[governance] Hamadoun Touré Op-Ed in Wired +
Peter H. Hellmonds
peter.hellmonds at hellmonds.eu
Thu Nov 8 12:07:06 EST 2012
Jean-Louis
I hear you and understand your complaints. What would be your ideas to do it right? If private sector-led competitive investment is resulting in over-capacity and billions of sunk cost, as you say, what alternative set-up would deliver better results? Would you rather want government monopolies? Or public-private partnerships? Or something else?
What I'm trying to get at is to find solutions after having identified what the problems are. My experience has taught me however that sometimes it may be the best option to go for the second-best solution if the first choice is unworkable. So, let's look at various options.
Where do you see possible and realistic, workable solutions?
Best
Peter H. Hellmonds
Public & International Affairs
Phone: +49 (160) 360-2852
E-Mail: peter.hellmonds at hellmonds.eu
On 08.11.2012, at 17:41, "Jean-Louis FULLSACK" <jlfullsack at orange.fr> wrote:
Dear Michel and Baudouin
I agree wiith both your comments. Let me add my personal one for complementing them.
Best regards and wishes for a successful IGF. I mean an IGF that (also) addresses DC’s actual needs.
Jean-Louis Fullsack
M. Touré said :
<Infrastructure
<The conference will also focus on how ICTs – and particularly broadband – can be highly effective catalysts for sustainable social and economic progress.
<Right now, access to this potential is constrained by issues of affordability, with high costs a reality for many users. Related to this is insufficient investment in < infrastructure, especially in developing countries.
My comment :
This isn’t right ! H. Touré is confusing investment and useful telecom infrastructure deployment.
Investment in these countries are very high with more than 50 billions spent in the last decade in sub-saharian Africa alone. But this investment is market driven, i.e. it is mostly focused on profitable routes where competition –encouraged by the ITU- generates multiplication of infrastructure, instead of building a real network that links the main cities and traffic nodes at national and sub-regional levels. Best example for illustrating this statement are the seven submarine cables that have been laid during the last decade along the African atlantic coast without any basic principle of actual telecommunication networking. In fact, instead of complementing each other they are just aimed to compete each other. This scandalous “bandwidth glut” has swallowed up four billion dollars while half of the capacity potential would be largely sufficient for the next decade. The same over-investing scheme -competing instead of complementing- is applied on a series of terrestrial routes, leaving Africa without true backbone networks at national, sub-regional and continental level, despite the ITU’s solemn promises for such a network given in the seventies –remember Panaftel !- and in 2003 together with the Africa Union. Moreover, in 2007 the ITU led initiative Connect Africa promised the long awaited continental African backbone being in place in 2012 ….
Thus billions of dollars are wasted in needless infrastructure instead of being invested to building essential telecom backbone networks. The invisible hand of the market is still ruling, and H.Touré’s ITU is applauding.
> Message du 08/11/12 16:23
> De : "Baudouin Schombe"
> A : governance at lists.igcaucus.org, "michael gurstein"
> Copie à : "McTim"
> Objet : Re: [governance] Hamadoun Touré Op-Ed in Wired +
>
>
I appreciate rightly this appreciation of Michael and I ask myself the question of what are beneficially precoccupations that will be discussed during this high mass? While we seek to make digital technology more profitable and beneficial, we find the money to spend because we are at the end of the year and somewhere there was money that has not yet been spend and must justify its use.
>
Baudouin
>
>
2012/11/8 michael gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com>
>
>
> McTim,
> >
> > I have no idea what the conference is "actually about", but even if it is
> > only camouflage at least he is raising the issue and I don't see any of the
> > folks who are semi-hysterical around the WCIT talking about anything even
> > approaching those issues.
> >
> > At least in the US where AT&T is trying to do a similar deregulatory number
> > on the FCC they are willing to pay a reasonable price ($14 Billion for
> > additional connectivity) to get themselves off the regulatory hook. What
> > are the folks who are throwing everything but the kitchen sink at the ITU,
> > offering (except platitudes about the magical wonders of
> > "competition"--hardly of much use to subsistence farmers in Bangladesh or
> > Burkina Faso living on $1 per day)?
> >
> > M
> >
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: McTim [mailto:dogwallah at gmail.com]
> > Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2012 4:47 PM
> > To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org; michael gurstein
> > Subject: Re: [governance] Hamadoun Touré Op-Ed in Wired +
> >
> > On Thu, Nov 8, 2012 at 12:02 AM, michael gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > With over 90 percent of the world’s people now within reach of mobile
> > > phones, the challenge today is bringing internet access to the
> > > two-thirds of the world’s population that is still offline. This
> > > challenge is compounded by the need to ensure connectivity is affordable
> > and safe for all.
> > >
> > > and then
> > >
> > > The conference will chart a globally agreed-upon roadmap that offers
> > > future connectivity to all, and ensures sufficient communications
> > > capacity to cope with the exponential growth in voice, video, and
> > > data. The sole focus of the event is making regulations valuable to
> > > all stakeholders, creating a robust pillar to support future growth in
> > global communications.
> > >
> > > and
> > >
> > > The conference will address issues that relate to improving online
> > > access and connectivity for everyone.
> > >
> > > Surely these are appropriate goals for Civil Society as well
> >
> > spot on Michael.
> >
> > I for one don't believe that what HT says the conference is about is
> > actually what the conference is about, do you?
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > 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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> --
> SCHOMBE BAUDOUIN
> CENTRE AFRICAIN D'ECHANGE CULTUREL/
> ACADEMIE DES TIC
> FACILITATEUR GAID/AFRIQUE Membre
> At-Large Member
> NCSG Member
>
> email:baudouin.schombe at gmail.com
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