[Kictanet] Day 8 of 10 : - Projected Impact of OFC on the Stakeholders

[John Walubengo]

Hey, why the sudden silence? maybe you are all holed up in
the PS office witnessing the TEAMs signing ceremony?
Anyhow, let me give my view about the post-OFC environment.

If we go the Consortium way:
*In this situation, the Regulator would have no oversight
over the cable.
*Prices may remain hihg
*Consumers may suffer
*Govt/Consortium members would make some good money.

If we go the Private Sector way:
*No Regultory oversight
*Prices may dance according to market dynamics
*Consumers may suffer but with a chance of improvements
*Private investor would make money

*If we go the Open Access way:
-it's hard to visualise this, given the resistance this
model has continued to attract from most players(Govt,
Regulator, etc).

Any other predictions?
walu.

Nway, here is what I t
--- John Walubengo <jwalu at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I must thank all for your valuable views shared over the
> last two days regarding the previous theme :- what are
> the
> Best Models for Provisioning submarine OFC.
> 
> Three models seem to have persisted throughout the
> discussion, namely, Open Access (EASsy), Private-led
> (Flag), and our famous Consortium models. Where Mucheru
> mentions separation of Cable ownership from Cable
> Management fits in squarely with the Open Access
> thinking,
> whereby, the investors in the cable (Govt, Public,
> Private
> Companies) appoint an independent management Agent (at a
> fee) to Operate the Cable on their behalf on a
> cost-recovery, open access basis. i.e Open to current and
> future Operators wishing to connect to the landing points
> or invest further in the cable on equal basis).  The
> cable
> becomes an essential service or public good, from where
> Operators can compete to offer (other) Services at a
> Profit.
> 
> Flag- a Private Investment initiative came in with a
> variant model where the cable is –privately owned but
> promises to open access to the Landing points  - but aims
> to maximise returns on the investments made on the cable
> infrastructure by reselling capacity at market rates. 
> They
> also aim to play only at the Infrastructure level, rather
> than at all levels, namely Infrastructure (cable) and
> Services  (Network and Application), opting to leave that
> to ISPs and ASP(Application Service Providers)
> 
> Nobody really pushed the Consortium model, but probably
> Badru did hint strongly for such a model when he
> mentioned
> that Commercial interest should be let loose to play
> dynamically with the market forces.  The Consortium model
> is where a group of Operators get into a private, closed,
> commercial agreement aiming to build, own and operate a
> submarine cable with aim of maximising their returns
> (profit) in the shortest time possible –social
> connotation
> notwithstanding.
> 
> And this is where the Consumer has suffered.  The
> short-terms interests of investors must be balanced
> against
> the long-term social benefits that would accrue from a
> affordable bandwidth provisions.  Alex and LK seem to be
> voice of the consumer here, urging the Regulator to flex
> their muscle – probably now and more in future when the
> OFC
> is laid-out. 
> 
> In all this, the various financing options were not so
> pronounced as noted by Michael J. Apart from IPO
> recommendation from Kai and Bill,  the financing models
> (Equity, Debt, etc) has not quite come through and I hope
> someone could make comment on that within the remaining
> three days as we discuss our next theme:- What is the
> likely impact of the above models on the existing
> stakeholders (Operators, Regulator and Consumers)?  That
> is, what do we see as the roles of the above stakeholders
> in the new dispensation of the Optical Submarine Cable.
> The
> efloor is again open and we have two days on this one.
> 
> walu.
> Nb: a Face2Face meeting will follow up after this online
> discussion where all these issues will be streamlined.
> ~~~~~000~~~~~~
> Theme Reminder:
> 1) Why OFC (1day)
> 2) Existing Business Models for OFC provisioning (2days)
> 3) Existing/Appropriate Regulatory Models for OFC (2days)
> 4) Best Model (Business+Regulatory) for E. Africans
> (2days)
> <Ongoing-Open>
> 5) Projected Impact on Stakeholders (2days)
> <Pending>
> 6) Reconciling Stakeholder interests/Conclusions (1day)
> <Pending>
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>  
>
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