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Wambui Kinya: Why I'm joining Mozilla's Board of Directors
by Josiah Mugambi 20 Feb '21

20 Feb '21

https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2021/02/18/why-im-joining-mozillas-board-of-d… -- Josiah Mugambi

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Safaricom changes to home fibre ToS
by Sidney Ochieng 19 Feb '21

19 Feb '21

Listers, Not sure if you've seen the stir online of changes to the ToS with Safaricom's home offering. Safaricom is destroying Home Fibre with new ‘Fair Usage’ Limits: https://tech-ish.com/2021/02/14/safaricom-is-destroying-home-fibre-with-new… The response from the company has been disappointing in the extreme, misleading with statistics and suggesting that it's best customers are thieves <https://twitter.com/Safaricom_Care/status/1360876964651929600>, never mind that working for home has lead to increased demand and use of their services. All this is beside the point, at least for this forum, what I'm concerned about this that if we didn't have an eagle-eyed blogger looking out for this, it would have been completely missed until it was already in place. So I have a few of questions: 1. Does the CA have any policies around ToS changes around services under their purview and how they are communicated to users? 2. Should companies that run what could be considered critical infrastructure be allowed to arbitrarily change their ToS to apply retroactively especially if it's to the detriment of their customers? 3. If customers choose not to accept a change in ToS what redress do they have given that perhaps the provider is the only one available in their area. 4. Finally, given that we know this could all be avoided if there was more competition in the fibre market, what is the CA doing to make it so that we have more competition in that area? It's concerning that Safaricom seems to only option for home connections in several places -- Regards, Sidney *Twitter:* @princelySid <https://twitter.com/princelySid> | *Web: * sidneyochieng.co.ke *Skype: *sidney.ochieng | *Github:* princelySid <https://github.com/princelySid>

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Re: [kictanet] kictanet Digest, Vol 156, Issue 69
by James Kimani 19 Feb '21

19 Feb '21

I would like to have a copy of the draft ICT Bill please. On Fri, Feb 19, 2021 at 10:02 AM <kictanet-request(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote: > Send kictanet mailing list submissions to > kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > kictanet-request(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke > > You can reach the person managing the list at > kictanet-owner(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of kictanet digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Re: ICT Practitioners Bill, call for comments/submissions to > the National Assembly (Wamathai (HapaKenya)) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Fri, 19 Feb 2021 09:58:41 +0300 > From: "Wamathai (HapaKenya)" <w(a)hapakenya.com> > To: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke> > Subject: Re: [kictanet] ICT Practitioners Bill, call for > comments/submissions to the National Assembly > Message-ID: > < > CACho9nM_3dNj+Qhx1Sw6Qnt09SMnjGYs-7wWGYnWRToNWZFVCA(a)mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > This thing has refused to die. > > On Fri, 19 Feb 2021, 09:52 David Indeje via kictanet, < > kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote: > > > [image: image.png] > > > > *Kind Regards,* > > > > *David Indeje * > > +254 (0) 711 385 945 | +254 (0) 734 024 856 > > _______________________________________________ > > kictanet mailing list > > kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke > > https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet > > Twitter: http://twitter.com/kictanet > > Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KICTANet/ > > > > Unsubscribe or change your options at > > https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/w%40hapakenya.com > > > > The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform > > for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and > > regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT > > sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and > development. > > > > KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors > > online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and > bandwidth, > > share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do > > not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications. > > >

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【Invitation】22 Feb MWC_Shanghai_2021 Forum“Connected for Shared Prosperity”
by Adam Lane 18 Feb '21

18 Feb '21

Hi listers MWC Shanghai is on next week, most of it can be viewed online and there are a lot of interesting sessions. Feel free to register and watch online. One that may be of interest includes the former Head of UN Kenya, now Head of UN China. Adam [cid:[email protected]]<https://carrier.huawei.com/en/events/mwcs2021/huawei-day0-forum/connected-f…> [cid:[email protected]]<https://carrier.huawei.com/en/events/mwcs2021/huawei-day0-forum/connected-f…> NOTE-Below times are for China,which is 5 hours ahead of Kenya [cid:[email protected]]<https://carrier.huawei.com/en/events/mwcs2021/huawei-day0-forum/connected-f…> [cid:[email protected]]<https://carrier.huawei.com/en/events/mwcs2021/huawei-day0-forum/connected-f…>

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Re: [kictanet] Safaricom changes to home fibre ToS
by Andrew Alston 18 Feb '21

18 Feb '21

Get Outlook for iOS<https://aka.ms/o0ukef> ________________________________ From: Andrew Alston <Andrew.Alston(a)liquidtelecom.com> Sent: Thursday, February 18, 2021 2:29:52 PM To: Odhiambo Washington <odhiambo(a)gmail.com> Subject: Re: [kictanet] Safaricom changes to home fibre ToS No - I said at scale - it has cost implications - and the more breakdown you want as per protocol the larger the cost implications. Anything can be done - the question is how the cost of doing it is born. Per user according is a lot cheaper than per protocol accounting - and relatively easy - per protocol accounting is complex and can be costly - it can be done - it’s a matter of making the economics work Again let me stress - anything can be done - given enough money - and the question is what costs are the users prepared to be eat to get that functionality Andrew Get Outlook for iOS<https://aka.ms/o0ukef> ________________________________ From: Odhiambo Washington <odhiambo(a)gmail.com> Sent: Thursday, February 18, 2021 1:44:57 PM To: Andrew Alston <Andrew.Alston(a)liquidtelecom.com> Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke> Subject: Re: [kictanet] Safaricom changes to home fibre ToS Andrew, in summary, you have just said that it's impractical (economically) to notify clients of their usage before the FUPs are applied - and @AHK is definitely coming back on your case for stating this :-) PS: I am on leave from this debate. :-) On Thu, 18 Feb 2021 at 13:30, Andrew Alston <Andrew.Alston(a)liquidtelecom.com<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Btw – in terms of sizing of the data – At 5.184 billion samples per month – if you are storing each sample as a 64bit float (which is common) – you are consuming 41 terabytes of data per month just in the sampling – excluding overhead to serialize the data and store it – storing for 12 months would be close to half a petabyte of uncompressed data unless you are doing rollup – then add redundancy x 2 – now you are up to 1.5 petabytes of disk space. Obviously there is compression that can be employed etc – the point is – this isn’t as simple as people are making out Andrew From: kictanet <kictanet-bounces+andrew.alston=liquidtelecom.com(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:[email protected]>> on behalf of Odhiambo Washington via kictanet <kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:[email protected]>> Date: Thursday, 18 February 2021 at 13:13 To: Andrew Alston <Andrew.Alston(a)liquidtelecom.com<mailto:[email protected]>> Cc: Odhiambo Washington <odhiambo(a)gmail.com<mailto:[email protected]>> Subject: Re: [kictanet] Safaricom changes to home fibre ToS @Victor Kapiyo<mailto:[email protected]> let me try and answer the question "How are users supposed to know they have reached or almost reached their limits? ISPs should provide this information to users" ISPs have (access to) systems that monitor all traffic. By monitor, I mean the systems are able to categorise the type of traffic and aggregate the bytes/MBs/GBs used. I think it is trivial for them to avail this information to the clients. The same way they throttle you once you hit the data cap, they can easily trigger an email to you when you reach N% (say 75%) of the FUPs data cap then you can decide on what to do. Question is - will they do it? Are they obliged to do it?? The example below is a graph that one ISP has of a client's usage. I have access to this via a web portal. Funnily, I never know about the existence of this web portal for years - because I probably did not read every letter and word of the T&Cs for the service - like who does that? :-) [cid:177b4bbae4c4cff311] On Thu, 18 Feb 2021 at 12:47, Victor Kapiyo via kictanet <kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Very interesting. How are users supposed to know they have reached or almost reached their limits? ISPs should provide this information to users. ISPs need to be held accountable for what they advertise e.g. a 20mbps connection, and be required to provide as such, and have a transparent mechanism for users to know what amount of data they're consuming. We might as well treat home fibre as we do data bundles, so that we always know our speed and consumption. How can a user dispute an 'unfair' FUP by an ISP if there's no independent way of verifying consumption? While i applaud Safcom for their transparency, which other ISPs should emulate, it's best practice for consumers to be provided with clear information of what they're purchasing at the time of contracting. As consumers, we always have the option to change providers, and have the freedom to contract. However, the playing field needs to be level. ISPs have an unfair advantage over their customers, who are the weaker party in these contracts. The Communications Authority should step in to protect the rights of consumers, and check these unfair trade practices which are being openly implemented by ISPs to the detriment of consumers. The silence of CA on this issue, is in my view is worrying. Victor On Thu, 18 Feb 2021, 11:54 geoffrey gitagia via kictanet, <kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: I barely watch 4k coz of bandwidth requirements , but my net consumption is usually around 300 GB , plus my only big B/W hog is CCTV backup for 2 cameras. On Thu, Feb 18, 2021 at 11:49 AM Andrew Alston via kictanet <kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Unless you’re watching more than 60 hours of tv a month – you won’t have a problem with Netflix 4k 😊 Andrew From: kictanet <kictanet-bounces+andrew.alston=liquidtelecom.com(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:[email protected]>> on behalf of tevin mwenda via kictanet <kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:[email protected]>> Date: Thursday, 18 February 2021 at 11:44 To: Andrew Alston <Andrew.Alston(a)liquidtelecom.com<mailto:[email protected]>> Cc: tevin mwenda <tevinmwenda(a)gmail.com<mailto:[email protected]>> Subject: Re: [kictanet] Safaricom changes to home fibre ToS Thank you very much for this debate. I am learning a lot on Fair Use Policy. I guess no more watching Netflix in 4K High definition. Kind Regards Tevin Mwenda Gitonga On Thu, Feb 18, 2021 at 11:07 AM Josiah Mugambi via kictanet <kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: My takeaway is that FUPs should be published as a requirement. Also don't torrent too much. On Thu, Feb 18, 2021 at 11:04 AM Barrack Otieno via kictanet <kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: @Ali Hussein<mailto:[email protected]> what if the Customer does not have sufficient Capacity to understand FUP, si unampea tu ajisomee na ajipange. By the way even fish can't come to a fisherman who doesnt have bait yet they are analogue ama namna gani? On Thu, Feb 18, 2021 at 10:59 AM Ali Hussein via kictanet <kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Andrew I do appreciate your very candid responses and of course, I wouldnt expect you to agree with my 'conspiracy theories' about data. The fact that you can't run away from is this:- Most ISPs run a Bait and switch sales operations machine. This a morally suspect sales tactic that lures customers in with specific claims about the quality or low prices on items that turn out to be unavailable in order to upsell them on a similar, pricier item. It is considered a form of retail sales fraud, though it takes place in other contexts. So, when you are selling me bandwidth, don't hide the FUP in T&Cs. Tell me to my face. Then I decide whether I'm ok with it or not. This is the biggest issue here. Not whether FUPs are done or not. Regards Ali Hussein Digital Transformation Tel: +254 713 601113 Twitter: @AliHKassim Skype: abu-jomo LinkedIn: http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim<http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim> Any information of a personal nature expressed in this email are purely mine and do not necessarily reflect the official positions of the organizations that I work with. On Thu, Feb 18, 2021 at 10:47 AM Andrew Alston <Andrew.Alston(a)liquidtelecom.com<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Safaricom did tell you about the FUP – unlike most ISP’s in the world that never disclose what those FUP’s are. Also – I’d be very careful about alleging that ISP’s are all looking at user data – particularly because it’s a patently false allegation that all data is analyzed on all links. Yes – some ISP’s probably do do that kinda DPI on every circuit – but it certainly isn’t the case for a large portion of them – because its not economically feasible to do it. Again, someone would have to pay for those analytics engines – and having written a significant amount of code to detect ddos attacks using pure packet headers (metadata) – I can tell you flatly that this belief that an ISP is sniffing every packet and analyzing it – is a conspiracy theory with very little basis in fact. To back this up – on a software based platform – the following is the processing pipeline for packet analytics of packet metadata 1. Receive the packet 2. Categorize the packet * By the Ethernet Protocol ID (IPv4, IPv6, possibly .1q tags) * By the Layer 4 Protocol byte (Specifically byte 9 of the IP header in V4 traffic) * Store the 32bit Source and Destination – combined with the Source and Destination port of the Layer 4 header dependent on if its UDP or TCP * Hash the whole lot and place it into a lookup table against the 5 way tuple. 1. Even if you vectorize that process – you are still looking at a coupla milliseconds per packet – times millions of packets a second. A modern server can do that kinda accounting at ~20gigabit/second if they bypass kernel which bloats things – but – they haven’t touched the data segment of the packet. 2. If you look at Cisco routers – if you do port mirroring – you are limited to mirroring the first 128 bytes of the packet – because the replication of anything beyond that kills performance, it can’t be done at line rate 3. If you look at Juniper routers – you can port mirror for analytics on the full packet – but at the cost of performance. 4. On hardware asic based routing – analytics such as you are referring to requires CPU punt – because the asics aren’t designed to do what you are proposing. A 10gig circuit can be running in excess of a million packets a second – even if you are vectorizing the packet processing – just analyzing the headers to categorize it – before you attempt to hash it and bucket it – requires a minimum of 100 instructions post packet receipt – add the hashing and bucketing – you’re looking at a few thousand instructions to the CPU *per packet* - add the payload analytics – this goes up by orders of magnitude – last I checked – ISP’s don’t have super computers lying around. If you want full DPI to the level of analytics you are proposing – you HAVE to analyze the full payload content of the packet – and while there are boxes that can do this – they cost *millions* (of dollars not KSH) – and ISP’s generally aren’t gonna spend that kinda money unless they have to – because the cost has to be passed to the users. Andrew From: Ali Hussein <ali(a)hussein.me.ke<mailto:[email protected]>> Date: Thursday, 18 February 2021 at 10:32 To: Andrew Alston <Andrew.Alston(a)liquidtelecom.com<mailto:[email protected]>> Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:[email protected]>> Subject: Re: [kictanet] Safaricom changes to home fibre ToS Andrew Wacha kizungu mingi (I think you are Kenyan enough to understand what I've just said). 😁 Let me put you on the spot. To come up with FUP's you already know whose doing what so that 'innocence' of telling us about privacy now is moot. You all use these tools to snoop on us. Period. Now do it for the benefit of the customer. Not yours. This is really very simple. You all are crying foul about costs blah blah...but when you were wooing us you didn't tell us about FUP... Do the right thing mate...Be on the right side of history. Regards Ali Hussein Digital Transformation Tel: +254 713 601113 Twitter: @AliHKassim Skype: abu-jomo LinkedIn: http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim<http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim> Any information of a personal nature expressed in this email are purely mine and do not necessarily reflect the official positions of the organizations that I work with. On Thu, Feb 18, 2021 at 10:19 AM Andrew Alston <Andrew.Alston(a)liquidtelecom.com<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Ali, I respectfully disagree – FUP’s have been apart of the Internet since day one since they protect the integrity of the networks as a whole. You have the option of buying an account without such an FUP – it just costs more – because someone has to cover the costs. Bandwidth doesn’t come free. This is the same reason why there are contention ratios (which I notice Safaricom also publishes). You refer to big data analytics – yet if I were to propose that an ISP actively sniff and analyze user traffic – you’d be screaming about violations of privacy – because the type of analytics you are talking about would require deep packet inspection at levels you don’t even want to contemplate. Let me be clear – you get what you pay for – and if every user decided to use their FUP allocated terabyte to its full capacity – for every 3240 users you would need a 10gigabit circuit – if every user ran at their maximum speeds on the 100mbit accounts – for every 100 users you would need a 10gigabit circuit. Trust me when I say – there is no world in which an ISP could afford to provide 10gigabit of bandwidth at a cost of effectively under $11k a month and still remain viable – which is what would happen if all those users maxed out. So – let me ask you – would you prefer that ALL the users be penalized with significantly higher prices – or would you prefer that people abide by what is fair (and what is in this case, a FUP that is 4 times the global average usage for home user accounts – which is just north of 250gigabytes of data a month on global average) Andrew From: Ali Hussein <ali(a)hussein.me.ke<mailto:[email protected]>> Date: Thursday, 18 February 2021 at 10:11 To: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:[email protected]>> Cc: Andrew Alston <Andrew.Alston(a)liquidtelecom.com<mailto:[email protected]>> Subject: Re: [kictanet] Safaricom changes to home fibre ToS Andrew Let me call this BS as it should be called. BS. Surely, of all people, you shouldn't be the one to justify FUP. I appreciate your honesty though. 😀 Here's a thought:- With all the tools available using Big Data and Analytics, aren't you all able to isolate the abusers and punish them instead of painting all of us with the same abuser tar brush? I think we are in the age of companies treating their customers with the respect they deserve and actually do right by them. What you have described is communal punishment. This is wrong and the regulator needs to take note. Regards Ali Hussein Digital Transformation Tel: +254 713 601113 Twitter: @AliHKassim Skype: abu-jomo LinkedIn: http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim<http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim> Any information of a personal nature expressed in this email are purely mine and do not necessarily reflect the official positions of the organizations that I work with. On Thu, Feb 18, 2021 at 8:13 AM Andrew Alston via kictanet <kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: I’ve hesitated to climb into this but – here goes anyway (everything written in personal capacity) Firstly – almost ALL ISP’s have FUP’s in some form or another – generally buried deep in the T&C’s – as someone stated to me – in the UK with certain ISP’s suddenly your line just gets slow and then when you call support you find yourself quietly diverted to the abuse department. The fact is that FUP’s are a necessary evil. 1. They prevent customers from reselling one account to multiple other parties while sharing it using NAT – which impacts the financial viability of the service and make its more expensive for everyone else in the end 2. ISP’s operate on contention ratios – if you do not impose some form of FUP – you either have to put up the price or the contention ratios are going to get out of whack – and everyone else is going to suffer. 3. Globally most home accounts use well shy of half a terabyte a month – a terabyte of data is a LOT of data for a single home So let’s just put some context in what a terabyte of data actually means – and I always use video as the prime gauge of this because it’s the easiest example. Your average Netflix 4k film runs at ~25mbit at absolute maximum if you are watching 4K on an HDR enabled TV. That’s 22.5 Gigabytes of data every 2 hours – if you watch one 4K 2 hour movie every single day for a month you will eat 675gigs of data. If we drop this to 1080p – which is far more common – you are using ~7 megabit of bandwidth – or 6.3gigs every 2 hours – if you watch 300 hours of 1080p content in a month – or 10 hours a day – you still haven’t hit that cap. Effectively – you could watch one 4K movie every day for a month – and still watch 150 40minute tv episodes in 1080p in a month – and have room to move. To look at it from another perspective – installation of something like Ubuntu Linux over the net – you could still over 400 machines on that kinda data load in a month. With regards to gaming – you may burn 100gig pulling down a game and game updates – but after that in game play you are using tiny amounts of bandwidth and could keep yourself playing easily for a month with space to spare. On Zoom calls – if you ran zoom 24 hours a day – for a month – you’d use less than 70% of that cap. Also – I might point out that the FUP’s slow your link down once you hit that cap – to a rate that is still useable if a little sluggish. Basically what I’m saying in all of this – Safaricom’s FUP and T&C’s to me seem perfectly reasonable and designed to protect the network – with the alternative being – the price goes up for everyone or everyone suffers because of the few when the network congests. Bandwidth aint free – and you can’t have it both ways – the product still has to make financial sense to both the consumer and the provider Andrew From: kictanet <kictanet-bounces+andrew.alston=liquidtelecom.com(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:[email protected]>> on behalf of Adam Lane via kictanet <kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:[email protected]>> Date: Thursday, 18 February 2021 at 07:36 To: Andrew Alston <Andrew.Alston(a)liquidtelecom.com<mailto:[email protected]>> Cc: Adam Lane <adam.lane(a)huawei.com<mailto:[email protected]>> Subject: Re: [kictanet] Safaricom changes to home fibre ToS There's a webinar on this topic today for those interested A Public Policy Discussion on #HomeFibre and #FairUsage Policies in Kenya. 🗓️ Thursday, 18th February 2021 🕜 12:00PM - 1:30PM Sign up here: 🔗 https://t.co/LdD11UVy8q<https://t.co/LdD11UVy8q> #LawyersHub #AfricaLawTech #ISP https://t.co/a5w9SUiAl6<https://t.co/a5w9SUiAl6> Speakers from CA, Safaricom, Liquid, KICTAnet, From:Beryl Aidi via kictanet <kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:[email protected]>> To:Adam Lane <adam.lane(a)huawei.com<mailto:[email protected]>> Cc:Beryl Aidi <bee.aidi(a)gmail.com<mailto:[email protected]>> Date:2021-02-18 05:57:28 Subject:Re: [kictanet] Safaricom changes to home fibre ToS Thank you Sidney for this. I don’t think Safaricom is being sincere in this fair usage limits. They promised that with Home Fibre one can stream, download or upload stuff without limits. All you do is pay your monthly subscription. Fair usage is a type of rationing that limits how much you can do when you had been promised that you can do whatever you want. To me this is going back on a promise. It’s reminiscent of the days of unlimited 3GB bundles on the dongle modem only for them to strike you with a fair usage notice. Are other networks doing the same? As the industry leader in the country, this is bound to influence other industry players to adopt the same standards and limits which is not good. Maybe it might be time to seek other options. Regards Beryl Sent from my iPad On 16 Feb 2021, at 9:47 PM, Mwendwa Kivuva via kictanet <kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Thanks Sidney for initiating this debate. On Tue, 16 Feb 2021 at 19:44, Sidney Ochieng via kictanet <kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Listers, Not sure if you've seen the stir online of changes to the ToS with Safaricom's home offering. Safaricom is destroying Home Fibre with new ‘Fair Usage’ Limits: https://tech-ish.com/2021/02/14/safaricom-is-destroying-home-fibre-with-new…<https://tech-ish.com/2021/02/14/safaricom-is-destroying-home-fibre-with-new…> The response from the company has been disappointing in the extreme, misleading with statistics and suggesting that it's best customers are thieves<https://twitter.com/Safaricom_Care/status/1360876964651929600>, never mind that working for home has lead to increased demand and use of their services. That tweet certainly does not call resellers thieves. It calls them resellers. All this is beside the point, at least for this forum, what I'm concerned about this that if we didn't have an eagle-eyed blogger looking out for this, it would have been completely missed until it was already in place. So I have a few of questions: 1. Does the CA have any policies around ToS changes around services under their purview and how they are communicated to users? CA has a consumer and public affairs department. Here is what they have to say about ToC ( CA/CPA/CEP/B/05/2014 ) https://ca.go.ke/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Consumer-Rights-and-Responsibil…<https://ca.go.ke/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Consumer-Rights-and-Responsibil…> Perhaps CA should update that information. It is 6 years old. But good information nevertheless. 1. Should companies that run what could be considered critical infrastructure be allowed to arbitrarily change their ToS to apply retroactively especially if it's to the detriment of their customers? I hope lawyers here can help us with this. 1. 2. If customers choose not to accept a change in ToS what redress do they have given that perhaps the provider is the only one available in their area. 3. Finally, given that we know this could all be avoided if there was more competition in the fibre market, what is the CA doing to make it so that we have more competition in that area? It's concerning that Safaricom seems to only option for home connections in several places Determined by the market and economic forces. Just the other day, Safaricom was not in the home fibre market. What they have provided are more options for consumers. Numbers are stubborn facts. Fixed data subscription is as follows: Data source CA, July -September 2020 period, page 19 https://ca.go.ke/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Sector-Statistics-Report-Q1-202…<https://ca.go.ke/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Sector-Statistics-Report-Q1-202…> Safaricom PLC 229,406 subscribers, 35.6% market share Wananchi Group (Kenya) Ltd* 202,237 subscribers , 31.4 35.6% market share Jamii Telecommunications Ltd 127,914 subscribers , 19.8 Poa % market share Internet Kenya Ltd 56,824 subscribers ,8.8% market share Mawingu Networks Ltd 11,087 subscribers, 1.7 % market share Internet Solutions Kenya Ltd 9,228 subscribers, 1.4 % market share Consumers are speaking with their wallets. As a policy discussion list, probably what we should be asking is what is the fair cost for certain broadband packages, and whether there is anything that can be really unlimited. Wearing my competent network engineer hat, I can tell you even at Safaricom, they don't have unlimited bandwidth. Bandwidth is a limited resource to the extent of the network devices, network media, and cost of acquiring and delivering that bandwidth to your edge device. Best Regards ______________________ Mwendwa Kivuva, Nairobi, Kenya https://www.linkedin.com/in/mwendwa-kivuva<https://www.linkedin.com/in/mwendwa-kivuva> _______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:[email protected]> https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet<https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet> Twitter: http://twitter.com/kictanet<http://twitter.com/kictanet> Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KICTANet/<https://www.facebook.com/KICTANet> Unsubscribe or change your options at https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/bee.aidi%40gmail.com<https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/bee.aidi%40gmail.com> The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development. KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth, share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications. _______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:[email protected]> https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet<https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet> Twitter: http://twitter.com/kictanet<http://twitter.com/kictanet> Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KICTANet/<https://www.facebook.com/KICTANet/> Unsubscribe or change your options at https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/info%40alyhussein.com<https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/info%40alyhussein.com> The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development. KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth, share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications. _______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:[email protected]> https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet<https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet> Twitter: http://twitter.com/kictanet<http://twitter.com/kictanet> Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KICTANet/<https://www.facebook.com/KICTANet/> Unsubscribe or change your options at https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/barrack%40kictanet.or…<https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/barrack%40kictanet.or…> The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development. KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth, share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications. -- Barrack Otieno Trustee Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTAnet) Skype:barrack.otieno +254721325277 https://www.linkedin.com/in/barrack-otieno-2101262b/<https://www.linkedin.com/in/barrack-otieno-2101262b> www.kictanet.or.ke<http://www.kictanet.or.ke> _______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:[email protected]> https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet<https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet> Twitter: http://twitter.com/kictanet<http://twitter.com/kictanet> Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KICTANet/<https://www.facebook.com/KICTANet/> Unsubscribe or change your options at https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/josiah.mugambi%40gmai…<https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/josiah.mugambi%40gmai…> The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development. KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth, share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications. -- Josiah Mugambi _______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:[email protected]> https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet<https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet> Twitter: http://twitter.com/kictanet<http://twitter.com/kictanet> Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KICTANet/<https://www.facebook.com/KICTANet/> Unsubscribe or change your options at https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/tevinmwenda%40gmail.c…<https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/tevinmwenda%40gmail.c…> The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development. KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth, share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications. _______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:[email protected]> https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet<https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet> Twitter: http://twitter.com/kictanet<http://twitter.com/kictanet> Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KICTANet/<https://www.facebook.com/KICTANet/> Unsubscribe or change your options at https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/ggitagia%40gmail.com<https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/ggitagia%40gmail.com> The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development. KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth, share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications. -- GG _______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:[email protected]> https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet<https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet> Twitter: http://twitter.com/kictanet<http://twitter.com/kictanet> Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KICTANet/<https://www.facebook.com/KICTANet/> Unsubscribe or change your options at https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/vkapiyo%40gmail.com<https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/vkapiyo%40gmail.com> The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development. KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth, share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications. _______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:[email protected]> https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet<https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet> Twitter: http://twitter.com/kictanet<http://twitter.com/kictanet> Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KICTANet/<https://www.facebook.com/KICTANet/> Unsubscribe or change your options at https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/odhiambo%40gmail.com<https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/odhiambo%40gmail.com> The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development. KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth, share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications. -- Best regards, Odhiambo WASHINGTON, Nairobi,KE +254 7 3200 0004/+254 7 2274 3223 "Oh, the cruft.", grep ^[^#] :-) -- Best regards, Odhiambo WASHINGTON, Nairobi,KE +254 7 3200 0004/+254 7 2274 3223 "Oh, the cruft.", grep ^[^#] :-)

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Re: [kictanet] Safaricom changes to home fibre ToS
by Jimmy Gitonga 18 Feb '21

18 Feb '21

Thank you very much Andrew. I am completely 100% on your side. We should know that no ISP can really tell whether one is torrenting or binge watching video at 4k. What they look for is patterns. If “you” are not sleeping, at 100% bandwidth for 48 hours straight, you are a bot, perhaps torrent software. In my opinion, the timing of disclosing of the FUPs are not the issue. No one lamented when Safaricom doubled the bandwidth at the same cost, last year this time. Did they read the T&Cs. Many did not. We are now being “forced" to be aware of what we are doing with bandwidth we did not have when we started with on our package of choice. We have to decide to take the limitation or find some other ISP. We don’t like that. So like good Kenyans, we complain loudly. Unless we have forgotten our cybercafe (“cyber") experiences, bandwidth restraints were a horror for all of us who were not seeking to score cheap points on “Demonoid” or some other torrent network. “Normally” if you wanted, say Photoshop (most globally ‘pirated’ software at that time), you would spend the day at the cybercafe doing getting your torrent of bootleg stash. But there were those people who leave torrents flowing from the previous night or early morning once the cyber is running and go to work, hoping to come back later and pick their “gigs” of software. Clients come to the cyber and take a seat at a computer, paying for the time and find that someone’s torrent is running in the background of the computer they are on. No way. Torrent … gone or at best switched off. However, the cyber management started charging for these “services" and once clients started paying for CDs and DVDs of software or even movies, this problem eased even as the overall bandwidth increased. However, “peculiar" habits have not changed, these practices have just moved to the house. So two things are coming out of this: 1) Many of the buildings that were wired and had “Corporate Fibre accounts” have been abandoned. The SMEs have moved. So there needs to be an “SME” package with 100Mbit to 500Mbit speeds with no caps at the market price. These should be for business use, which will be recovered by the business as a utility cost. Safaricom and other ISPs need to cater for “SMEs" that are now working from “home”. 2) Safaricom and other ISPs need to track those who ‘misuse’ bandwidth and tell them about their patterns and suggest an upgrade to the SME packages we have talked about. That would be a win / win. Overall, we need to be reasonable. This attitude of “I am paying for it” while not accepting the realities governing the ISPs needs to addressed. Either we are looking out for the other people using the same services as we are at a particular ISP or we accept “free” (not fair) market forces and that will hurt everyone. PS: Your details on packet inspection are gold for any network engineer wannabe. Jimmy Gitonga @Afrowave Web : Motion On 18 Feb 2021, 10:49 +0300, kictanet-request(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke, wrote: > Send kictanet mailing list submissions to > kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > kictanet-request(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke > > You can reach the person managing the list at > kictanet-owner(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of kictanet digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Re: Safaricom changes to home fibre ToS (Andrew Alston) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Thu, 18 Feb 2021 07:47:05 +0000 > From: Andrew Alston <Andrew.Alston(a)liquidtelecom.com> > To: Ali Hussein <ali(a)hussein.me.ke> > Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke> > Subject: Re: [kictanet] Safaricom changes to home fibre ToS > Message-ID: > <VI1PR03MB50562B03C2DCE9AC3DC34B49EE859(a)VI1PR03MB5056.eurprd03.prod.outlook.com> > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > Safaricom did tell you about the FUP ? unlike most ISP?s in the world that never disclose what those FUP?s are. > > Also ? I?d be very careful about alleging that ISP?s are all looking at user data ? particularly because it?s a patently false allegation that all data is analyzed on all links. Yes ? some ISP?s probably do do that kinda DPI on every circuit ? but it certainly isn?t the case for a large portion of them ? because its not economically feasible to do it. > > Again, someone would have to pay for those analytics engines ? and having written a significant amount of code to detect ddos attacks using pure packet headers (metadata) ? I can tell you flatly that this belief that an ISP is sniffing every packet and analyzing it ? is a conspiracy theory with very little basis in fact. > > To back this up ? on a software based platform ? the following is the processing pipeline for packet analytics of packet metadata > > > 1. Receive the packet > 2. Categorize the packet > * By the Ethernet Protocol ID (IPv4, IPv6, possibly .1q tags) > * By the Layer 4 Protocol byte (Specifically byte 9 of the IP header in V4 traffic) > * Store the 32bit Source and Destination ? combined with the Source and Destination port of the Layer 4 header dependent on if its UDP or TCP > * Hash the whole lot and place it into a lookup table against the 5 way tuple. > 3. Even if you vectorize that process ? you are still looking at a coupla milliseconds per packet ? times millions of packets a second. A modern server can do that kinda accounting at ~20gigabit/second if they bypass kernel which bloats things ? but ? they haven?t touched the data segment of the packet. > 4. If you look at Cisco routers ? if you do port mirroring ? you are limited to mirroring the first 128 bytes of the packet ? because the replication of anything beyond that kills performance, it can?t be done at line rate > 5. If you look at Juniper routers ? you can port mirror for analytics on the full packet ? but at the cost of performance. > 6. On hardware asic based routing ? analytics such as you are referring to requires CPU punt ? because the asics aren?t designed to do what you are proposing. > > A 10gig circuit can be running in excess of a million packets a second ? even if you are vectorizing the packet processing ? just analyzing the headers to categorize it ? before you attempt to hash it and bucket it ? requires a minimum of 100 instructions post packet receipt ? add the hashing and bucketing ? you?re looking at a few thousand instructions to the CPU *per packet* - add the payload analytics ? this goes up by orders of magnitude ? last I checked ? ISP?s don?t have super computers lying around. > > If you want full DPI to the level of analytics you are proposing ? you HAVE to analyze the full payload content of the packet ? and while there are boxes that can do this ? they cost *millions* (of dollars not KSH) ? and ISP?s generally aren?t gonna spend that kinda money unless they have to ? because the cost has to be passed to the users. > > Andrew > > From: Ali Hussein <ali(a)hussein.me.ke> > Date: Thursday, 18 February 2021 at 10:32 > To: Andrew Alston <Andrew.Alston(a)liquidtelecom.com> > Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke> > Subject: Re: [kictanet] Safaricom changes to home fibre ToS > Andrew > > Wacha kizungu mingi (I think you are Kenyan enough to understand what I've just said). ? > > Let me put you on the spot. To come up with FUP's you already know whose doing what so that 'innocence' of telling us about privacy now is moot. You all use these tools to snoop on us. Period. Now do it for the benefit of the customer. Not yours. This is really very simple. You all are crying foul about costs blah blah...but when you were wooing us you didn't tell us about FUP... > > Do the right thing mate...Be on the right side of history. > > Regards > > > Ali Hussein > > Digital Transformation > > > > Tel: +254 713 601113 > > Twitter: @AliHKassim > > Skype: abu-jomo > > LinkedIn: http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim<http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim> > >

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Fwd: Today 12Noon: Home Fibre and Fair Use Policy
by Linda Bonyo 18 Feb '21

18 Feb '21

Understand the terms and conditions of Internet Service Providers *Tech Policy Discussion, 18th February 2021* *A Review of Internet Service Providers Fair Usage Policies in Kenya* On* 15th February 2021*, Kenyans woke up to an updated fair use policy from Safaricom; the company with the largest market share on the internet service market. This policy sought to introduce usage limits for internet consumption which would be followed by significantly lower throttled internet speeds for users for the remainder of the monthly cycle before an opportunity to renew the bundle. *Safaricom* is neither the first nor the only internet service provider employing usage caps and throttle tactics with internet products. Similar tactics and policies are found with other providers such as *Faiba JTL* for home internet and *Telkom *on their mobile internet bundles. Join us today noon the *18th of February 2021* as we explore the Internet Service Providers Fair Usage Policies in Kenya. Their impact on inclusive digital economies, access to the internet, remote work, and regulation of ISPs in Kenya and Africa broadly. Register to Attend <https://lawyershub.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6d1f49f0727166d1efd6e2…> [image: Lawyers Hub Kenya] <https://lawyershub.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6d1f49f0727166d1efd6e2…> [image: Lawyers Hub Kenya] <https://lawyershub.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6d1f49f0727166d1efd6e2…> [image: Lawyers Hub Kenya] <https://lawyershub.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6d1f49f0727166d1efd6e2…> [image: Africa Law Tech] <https://lawyershub.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6d1f49f0727166d1efd6e2…> *Copyright © 2020 Lawyers Hub Kenya, All rights reserved.* *Our mailing address is:* Lawyers Hub Kenya, ACK Garden House, 6th Floor. Upper Hill. Nairobi. Kenya Email: *info(a)lawyershub.ke <info(a)lawyershub.ke>* Mobile: 0794749001, 0794739003 Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences <https://lawyershub.us4.list-manage.com/profile?u=6d1f49f0727166d1efd6e2688&…> or unsubscribe from this list <https://lawyershub.us4.list-manage.com/unsubscribe?u=6d1f49f0727166d1efd6e2…>.

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Freedom Online Coalition - Joint Statement on Spread of Disinformation Online
by Victor Kapiyo 17 Feb '21

17 Feb '21

In its “Joint Statement on Spread of Disinformation Online”, the Freedom Online Coalition (FOC) expresses deep concern about the growing scope and sophistication of disinformation, which has been employed by state and non-state actors with political, ideological, commercial or other motives. To address this trend, the FOC calls upon governments to refrain from conducting and sponsoring disinformation campaigns, and urges all stakeholders to take active steps to address the issue in a manner that respects human rights, democracy and the rule of law, including acknowledging, in particular the specific targeting of and impact on women and persons belonging to minorities. The development of this statement was led by the governments of Finland and the United Kingdom with input from other Coalition member states and the multi-stakeholder FOC Advisory Network. You can read the statement here <https://freedomonlinecoalition.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/FOC-Joint-Sta…> . *Victor Kapiyo* Partner | *Lawmark Partners LLP* *Suite No. 8, Centro House, Westlands, Nairobi | **Web: www.lawmark.co.ke <http://www.lawmark.co.ke> * ==================================================== *“Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude” Zig Ziglar*

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Update: Opportunity at IEBC
by David Indeje 12 Feb '21

12 Feb '21

Listers, The IEBC has always been a good friend of KICTANet and they are giving us an opportunity to be Long-Term Election Observers and Voter Education Providers to observe and provide voter education for the various electoral activities expected to take place between February and December 2021. Sunday 14th February 2021 besides the Valentine’s Day, spare time to apply. Any interested person to send an email mwaragichanga(a)kictanet.or.ke or lizorembo(a)kictanet.or.ke an email for details on the application form and process *Kind Regards,* *David Indeje * +254 (0) 711 385 945 | +254 (0) 734 024 856

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Opportunity at IEBC
by David Indeje 12 Feb '21

12 Feb '21

[image: image.png] Listers, The IEBC has always been a good friend of KICTANet and they are giving us an opportunity to be Long-Term Election Observers and Voter Education Providers to observe and provide voter education for the various electoral activities expected to take place between February and December 2021. Sunday 14th February 2021 besides the Valentine's Day, spare time to apply. https://www.iebc.or.ke/uploads/resources/Q60Ij3VEGh.pdf *Kind Regards,* *David Indeje * +254 (0) 711 385 945 | +254 (0) 734 024 856

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Report Launch: Freedom of Expression and the Digital Environment in Eastern Africa 2020
by Sigi Waigumo Mwanzia 11 Feb '21

11 Feb '21

Dear Colleagues, Today , ARTICLE 19 Eastern Africa (EA) has published its [ https://www.article19.org/freedom-of-expression-and-the-digital-environment… | Freedom of Expression and the Digital Environment in Eastern Africa 2020 ] report. This report examines the digital environment across six countries, namely Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda. The report focuses on developments and challenges across three key areas, namely: 1. Freedom of expression online: Can words land you behind bars? 2. Internet accessibility and affordability: Are governments across Eastern Africa pulling their own weight to narrow the digital divide? 3. Privacy and data protection: Is the public’s personal data safe across Eastern Africa? The report proposes that, at a minimum, the six Eastern African countries should: * repeal and amend laws and policies which criminalise freedom of expression online * regularly publish comprehensive annual reports on universal access/service funding mechanisms * refrain from adopting and using Covid-19 contact tracing applications without appropriate human rights safeguards, including sunset clauses to strengthen privacy and data protection. Please interact with, and share, the [ https://www.article19.org/freedom-of-expression-and-the-digital-environment… | launch page ] , [ https://www.article19.org/resources/threats-to-free-speech-online-in-easter… | press release ] and [ https://twitter.com/article19eafric | social media ] content. I am happy to provide more information and address any of your queries. Regards, Sigi Waigumo Mwanzia, Digital Policy Consultant. Read more about ARTICLE 19's #MissingVoices campaign here: [ https://www.article19.org/campaigns/missingvoices/ | https://www.article19.org/campaigns/missingvoices/ ] ARTICLE 19 EASTERN AFRICA DEFENDING FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND INFORMATION W [ https://www.article19.org/regional-office/eastern-africa/ | https://www.article19.org/regional-office/eastern-africa/ ] Tw @article19eafric Fa [ http://facebook.com/article19org | facebook.com/article19org ]

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Safer Internet Day
by David Indeje 09 Feb '21

09 Feb '21

Listers, Happy Safer Internet Day. For those who do not know, this is a day celebrated globally aimed at promoting the safe and positive use of digital technology for children. What can make us trust the internet? This reminds me of "Content policy in Kenya 2019" published by Kictanet that called for policies that protect and encourage content from particular groups. policies related to content creation, education, commercialisation and community. https://www.kictanet.or.ke/mdocs-posts/content-policy-in-kenya-2019/ *Kind Regards,* *David Indeje * +254 (0) 711 385 945 | +254 (0) 734 024 856

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MoICT's progress towards project goals
by Adam Lane 05 Feb '21

05 Feb '21

Hi all Treasury released a report on progress towards all MDA's targets for projects/activities. The one that includes ICT is here: https://www.treasury.go.ke/component/jdownloads/send/223-sector-reports/168… ICT starts at page 45 of the document (page 59 electronically) for those interested. There are also reasons why goals were achieved or not achieved. Adam

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Lessons from Loon:
by Adam Lane 01 Feb '21

01 Feb '21

My thoughts for those who might be interested... https://blog.huawei.com/2021/02/01/lessons-from-loon-connecting-unnconnecte… [cid:[email protected]] Lessons from Loon & Connecting the Unnconnected ByAdam Lane February 1, 2021 Source of main image: Loon<https://loon.com/press/> News that Loon was winding down operations because "we haven't found a way to get the costs low enough to build a long-term, sustainable business<https://medium.com/loon-for-all/loon-draft-c3fcebc11f3f>" came as a disappointment to many, and rightly so. It is hugely difficult to provide connectivity in very remote areas, and any new technological innovations that could do so would be welcomed particularly in Kenya and Mozambique where operations were quite advanced. What may we be able to learn from this announcement? There are lessons around costs, and more importantly, around revenues. The first lesson is around costs. A typical base station can cost anywhere from US $20,000 to US $80,000 depending on factors like how it gets backhauled to the Internet (e.g., via satellite, microwave, fiber or LTE relay), the size of the actual tower itself (the taller a tower the easier it is to provide wider coverage), power costs (e.g., solar-powered with batteries if grid electricity is not available and can lower long-term operating costs), and the equipment on the tower. The balloons that Loon used also incurred costs, including the balloon itself, 4G equipment, and the use of lasers for backhaul. These lasers transmitted the Internet from the ground to a single balloon and then between different balloons - innovative technology which is still being used in other projects outside of Loon. For Loon, one challenge was that each balloon only lasts a few months and thus needs to be recovered and then relaunched, adding a great deal to the cost even if the technology on the balloon can be re-used. Consider, for example, balloons that are currently launched only from Puerto Rico and Nevada and then spend weeks travelling across to Africa. In the industry we talk a lot about Capital Expenditure (CAPEX) and Operating Expenditure (OPEX). For a base station, CAPEX is buying the equipment and building the base station, which is a one-time cost and may last a decade or more. The tower itself can last multiple decades, even if equipment on it may need to be replaced. OPEX for a rural site may be quite low if the tower has no power costs and uses solar panels with batteries and the site rental is low. In this case the main operating cost is backhaul costs, which partly varies by demand. A telecom company thus faces significant up-front costs and then hopes to reclaim the revenue over years, ideally around 2 to 3, sometimes around 7. But some sites may never recover the costs, and thus those sites rarely get built without subsidies. Loon seems like it has quite significant CAPEX and OPEX if the balloons have to continually be replaced to refill the helium, and that may be one of the reasons the costs are not as low as desired. Maybe with time the balloons could be improved to last longer, or maybe with greater scale, more manufacturing, launch (and helium refill) sites could be built closer to where they are needed, which would reduce costs. As the balloons move around, there is a large minimum number of balloons necessary to ensure good coverage of any particular location which is a large cost, even with Loon's impressive algorithms managing the balloon's movements. It seems that Loon has decided it might not be able to get the costs low enough, or is not willing to keep investing any longer to reach the point at which it can get them low enough. The second lesson is around revenue. As well as costs, perhaps the bigger challenge is revenue. Enabling Internet use is the key, not just providing Internet coverage. But in rural areas revenues are typically very low due to few users, the low income of those users, and thus the low average revenue per user (ARPU) for service providers. Loon was supposed to help overcome this by covering a very wide area, which could have many more users per balloon than a typical base station (200 times more, according to Loon). However, providing wider network coverage does not mean there will be more users, or that they will spend money on telecommunications. In a remote area that previously did not have coverage, very few people will have a phone or smartphone. Why would they, if there was previously no coverage? They need to be able to afford one, as well as the electricity to recharge the phone on a daily basis and the Internet service fee for voice, the Internet, mobile money, or other value-added services such as agricultural information services or education content that might not be free. Few actual services may be useful for that person-in other words there may not be a website or app that meets that person's day-to-day needs in a language they understand, because they are likely to represent a minority market. As a result, they may not spend much money once they are online. On top of that, they may not know how to use a smartphone or the Internet in general. To overcome all of these issues would require a tremendous ground operation: making the people on the ground aware there is Internet, explaining why and how it would be useful to them, helping them get a device and power, which might require donations or loans, showing them how to use that device, and so on. Then there is still the challenge of those users being on a low income. Thus even if there was an incredible use case, they might struggle to pay for it at least in the short-term. Maybe if such an operation took place, it would have generated more revenue, and thus made Loon worth it. On the other hand, such an operation may just increase costs even more (especially an operation in very remote and sparsely populated areas) that the business model is even harder to be viable. Providing network coverage is not enough without these complementary activities; many mobile network operators are increasingly investing in such initiatives to enhance their business case, but these may not have happened with Loon's partners-or they may not have shown results quick enough. So, the lesson is not just about costs, it is about understanding the complexities of the revenue side of the equation as well. These cost challenges are similar for traditional base stations, though they may be easier: when someone builds a tower you see it and know it is there; the telco staff who build the tower could also market and sell the benefits of the Internet or devices, or provide skills training for a few days after building a tower, or they could license an agent in the village who would sell internet services. This requires people on the ground who would not be there if there is just a balloon floating overhead. Finally, for those who invest in base stations, and design them with low operating costs, they can afford to wait several years until they recoup their costs, and then begin to make profits, since the infrastructure will stay there for a long time. It also makes it easier for governments to offer subsidies to build that infrastructure, as a one-time subsidy, than a recurring subsidy. Loon has announced a package of US$10 million to help support various related efforts in Kenya to support those in Kenya who might be affected by the loss of Loon's service. This could make a real difference. As could the many programs that Google, a sister company to Loon, has been running for many years to provide digital skills, one of the barriers identified above. So the lessons from Loon are not just about the needs for innovative technology that might reduce costs of providing Internet coverage, though that is still true, but about the needs for more investments in increasing revenues-providing devices, power, relevant content, awareness of that content, and skills to use the devices amongst many others. Loon's efforts were welcome and some of their technologies no doubt will be re-used in other ways, whilst the lessons learned may well help others working on similar initiatives. Their willingness to take risks, invest, and innovate is commendable and hugely necessary if we are try to solve the problems of rural Internet use (not just coverage). There are many efforts underway around the world in this area, but it is not enough. Let's work together to do more!

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Re: [kictanet] Why Kenya is NOT ready to deploy 5G technologies
by SAMUEL O. 29 Jan '21

29 Jan '21

The telcos in kenya are very innovative so sooner you will find them in the 5G space On Mon, Jan 25, 2021 at 7:56 PM Adam Lane via kictanet < kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote: > Check out the comments on the KICTAnet LinkedIn post > > https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6756955985018920960 > > > > > -------------------------------------------------- > M: +254-790985886 > Deputy CEO, Government Affairs > Huawei Kenya > *From:*Odhiambo Washington <odhiambo(a)gmail.com> > *To:*Adam Lane <adam.lane(a)huawei.com> > *Cc:*KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke> > *Date:*2021-01-25 18:37:39 > *Subject:*Re: [kictanet] Why Kenya is NOT ready to deploy 5G technologies > > > > On Mon, 25 Jan 2021 at 18:32, Adam Lane < adam.lane(a)huawei.com> wrote: > >> Odhiambo >> The launch of 5G services is dependent on spectrum... Once an operator >> gets enough of it, and agrees a fair price, operators in Kenya will launch. >> >> The problem is the lack of a strategy that would define "enough" and >> "fair price"... >> >> Then there are all the other aspects mentioned in the kictanet report, >> such as industry and academic collaboration, various use case pilots etc. >> which would then maximize the impact of 5G if done well and help speed up >> that impact. >> >>> > Thanks Adam. > > This reminds me that I needed to read that report to see the "use case" - > because for me, I am happy with 4G :-) > > -- > Best regards, > Odhiambo WASHINGTON, > Nairobi,KE > +254 7 3200 0004/+254 7 2274 3223 > " Oh, the cruft. ", grep ^[^#] :-) > > _______________________________________________ > kictanet mailing list > kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke > https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet > Twitter: http://twitter.com/kictanet > Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KICTANet/ > > Unsubscribe or change your options at > https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/ochiengsoja%40gmail.c… > > The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform > for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and > regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT > sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development. > > KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors > online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth, > share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do > not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications. >

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Contact Request...
by Michael Bullut 27 Jan '21

27 Jan '21

Greetings Team, I am looking for professionals who work in the I.T. department of the following organizations to run an Azure Sentinel P.O.C.: 1. *Kenya Civil Aviation Authority. * 2. *Kenya Ports Authority.* 3. *NCBA Group.* *Apologies for any inconvenience caused! * Warm regards, Michael Bullut. --- *Cell:* *+254 723 393 114.**Skype Name:* *Michael Bullut.* *Blog: http://www.kipsang.com/ <http://www.kipsang.com/>* *E-mail:* *main(a)kipsang.com <main(a)kipsang.com>* *---* <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campai…> Virus-free. www.avast.com <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campai…> <#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2>

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Data Privacy Quiz Night
by Linda Bonyo 27 Jan '21

27 Jan '21

Dear Listers, PALU Conference kicks off this afternoon! (2pm Nairobi, 12 noon Lagos) You can’t afford to miss the power packed Pan-African Conference with themes that will get you kickstarting your year in Knowledge and innovation. Don’t miss the Data Privacy Quiz Night with Prizes to be won, come test your knowledge on Data Privacy Laws. Sign up here: Bit.ly/PALU2021 -- *__________________________________________________________________* *Linda Bonyo* (Ms.) | CEO, *Lawyers Hub * *Tech for Justice* Web <http://www.lawyershub.org> | LinkedIn <https://www.linkedin.com/in/lawyers-hub-kenya-1bb021161/> | Twitter <http://www.twitter.com/lawyershubkenya> | Calendar <http://www.calendly.com/bonyo> | *_**__________________________________________________________* *DISCLAIMER: The information contained in or accompanying this e-mail is intended for the use of the stated recipient only. It may contain confidential, proprietary or legally privileged information. No confidentiality or privilege is waived or lost by any mistransmission. If you receive this message in error, please immediately delete it and all copies of it from your system, destroy any hard copies of it and notify the sender. You must not, directly or indirectly, use, disclose, distribute, print, or copy any part of this message if you are not the intended recipient. Any views or opinions presented herein are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Lawyers Hub.*

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Fwd: [chr] Invitation: Data Protection Day 2021 in Africa
by ALLAN OCHOLA 26 Jan '21

26 Jan '21

Perhaps maybe of interest to members of this community. Best wishes, Allan ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Yolanda Booyzen <yolanda.booyzen(a)up.ac.za> Date: Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 16:06 Subject: [chr] Invitation: Data Protection Day 2021 in Africa To: The Centre for Human Rights in collaboration with the Council of Europe, cordially invite you to an event to commemorate Data Protection Day 2021. <https://www.chr.up.ac.za/latest-news/2370-invitation-data-protection-day-20…> <https://www.coe.int/en/web/data-protection/dpd2021-african-region-event> Data Protection Day 2021 in Africa The Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria, in collaboration with the Council of Europe, cordially invite you to an online event <https://www.coe.int/en/web/data-protection/dpd2021-african-region-event> to commemorate Data Protection Day 2021. Click here to join <https://primetime.bluejeans.com/a2m/live-event/ghrrvpfy> On 28 January 2021, we are celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the Data Protection Convention 108 with African privacy and data protection stakeholders. African regulators and civil society representatives will inform the participants on latest developments at national, regional and international level and will touch upon the advantages of Convention 108 for African countries. The evolution of Convention 108 into the ‘modernised’ Convention 108+ adds a new dimension to international data flows and cooperation between data protection authorities, and will also be addressed. View the invitation <https://www.chr.up.ac.za/latest-news/2370-invitation-data-protection-day-20…> Data Protection Day 2021 in Africa *Thursday 28 January 2021* *Online (Bluejeans)* *11:00 GMT / 12:00 WAT / 13:00 SAST / 14:00 EAT * Click here to join <https://primetime.bluejeans.com/a2m/live-event/ghrrvpfy> *No registration required / just follow this link to connect on Bluejeans* *Opening remarks* - *Sophie Kwasny * *Head, Data Protection Unit, Council of Europe* - *Frans Viljoen * *Professor of International Human Rights Law and Director, Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria* *Moderators* - *Hlengiwe Dube* *Manager, Expression Information and Digital Rights Unit, Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria* - *Pat Walshe * *Executive Director, Privacy Matters* *Speakers* - *Patricia Adusei Poku* *Ghana, Executive Director of the Data Protection Commission* - *Immaculate Kassait* *Kenya, Data Protection Commissioner* - *Drudeisha Madhub* *Mauritius, Privacy Commissioner* - *Omar Seghrouchni * *Morocco, Data Protection and Access to Information Commissioner Secretary General, African Network of Data Protection Authorities* - *Sizwe Snail * *South Africa, Commissioner of the Information Regulator* Click here to join <https://primetime.bluejeans.com/a2m/live-event/ghrrvpfy> [image: Facebook] <http://www.facebook.com/centreforhumanrights> [image: Twitter] <http://www.twitter.com/chr_humanrights> [image: Link] <http://www.instagram.com/centreforhumanrights> [image: Website] <http://www.chr.up.ac.za> [image: LinkedIn] <https://www.linkedin.com/company/centreforhumanrights> [image: YouTube] <http://www.youtube.com/centreforhumanrights> *Copyright © 2021 Centre for Human Rights, All rights reserved.* You are receiving this email because you have been in contact with the Centre for Human Rights at the University of Pretoria. *Our mailing address is:* Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria Pretoria, Gauteng 0002 South Africa Want to change how you receive these emails? You can unsubscribe from this list <[email protected]?subject=Unsubscribe%20me%20please&body=Please%20unsubscribe%20me%20from%20the%20Centre%20for%20Human%20Rights%20Newsletter> [image: Email Marketing Powered by Mailchimp] <http://www.mailchimp.com/email-referral/?utm_source=freemium_newsletter&utm…>

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Re: [kictanet] Why Kenya is NOT ready to deploy 5G technologies
by Odhiambo Washington 25 Jan '21

25 Jan '21

On Mon, 25 Jan 2021 at 18:32, Adam Lane <adam.lane(a)huawei.com> wrote: > Odhiambo > The launch of 5G services is dependent on spectrum... Once an operator > gets enough of it, and agrees a fair price, operators in Kenya will launch. > > The problem is the lack of a strategy that would define "enough" and "fair > price"... > > Then there are all the other aspects mentioned in the kictanet report, > such as industry and academic collaboration, various use case pilots etc. > which would then maximize the impact of 5G if done well and help speed up > that impact. > >> Thanks Adam. This reminds me that I needed to read that report to see the "use case" - because for me, I am happy with 4G :-) -- Best regards, Odhiambo WASHINGTON, Nairobi,KE +254 7 3200 0004/+254 7 2274 3223 "Oh, the cruft.", grep ^[^#] :-)

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Why Kenya is NOT ready to deploy 5G technologies
by David Indeje 25 Jan '21

25 Jan '21

Listers, Mr John Walubengo and Mr Barrack Otieno spend some time establishing Kenya’s preparedness to deploy fifth-generation wireless networks (5G). The study reviews the historical progression of mobile networks through to the current 5G mobile technologies. It then highlights the technical properties and use-cases that 5G technologies. In addition, they reviewed the global 5G state of play and contrasts that with a situational analysis for Kenya. It finds that whereas the Kenyan legal, policy, and regulatory frameworks are quite advanced, there is no specific, national 5G Strategy in place. For more of their findings in the policy brief, https://bit.ly/2XVMdit *Kind Regards,* *David Indeje *

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Connectivity vs Sound investments : Loon Project is Shutting Down
by David Indeje 24 Jan '21

24 Jan '21

Alphabet’s Internet Loon Project is Shutting Down, Blow to Telkom Kenya. **Loon launched a pilot project in Kenya in 2020 1. https://medium.com/loon-for-all/loon-draft-c3fcebc11f3f *Kind Regards,* *David Indeje *

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Are you a BBI Supporter and you do not know? IEBC asks
by David Indeje 21 Jan '21

21 Jan '21

Listers, If you are a Kenyan citizen, this is for you. Were you ever approached to put your signature on a document in support for the Building Bridges Initiative? I know most of you will say 'naaa' IEBC says you might have endorsed that document that politicians claim will take you to Canaan faster from your current state. IEBC asks Kenyans to verify if listed as BBI supporters without consent https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/kenya/article/2001400835/ iebc-asks-kenyans-to-verify-if-listed-as-bbi-supporters-without-consent Where is our lovely Data Commissioner in this mix though?

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Scaling Africa’s tech ventures to exit this decade
by Eric M K Osiakwan 21 Jan '21

21 Jan '21

https://blogs.harvard.edu/eric/2021/01/18/scaling-africas-tech-ventures-to-… Eric here Eric M K Osiakwan +233244386792 www.ericosiakwan.com

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Huduma Namba - Mass Printing
by David Indeje 20 Jan '21

20 Jan '21

[image: image.png] Listers, Did you register for Huduma Namba? Kindly, as you wait for the card if you did so, have mercy to the team doing the printing. I mean the occupational Safety and Health of the staff. The Ministry of Interior says "Mass printing of Huduma Namba cards is underway. If you registered, you will soon receive an SMS notification prompting you when and where to collect yours." It is worth revisiting KICTANet's policy brief 'Huduma namba – time to get it right' <https://www.kictanet.or.ke/mdocs-posts/huduma-namba-time-to-get-it-right/> authored by Mutindi Muema, Tevin Mwenda and Angela Minayo and edited by Ms. Grace Githaiga. *Kind Regards,* *David Indeje * +254 (0) 711 385 945 | +254 (0) 734 024 856

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Re: [kictanet] Data Commissioner - Priorities for 2021
by Hezron Gikanga 20 Jan '21

20 Jan '21

We would be very glad if KICTAnet would also push for a meeting with the Commissioner/Taskforce at the earliest to expedite this – over to you Hussein, Grace, Kapiyo et al…and all the very best this year! Regards, Hezron From: kictanet <kictanet-bounces+hezron.gikanga=thearcrayon.com(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke> on behalf of Hezron Gikanga via kictanet <kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke> Reply to: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke> Date: Monday, 18 January 2021 at 11:55 To: Hezron Gikanga <Hezron.Gikanga(a)thearcrayon.com> Cc: Hezron Gikanga <Hezron.Gikanga(a)thearcrayon.com>, "Zaki, Ramy" <Ramy.Zaki(a)mastercard.com>, Fredrick Oduor <Fredrick.Oduor(a)thearcrayon.com>, "Rojas, Sergio" <Sergio.Rojas(a)fticonsulting.com>, "maria@afrikaict via kictanet" <kictanet(a)lists.kictanet.or.ke> Subject: [kictanet] Data Commissioner - Priorities for 2021 Caro, Omar, Good morning. Prior to the formation of the DPA Taskforce last Friday, the Data Commissioner had, in a webinar with the Kenya Private sector Alliance (KEPSA), in late Dec 2020 laid out her priorities for this year. We need to keep an eye on these even as the taskforce gets underway. I have already nudged AmCham KE to reconvene the Digital Economy Working Group sessions and also to (re)send that request for a Working session with Ms. Kassait. Regards, Hezron [cid:[email protected]][cid:[email protected]] [cid:[email protected]]

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