Hi all Is this a case of a good private sector initiative gone bad because of government interference or is it the other way round? best alice http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/14/531243 Stop infighting over EASSY Thursday, 9th November, 2006 THE arrival of an underwater optic fibre cable in East Africa has been delayed by infighting between governments and telecom companies. Yet the East African Submarine System's proposed 9,900 km of underwater cable between Port Sudan and Mtunzini in South Africa could do more to transform East African economies than any other single infrastructure project of equivalent cost. Today all East Africa's connections to the Internet and international broadband go by satellite. The rest of the world is connected by optical fibre cables that run between continents. These are faster and cheaper than satellite connections. Once EASSY arrives in East Africa, the cost of Internet and telephone connections will drop by an estimated 65 per cent which will make East African companies more efficient and more profitable. EASSY was supposed to arrive in 2007 but now it is delayed because no- one can agree who is in charge. Originally the big telecom companies across southern and eastern Africa were building it but in 2005 NEPAD and the World Bank decided that EASSY should be run on an `open access' basis to allow service operators access to the cable at cost. This is a beautiful idea in theory but who is going to pay? Big telecom companies like MTN and UTL are now obviously reluctant to pump in money if they are not going to get a commercial return. East African operators are now considering an alternative underwater cable connection to Fujairah in the Emirates yet this would retard the cause of African commercial integration. It is time for the infighting to stop. The telecom companies have got the financial muscle to make EASSY happen immediately. If governments are worried about open access, let them insist that the telecom companies provide it with a modest profit margin of, say, 10 per cent. But let's delay no longer. EASSY is something that East and Southern Africa needed yesterday. http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/14/531243