Connectivity Providers Database

From: Lishan_Adam@padis.gn.apc.org To: Multiple recipients of list <africana-l@warthog.cc.wm.edu> Date: Tue, 17 Oct 1995 03:29:19 -0400 Jeff writes.. >I highly recommend the evening entertainment at the outdoor buffet >restaurant at the Sheraton in Kampala. Jeff, missed your posting, just came back from Kampala. I was up to see the Satelitte dish on the roof of Sheraton, no time for the dancers. We were at a meeting of IGADD (Inter-Governmental Authority for Drought and Development) composed of Uganda, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Djibouti, Kenya and Somalia. Somalia was not represented. The meeting was about strengthening (linking) libraries and documentation centers:-; > I visited the offices of both Starcom We had also a chance to see the Director of Starcom. I was with a PT&T man from Ethiopia. The outcome of the meeting was good. During discussions we gathered that the librelization in Uganda did not take place without pains. >technically Starcom isn't allowed to "compete" with the state telecom The "do not compete" with state PT&T (incomplete librelization) is the major pain. Starcom gets lines for setting up and managing pay phones from the Uganda PT&T (UPTC) (except those at Entebee airport). The company should then resell it with a competitive price. It was a difficult competition:-; after adding UPTC charges + maintenace costs and profit. Someone also told us that Starcom was denied some of the services it requested to offer and forced to use a different smart card for pay phones. There are two smart cards in Uganda. In general UPTC is one the most open PT&Ts in Africa. Starcom (Starlight Communications) has also operations in Mogadishu. >Starcom has signed an agreement to bring a free IP feed into Makerere. According to the director of Starcom this will be a 9.6Kbps radio link. Makarere and a university in Norway are both working on getting funds to upgarde the 9.6 links to 64Kbps. Satrcom could not afford a 64Kbps line for free:-) Here are some of the lessons in Uganda: - the first company jumping to a liberalized telecommunications site in Africa will get the biggest "headache" if complete interconnection and free competition is not allowed. - local Fido sysops will face "hard time" if they are not ready for full TCP/IP and have not developed a unix capabilty. Charles seems to be "hit". - telephony will reach rural areas once the PT&T opens up. (Starcom is considering low cost 19.2 rural package that handles voice, e-mail). Such access will not hurt UPTC (it will be set up with a UPTC flag). It is good for local users; get access quickly instead of waiting for UPTC to put services after five years. This also implies that the traditional PT&T conception about librelization may not work. PT&Ts feel that if they "open up" there is no one who looks after rural communication (equity). - low cost technolgy is useful wherever available. In addition to having Internet to the country the local connection (local loop) becomes more critical. Since local loop is mostly unreliable and users need basic services at a cheap price, store and forward technologies such as Fido and uucp have to stay. - setting up bandwidth intensive Internet tools may make links difficult for connections less than or equal to 64Kbps. Instead having Web pages on the "high pipe side some where in Europe" and mirroring it for local users is the best option. (Starcom is considering setting up Web pages on Uganda in Norway while some Ugandans feel that their web page with the flag should emanate from Kampala!). Lishan