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IDLELO 4 conference registration
by Judy Okite 18 Mar '10

18 Mar '10

Dear All, Apologies for cross posting..... if you are planning to attend the IDLELO 4 Conference meeting that will be held in Ghana, from 17-21st May 2010. Kindly register online for logistical purposes. http://idlelo.net/ *About IDLELO Conference:* * * *IDLELO** is one event for FOSS practitioners, developers and advocates as well as governments to showcase results, share experiences and challenges, review progress on the continent in diverse domains and chart a way forward for an African future grounded in true ownership of technology.** * * * *IDLELO** is therefore a premier international forum for the presentation of research results in Free and Open Source Software(FOSS) in Africa.* * * *The **IDLELO** Conference offers a real opportunity to discuss new issues, tackle complex problems and find advanced enabling solutions able to shape new trends in FOSS and related technologies on the African continent.* Kind Regards, -- “To live is to choose. But to choose well, you must know who you are and what you stand for, where you want to go and why you want to get there.” Kofi Annan

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3 main barriers to Broadband Adoption: affordability, digital literacy, and relevance - Could this be the Kenyan case, what can we learn from this..?
by Harry Delano 17 Mar '10

17 Mar '10

I guess, from such valuable and rich case studies, we can adopt and build up a National Broadband Model of our own.. Harry FCC: Cost a major barrier to broadband adoption By Marguerite Reardon February 23, 2010 11:19 a.m. EST Affordability is one of the main reasons why nearly one-third of Americans do not have broadband at home, a recent Federal Communications Commission survey found. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski plans to discuss the findings during a speech at the Brookings Institute on Tuesday. About 93 million Americans do not have broadband Internet access at home. In an effort to get these Americans connected to the Net, Congress has called on the FCC to develop a national broadband plan that will detail a strategy for getting them connected to affordable, high-speed broadband. The FCC will deliver its plan to Congress on March 17. In order to understand what is keeping many Americans from subscribing to broadband, the FCC conducted a consumer survey of over 5,000 American adults in late 2009. The survey identified three main barriers to adoption: affordability, digital literacy, and relevance. About 36 percent of the 28 million adults who said they don't subscribe to broadband at home said that the monthly fee for broadband was is too expensive, they can't afford a computer, or the installation fee is too high. About 22 percent, or 17 million adults, indicated that they do not subscribe to broadband at home because they lack the digital skills or are afraid of the potential hazards of being online. And 19 percent, or 15 million people, said they don't have broadband Internet at home because they simply don't see a need for it. The FCC's task force developing the broadband plan suspected a few months ago before results of the survey had been completed that cost and lack of digital skills were crucial factors in broadband adoption. The recent findings bolster those earlier assumptions. The cost of broadband service is likely to be a major barrier for low-income families. And it is likely to explain why a disproportionate number of people in lower income families have access to broadband at home. According to the survey, 40 percent of people who live in households where income is $20,000 per year or less have broadband at home, while 91 percent of people living in households where the income is more than $75,000 per year have broadband at home. Chairman Genachowski said that getting these individuals connected to the Net is crucial to the future of the country. "We need to tackle the challenge of connecting 93 million Americans to our broadband future," he said in a statement. "In the 21st century, a digital divide is an opportunity divide. To bolster American competitiveness abroad and create the jobs of the future here at home, we need to make sure that all Americans have the skills and means to fully participate in the digital economy." But getting people connected won't be easy even once the barriers have been identified. In terms of cost, it's not clear how low prices would have to go to spur significant adoption. On average, Americans pay about $40 a month for broadband service. In some areas of the country, the cost is higher and in some places it is lower. Price also varies depending on the speed of the connection and whether that connection is bundled with other services. The FCC said many people who cited price as a barrier were reluctant to answer follow-up questions about how much they were willing to pay for service. Of the people who did answer, the survey found that responses varied from $10 to $20 to $25 a month for service. But when experts analyzed the data about how many people would actually likely sign up for service if prices were dropped to $10 or $20 a month, adoption rates only picked up slightly. If prices dropped to $20, experts said that would likely only change adoption by 6 percentage points. And a $10 price tag would only change it by about 8 percentage points. What this means is that cutting prices alone will probably not have a major effect on broadband adoption. But lowering prices on service, coupled with adding programs that teach people the digital skills they need to access the Net while also educating them on how the Internet can enhance their lives, could have a substantial effect.

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nancy bosire requests anonymous contacts sharing
by nancy bosire 16 Mar '10

16 Mar '10

Hi KICTAnet, Just a reminder, I'd like to add you to my email network on Boxbe. Here's the link: https://www.boxbe.com/register?tc=1971527089_856964628 Thanks, nancy Please do not reply directly to this email. This message was sent at the request of bozaya(a)gmail.com. Boxbe will not use your email address for any other purpose. Click the link below if you would prefer not to receive any further invitations from Boxbe members: https://www.boxbe.com/[email protected]&tc=19… Boxbe integrates with Yahoo!, Gmail, Google Apps, and AOL. Get Boxbe today! Boxbe, Inc. | 2390 Chestnut Street #201 | San Francisco, CA 94123

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South Africans choose dot ZA ahead of dot com, market survey reveals
by michael Ouma 16 Mar '10

16 Mar '10

Hi all: i think this is interesting. How about our own “.ke,” how do we fare as relates to being patriotic and proud of our ‘own’? Please read below: South Africans choose dot ZA ahead of dot com, market survey reveals (also follow via this link http://mybroadband.co.za/news/internet/11791.html) The recently completed “dot ZA market survey” of the dot ZA Domain Name Authority (ZADNA) shows that South African businesses and people prefer to use co.za to dot com. This is the result of an intensive market survey which began in November 2009 and involved thousands of online and telephone interviews with .za domain name holders (registrants), business people and non-profit entities. It was concluded in late February this year. ZADNA intended to use the survey to better understand the dot ZA market and in particular to ascertain what improvements were needed to make dot ZA more attractive and so better serve the interests of South African organisations. According to Vika Mpisane, the GM of ZADNA, “the research results are very important as they provide answers to most of the questions we and our stakeholders had about improving the .za space. These answers clarify what interventions ZADNA or its stakeholders need to make to improve ZADNA.” What was very noticeable from the results is that 83% of South African businesses choose to use co.za for their online presence. This effectively means only around 15% of local businesses confirmed having dot Com website names. When asked if they considered having both co.za and dot Com names was necessary, 58% of businesses interviewed answered “yes”. “This must be put into a correct perspective: the perceived need for registering your product and brand names across multiple domains results from the ever-increasing instances of trademark abuse online. To counter the potential for such abuse, a growing number of local and international businesses now register in as many domains as possible.” The survey also shows that dot Com still ranks better than the rest of other dot ZA domains, such as org.za and gov.za. This is understandable because the rest of dot ZA domains are more focused on a smaller communities and sectors. Providing an example, Mpisane said: “The growth of gov.za will always be limited as government and its organisations cannot be expected to grow as radically as business organisations, plus some government entities, such as parastatals and municipalities, register their website names in co.za and dot Com, instead of gov.za.” What the survey results also show is that most South Africans are patriotic and loyal to South Africa when they choose their online presence. Fifty percent of the interviewees chose this as the main factor influencing their choice, while affordability of dot ZA domain names came second. Pitting co.za against dot Com, 83% of the interviewees chose co.za ahead of dot Com as giving them superiority locally. Co.za also outscored dot Com by a great margin when it comes to affordability of registration – 93% chose co.za here – and 75% percent felt that co.za gives their business most online credibility. Probably as expected, dot Com outscored co.za when it comes to global appeal. Most Internet service providers (ISPs) and registrants felt that the process of registering dot ZA domain names should be made easier by automation. “The need for more automation can never be over-emphasised, and ZADNA will answer this through the licensing of dot ZA domain registries (i.e. operators of domain name databases) and registrars (i.e. ISPs registering domain names), and the introduction of a central registry that can standardise such automation across most .za domains.” The survey also tested South Africans’ awareness of the new generic (i.e. non-country specific) domain names that ICANN, the entity managing the global Internet domain name and IP numbering systems, is planning to introduce in due course. Most South Africans are not aware of such plans, but ISPs showed substantial awareness (at 44%), as expected because they are the entities that sell domain name registration services. Interviewees were asked about introduction of new 2nd level domains such as city or region-specific domains. When tested on this, respondents felt that city-specific domains were not as attractive as they could because of the potential for changing city and region names in South Africa. There was also very little enthusiasm shown for registering names directly under dot ZA (i.e. yourname.za instead of yourname.org.za) and for introducing biz.za to compete with co.za. “The feeling is that allowing registrations of names directly under dot ZA will lead to a potential for abuse of trademarks and brands. It will lead to an unnecessary cost as a result of putting measures in place to try and protect known brands, something which sometimes may be quite a challenge to do”, says Mpisane. What the results showed was that mobi.za, fam.za (for families) and shop.za (for retailers) were seen as potentially the most attractive additional options. Music.za also showed support by some. In the light of attempts by some Western Internet companies to apply to ICANN to open up new top level domains using local city names, such as dot Joburg, dot Durban and dot Zulu, the respondents overwhelmingly felt that South Africa did not need to have multiple identities online. “ZADNA is aware of frantic attempts by non-South African Internet companies to abuse local city, heritage and tribal names as new top level domains. This survey shows that not only are such attempts unfounded, but they go right against the feeling of South Africans. South Africans are happy with dot ZA as their online identity. Any attempts by non-South Africans to give us multiple online identities, without support of the South African population, are baseless and driven by greed and ambition for profit”, says Mpisane. /// The recently completed “dot ZA market survey” of the dot ZA Domain Name Authority (ZADNA) shows that South African businesses and people prefer to use co.za to dot com. This is the result of an intensive market survey which began in November 2009 and involved thousands of online and telephone interviews with .za domain name holders (registrants), business people and non-profit entities. It was concluded in late February this year. ZADNA intended to use the survey to better understand the dot ZA market and in particular to ascertain what improvements were needed to make dot ZA more attractive and so better serve the interests of South African organisations. According to Vika Mpisane, the GM of ZADNA, “the research results are very important as they provide answers to most of the questions we and our stakeholders had about improving the .za space. These answers clarify what interventions ZADNA or its stakeholders need to make to improve ZADNA.” What was very noticeable from the results is that 83% of South African businesses choose to use co.za for their online presence. This effectively means only around 15% of local businesses confirmed having dot Com website names. When asked if they considered having both co.za and dot Com names was necessary, 58% of businesses interviewed answered “yes”. “This must be put into a correct perspective: the perceived need for registering your product and brand names across multiple domains results from the ever-increasing instances of trademark abuse online. To counter the potential for such abuse, a growing number of local and international businesses now register in as many domains as possible.” The survey also shows that dot Com still ranks better than the rest of other dot ZA domains, such as org.za and gov.za. This is understandable because the rest of dot ZA domains are more focused on a smaller communities and sectors. Providing an example, Mpisane said: “The growth of gov.za will always be limited as government and its organisations cannot be expected to grow as radically as business organisations, plus some government entities, such as parastatals and municipalities, register their website names in co.za and dot Com, instead of gov.za.” What the survey results also show is that most South Africans are patriotic and loyal to South Africa when they choose their online presence. Fifty percent of the interviewees chose this as the main factor influencing their choice, while affordability of dot ZA domain names came second. Pitting co.za against dot Com, 83% of the interviewees chose co.za ahead of dot Com as giving them superiority locally. Co.za also outscored dot Com by a great margin when it comes to affordability of registration – 93% chose co.za here – and 75% percent felt that co.za gives their business most online credibility. Probably as expected, dot Com outscored co.za when it comes to global appeal. Most Internet service providers (ISPs) and registrants felt that the process of registering dot ZA domain names should be made easier by automation. “The need for more automation can never be over-emphasised, and ZADNA will answer this through the licensing of dot ZA domain registries (i.e. operators of domain name databases) and registrars (i.e. ISPs registering domain names), and the introduction of a central registry that can standardise such automation across most .za domains.” The survey also tested South Africans’ awareness of the new generic (i.e. non-country specific) domain names that ICANN, the entity managing the global Internet domain name and IP numbering systems, is planning to introduce in due course. Most South Africans are not aware of such plans, but ISPs showed substantial awareness (at 44%), as expected because they are the entities that sell domain name registration services. Interviewees were asked about introduction of new 2nd level domains such as city or region-specific domains. When tested on this, respondents felt that city-specific domains were not as attractive as they could because of the potential for changing city and region names in South Africa. There was also very little enthusiasm shown for registering names directly under dot ZA (i.e. yourname.za instead of yourname.org.za) and for introducing biz.za to compete with co.za. “The feeling is that allowing registrations of names directly under dot ZA will lead to a potential for abuse of trademarks and brands. It will lead to an unnecessary cost as a result of putting measures in place to try and protect known brands, something which sometimes may be quite a challenge to do”, says Mpisane. What the results showed was that mobi.za, fam.za (for families) and shop.za (for retailers) were seen as potentially the most attractive additional options. Music.za also showed support by some. In the light of attempts by some Western Internet companies to apply to ICANN to open up new top level domains using local city names, such as dot Joburg, dot Durban and dot Zulu, the respondents overwhelmingly felt that South Africa did not need to have multiple identities online. “ZADNA is aware of frantic attempts by non-South African Internet companies to abuse local city, heritage and tribal names as new top level domains. This survey shows that not only are such attempts unfounded, but they go right against the feeling of South Africans. South Africans are happy with dot ZA as their online identity. Any attempts by non-South Africans to give us multiple online identities, without support of the South African population, are baseless and driven by greed and ambition for profit”, says Mpisane. /// Michael Ouma Journalist Kenya Tel:+254-725-537823 "Do not go where the path may lead, but go instead where there is no path and leave a trail," - Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Nethope Chairman Blogging from Member conference at Safari Park
by Paul Kukubo 16 Mar '10

16 Mar '10

Listers Here below please find a link to the Blog of Nethope's (nethope.org) Chairman Ed Granger-Harp. He was blogging from Safari Park Hotel where the Global Member Summit of Nethope is taking place. http://www.eghapp.blogspot.com/ Paul Kukubo Chief Executive Officer, Kenya ICT Board PO Box 27150 - 00100 Nairobi, Kenya 12th Floor, Teleposta Towers Koinange Street Tel +254 20 2089061, +254 20 2211960 Fax: +254 20 2211962 website: www.ict.go.ke local content project: www.tandaa.co.ke, www.facebook.com/tandaakenya twitter:@tandaaKENYA BPO Project: www. doitinkenya.co.ke Digital Villages Project: www.pasha.co.ke personal contacts _______________ Cell: + 254 735 180001 skype: kukubopaul googletalk: pkukubo personal blog: www.paulkukubo.co.ke personal twitter: @pkukubo ____________________ Vision: Kenya becomes a top ten global ICT hub Mission: To champion and actively enable Kenya to adopt and exploit ICT, through promotion of partnerships, investments and infrastructure growth for socio economic enrichment

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Africa¹s Gift to Silicon Valley - How to Track a Crisis
by Harry Hare 16 Mar '10

16 Mar '10

Interesting read....kudos Ory, Erik and the rest of the gang...²America is now looking for solutions from Kenya,² interesting concept. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/14/weekinreview/14giridharadas.html Kindest Regards Harry African eDevelopment Resource Centre eDevelopment House : : 604 Limuru Road Old Muthaiga : : P O Box 49475 00100 Nairobi : : Kenya T +254 20 3741646/7 : : C +254 725 650044 Training : : Research: :Consultancy: : Publishing

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FW: U.S. to roll out major broadband policy
by Pamela 16 Mar '10

16 Mar '10

Hi Listers, Thought this was an interesting read....wasnt sure if we have touched on this bit of regulation here yet (CCK). Pamela By John Poirier and Sinead Carew John Poirier And Sinead Carew - Sun Mar 14, 8:34 pm ET http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100315/tc_nm/us_usa_broadband WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. regulators will announce a major Internet policy this week to revolutionize how Americans communicate and play, proposing a dramatic increase in broadband speeds that could let people download a high-definition film in minutes instead of hours. Dramatically increasing Internet speeds to 25 times the current average is one of the myriad goals to be unveiled in the National Broadband Plan by the the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday. The highly anticipated plan will make a series of recommendations to Congress and is aimed at spurring the ever-changing communications industry to bring more and faster online services to Americans as they increasingly turn to the Internet to communicate, pay monthly bills, make travel plans and be entertained by movies and music. "This is a fairly unique event," said Paul Gallant, an analyst with Concept Capital. "The FCC really has never been asked to design a broad regulatory shift like this. Broadband is important and difficult because it threatens every established communications sector." Some details of the plan have trickled out in the last few weeks including how to find spectrum to meet an anticipated explosion of handset devices capable of playing movies and music in addition to handling emails and voice calls. But some carriers like AT&T Inc and Qwest Communications International Inc were irked last month when the agency's chief, Julius Genachowski, announced that the FCC would propose in the plan a goal of 100 Mbps speeds to be in place at 100 million American homes in 10 years. The current average is less than 4 Mbps. In a sign of tension between the FCC and carriers, Qwest called it "a dream" and AT&T reacted by saying the FCC should resist calls for "extreme forms of regulation." Since the FCC announcement, Cisco Systems Inc announced it would introduce a router that can handle Internet traffic up to 12 times faster than rival products. Google Inc has also gotten in on the hype, saying it plans to build a super-fast Internet network to show that it can be done. The FCC has praised both announcements. The plans could also touch off tensions with television broadcasters, who will be asked to give up spectrum to wireless carriers who desperately need it for their mobile devices, such as the iPhone and Blackberry. The FCC plans to let them share in the profits of auctions structured to redistribute the spectrum. "We've developed a plan that is a real win-win for everyone involved and we have every expectation that it will work," Genachowski said in an interview with Reuters. "We've certainly heard from a number of broadcasters who told us they think this is a promising direction and are getting ready to roll up their sleeves with us," he said. The FCC also wants to make sure that anchor institutions -- government buildings, schools, libraries and healthcare facilities -- get speeds of about 1 gigabit per second by 2020. The full broadband plan is expected to be released at a Tuesday meeting among the FCC's five members who are expected to discuss the results and recommendations of the roadmap, which was mandated by Congress. Congress may have to pass legislation to enact some portions of the plan. FCC officials have said some of the goals are aspirational and should be viewed as a "living, breathing" document for the next decade in hopes of helping 93 million Americans without broadband get connected. ACHIEVABLE "It is both aspiration and achievable," Genachowski said. The Obama administration has touted the plan as a way to create jobs and make energy use more efficient. "It will be a call to action," said Blair Levin, who heads the FCC's broadband task force which has collected data and comments from the industry, academics and the public as well as from three dozen public workshops. The FCC has placed most of its attention on broadband policy which Darrell West, director of governance studies at the Brookings Institution, called "the signature issue" since Genachowski took over the helm in late June. "It means that broadband is going to drive other types of policy decisions and it really sets the parameters for telecommunications and new applications," West said. FCC officials have said that the plan will not take sides on technology or applications, but they want to lay the groundwork to spur innovation and job creation. Officials have said the plan will ask Congress to fund up to $16 billion to build an emergency public safety system. It would also tell lawmakers that a one-time injection of $9 billion could accelerate broadband reach to the 4 percent of Americans who do have access. Otherwise they could let the FCC carry out a 10-year plan to realign an $8 billion U.S. subsidy program for universal broadband access instead of universal phone access. Experts call the plan ambitious but question if the FCC, which plans to spin off a series of rule-making proposals linked to the plan, can realistically make good on its recommendations. "There's so little progress on this stuff in Washington," said Rob Atkinson, who heads the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. "I think Chairman Genachowski has a real opportunity to bring different warring interests under 50-75 percent of the plan." (Reporting by John Poirier and Sinead Carew, editing by Matthew Lewis) ---------------------------------------------- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by Jambo MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. --------------------------------------------- "easy access to the world"

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New CCK Site
by Rad! 16 Mar '10

16 Mar '10

I was pleasantly surprised to note that the CCK appears to have revamped their site. It certainly looks a bit cleaner (although it has clearly not been tested for all browsers). However I am very disappointed to note that they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by failing to properly implement a credible complaints form. This one -> http://www.cck.go.ke/consumers/complaints.html requires a bit more work If just two improvements are made the usefulness would improve in leaps and bounds PROBLEM: A system to report complaints without offering a means to track the same is just an avenue to frustrate users. SOLUTION: The system needs to assign a ticket to me immediately after I complain and allow me to key that in to track the status of my complaint so that I can know whether or not my complaint is being addressed and how far it has reached. PROBLEM: Why should i be asked the email address, town, & phone of the service providers? Why would I be expected to know any of this? SOLUTION: Given that all the providers register through CCK, they already have a comprehensive database of all providers and offered services. These can be presented as a drop down list for selection I am willing to volunteer my time to help the CCK improve this.

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3G My foot
by robert yawe 16 Mar '10

16 Mar '10

Hi, I had another horrible experience trying to work from home again this weekend after Safaricoms the 3G services was was unavailable in the South C and the edge service is literally the edge of the service I could not even refresh a yahoo mail page. Just out of curiosity was don't the mobile companies outsource their network optimization business to the level of having providers invest in the equipment in exchange for a share of revenue from the traffic that they pass through. As consumers we are charged based on utilisation so the mobile companies don't need to change their tariff structures to accommodate the booster and repeater providers. Hopefully after they have tested this model in the urban areas they can use the same model to better cover the rural areas. On the other front is the excessive advertising spend my Telkom on the issue of wired services, when are they likely to make this available outside the CBD as their are no copper cables in the residential areas or does Orange think that all our Nyumbas are in the CBD? Have a bandwidth available week Regards Robert Yawe KAY System Technologies Ltd Phoenix House, 6th Floor P O Box 55806 Nairobi, 00200 Kenya Tel: +254722511225, +254202010696

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Eric Brewer wins ACM-Infosys Award for contributions to highly scalable Internet services
by Brian Longwe 16 Mar '10

16 Mar '10

Congrats to Eric! Sent from my "HaiPhone" > > Announcement: http://www.acm.org/news/featured/acm-infosys-09 > > Press Release: http://www.acm.org/press-room/news-releases/2010/infosys-award-09 > >

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