Dunno if I am stirring another hornet's nest ..... again :-( but I feel that Africa keeps fighting the wrong wars - military wars when the rest of the world cut back and increase economic information and communication battles little wonder we are stuck with the "3rd world" label? Sorry Alice/Alan, I may not be helping much clarifying on the "one true cable" for Kenya TEAMS with its US$ 80 million price tag or EASSy's "in excess of $200 million", but every African country "should" build their own TEAMS-size cable. Sub-sahara Africa spends US$ 7 billion every year on military procurement (SIPRI) while connectivity is an unending "collateral casualty". This money would be enough to build 35 EASSy cables, 87 TEAMS cables, only if a military expenditure moratorium were effected just for one year. This money would be enough for each 57 African countries to construct their own TEAMS cable and leave a balance of US$ 2.5 billion for terrestrial cables. Then following years they can all resume military purchases. Instead of fighting connectivity poverty, Africans cause each other more misery through these annual military purchases. ( Stockholm International Peace Research Institute http://www.sipri.org/contents/milap/milex/mex_graph_africa.html ) Alex Gakuru alice <alice@apc.org> wrote: I'm confused: I was under the impression, not the least from Bitange Ndemo's* *comments on the KICTANeT list, that Kenya had pulled out of EASSy? Any clarifications welcome. Alan EASSY winner of fibre-optic cable race By A STAFF WRITER The EastAfrican, April 9 2007 Which of the upcoming submarine cable projects out of Mombasa will rollout first? That is the big question in Kenya where the government is investing in two parallel projects at the same time namely. The East African Marine System (TEAMS) and the East Africa SubMarine Cable System (EASSy). Although the government has justified the investment in TEAMS on the grounds that the EASSy project will take too long to roll out, the indications so far is that EASSy which has already received the support and commitment of 22 telecom operators representing 20 countries, 90 per cent of which are African operators, both private and public is likely to move much faster. So far, the project has secured all its funding targets and committed leading development financial institutions to the project. Its funding arrangement is structured to allow equity partners to either participate through a special purpose vehicle (SPV) or come in as direct investors. The SPV, consisting mainly of regional operators, has already been incorporated in Mauritius under the name West Indian Ocean Cable Company Ltd. Financial instruments for the SPV are in process and have been finalised in partnership with the development funding institutions comprising the World Bank, IFC Group, European Investment Bank, KFW of Germany, AFD Prop Arco of France, the African Development Bank and the Development Bank of South Africa. On March 9, nine EASSy members formally signed the supply contract with Alcatel-Lucent, who will be implementing the EASSy fibre-optic cable project on a full turnkey basis. The process of manufacturing the necessary equipment is going on and the approximation is that the project will be concluded by the end of 2008. The overall project cost will be in excess of $200 million. In compliance with international and national regulatory requirements, all operators having been conducting environment and social impact analyses studies which are expected to conclude this month. The EASSy submarine network will span nearly 10,000km linking eight countries from Sudan to South Africa via Djibouti, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Madagascar and Mozambique. The initial capacity will be 20 gigabits per second with ultimate capacity of 320 gbits/s per fibre pair. Last week, the EASSY project received a major boost when the World Bank announced that it has approved $164.5 million for high speed connectivity for Kenya, Burundi and Madagascar. East and Southern Africa is the only region in the world that is not connected to the global broadband infrastructure and accounts for less than one per cent of the worlds international bandwidth capacity. As a result of this missing link, the region relies on satellite connectivity, with costs among the highest in the world. One Kenyan call-centre entrepreneur told the World Bank board of directors that the region simply cannot compete with others. To put 25 agents on the phone will cost us close to $17,000 a month. Elsewhere, it will only cost $600-$900 a month, said Nicholas Nesbitt, chief executive of KenCall. It is absolutely imperative that something be done right now to make bandwidth affordable. Otherwise, were going to miss a huge opportunity and people are simply going to say that Africa is not ready for these kinds of jobs, is not ready for business. By the end of the programme, it is expected that all capitals and major cities in East and Southern Africa will be linked to competitively priced high-bandwidth connectivity _______________________________________________ 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/alex.gakuru%40yahoo.com --------------------------------- Expecting? Get great news right away with email Auto-Check. Try the Yahoo! Mail Beta.