Hi Everyone, Sorry for entering the discussion so late. I have been keenly following the various comments; My proposal: ---------------- Completely separate ownership of the fiber from management. (for example the Government owns majority of Safaricom but does not have management control). Let a completely independent competent management team run the fiber taking into account the various needs of the consumers, who in this case will be the Telecommunications companies and service providers, who eventually serve the mwananchi. The management must equitably and fairly provide access to all operators and service providers but must ensure no single operators consumes more than 40% of their services because this leads to control. (suggestions please on how they can do this and still be fair, equitable and profitable). The management must run the business for a PROFIT and further more must not get preferential treatment from CCK. Other private operators must continue to get the same rights and access to resources and government support. In terms of investment/ownership there should be a fair structure that will allow for as wide ownership as will allow for the cheapest money but with a MAJOR bias to Kenyan ownership. This is why! --------------- 1) The consumer is King ( both local and International consumers). The consumer wants sustainable quality services at an affordable price. This creates DEMAND. (By the way, Trust me on this, being an owner of a business des not guarantee you quality and affordable services. So listing the business is not a magic answer. Ask the government!) 2) The investor on the other hand wants a sustained return on their investment, they see the demand in the market and they create SUPPLY. This is highly dependent on the risk factors, competition and so on. Look at KDN, they have invested so much in fiber based on the "existing market structure" and now are not sure what the new competition model is going to look like now that the government is coming to the party (in what form? Yet to be defined. Investors hate uncertainty) Am sure all the various discussions are not making it easy for KDN's capital raising. KDN of course is not alone, and sorry to single them out. I know other players including Safaricom will be waiting to see what the new structure will be, before they decide on their investment strategy (Uncertainty again). 3) The Government is there to ensure both the Consumer and the Investor are protected to ensure they both have sustained benefits. They therefore create a market structure that ensure the sustained growth. This could range from a monopoly or duopoly situation to a fully open market. They do this for a "small" fee - TAX! & Various Licences fees. Today Kenya is not competitive at all in the communications sector, compared to our primary African competitors (South Africa and Egypt) not only are our power bills 8 times higher that both countries, we also don't have connectivity to international fiber and the Government is certainly doing it's job in getting into TEAMS and the National Fiber projects. We of course are also in a position where the government is the largest supplier of communications services in the country, through Telkom, Safaricom, Posta amongst others. Suppliers by definition do not like competition and put up all sorts of barriers to competition and this will range from capital raising, access to markets and so on. In the same breath Government is also by default the largest consumer of services and has a desire to obtain better quality and affordable services. I could go on and on here to indicate the various forces affecting various decision. The primary being "to invest or not to invest" Today I have a lot of faith in the current leadership at the Ministry of Information and Communications and their desire to see a vibrant expanded communications sector. The challenge for them and us is to have a working model that will allow investment in the sector and in the backdrop of the various issues I raised above, it is not been easy to get real competition in Kenya, look at the 3rd GSM and now the SNO saga. Our problems are both historic and current and are made worse when CCK is not able to for instance address competition issues without change in regulations (the Communications ACT) Sorry people this is a long email. I have of course not been exhaustive, only covered some areas I think we should debate. -- Joseph Mucheru Executive Director mucheru@wananchi.com
From: Bill Kagai <billkagai@gmail.com> Reply-To: Kenya ICT Action Network - KICTANet <kictanet@kictanet.or.ke> Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 22:01:42 +0300 To: <mucheru@wananchi.com> Subject: Re: [Kictanet] Day 6 of 10: Best Business & Regulatory Model forprovisioning OFC(EASsy, TEAMs, etc)
I agree with both [Ndemo and Kai] Esq.. albeit in part.
Open Access can be re-defined at a new (higher) level if both Govt (TEAMS) and Private (FLAG) float shares to the public in these ventures before the projects commence. We (Mwananchi) thus becomes consumers in ownership earning dividend...and everybody goes home happy.
Maybe our primary recommendation should be that a venture which entails public consumables like this cable should first be floated to the public so that we ALL gain.
Bill On 1/29/07, bitange@jambo.co.ke <bitange@jambo.co.ke> wrote:
Dear All, It is appropriate to thank Walubengo for the excellent job he is doing in moderating this discussion. I am suprised that some of you are making outrageous statements like "TEAMs is to go to a monopoly". This is not true because I am sure that the TEAMs design has not been made public. Secondly, it in the Government interest that these projects benefit mwananchi.
The Government would continue to encourage competition to ensure the costs are at the lowest. The only reason one would feel hurt about competitor progress is when that person wants the monopoly status.
Regards
Ndemo
_______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet@kictanet.or.ke http://kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet
Please unsubscribe or change your options at http://kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/mucheru%40wananchi.com