[governance] How cooperation could be defined ?

[McTim]

On Sun, Dec 16, 2012 at 4:32 PM, Dominique Lacroix <dl at panamo.eu> wrote:
> Dear McTim,
>
> I'm going to answer also to a former post where you said that you saw how
> Isoc makes great efforts to help developping countries, in the field of
> capacity building and GIX creation.
> I beg your pardon. I could not find time enough to answer earlier.
>
> Please, don't understand what I'm saying as a personal reproach. A big part
> of my family was colonial actors in Vietnam at the beginning of the XXth
> century. I can insure that the most part of the colons were absolutely sure
> that they were helping the country where they were living.
>
> US IT companies do have great interests in the growth of the African market.

Well, I would say that they used to (and some still do), but that market is now
(to a great extent) dominated by the Chinese.

Having said that, ISOC is not a US company.  They are a global
non-profit with local staff in
South Asia, Africa and South America, as well as their EU and US offices.

>
> After all these efforts to help African countries to get into a connected
> way, how is it that Africa connected people number is 15,6% compared to
> 78,6% in North America?


Perhaps it is a better question to ask what the pen rates were before
ISOC started their efforts.

I'm not sure penetration rates are the best metric to use in
calculating the effects of folks like ISOC, but you could try.

In fact, you would find that they have risen a great deal in the last
few years.  I'm not claiming cause and effect tho.


> You can verify the stats there: http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats1.htm
>
> It's not incompatible with a handful advanced countries, some great IT
> companies and a lot of excellent researchers.
> Plethora of graduates is actually a sign of contemporary "underdevelopment".
>
> Did you ever try to subscribe an Internet connection at an African ISP?


yes, several, and I worked at one as well.  I can give you chapter and verse on
why Access is so expensive in parts of Africa, and it's not because of
the greed
of Northern companies!

In fact, my WISP in Nairobi was faster and cheaper than my current DSL
link in the USA.

Progress is being made on pricing, mostly in mobile access.  Aluta
Continua, as they say.


 Or
> to buy African domain names?

yes, in several ccTLDs


>
> Send me 693 €, I'll buy for you a mctim.cg. Sorry, mctim.cd is cheaper: only
> 115 €.


I don't think it is ISOCs mission to make ccTLDs cheaper.  They do
however train
ccTLD managers in their workshops (for free), so in that sense, those
domains should
NOT go up in price because their staff need tech transfer training.

In fact, you can't blame ANYONE in the North/West for this pricing,
you have to talk to these folks:

https://www.dnsafrica.net/cgi-bin/pricing.pl
where:

"The registration of a domain is free of charge for the citizens of
Congo, who are resident locally. "

"For foreign entities :

First Year 225 Euros per domain
Next Year 225 Euros per domain"



And for .cd:

http://www.nic.cd/company_info/CD/aboutCD.jsp?about=price

Price list

"Pricing for applications and renewals

1 year:     65 USD
2 years: 130 USD
3 years: 195 USD
4 years: 260 USD
5 years: 325 USD
P.S: The above prices are for normal domain ONLY. For premium domains
(3 Characters and less):

3 characters/year: 325 USD
2 characters/year: 650 USD
1 character/year: 1300 USD"

And now I see Suresh has weighed in with
"pricing distortions introduced by government enforced monopolies,
possibly combined with lack of market demand that pushes up costs by
not allowing the provider of such services to leverage economies of
scale.  Which are both a significant factor in the high Internet
access and domain name prices that you see across large parts of
Africa."

which is the answer in a nutshell.


-- 
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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