business people, government officials and other interested parties discuss policies, strategies, technologies, how to implement and how to regulate them.
The atmosphere here is bullish as Egypt is asserting itself as the new Internet leader in Africa. There is an air of self confidence as the country shows off the considerable strides it has made in recent years.
Later today, the ITU is going to release a fairly positive report about telecommunications growth in Africa over the last few years. The report points to the tremendous growth of the mobile telephone markets in Africa saying that this is the first continent where the number of cellphones has outstripped the number of landlines. It also says that the number of cellphone users in Africa has doubled between 2001 and 2004.
These figures are very encouraging, creating the impression that Africa has suddenly become a world leader in mobile telephone penetration, but in fact these figures look impressive simply because they are compared to the incredibly poor rollout of fixed line phones in Africa.
Fixed line telephony has in Africa been largely the responsibility of governments and more often than not the private sector has set up and operated the cell phone networks. It can, therefore be argued that if you want to help Africans get access to the latest information technology, let the private sector do it.
However, no-one is seriously arguing that a complete, laissez faire free-for-all would help bridge the digital divide – there is broad consensus that a free market system run under the guidance of a truly independent IT regulator - is the best model to maximise Internet access.
The real problem is that while most African governments do recognise the importance of a regulator and of well defined policies to help promote IT access, only about one third of the countries have actually opened their domestic markets and set up a regulator with teeth. Critics argue that because the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa, ICASA has been less than effective in releasing the Telkom stranglehold on telecommunications, South Africa is not one of the select group.
More on this and other issues raised here at the Africa Telecom in Cairo next week in Cybersurf.
Till then, keep on surfing.
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