Jabulani is hitting the nail noting that the funds are less of a problem from now on. The solid growth of the sector in Africa, and not least the areas not served by fibre optic backbones to the rest of the world, has now passed the point where a business case could be made.
All of a sudden it is more about the strong first mover advantages in this new situation. Who will be allowed to move?
If the entire sector, not the individual company X or Z, should continue to grow you cannot have strong new entry barriers holding back competition and innovation. The first mover advantage on fibre backbones is just about that. The only way is to find mechanisms to share assets that will not be replicated and are really not any differentiator: Fibre backbones. That means finding ways of sharing risks, building trust between the users of such a facility. Unfortunately, lots of the process past WSIS has been about the reverse, how could my company/group/country get on top in controlling assets to my advantage?
True, sharing has shown to be extremely tricky everywhere, but even so, that is the big trend in many places, prompted and facilitated by the regulators and policy makers. Structural separation is for instance debated in several places in the EU, not least by the DG INFO commissioner Reding. If overbuild of wireline structures, duplication by several operators, cannot be supported outside metro cores in EU, well, then it wont happen anywhere else either. Period. Even in tiny Singapore, a common fibre structure is under way.
Ultimately, a few years down the road you will end up either sharing in a joint separate operation you trust, or one(possibly two) operator will be regulated to sell at cost related prices.
Today, the big remaining process problem is not looking at the individual company/companies, but on the sector. And looking one step behind, how the development of the sector will transform into general development leverage. Or to bend the words of a former US president: It is about the ICT jobs with the users, stupid!
It is easy for policy makers to be trapped to consider one operator or the other and get lost in the details. User agents are the most missing in this debate. But in their absence small ISPs and internet activists will have to do. The most critical thing right now is creating the political support for sharing and then lubricating the risk taking mechanisms involving the parties responsible/involved in the operational implementation.
Unfortunately, the ITU system has no track record of driving any process like this, but is stuck in relations between vertically integrated, standalone operators, their traditional stakeholders. Making these ideas stick in Kigali will be tough, nevertheless, there are only these two ways forward indicated above in the long run. It took us a decade and a half to do stupid things in EU just delaying this process after the early 90ies start of the liberalization. Now we realize that we have to bite the bullet anyhow as technology has changed from PTSN to layered networks and modules, and several businesses are competing on various IP based services.
There is zero reason for Africa to not leap frog this wheel spinning in a dead end.
Governments are not leaving to the civil work contractors to decide where they like to have the road, or?…
All the best
Anders Comstedt
-----Ursprungligt meddelande-----
Från: Discuss-owner@afrispa.org [mailto:Discuss-owner@afrispa.org] För Jabulani Dhliwayo
Skickat: den 19 oktober 2007 17:04
Till: Discuss@afrispa.org; discuss@afrispa.org
Kopia: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions
Ämne: Re: Fwd: Conncet Africa, was Re: [AfrISPA.Discuss] SV: [Fibre-for-africa] Connectivity: What does Africa really need?It's good to know about the proposals and funds being organized for high capacity Infrastructure. I am also confident that coming up with a "how to" component should not be much of a problem. Funding is only one variable in the equation for sound ICT infrastructure, policy/regulation remains one significant variable. So at the end of the day, it does not matter how much money is available and how solid the plans are, as long as frustrating policies remain in place, we will continue to have problems.
I hope those of you attending Connect-Africa will be able to bring policy issues to the fore-front - unfortunately I had to cancell my plans for attending this event because of other travel assignments. However, I will be attend the Submarine Networks Africa event in Johannesburg - November 27-28 and I hope to meet some you there and hopefully together we can push for more sensible regulations.
Jabulani Dhliwayo
http://www.alignafrica.com
Eric Osiakwan <eric@afrispa.org> wrote:Begin forwarded message:
From: Shem Ochuodho <shemochuodho@yahoo.com>
Date: 19 October 2007 07:34:09 GMT+03:00
To: anriette@apc.org, APC - Private list for use by EASSY Workshop Participants <fibre-for-africa@lists.apc.org>
Subject: Re: Conncet Africa, was Re: SV: [Fibre-for-africa] Connectivity: What does Africa really need?
Reply-To: APC - Private list for use by EASSY Workshop Participants <fibre-for-africa@lists.apc.org>
Yes, Anders raise very pertinent points (in typical style
!).
I plan to be there. I was privileged to attend one of the technical planning meetings in Addis. One of the strong targets being recommended by the techies is "Broadband Connectivity to all capitals and other major cities by 2012". The 'how-to' part of it is still weak, and this is where Anders' proposal for a Broadband Infrastructure Development fund comes in handy. Just note that already there are at least: NEPAD Pan-African Infrastructure Devpt Fund (understandably with billions of US$ already in it - thanks to SA Pensions Funds) , COMESA Infrastructure Devpt Fund, East Africa Infrastructure Devpt Fund (proposed), Digital Solidarity Fund, and am sure there could be several others. Licensing fees, or even better annual universal service/access contributions could be a good sustainable entry entry point.
Warmest rgrds.
Shem, Nairobi
Anriette Esterhuysen <anriette@apc.org> wrote:Very good arguments. And certainly a position we should
be advocating for at the upcoming Connect Africa
Summit.
Who on this will will be there?
Anriette
From: "waudo siganga"
To: "APC - Private list for use by EASSY
Workshop Participants" ,
"'APC - Private list for use by EASSY
Workshop Participants'"
Subject: Re: SV: [Fibre-for-africa] Connectivity: What
does Africa really need?
Date sent: Tue, 16 Oct 2007 15:25:05 +0300
Send reply to: APC - Private list for use by EASSY
Workshop Participantsrequest@lists.apc.org?subject=unsubscribe>
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> Good arguments from Anders - Waudo
>
> On Tue, 16 Oct 2007 13:26:53 +0200, "Anders Comstedt"
> said:
> > Dear Wakabi and others
> >
> > Isn't it difficult to ask for a Marshall plan and at the same time
> > see how the sector and, above all, its users are financially
> > drained?
> >
> > PROFITABLE TELECOMS
> > Surprisingly there are higher profit margins in most of the business
> > that the mobile phone operators have in Africa, including or
> > excluding the licence fees, comparing to counterparts in more open
> > and competitive markets. How is that? Why is competition restricted
> > and prices not coming down, in particular considering the low
> > purchase power of the users? Some people obviously don't want to
> > change the ball game.
> >
> > The combined sector revenues to governments and shareholders make it
> > a little bit difficult to say that the sector cannot finance its own
> > investments, expanding footprint and new services. Actually at the
> > same time even reduce user prices quite a bit. How come that the
> > users are not given more choices from several competing providers?
> > Shifting value to much to users, or?
> >
> > The typical licensing regime still seems, in general, to serve no
> > other purpose but to sell operators a hunting licence on users,
> > maximising the government revenues in the process. The scarce
> > spectrum resource is in many ways used as an over inflated bogus
> > argument in lack of any better. True, it is to some extent an issue
> > and the licensing should focus on it, skipping licensing and all
> > other restrictions on open market, free provision of service. On the
> > contrary, dominant players should be obliged to interconnect, not
> > being sheltered from competition.
> >
> > Why are operator investments taxed, instead of profits, if you like
> > to drive investments?
> >
> >
> > SHARING INFRASTRUCTURE
> > Sharing basic, non-differentiating infrastructure at cost related
> > prices turns out to be a good business proposal (like
> > http://www.openreach.co.uk ) as it is always cheaper than
> > do-it-yourself if you have a few service competitors using it. High
> > utilisation would create a lower cost base for all operators. But it
> > requires organisational structure that lowers operational and
> > political risks. What is done to lower those risks?
> >
> > Note, the most important thing in shared infrastructure is TRUST.
> >
> > Or, who would like to bet the farm on being depending upon a flimsy
> > operation controlled by people with no skin in the game?
> >
> >
> > USERS
> > The most appalling absence in the African telecom policy debate is
> > the users and the user agents. True, the telecom sector is dominated
> > by a producer perspective globally, but in places where strong user
> > agents are balancing these forces we get a more reasonable chunk of
> > the value distributed to all parties. How will user agents come
> > forward in the debate?
> >
> >
> > The ITU
> > Wouldn't it be interesting to put half of all the combined licence
> > revenues for the coming two years into an African backbone and
> > global interconnectivity fund? To create an infrastructure open to
> > all providers, new or old, on equal terms. Now that is a task for
> > the ITU! Or is the ITU too dominated by folks who don't want to
> > change the ball game to the advantage of users?
> >
> >
> > The document would benefit from touching the areas above.
> >
> > Sincerely
> >
> > Anders Comstedt
> >
> >
> > -----Ursprungligt meddelande-----
> > Från: fibre-for-africa-bounces@lists.apc.org
> > [mailto:fibre-for-africa-bounces@lists.apc.org] För Wairagala Wakabi
> > Skickat: den 16 oktober 2007 07:17 Till: APC - Private list for use
> > by EASSY Workshop Participants Ämne: [Fibre-for-africa]
> > Connectivity: What does Africa really need?
> >
> > Netters,
> >
> > The ITU is convening the 'Connects Africa' summit in Kigali, Rwanda
> > on October 29-30. Its main concerns are that Internet services
> > needed for business, government and consumer applications continue
> > to be either very expensive or not available due to limited
> > broadband network infrastructure; and that rural connectivity and
> > access remain inadequate as does the availability of locally
> > relevant content, applications and services.
> >
> > This paper, by the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for
> > East and Southern Africa (CIPESA), outlines some of the issues that
> > need to be addressed for the vision of boosting connectivity in
> > Africa to be realised.
> >
> >
> > http://fibreforafrica.net/main.shtml?x=5236108&als[MYALIAS6]=Joining
> > %20the%2 0dots&als[select]=4051582
> >
> >
> > Wakabi
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Fibre-for-africa mailing list
> > Fibre-for-africa@lists.apc.org
> > http://lists.apc.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fibre-for-africa
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Fibre-for-africa mailing list
> > Fibre-for-africa@lists.apc.org
> > http://lists.apc.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fibre-for-africa
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