Our never ending connectivity problems and the prices we pay..... The East African Standard (Nairobi) NEWS April 10, 2007 Posted to the web April 10, 2007 By Benson Kathuri and Robert Nyasato Nairobi International phone call and high-speed Internet connection charges are beyond the reach of average classes in 25 East and Southern African countries. A report by the World Bank says the region is the only one not connected to the global optical fibre broadband infrastructure. "The 'missing link' explains why the region accounts for less than one per cent of the world's international bandwidth capacity," says the report released in Washington last week. These countries lack direct terrestrial access to global information and communications infrastructure, relying on expensive satellite connectivity to link up with the rest of the world. As a result, telecommunication users face some of the highest costs in the world, says the study: African Region Communications Infrastructure Programme Report. The countries are Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Kenya. The rest are Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. "International wholesale bandwidth prices are 20 to 40 times higher than in the United States, and international calls are on average 10 to 20 times more than in other developing countries," says the report. This, according to the report, has limited regional and international trade, job creation, use of information and communication technology in learning, good governance, and transparency. "The region's growth and development is being held back by this lack of access to low price and high quality telecommunications services." However, the World Bank has initiated a multi-billion shilling project, the Africa Regional Communications Infrastructure Programme (RCIP) to address the 'missing link'. By the end of the programme, it is expected that all capitals and major cities in East and Southern Africa would be linked to competitively priced high-bandwidth connectivity. "To put 25 agents on the phone, it will cost us close to US$17,000 (Sh1.2 million) a month while elsewhere, it will only cost US$600-900 (Sh42, 000 -Sh56, 000) a month," said Nicholas Nesbitt, CEO of KenCall. Meanwhile, in Kisii town, Internet service charges have doubled in the past two months due to power failure. Many cyber cafes now charge Sh2 a minute up from one shilling. "Whenever there is a power outage, we have to increase the cost of browsing because we use a generator, which is more expensive," said Ms Josephine Kerubo, a worker at one of the Internet shops in the town. Other sops have closed down due to the unreliable supply. 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