Dear Dr. Ndemo, Thanks for the detailing but it would be good if you breakdown what the "Open Access Model' would be in terms of teams and the terrestrial network? Would it be there the infrastructure would be seperate from services so that the entirities that build and operate the infrastructure would be restricted from competing with the service providers and that the price approach would be high volumes against low margins? By the way what happened to the idea of having 20% on the stock market for non-deep pocket folks like myself.....:-) Eric here Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2007 19:32:44 +0300 (EAT) From: bitange@jambo.co.ke Subject: Re: [kictanet] Fwd: SV: [AfrISPA.Discuss] Undersea cable plan tangled in acrimony inSouth Africa Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> To: eric@afrispa.org Dear Alex, Telkon will not own Teams. The Government of Kenya will own 40% stake in the Teams SPV while regional operators and investors will own 45%. The remaining 15% shall be owned by Etisalat. The Government shall ensure open access in both Teams and the Terrestrial Networks to enable both large and small enterprises to compete. Do not worry about the sale of TKL since we have not sold it yet and we shall not sell it if the deal is not good. Regards Ndemo.

Before quickly "thirding", I urge on the need to have light shed on TEAMS investment structure, otherwise we could end up never getting the envisaged cheap bandwidth.

Why? After 51% of Telkom Kenya is sold to British Telcom (or another) then whoever will have the cable ownership transfered to them thus could dictate what the final price will be.

Little Telkom sale (Shs 5 Billion) is happening just when the promising CDMA is getting rolled out. Going by last year's Safaricom profits, the sale value is also Kidogo Sana.

Alex

--- Kai Wulff <kai.wulff@kdn.co.ke> wrote:

...

I second that!

It is comforting to know that SA will provide security to Africa by insisting on a majority ownership of the cables!

I am sure this attitude will change once Kenya receives capacity @ less than USD 100,- per M ..

Kai ----- Original Message ----- From: <bitange@jambo.co.ke> To: <kai.wulff@kdn.co.ke> Cc: "KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions" <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2007 14:44 Subject: Re: [kictanet] Fwd: SV: [AfrISPA.Discuss] Undersea cable plan tangled in acrimony inSouth Africa

I used to have a difficult time explaining to fellow Kenyans that it was very difficult dealing with our brothers in SA because at every meeting goal posts kept on shifting. Perharps now everybody understands that the veto power in the NEPAD protocol was a control tool. Below please find additional material.

Ndemo.

Cables require local ownership BY DAMARIA SENNE & CHRISTELLE DU TOIT <mailto:damaria@itweb.co.za> [ Johannesburg, 10 September 2007 ]

South Africa requires that all undersea cables landing here be majority owned by South Africans, says communications Minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri.

Speaking at the Southern African Telecommunications Networks and Applications Conference (Satnac) 2007, in Mauritius, this morning, Matsepe-Casaburri said government was happy with indications that investors plan to land cables in the country. However, she will soon announce new landing guidelines that require that "all cables " landing in SA be majority owned by South Africans, she said.

The guidelines will also be consistent with SA's foreign policy and take the security of the country, and the African continent, into consideration, she said. "Every cable landing or leaving SA should incorporate in it the Nepad [New Partnership for Africa's Development] Broadband Infrastructure Network." Security measures are important, given the state of our insecure world, she added.

Matsepe-Casaburri said that she instructed Dep.of Communications Dir-General Lyndall Shope-Mafole to propose the landing guidelines to the Interim Inter-Governmental Assembly for discussion. She also noted that her department studied the communications regulations of other countries when drafting the landing guidelines, ensuring they are consistent with international trends.

Determination expected BMI-TechKnowledge senior analyst Richard Hurst says the implications of the ownership stipulations are that "those who do end up rolling out cables will have to do so via partnerships". He cites Seacom and Neotel's interaction as an example of this, where "Neotel basically would control the landing rights of Seacom in SA". According to Hurst, "government is trying to hedge its bets", but the stipulations set out by the minister have generally been expected. He says South African companies should benefit from the directives, as should the consumer. "It should open up access to those cables and bring prices down." He adds that, as the international community moves towards always-on broadband, SA will also increasingly need high-speed capacity. However he reiterates: "The more bandwidth we have, the better."

Investor support Meanwhile, Matsepe-Casaburri said SA was convinced it was on the right path to break away from the Eassy (Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System) cable project and support the Nepad Broadband Infrastructure Network, as well as initiating its own undersea cable systems.

She said there was strong support from potential investors in the Nepad Broadband (?) Infrastructure Network. "Instead of people running away from us, we have a lot of support from investors." SA and other African governments broke away from the Eassy project because larger operators taking part in the initiative bought such large quantities of capacity that there would never be fair access for smaller operators, she noted.

EASSY project was not in line with the Nepad objective, which was to facilitate fair and open access for all telecoms providers to lower the cost of telecoms on the continent, she said. She noted that SA's Parliament had ratified the Nepad Broadband Infrastructure Network protocol.

...

fyi from the AfrISPA discuss list....

Begin forwarded message:

...

From: "Anders Comstedt" <anders@ssvl.kth.se> Date: 9 September 2007 21:52:19 GMT+03:00 To: <Discuss@afrispa.org> Subject: SV: [AfrISPA.Discuss] Undersea cable plan tangled in acrimony inSouth Africa Reply-To: Discuss@afrispa.org

Frank,

You are right that everyone else but RSA needs a cable to RoW much, much more than the good folks south, also that the thing has got stuck in political concerns and power games. The good thing is, however, that the general consensus on the needs, commercial impact and development leverage of a widely available optical fibre cable has shifted from cold to warm.

Technically, there is no need for an East African submarine cable south beyond Maputo at all, as there is well protected optical fibre Maputo - Pretoria on the power lines. Which, btw, RSA has effectively prevented open & fair use of during several years, effectively leaving Maputo on VSAT for a much longer time than necessary. So SA could connect that route, already today, to any cable from the north that lands close to Maputo.

Now two small issues: First, RSA companies are major stakeholders in any submarine cable proposal that has emerged the last couple of years, dominant to the extent that it has made other parties concerned on who actually will control a cable system supposed to be a joint project with some 23 participants. The

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_______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet This message was sent to: eric@afrispa.org Unsubscribe or change your options at http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/ mailman/options/kictanet/eric%40afrispa.org 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"