Begin forwarded message:

From: "Anders Comstedt" <anders@ssvl.kth.se> Date: 16 October 2007 14:26:53 GMT+03:00 To: "'APC - Private list for use by EASSY Workshop Participants'" <fibre-for-africa@lists.apc.org> Subject: 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>

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

Eric M.K Osiakwan Executive Secretary AfrISPA (www.afrispa.org) Tel: + 233.21.258800 ext 2031 Fax: + 233.21.258811 Cell: + 233.244.386792 Handle: eosiakwan Snail Mail: Pmb 208, Accra-North Office: BusyInternet - 42 Ring Road Central, Accra-North Blog: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/eric/ Slang: "Tomorrow Now"