October 2008 - KICTANet

East Africa Internet Governance Forum (EAIGF): Opening the Internet Governance Debate in East Africa,“Thinking Globally; Acting Locally”
by alice 27 Oct '08

27 Oct '08

(Apologies for cross posting) The Kenya ICT Board in conjunction with the Kenya Network Information Center (KENIC), the Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet), Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) the East African ICT for Development Network (EA ICT4D), International Development and Research Center (IDRC) and other participating organizations invite you to the East Africa Internet Governance Forum (EAIGF) to be held between the 10th and 12th of November, 2008 in Nairobi Kenya. The EAIGF is a follow up to the National Internet Governance Forums (NIGF's) being held in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda in October 2008 and which are aimed at identifying, exploring and building consensus around national level Internet Governance issues. The East Africa Internet Governance Forum (EAIGF) aims at: • creating awareness, • instituting a consensus building process to develop a common understanding of East African Internet governance • building policy capacity in order to enable meaningful participation in global Internet policy, governance and development. The outcomes of the EAIGF will be submitted and presented at the third global Internet Governance Forum taking place in India in December 2008. As a key player in the Internet industry, it is our pleasure to invite you to the Kenya IGF. A detailed programme for the event will be sent in due course. For planning purposes, please register for the meeting at: http://www.eaigf.or.ke or send an email to: meeting(a)eaigf.or.ke confirming your attendance.

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Kenya’s ICT players cautioned over Internet security
by alice 27 Oct '08

27 Oct '08

(Apologies for cross posting) Kenya’s ICT players cautioned over Internet security <http://www.itnewsafrica.com/?p=1526>http://www.itnewsafrica.com/?p=1526 October 22, 2008 in Top Stories <http://www.itnewsafrica.com/?cat=15> kibaki.jpg <http://www.itnewsafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/kibaki.jpg>ICT stakeholders and industry players have been urged to upgrade their internet security. The call was made by Charles Njoroge, the Director-General of the Communications Commission of Kenya during the recent Kenyan Internet Governance Forum (KIGF). According to The East African Standard KIGF is meant to act as a central forum through which Internet stakeholders in Kenya can contribute to the global Internet Governance Forum. Njoroge outlined the Government’s priority areas relating to the Internet, among them ensuring improved access and increasing the number of users from the current 2.5 million. Target areas Others are infrastructure and technology deployment; tackling policy issues in the face of increased internet penetration and human capacity development. The CCK Director-General said it is important for the country to start moving forward with the existing policy framework then improve on it to take care and address emerging concerns. He also appealed for intensified public private partnerships. Information and Communications Permanent Secretary Dr Bitange Ndemo said the country’s ICT sector was key to the development of other productive sectors. Emphasising the need for effective management of the internet resource, Dr Ndemo urged those who represent the country at international fora to ensure they articulate Kenya’s position on these issues. Efficiency The PS added that in order to improve efficiency in operations, there’s needed to manage the internet resource effectively. To address internet issues in the country, the PS said his ministry established a taskforce, which incorporated all stakeholder groups to address IPv6 (internet protocol version 6). This was done to protect the country’s internet users from the effects resulting from the depletion of internet protocol.

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CEO Africa Online dies in boating accident
by Brian Munyao Longwe 27 Oct '08

27 Oct '08

KICTANET extends their condolences to AfricaOnline, friends and family of Mr. John Joseph. Brian --------------------------- http://www.nation.co.ke/News/-/1056/484266/-/tlhobo/-/ The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Africa Online has died. John Joseph, who was appointed to the position in March 2007, died in a boating accident on Friday while on holiday in Mombasa. He was 47 years old. Officials of the company declined to reveal more details on the circumstances surrounding Mr Joseph’s death as the family had requested for privacy on the matter. Africa Online is a subsidiary of Telkom South Africa and Mr Joseph was also a director of UUNET Ltd. Reacting to the death, Telkom CEO Reuben September said, “John was an invaluable member of our team, a larger than life character who had been integral to establishing and building the Africa Online brand and developing a portfolio of service offerings across all segments in nine African countries. “We are deeply saddened by his passing and on behalf of the company; I would like to convey my deepest condolences to John’s family and friends, as well as staff at Africa Online.” Before ascending to the CEO position at Africa Online, Mr Joseph had occupied various positions at Telkom since 1995. In 2000, he was tasked with establishing Telkom Wholesale Marketing. “John made a tremendous contribution in realizing Telkom’s ambition to play a leading ICT services provider role on the continent. He will be sorely missed, “said Mr September. A new CEO has not yet been appointed and the management of Telkom is set to appoint his replacement soon, said a statement sent to newsrooms. _______

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No free pass: global financial crisis will impact Africa’s telecoms sector
by alice 24 Oct '08

24 Oct '08

(From Balancing Act) No free pass: global financial crisis will impact Africa’s telecoms sector It’s early days but the conventional wisdom so far has been that Africa will avoid the worst of the backwash from the global financial crisis. Its banks are less over-committed as lenders and its relatively small number of consumers still struggle to find credit. However, as everything is connected globally, Africa is bound to take a hit like every other continent and that hit will impact directly on Africa’s telecom’s sector. Russell Southwood tries to read the tea leaves. Over the last five years about half of the countries on the continent have experienced above average economic growth. This growth amongst the “fast track” economies has fed through directly into wealth levels among the people affected. For example, the middle class in Kenya grew by 3% over the last three years: this is a small percentage of a big number so it affects several million people. The slower moving economies have often been those emerging from civil war so any growth has been a bonus compared to past years. A significant part of the economic growth of the “fast track” African countries has come from the giant emerging economies of China and India buying food and mineral resources. However, if people in developed economies buy less of the consumer goods that have fuelled the growth of China’s economy then it in turn will need less mineral resources from places like Africa. Less demand for mineral resources will mean lower prices for things like oil and copper. The only upside of the latter is that there may be less organised cable vandalism. But if China sneezes, Africa catches a cold. So how does this general economic analysis feed through into Africa’s telecoms sector and what’s it likely to mean for your business?: - If you’re trying to raise funds to invest in Africa, life has got significantly harder. Some of those who were in the process of doing this were talking deals with financial institutions that have now been rescued by the US Government. Sovereign wealth funds (largely from oil-based economies) may be more immune to the liquidity crisis but the fall in the price of oil will cut the scale of these funds over time. Africa’s local stock exchanges may still be good for some fundraising but the scale of funds available is modest alongside the size of past deals. The interesting one to watch is Nigeria where the banks still appear to be anxious to lend and open for business. Also, barring a major financial crisis, the Chinese Government (which has a considerable amount of US dollars) will continue to support its export drive by offering soft loans to Africa’s impoverished state-owned telco incumbents. Perhaps some mobile operators will join them in this queue? - Africa’s mobile opportunities have been seen as a licence to print money and even with proliferating competition, newcomers have been keen to enter the market, paying top dollar. However, it’s noticeable that some of the more opportunistic investors without a background in telecoms have decided to take money and run: for example, Hits Telecom has sold out to France Telecom (see news item below). Nevertheless, they probably passed coming in the other direction Orascom’s new Africa unit, Telecel Globe. The global tides of financial panic wash people in and out: remember Vivendi who quit Africa during the telecoms finance crisis but returned as things got better. The logic of the current global crisis dictates that less available money will mean lower prices and less contenders. But the number of opportunities for new mobile licences or market entry points through acquisition are limited. Therefore Africa will do what it’s always done best up till now and “sell shortage” at a premium. For there are not many places in the world where you can get an above average return on your money within eighteen months to two years and there’s still another 5-10% of the addressable market untouched. And investing in mobile telephony is probably a better bet than giving people 120% mortgages on their houses in the current climate. - Less investment means less money going into African economies means less growth. Again the specifics are that if a mobile operator invests US$200-400 million in a country operation, a large part of that goes into things like employing people, buying local services and advertising. In advertising terms, the mobile operators have been among the top 5 spenders in any country where tracking exists. With potential buyers of mobile services possibly having less money to spend, the competition for the market share they already have will intensify. There will be a lot of soothing talk about the importance of service and new features before price wars set in. The smaller, one-country or small number of country operations will feel this heat hardest and will come up for acquisition or may even go out of business if the heat gets too intense. - The glimmer of hope against this backdrop is that the African consumer (the person with a monthly salary and some disposable income) is largely not in debt to anything like the same level as his or her European or American counterpart. They will not splash out wildly in the current context but they will continue to spend. The poor who have not yet become consumers will continue to scrape by as ever. However, the level of remittances from relatives abroad may drop as they become affected by the downturn in developed economies. Last week South Africa’s Finance Minister Trevor Manuel was telling people not to panic which is usually a prelude to people heading for the lifeboats. However, the worst that appears to be in store is a strong dose of wage inflation. Telkom’s failure to address its overstaffing may seem like a victory for its employees but if wages continue to rise above inflation, it will begin to squeeze the companies already pressured profits. Whatever the political pressures, hard times will demand drastic solutions. - Economic slowdown means that Government will have lower tax revenues and private companies less income. Both will impact on the replacement and purchase cycle for ICT equipment. SAP commented in its Q3 results that results from BRICs (the key grouping of developing countries) were mixed. And whilst Cisco reported a resurgence in emerging markets orders, bookings in Africa were very weak. Money spent on rescuing deserving causes like banks may also turn into money not spent on foreign aid. Since the latter supports a great deal of the ICT purchases by African Governments, this will also create a tightening in the market, particularly for the larger IT multinationals with a presence on the continent. All have put feet on the ground in the promise of business tomorrow and the more timid or financially windswept may pull back. - On a counter-cyclical basis, there are two key factors: the big change in the cost of international fibre capacity with the arrival of new cables and for South Africa, the World Cup in 2010. The first (in Q2,2009) will be a welcome boost as bandwidth prices will fall from US$5-6,000 a meg on the east coast to nearer to US$500-1,000 a meg. This will not be good news for those selling high-priced bandwidth as a way of making a living but will benefit those selling services and applications on top of the network. On the west coast, this fall will happen in Q2, 2010 and will be slightly less dramatic. The World Cup in 2010 will be a welcome boost to growth for South Africa and is allowing it to put in place key infrastructure. The only question is: will it be finished on time? - The hardest part to read is the sheer irrationality of financial markets: the kind of cold sweat fear that's been gripping the markets in the North does not always relate to fundamentals but it may convey itself South. Asia is already anticipating the worst. But this will probably only happen if the global crisis keeps extending and there is a feeling that Government money simply won’t contain the difficulties. Everything hangs on that difficult word confidence. So hang on to your hat because it may get bumpy….

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[Fwd: [AfrICANN-discuss] Vint Cerf warns on IPv6 uptake]
by alice 23 Oct '08

23 Oct '08

Vint Cerf warns on IPv6 uptake You have until mid-2010, says Google sage. Mikael Ricknäs, IDG News Service 21 October 2008 The Internet will get support for IPv6, a more secure domain name system and international characters, during the next couple of years, according to Vint Cerf, chief Internet evangelist at Google. "This year and the next year are probably the most significant years for Internet's evolution that I can remember," said Cerf, who was one of the keynote speakers at the Internetdagarna (The Internet Days) conference in Stockholm. The biggest change is the move to IPv6, which will give the Internet a much larger address space and ensure future growth. The current estimate is that the number of IPv4 addresses that can be allocated will be exhausted around the middle of 2010, according to Cerf. "It's slowly entering into the network, but people haven't felt very much pressure up until now to implement it," said Cerf. But the deadline is coming closer, and it's becoming more apparent to many people that it's time to start implementing IPv6 in parallel with IPv4, according to Cerf. Besides its 128-bit address space, IPv6 has other benefits. "One of them is that if the other side says I need to go into encrypted mode you are supposed to comply with that, it's optional in IPv4," said Cerf. There are also some problems, the network management tools are for example not yet as mature the ones for IPv4, according to Cerf. He says the current lack of addresses, and the IPv4 32-bit address space, is his fault. "My only defence is that decision was made in 1977, at a time when it was uncertain if the Internet would work," said Cerf, and adding that a 128-bit address space seemed excessive back then. But IPv6 isn't the only project that will keep the industry busy. The implementation of domain name system security using DNSSEC (Domain Name System Security Extensions) has also got off the ground. "The idea here is to improve the assurance that when you do a domain name hookup you get back the IP address that was intended, as opposed to something that was modified by a hacker," said Cerf. If the DNSSEC is supposed to improve security on the Internet, the addition of internationalised domain names (the support for non-Latin character sets) is supposed to make it a more global place. Languages such as Arabic, Cyrillic, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and so on, will all become a part of the domain name systems vocabulary, according to Cerf. "This is a big change, because for the last 30 years the only thing you could use was Latin characters, and just the letters A though Z, digits 0 to 9 and a hyphen," said Cerf. There is still a lot to be done to make the Internet more useful than it is today. Broadcast and support for multihoming, which can make it convenient for users to have more than one ISP, are two areas where there is room for improvement, according to Cerf. "So we have lots of potential, new designs to add to the Internet to make it more functional and effective than it is today," said Cerf. This article was printed from Techworld : www.techworld.com <http://www.techworld.com/> The UK's infrastructure & network knowledge centre © 2008 : All rights reserved -- Anne-Rachel Inne _______________________________________________ AfrICANN mailing list AfrICANN(a)afrinic.net https://lists.afrinic.net/mailman/listinfo.cgi/africann

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Re: [kictanet] Kenya’s Banks ask for regulation on Mobile Money Transfers
by John Maina 22 Oct '08

22 Oct '08

Lizette and wainaina Banks in this country never invest in innovation. They invest on alot of research but never innovation. Where were they when Safaricom was researching and investing on technology? regulatingg MPESA will be so catastrophic. It should just be policed but not regulated and I believe thaat if at all Bw. Njuguna and PS. Ndemo are going to fall for the tricks of these banks then we are in for intersting times. Banks must invest in innovation and they can easily get to Kenyan universities and sponsors competitions which will bring very much good results. JM ----- Original Message ---- From: Lizette Kraft <lfkraft(a)gmail.com> To: j.maina(a)ymail.com Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke> Sent: Tuesday, October 21, 2008 2:26:29 PM Subject: Re: [kictanet] Kenya’s Banks ask for regulation on Mobile Money Transfers Hey what's up with these Banks who give their customers a real raw deal anyway!! The banks have never done anything for the people other than use them! Now they want to crush the one system that helps and allows the rich and the poor and marginalised to send funds without having to pay the drastic fees the banks charge. Everytime there is something that works for the masses and not just the priviledged there is an uproar to defeat the purpose!! The banks need the competition so they can learn to respect all. People in business in Kenya have for too long ripped off the wanainchi and they will have to learn to respect the consumers. Good on CBK not to agree bring M-Pesa and the like under their ACT. It shouldn't be allowed to operate without rules and regulations of course, to protect peoples money but we should do all possible to help technology take root that can help the people. My opinion entirely! On 10/18/08, alice <alice(a)apc.org> wrote: (From Balancing Act) Kenya's Banks ask for regulation on Mobile Money Transfers The banking fraternity is crying foul over what it described as unfair and increasing competition from money transfer operators. The industry says the operators are enjoying privileges similar to those extended to deposit taking institutions despite not being covered by the same regulatory regime. "Currently, there is no legal framework within which these entities provide their services despite behaving like current account institutions," says John Wanyela, executive director of the Kenya Bankers Association. "If these operators want to join the financial sector, they have to be properly licensed." The bankers are calling on the government to subject the services to prudential regulations "for robust and secure movement of funds across the economy." Under the proposed guideline, the services will have to be supervised by a specialised financial regulatory authority that will oversee their financial soundness and stability. Currently, the two leading mobile phone service providers - Zain and Safaricom - are offering money-transfer services in the country under Sokotele and M-Pesa brands respectively. Like other deposit takers, the bankers association wants the mobile cash transfer operators restricted on how much deposits they can take. To avert undue competition with the banking fraternity, Wanyela says, M-Pesa and Sokotele services have to meet the capitalisation requirement as stipulated in the Banking Act. According to the Act, a deposit taking institution should maintain a minimum capitalisation of Ksh250 million ($3.5 million). This is however expected to double come December next year before hitting Ksh1 billion ($14.2 million) by 2010 after capitalisation requirements were amended in this financial year's budget. The bankers also say the "digital money" has implications for the conduct of monetary policy by the Central Bank of Kenya. To control inflation levels in the country, CBK continuously monitors the amount of money in circulation, mainly in the hands of people and commercial banks. With the monies in circulation, CBK is in a position to maintain a reserve money target and, therefore, intervene to control inflation. Observers say it is this huge amount of money circulating electronically that has defeated CBK in the fight against inflation. Wanyela says it is time the government stepped in to ensure M-Pesa and Sokotele services are regulated before "something goes wrong." Debate has been rife on who should regulate the mobile phone money transfer operators, with some arguing that the CBK should be party to the issuance of guidelines as "part of M-Pesa and Sokotele services fall under the national payments system." Fundamentally, the two mobile operations are guided by the Communications Commission of Kenya. Early last month, CBK said it had no intention of bringing the mobile cash transfer services under the Banking Act. It claimed that treating the money transfer services under the Act may impede competition in sector that is still at its infancy in a country whose majority population has limited access to financial services. Safaricom statistics show that as at the end of the first quarter of this year, more than Ksh3.1 billion ($44.2 million) had been transferred. From its launch in March 2007 till May this year, the service has facilitated the transfer of more than Ksh23.77 billion ($339.5 million). (Source: The East African) For further information on mobile payments in Africa purchase Balancing Act's report "M-Money - Finances, Banking and Payments through mobile phones" _______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet This message was sent to: lfkraft(a)gmail.com Unsubscribe or change your options at http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/lfkraft%40gmail.com -- Lizette Kraft P.O. Box 18488, 00500 Nairobi, Kenya Cell: 0722-800362

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Fwd: Official Invitation Letter from Chinese Government
by waudo siganga 22 Oct '08

22 Oct '08

This could interest some collegaues, particularly those in BPO On Wed, 22 Oct 2008 17:15:20 +0800, "AP-SUMMIT " <admin(a)ap-summit.org> sa id: Dear sir or madam, We are honored to extend to you our cordial invitation to: The 2^nd Global Outsourcing Summit (2008) Date: 4^th Dec, 2008-6^th Dec, 2008 Venue: Yuda Palace Hotel, Zhengzhou City, Henan Province, China Theme: Global Outsourcings Role in Promoting the Prosperity of World Eco nomy Organizers: Asia-Pacific CEO Association (APCEO) Zhengzhou Municipal Peoples Government, P.R. China International Outsourcing Center (IOC) The 4^TH International Cooperation Summit for CEOs ??Provincial Governors and Mayors Special Investment Project: Reconstructing Sichuan with the Help of International Business Community Date: 7^th Dec, 2008-9^th Dec, 2008 Venue: InterContinental Hotel, Chengdu City, Sichuan Province, China Organizers: Asia-Pacific CEO Association (APCEO) Chengdu Municipal Peoples Government, P.R. China Topics: l Strategic thinking on the variable aspects of the Global econom y l Global industrial Transfer & Innovation throughout World Econom ies l Reconstructing Sichuan with the help of international business community The Municipal Government and People of Zhengzhou Welcome You! The Municipal Government and People of Chengdu Welcome You! Respectfully yours: ZHAO Jiancai, Mayor of Zhengzhou City GE Honglin, Mayor of Chengdu City Organizing Committee of the Global Outsourcing Summit (GOS) Organizing Committee of the International Cooperation Summit for CEOs ?Pr ovincial Governors and Mayors (ICS) NOTE: The governmental support to the attendees: · No participation fee will be charged; · Free hotel accommodation and meals during the conferences; · Complimentary shuttle bus for attendees will run from International Air port to the conference location and the hotels; · Free translation service and match service. ** If for any reason you are unable to come to the summit, we would appre ciate that you extend our invitation to others in your organization who might be able to attend in your stead .** Liaison Person: Barbteana Deng Organizing Committee of ICS & GOS Tel: +86-10-64987220 Fax: +86-10-64973173 Mobile: +86 13381370016 Website: [1]www.ap-summit.org [2]www.ioutsourcing.org/gos/ Address: D1-18 Floor, Sunshine Plaza, No.68, Anli Road, Chaoyang District , Beijing 100101, P.R. China References Visible links 1. http://www.ap-summit.org/ 2. http://www.ioutsourcing.org/gos/ Hidden links: 3. http://www.ioem.org/gos Men trip not not mountains, the stumble on stones - Chinese Proverb

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[Fwd: [i-network Uganda] Wall Street Simplified]
by alice 21 Oct '08

21 Oct '08

a look at the current financial situation with a light touch....from Uganda -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [i-network] Wall Street Simplified Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2008 15:14:20 +0300 From: Stephen S. Musoke <smusoke(a)infoma.com> Reply-To: I-Network Uganda <i-network(a)dgroups.org> To: I-Network Uganda <i-network(a)dgroups.org> If you have difficulty understanding the current world financial situation, the following should help... Once upon a time in a village in India, a man announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10. The villagers seeing there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest and started catching them. The man bought thousands at $10, but, as the supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their efforts. The man further announced that he would now buy at $20. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again. Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to their farms. The offer rate increased to $25 and the supply of monkeys became so little that it was an effort to even see a monkey, let alone catch it! The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at $50! However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would now act as buyer, on his behalf. In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers: 'Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has collected. I will sell them to you at $35 and when he returns from the city, you can sell them back to him for $50.' The villagers squeezed together their savings and bought all the monkeys. Then they never saw the man or his assistant again, only monkeys everywhere! Welcome to WALL STREET. Stephen The I-Network Dgroup is a platform for ICT Knowledge Sharing:- Dgroups is a joint initiative of Bellanet, DFID, Hivos, ICA, ICCO, IICD, OneWorld, UNAIDS and World Bank:-You are currently subscribed to subst('i-network(a)dgroups.org') as: alice(a)apc.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-i-network-1222184T(a)dgroups.org

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Kenya’s Banks ask for regulation on Mobile Money Transfers
by alice 21 Oct '08

21 Oct '08

(From Balancing Act) Kenya’s Banks ask for regulation on Mobile Money Transfers The banking fraternity is crying foul over what it described as unfair and increasing competition from money transfer operators. The industry says the operators are enjoying privileges similar to those extended to deposit taking institutions despite not being covered by the same regulatory regime. "Currently, there is no legal framework within which these entities provide their services despite behaving like current account institutions," says John Wanyela, executive director of the Kenya Bankers Association. "If these operators want to join the financial sector, they have to be properly licensed." The bankers are calling on the government to subject the services to prudential regulations "for robust and secure movement of funds across the economy." Under the proposed guideline, the services will have to be supervised by a specialised financial regulatory authority that will oversee their financial soundness and stability. Currently, the two leading mobile phone service providers - Zain and Safaricom - are offering money-transfer services in the country under Sokotele and M-Pesa brands respectively. Like other deposit takers, the bankers association wants the mobile cash transfer operators restricted on how much deposits they can take. To avert undue competition with the banking fraternity, Wanyela says, M-Pesa and Sokotele services have to meet the capitalisation requirement as stipulated in the Banking Act. According to the Act, a deposit taking institution should maintain a minimum capitalisation of Ksh250 million ($3.5 million). This is however expected to double come December next year before hitting Ksh1 billion ($14.2 million) by 2010 after capitalisation requirements were amended in this financial year's budget. The bankers also say the "digital money" has implications for the conduct of monetary policy by the Central Bank of Kenya. To control inflation levels in the country, CBK continuously monitors the amount of money in circulation, mainly in the hands of people and commercial banks. With the monies in circulation, CBK is in a position to maintain a reserve money target and, therefore, intervene to control inflation. Observers say it is this huge amount of money circulating electronically that has defeated CBK in the fight against inflation. Wanyela says it is time the government stepped in to ensure M-Pesa and Sokotele services are regulated before "something goes wrong." Debate has been rife on who should regulate the mobile phone money transfer operators, with some arguing that the CBK should be party to the issuance of guidelines as "part of M-Pesa and Sokotele services fall under the national payments system." Fundamentally, the two mobile operations are guided by the Communications Commission of Kenya. Early last month, CBK said it had no intention of bringing the mobile cash transfer services under the Banking Act. It claimed that treating the money transfer services under the Act may impede competition in sector that is still at its infancy in a country whose majority population has limited access to financial services. Safaricom statistics show that as at the end of the first quarter of this year, more than Ksh3.1 billion ($44.2 million) had been transferred. From its launch in March 2007 till May this year, the service has facilitated the transfer of more than Ksh23.77 billion ($339.5 million). (Source: The East African) For further information on mobile payments in Africa purchase Balancing Act’s report “M-Money - Finances, Banking and Payments through mobile phones”

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ICANN Posts Draft Implementation Plan for the Add Grace Period (AGP) Limits Policy
by alice 21 Oct '08

21 Oct '08

http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-20oct08-en.htm ICANN Posts Draft Implementation Plan for the Add Grace Period (AGP) Limits Policy ICANN is today opening a public comment period on the draft implementation plan for the AGP Limits Policy. http://www.icann.org/en/tlds/agp-draft-20oct08-en.html This recently approved consensus policy is intended to limit the behavior known as domain tasting through modifications to the AGP. The Policy will affect gTLD Operators (hereinafter referred to as "Operators") and ICANN-accredited registrars (hereinafter referred to as "Registrars") and become effective following appropriate comment and notice periods on the implementation plan. On 26 June 2008, at its meeting in Paris, the ICANN Board resolved http://www.icann.org/en/minutes/resolutions-26jun08.htm#_Toc76113173 to adopt the GNSO recommendation on domain tasting. Following implementation of the Policy, Operators will be prohibited from making refunds of registration fees to Registrars for AGP deletes that exceed the threshold limits set by the Policy unless an exemption has been granted by an Operator. The limits defined by the Policy are (i) 10% of that Registrar's net new registrations ( calculated as the total number of net adds of one-year through ten-year registrations as defined in Operator Agreements) in that month, or (ii) fifty (50) domain names, whichever is greater. The draft implementation plan details how this Policy will be implemented. Comments on the proposed AGP Limits Policy implementation may be submitted to agp-limits-policy(a)icann.org and will be considered until 20 November 2008 23:59 UTC. Comments may be viewed at http://forum.icann.org/lists/agp-limits-policy/. Glen de Saint Géry GNSO Secretariat gnso.secretariat(a)gnso.icann.org http://gnso.icann.org _______________________________________________ AfrICANN mailing list AfrICANN(a)afrinic.net https://lists.afrinic.net/mailman/listinfo.cgi/africann

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