[governance] FYI - ITU

[McTim]

On Mon, Sep 20, 2010 at 4:18 PM, Jean-Louis FULLSACK
<jlfullsack at orange.fr> wrote:

<snip>

> That's why I find this ITU_SG statement rather out of place. Pushing always
> more towards new investments is to be stopped (just to give you an example :
> there are a dozen submarine cables in place or ready for that along the
> African West coast, each one costing some hundreds millions dollars).

A dozen?  Methinks that is an exaggeration:

http://manypossibilities.net/african-undersea-cables/


> Instead, the ITU would be better advised in limiting such over-redundant
> investments, and to coordinate the very necessary telecom infrastructure
> such as the national and subbregional bacbbones with, and integrate them in,
> the other infrastructure and netwok projects to be implemented in the same
> areas.

the ITU would be well advised to work with African governments to get
out of the way of the PS on this.  National backbones in EA are a
fiasco. TZ is (allegedly operational, but fantastically expensive),
UGPhase 1 completed 2 years ago, but no entity to run it, so it is
just rotting in the ground, KE recently gave (yes GAVE) their new
backbone to France Telecom/Orange/Telkom Kenya to run, as FT was
screaming that they wanted 385 M USD (out of 390 million they spent on
Telkon a few years ago).  I think you get the picture.

The PS meanwhile, is building (has built) regional carriers in EA to
take advantage of the 3 new submarine cables in the region.


> ITU has a great responsibility in the fact that more than 30 years after
> "The Missing Link" (a fore-runner of the WSIS' "digital divide" !) there
> isn't any valuable subregional telecoms network in Africa,

There are now.

not to speak
> about a continental network !

Plans afoot by the PS if I read the tea leaves correctly.

 Here are the priorities for the ITU, and only
> once these networks are in place, there will be the time for building
> African BB networks, exchanging African content :


We have been doing that with IXPs for a decade.


 cultural, economical,
> educational, gouvernemental, and people to people ! Acting in that way, i.e.
> applying cross-network synergy rules and methodology to infrastructure and
> network coordination and implementation, will not only save millions of
> dollars, but will also contribute effectively to the regional integration
> which in turn will drive the economies in these countries and subregions, as
> ascertained by multiple research reports and studies. Regional integration
> is also priority in pan African policy, as the recent AU Summit has well
> documented and demonstrated.

That is true!  Governments must create level playing fields across the
regions and let the packets flow freely!

-- 
Cheers,

McTim
"A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A
route indicates how we get there."  Jon Postel
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