Hi Rad,

I agree with you on the lack of local capacity within the so called ISP community, a company I mentor offers their data stream services using the SAAS model and after running around discussing with those providers who have no appreciation of the various technologies it was realised that it made more sense to set-up a data centre.

The organisation has put up the data centre with redundant links, air conditioning , long run power backup and fire suppressants at a monthly operating cost equivalent to  one quarter what they would have been paying for collocation and a tenth on a hosting package.

They are experiencing new headaches every day but they are not about to through in the towel, recently they have received enquiries from other organisations who would like to utilise the facility an issue the organisation is seriously looking into.  

Since the KICT Board is no longer subsidising the BPO organisations international bandwidth maybe those funds could be used to develop local hosting capabilities in the MSME sector.  The board keeps looking for bottomless holes to pour money into yet they are half full cups that would be best filled up first.  Even in the bible it is said that to those who have more shall be added can we as a faith based nation uphold this doctrine instead of rewarding the servant who buried his talents.

My conviction is that running away from a difficulty is a sign of weakness and cowardliness which is why my advice to the organisation was to put up their own facility even though it might have been cheaper to host on google, godaddy, or amazon as their contribution to building Kenya.

It is my expectation that KIXP will be forward looking enough to remove the hurdles of connecting to them as that would allow better local performance to the data centre.  I am forced to humble myself on this issue because the saviour we had been awaiting in the form of a national exchange point seems to have missed the flight.

This entire issue of mis-pricing, overpricing and fleecing is as a direct result of the failure of the KICT Board to prioritise its programs based on the needs of the industry and not the whims of the world bank and other foreign masters.  

Thanks to Dr. Ndemo and others with whom he worked selflessly to bring the TEAMs and EASY cable systems to fruition.

The lack of local capacity to host our own data cannot be chocolate coated by the release of the data it would be the same as re-inviting the British to take over the running of our government as their economy has performed better than ours cheaper during the period that we have been independent.

Paul, I think that it is only manly for you to accept failure in your mandate before you go the way of Councillor Majiwa (failure to discharge his duties).  

I feel that the failure of KICTB has been more as a result of overstepping its mandate from marketing Kenya as a destination for ICT to becoming an implementing agency.  It's single sighted approach to treating ICT as BPO and mobile applications only, has had the effect of stagnating other areas of the sector, it was refreshing to hear at a KICTB function where they indicated that their emphasis will now be towards ITES.

For instance the open data project was an opportune chance for the government to jump start local hosting and demonstrate confidence in that ICT sub-sector.  This would also allow us to target the countries in the region for hosting of their open data thus meeting the objective of becoming the destination of choice for regional data.

The net effect of KICTB's action in the industry has been to pour cold water on local hosting as in this case of justifying the hosting of the data in a foreign country.  We cannot on one hand be crusading about local content while on the other we are going out of our way to place our content elsewhere.  

The action by KICTB is synonymous to Kenya Tourist Board or Brand Kenya placing adverts telling Kenyans to travel to South Africa yet their mandate is to develop domestic tourism and also bring tourists to Kenya.

The rest of us are not any better as we only give lip service to our so called convictions, I asked before on what platform do we as listers on KICTANET stand and as is usually the case there was no response silence was all I got, but there is still hope for us as a profession and a nation which is why I am not even considering a green card.

There is light at the end of the tunnel, apart from me as PMG, in that there is a unit that was set-up under the communications act whose mandate was to police the KICT Board as well as others, its called the National Communications Secretariat.  As industry stake holders lets find it, take it over (like civil society has done with the judiciary) and from their we shall have control over our own destinies.

So fellow listers, we have a chance to grow teeth that can actually bite but do we want them?

"With great power comes even greater responsibility" - Spiderman movie

Interesting reading

http://books.google.com/books?id=-NKurl1tiIcC&pg=PP10&lpg=PP10&dq=%22national+communications+secretariat%22+kenya&source=bl&ots=UqhOmrc3VK&sig=-QOIBgNwkxQ0ucdWHU5k0XOTSks&hl=en&ei=IjYdTvz4HcSHrAexkayODA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBYQ6AEwADgK#v=onepage&q=%22national%20communications%20secretariat%22%20kenya&f=false

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=20&ved=0CEcQFjAJOAo&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.information.go.ke%2Findex2.php%3Foption%3Dcom_docman%26task%3Ddoc_view%26gid%3D4%26Itemid%3D37&rct=j&q=%22national%20communications%20secretariat%22%20kenya&ei=IjYdTvz4HcSHrAexkayODA&usg=AFQjCNEM83_1IBXdzqVqCnnEttnKye-iNw&cad=rja>

The Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) parent agency is actually the National Communications Secretariat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Commission_of_Kenya)

http://www.information.go.ke/index2.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_view&gid=4&Itemid=37 Read Page 10 on the point number 2.6.1

The NCS was allocated 90 million in the 2009/2010 budget yet it only has 3 staff members


Regards
 
Robert Yawe
KAY System Technologies Ltd
Phoenix House, 6th Floor
P O Box 55806 Nairobi, 00200
Kenya

Tel: +254722511225, +254202010696


From: Rad! <conradakunga@gmail.com>
To: robertyawe@yahoo.co.uk
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke>
Sent: Mon, 11 July, 2011 17:59:31
Subject: Re: [kictanet] Open Data - Where does it sit?

I am interested in getting partners to run some solutions as IAAS and SAAS and being a patriotic Kenyan I first attempted to get quotes for what I wanted. My findings I am sad to say were

  1. Few providers even understand the concept of SAAS & IAAS. To spare embarrassment to employees who have on their payroll engineers unable to differentiate the cloud from websites, I won't name names
  2. Those that do have laughable prices. I fiercely love my country and its people but my friends I refuse to pay 10-45 times the prices I am getting at Amazon / Microsoft / Rackspace because the providers are Kenyan. (Yes. That was 45 times)
This is why I am saying i have no problem hosting abroad until local providers get their act together and can have reasonable prices and services.

Remember the Ministry also has a fiscal responsibility to spend our taxes wisely.

If all things are held constant I will pick a local provider any day of the week and twice on sunday but at 45 times the price? And with no redundancy? I am afraid not.