Title: The State of Research and Education Networking in Africa
Author: Boubakar Barry
Source: Educational Technology Debate
Date (published): 30/06/2011
Date (accessed): 10/12/2011
Type of information: blog post
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
"Research and education networks (RENs) are dedicated networks for the research and education community. Unlike the “general” Internet, often referred to as commodity Internet, they carry only data related to education and research.

RENs were first established more than 20 years ago in developed countries in Europe and the Americas to support bandwidth-intensive applications in research, when it became evident that using the commodity Internet on demand for these applications, and for moving large quantities of data between institutions within a country, between countries, and between continents was not feasible. An example is the transport of data from CERN’s Large Hadron Collider to various research centers worldwide.

RENs have also been places of innovation in networking technologies and have substantially fostered scientific collaboration at national, regional and international levels.

Why are research and education networks crucial for Africa?
RENs have a huge potential for improving the quality of education and research. The gain in productivity through access to high-speed networks for teaching, learning and research activities is obvious. For Africa, access to such networks through RENs is even more important for various reasons:

African researchers are isolated. There are very few institutions that have the critical mass of researchers in any particular field to allow them to collaborate and carry out research activities with world standard outputs. Having an adequate NREN infrastructure can enable remote collaboration and the building of the needed critical masses;
Resources are scarce in Africa, and some equipment and applications are too costly for single institutions: NREN infrastructure provides a means of sharing such resources. In fact, RENs can even provide a more efficient mean of sharing human resources by using video-conferencing tools for remote lecturing while at the same tile avoiding expensive and sometimes risky travel;
Cutting-edge research is increasingly carried out by multiple, inter-disciplinary research teams located in various countries of the world: coordination, data exchange and even experiments are mostly done using the global REN infrastructure. Not being part of this global community means that African researchers cannot participate in such global research projects;
In most African countries, higher education faces a big challenge called massification: due to lack of investment in infrastructure and equipment during the last two decades, universities and other higher education institutions cannot efficiently meet the high demand for access to higher education. Here again, REN infrastructure can support e-learning applications and blended learning models that can help reduce the pressure on the universities’ physical infrastructure and address the increasing legitimate demand for higher education..."

Title: Overselling Broadband: A Critique of the Recommendations of the Broadband Commission for Digital Development
Author: Charles Kenny
Pages: 19 pp.
Publisher: Center for Global Development
Date (published): 08/12/2011
Date (accessed): 10/12/2011
Type of information: essay
Language: English
On-line access: yes (pdf)
Abstract:
"The Broadband Commission for Digital Development is an ITU (UN International Telecommunications Union) and UNESCO–backed body set up to advocate for greater broadband access worldwide. The commission’s Declaration of Broadband Inclusion for All and other reports call for governments to support ubiquitous fixed broadband access as a vital tool for economic growth and to reach the Millennium Development Goals. Examining the evidence, however, shows that the benefits of broadband are being oversold. Several points stand out: (i) the evidence for a large positive economic impact of broadband is limited;
(ii) the impact of broadband rollout on achieving the MDGs would be marginal;
(iii) there is little evidence ubiquitous broadband is needed for ‘national competitiveness’ or to benefit from opportunities like business process outsourcing;
(iv) the costs of fixed universal broadband rollout dwarf available resources in developing countries; (and so)
(v) the case for government subsidy of fixed broadband rollout is very weak.

There are, however, some worthwhile policy reforms that could speed broadband rollout without demanding significant government expenditure."

Title: Undersea cables set to launch African bandwidth explosion
Author: Rowan Puttergill
Source: memeburn
Date (published): 28/11/2011
Date (accessed): 09/12/2011
Type of information: article
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
"Many years ago, I worked for UUNET Internet Africa in South Africa. I remember sitting in the Operations room and looking at an international undersea cabling map, which showed each and every cable connecting the different continents of the world. It used to amaze me that South Africa’s connection to the rest of the world was so fragile. If I remember correctly, we really relied on one or two undersea cables at the time. I believe one of them was SAT-2, which had a total bandwidth of 560Mbps to carry all of our international telecommunications and internet traffic. Meanwhile, up in the northern hemisphere the sea-bed was positively littered with cables connecting Europe and North America in a multitude of ways.
Things have changed though, and it seems that Africa is finally catching up. This week, Wasace Cable Company announced that it intends to lay fibre-optic cable that will connect four continents, including Africa, with a total bandwidth of 100Gbps.
This year has seen a massive surge in efforts to improve the undersea cabling that connects Africa to the rest of the world. Earlier in the year, work started on the WACS cable, a 14 000 km cable that will link South Africa to London. Its 15 terminal stations running up the West Coast of Africa will provide additional bandwidth to a number of countries, and will become the first direct connection to the undersea cable network for Namibia, the Congos and Togo. WACS should go live early in 2012, and will increase South Africa’s bandwidth by an estimated 23%.
But WACS isn’t alone..."

Title: AfTerFibre Update
Author: Steve Song
Source: Many Possibilities
Date (published): 21/10/2011
Date (accessed): 25/10/2011
Type of information: blog post
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
"This is a short summary of progress and learning from the first couple of months since launching AfTerFibre, a project to map terrestrial fibre projects in Africa. From the beginning AfTerFibre has been designed as an open project both from the point of view of transparency and from the point of view of participation. So the first goal was to make it easy to share information. This involved setting up a AfTerFibre Google Group so that anyone could contribute information or ask questions. Next we needed a place to store resources as we found them so a wikipedia page was set up to capture information and links to maps of terrestrial fibre projects. That part has gone reasonably well. We now have 83 people in the Google Group and the Wikipedia page now has 67 African operators known to have fibre projects listed, for which about half have links to maps. Where possible I have linked directly to the map on the web if it exists. In other cases, I have uploaded map images that I have found to a Flickr set. Finally there is also a Diigo list of news links related to AfTerFibre.

Having gotten the repositories for the raw information in place, the next challenge was to find out how to create an information chain that would make it easy not only for people to contribute map information but also to submit updates. I’ve been working with some of Google Africa’s GIS team in Nairobi to solve this."

Title: Burundi to get first national backbone network
Source: IT News Africa
Date (published): 21/09/2011
Date (accessed): 21/09/2011
Type of information: article
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
"ZTE Corporation, a publicly listed global provider of telecommunications equipment and network solutions has signed an agreement on 20 September 2011 with Burundi Backbone Systems Company (Burundi BBS) to build Burundi’s first national backbone network.

According to Total Telecom, the deal comes as a result of rapid growth in mobile and data service needs in Burundi. The ZTE network will cover 17 provinces and cities in Burundi, dramatically reducing broadband costs and laying the foundation for further improvements. It will also link Burundi with eastern and central African countries such as Tanzania, Rwanda, and Congo, connecting it to The Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy). Burundi BBS is a joint venture between five local telecommunication operators and is partially funded by the World Bank."

Title: Power cuts hamper Nigerian broadband
Author: Bimbo Omitooki
Source: IT News Africa
Date (published): 21/07/2011
Date (accessed): 22/07/2011
Type of information: article
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
"Most Nigerian telecommunications operators have again recounted their ordeals in the lack of regular power supply for their operations in the country.
The operators said that unless the Nigerian government take adequate steps to address the situation, the progress recorded by the industry in the last few years may not be consolidated.
Specifically, some of the telecoms and mobiles noted that as Nigeria is making moves to play big in the broadband market in the next decade of the telecom revolution in the country, inadequate power supply was the main challenge to the deployment of broadband in the country."

Title: AfTerFibre – Mapping Terrestrial Fibre Optic Cable Projects in Africa
Author: Steve Song
Source: Many Possibilities blog
Date (published):
Date (accessed): 13/07/2011
Type of information: blog post
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
"When I started putting together the African Undersea Cable Map about 3 years ago, I did it to solve my own problem. I couldn’t make sense of all the news articles about new undersea cable projects and where and when they were and weren’t landing. At the time, all of the cable operators were only interested in publishing maps of their own cable. It seemed an easy task at the time to put the 2 or 3 planned cables on a single map. Little did I imagine that they would mushroom to the variety of African undersea cable projects we see today. As more undersea cable projects were announced the cable map became an increasingly useful reference. As it turned out, I wasn’t the only one trying to keep the various undersea projects straight and the map has become far more popular than I would have ever guessed.

But I don’t think it is just the usefulness of the map that has driven its popularity, nor my infographic design skills which are admittedly basic. My theory, for which I have no other evidence than the nature of the feedback I have received from users, is that the map paints a different-from-the-usual picture of Africa. It’s not a picture of a dark continent but rather a brightly lit one, lit by terabits of light capacity brought by a dozen cables landing on sub-Saharan African shores either now or in the near future. Africa, the brilliant continent. This also happens to be the Africa I believe in.

Another thing I think the map has contributed to in a small way is the sense of latent capacity that has inspired investment in national terrestrial infrastructure in Africa. To my knowledge, every country on the continent has some sort of terrestrial fibre infrastructure project either completed or underway to connect to an undersea cable or to a country with an undersea cable. This unprecedented explosion digital infrastructure investment can only be attributed to the sense of the opportunity that the burgeoning African undersea cables represent."

Title: State of competition in Zambia’s telecommunications sector
Author: Thulasoni Kaira
Pages: 23-39 pp.
ISSN: 2077-7205
e-ISSN: 2077-7213
Source: African Journal of Information and Communication, Issue No 11 (2010/2011)
Publisher: Learning Information Networking and Knowledge (LINK) Centre, University of the Witwatersrand
Date (published): 15/04/2011
Date (accessed): 12/06/2011
Type of information: research paper
Language: English
On-line access: yes (pdf)
Abstract:
"Zambia, situated in the Southern African region, has a population of 13 million and GDP in 2009 was estimated at ZMK61.1 trillion or approximately USD12.8 billion. Economic composition of GDP by sector is 40.2% services, 38.2% industry and 21.6% agriculture. GDP growth averaged 4.8% in the decade between 1999 and 2009, with strong performance in the construction, mining and agricultural sectors. However, as a services-based economy, growth is constrained by, inter alia, slow emergence of a competitive telecommunications sector that can provide the platform for the national and international flow of information and communication required for further rapid advances in economic development. This article reviews the state of competition in Zambia’s telecommunications sector, with due attention to the fixed line and international gateway, the mobile telephony and Internet markets."

Title: National Broadband Plans
Source: OECD Digital Economy Papers, No. 181,
Publisher: OECD
Date (published): 15/06/2011
Date (accessed): 12/07/2011
Type of information: report
Language: English
On-line access: yes (pdf)
Abstract:
"This report surveys national broadband plans (NBP) across the OECD area, providing an overview of common elements and goals in those plans. An annex to this report contains references and links to the plans.
OECD countries have previously-agreed key areas of broadband policies, which have been incorporated into NBPs, notably the 2004 Council Recommendation on Broadband and the 2008 Declaration of the Seoul Ministerial for the Future of the Internet Economy.
Policy makers have been updating NBPs, taking into account the effects of the global financial crisis (GFC). The communications industry has emerged relatively well from the GFC, partly due to the experience of the “dot-com bubble”. There has been continued growth in demand for broadband services, at a time when many other sectors experienced a decline. Some governments injected funds, either directly or through support for loans, to help the geographic expansion of broadband access networks, the upgrading of existing networks to higher speeds and also through measures to encourage adoption amongst social and economic groups with limited use of broadband. Governments assessed these interventions based on their costs, benefits and effects on markets.
The benefits of NBPs are expected to be extensive across economies and societies. This has required co-ordination amongst many ministries and agencies, in order to identify realistic targets and to ensure that processes are in place to monitor their achievement.
...
The OECD has undertaken extensive work in e-government and, for example, on e-health. The first presents similar challenges to NBPs, with a requirement to co-ordinate across many parts of government and other stakeholders. Both also require widespread availability of broadband networks to link government offices, hospitals and clinics, plus the widest possible adoption of broadband, so that citizens and business (particularly SMEs) can access e-government services on demand. Only then can governments achieve the savings and quality improvements they have forecast."

Title: NTP 2011 Objective: Broadband
Author: Shyam Ponappa
Source: Telecom Blog
Publisher: Centre for Internet and Society
Date (published): 08/06/2011
Date (accessed): 06/07/2011
Type of information: blog post
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
"The Indian government has to choose between accessible, affordable services and short-term revenue, writes Shyam Ponappa in this article published in the Business Standard on June 2, 2011.

Apart from the scams, confused ideas are roiling India’s telecom sector. One instance is the finance ministry urging spectrum auctions to collect Rs 30,000 crore to help bridge the fiscal deficit. Another is the Ashok Chawla committee recommending spectrum auctions for transparency, making transparency the criterion for managing spectrum. The committee apparently does not mention the disastrous US auction, and attributes the UK fiasco to extraneous reasons; presumably, they knew the facts. Such issues need logical and systematic remedies. Otherwise, the success of the telecom sector will degenerate into yet another failure.

* Objectives: the transaction should be structured in the public interest;
* A life-cycle analysis of costs and benefits, and not just windfall revenues (since short-term cash drives the finance ministry’s concerns, it is important for the ministry and the government to step back and consider alternatives, such as the sale of BSNL’s vast real estate. If the goal is ubiquitous and affordable broadband, this would be much less damaging to the public interest than spectrum auctions); and
* End-to-end solutions are required from an integrated systems perspective.

The New Telecom Policy ’11
For the New Telecom Policy 2011 (NTP ’11), the first requirement is to define convergent goals. We could take a leaf from countries with excellent broadband that built high-quality next generation networks. While the US and UK have strong initiatives, Japan, Sweden, South Korea and Finland have highly rated broadband. Australia and Singapore are now building next-generation networks. Both are common-access, open-to-all service providers."