LINK Public Policy Research Paper No. 8 January 2007 (pre-publication) Steve Esselaar & Alison Gillwald Despite the continued overall growth of the telecommunications sector in South Africa, the full potential of ICT to contribute to the growth and development of the country is not being realised. The fourth South African ICT Sector Performance Review (SPR) seeks to measure and assess some of the recent market developments in South Africa against national policy objectives such as access to services, cost of usage and competitiveness. The full report can be downloaded in pdf format here: 2006 South African ICT SPR
The Ugandan government gave full power to the country’s telecoms regulator, the Ugandan Communications Commission (UCC), to liberalize the infrastructure sector in October 2006. Earlier in the year, the Ministry published guidelines defining the opening up of services to full competition. This was a result of the end of the five-year exclusivity period of the National Telecom Operators (NTO)—MTN Uganda and Uganda Telecom, and Cellular Telecom Operator (CTO)—Celtel Uganda. With this new market structure, the Ugandan telecoms is set to become even more attractive as infrastructure rollout increases, new services and applications are deployed, and customers’ needs are meet in the greater context of convergence. In our view, despite current and upcoming challenges, Uganda is well positioned to become a very competitive and vibrant telecoms market and this can already be seen in the moves of South Africa’s giants MTN and Telkom SA which have either increased their stakes in the country or are seeking to make a push into Uganda.
Just returned from the sensory overload of the ITU Telecom World exhibition and forum in Hong Kong. One of the buzzwords/phrases floating around this year is multiple play. Triple play is passe though a few are hanging on with quadruple play. Given my recent column in LBO, my mind was on payments. Where in the multiple play talk was payments?
Maldives is a country with a population of around 300,000, around 32,000 fixed phones and around 232,000 mobiles [this has to level off, because pretty much the entire population is now using mobiles]. It has a lot of high-end hotel rooms, but the USP of the tourist industry there is not business travel, it is utter and complete relaxation. And relaxed people are not known to generate lots of data and voice traffic. All this is relevant to the question of what will go through the two cables landing in Maldives by 2007. Reliance/FLAG is already live, I believe.
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/17101_print.php The GSM Association recently announced that its Emerging Markets Handset program is exceeding expectations: mobile operators in Bangladesh, China, India, and Russia have already purchased 12 million of its Ultra Low Cost Handsets (ULCH). But will the initiative reach the rest of the three billion unconnected peoples in emerging markets?
LIRNEasia’s maiden telecom reform course was successfully completed by 36 participants from 18 countries. The 10th telecom reform course was co-organised with LIRNE.NET, in association with the School of Communication and Information of Nanyang Technological University, and the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) of Singapore. Themed ‘Catalyzing change: Strategies to achieve connectivity and convergence,’ the course took place at the Elizabeth Hotel in Singapore on the 24th-30th September 2005. see pics The course aimed to prepare regulators to face the challenges that lie ahead to achieve connectivity and convergence.
How can my organization/I as an individual researcher participate in the activities of LIRNEasia? LIRNE.NET is made up of research organizations, but we are building up organically, based on actual collaborative work rather than formal agreements. We worked with the LINK Centre in S Africa for years, before it became a member of LIRNE.NET.
Gillwald commented that there hasn’t been a careful focus on market structures, rather an emphasis on technical and legal human capital (as Dr. Bery previously noted). Gillwald described problems with an entrenched incumbent and an uncompetitive market leading to subpar service and profits, especially in the rural area. There is enormous unmet demand in South Africa, which is inaccessible due to regulatory market constraints. She did mention that many restrictions will be lifted in February of next year.
Today is the official start of the LIRNEasia Expert Forum on Regulation and Investment. Rohan Samarajiva is enamoured of ‘real-time updating’, hence you will be getting a plethora of information. Dr. William Melody delivered the commencement address, beginning with a simple question: “What are the characteristics of 21st Century Network Economies and Information Societies?” He also answered the question ‘What does LIRNE do?
Provisional Mission Statement: Improving the lives the people of Asia – by making it easier to use the information and communication technologies they need; by changing the laws, policies and regulations to enable those uses; by building Asia-based human capacity through research, training, consulting and advocacy. Why LIRNEasia? Enormous amounts of money are invested annually in ICTs. The potential of information and communication technologies, or ICTs for economic and social progress is substantial. ICTs aren’t necessarily the answer to higher incomes and development in itself; but together with other factors, they provide a means to improve people’s capabilities and knowledge so that they may better their lives.