Kenya: Cheaper Internet Access On the Way
All Africa, - The internet sector has finally opened for free competition. The licensing of three other firms by the Communications Commission of Kenya to establish internet backbones, is expected to lower the costs charged for international bandwidth by Telkom Kenya.The result of all this will be lower internet tariffs.
This also gives way to a flexible and competitive provision of services to internet users and ISPs. Already African countries like Ghana already have similar arrangements with lower prices and higher access.
Governments embrace internet
Having more than one internet backbone provider should increase IT development and connectivity in Kenya.
Five years ago, only a handful of countries on the continent had local internet access.
Today, the internet is available in every capital city in sub-Saharan Africa, and a growing number of governments, businesses and educational institutions are taking advantage of their global internet connectivity. However,
Kenya, like many other African countries, had taken the wrong approach to opening up access to the internet.
Telkom Kenya had established an international internet backbone.
This monopolistic arrangement slowed down the diffusion of the internet.
Fortunately, the monopolistic situation has changed, with the Commission licensing UUNET, Kenya Data Networks and Jamii Telecom as Internet backbone carriers and other VSAT technologies to enter the field and to compete against the monopoly. Already, KDN announced rates up to 56.9 per cent lower than the new JamboNet tariffs.
High-speed access to the internet is in great demand. Kenya's inadequate telecommunications system has clearly contributed to the country's slow economic growth over the last decade. Only an effective private sector will allow Kenya to develop and grow its economy.
In such countries as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia, private ISPs are not dependent on a monopoly telecom operator for their international bandwidth.
Instead they can bypass inefficient bureaucracies with direct satellite up-links to help speed the development of commerce and the growth of business.
Kenya can rapidly gain ground if technology is made available. In the US, it took 38 years for radio to reach 50 million people, 12 years for TV, but just four years for the internet.
If Kenya were to open up its internet sector, substantial progress could be made in a very short period of time, benefiting every sector and region of the country.
The nation is set to advance and keep pace with the rest of the world. With the technology that is available today, Kenya can close the gap in the digital divide, and take advantage of the many business, educational and technical advantages that the technology revolution is set to create. We are a nation blessed with resources and position, to be able regains its place as one of the continent's economic powerhouses.
Future economic growth and empowerment will come only with the effective utilization of modern technology.
Haiti is one of many developing countries that have demonstrated that the benefits of the internet are not limited to the wealthiest nations. While many of developing countries have pursued a path to internet development that is similar to that of the wealthiest nations, Haiti has taken a radically different path.
Haiti also shows how policies regarding spectrum management, international telephone service, ISP licensing, and resale can impact internet growth. With only four ISPs, two of them operate international gateways.
Many developing countries allow only a single entity to operate an international gateway for commercial internet traffic. Haiti has demonstrated the value of having two such gateways, and allowing resale.
Removing price distortion
The four ISPs collectively cover a broader range of customers.
These ISPs offer both wholesale services to resellers and retail services to Internet customers.
It is possible that easing licensing restrictions on international gateways will reduce or eliminate previous pricing tensions that come with having a monopoly backbone carrier.
The Haitian experience clearly demonstrates that the internet can grow even in the least developed countries, when regulators grant commercial ISPs permission to operate and access to critical resource of Internet backbone.
More importantly, Haiti has shown that there are many paths to internet development, and that every country must find the one that best matches its resources and objectives. Many commercial ISPs, even in the US, relied primarily on dial-up service, and ISPs in many developing countries have emulated this approach.
Haiti did not.
Without a developed telephone system, Haitian ISPs adopted wireless technologies as a critical part of internet infrastructure making use of a resource that is more plentiful in Haiti than in some western countries-Internet backbone.
Like many developing countries, artificially high prices for international telephone service create particular difficulties for Internet growth.
It is of national interest to boost the expansion of Internet Services in the country, as this will help our country to become a part of emerging global E-economy.
The author is a telecoms strategy analyst.
11 January 2005, All Africa Inc, Africa News
