[kictanet] Day 3 of 10:-IGF Discussions, Internet Interconnection Charges

[David Otwoma]

Alex,

One has to agree with your argument.

Remember when mobiles were costing above 200k shs a set. Then the
regulatory environment allowed more than one player and a plethora of
sets. We now have 3 shs a minute calls and sets not above 1000 shs.
When more players roll out the 11 pm to 6 am free calls will go to
free calls on weekends and public holidays.

As for ISP, when even GSM (Zain has a 2,995 shs unlimited service
while Safaricom has 300 MB bundle for 999 shs) have joined the earlier
players (dial as in Telecom, Popote etc. wireless as in butterfly,
iBurst etc. and the conventionals), the trend has been lower costs
with better quality as the consumer has many choices.

Sectors that support ICT like energy are the let downs as they are yet
to liberalize i.e. Kengen has no serious competitors and KPLC is still
a monopoly giving many Kenyans a raw deal. Those escalating energy
costs are reducing the impacts that would have been felt by growth in
ICT.

David

On Thu, Aug 14, 2008 at 10:24 PM, Gakuru, Alex
<alexgakuru.lists at gmail.com> wrote:
> Michuki,
>
> This is not true of the market place dynamics. Also equating
> "cheap/affordability with very poor QoS" invites monopoly. Earlier we
> were told monopolies gave us expensive poor services and we had no
> choice but to use their services thus calls to liberalise the sector
> and ISP entered. Granted, this led to infamous oligopolies(mobiles)
> but opened a few more consumer choices. Increased competition ensures
> consumers keep their options open. I encourage you to read Mike
> Jensen's contribution at last year's IGF.
> <http://www.intgovforum.org/Rio_Meeting/IGF2-Access-13NOV07.txt>
>
> Therefore, I strongly object to your statement and instead call for
> ever increased competition (see: "his consumer group is working to
> assure that the people of Kenya gain access to affordable, reliable
> networked communications from competitive carriers."
> <http://www.elon.edu/e-web/predictions/igf_interviews_2007.xhtml>)
>
> regards,
>
> Alex
>
>
> On Thu, Aug 14, 2008 at 8:43 PM, Michuki Mwangi <michuki at swiftkenya.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Gakuru, Alex wrote:
>>>
>>> For clarity's sake..
>>>
>>> On Thu, Aug 14, 2008 at 7:28 PM, Michuki Mwangi
>>>>
>>>> Well this is a clear demonstration of the frustrations that service
>>>> providers are going through as a result of the competition.
>>>
>>> Is competition a good or a bad thing? And for whom?
>>>
>>
>> Its good and bad for the consumer - they gets cheap/affordable services with
>> very poor QoS.
>>
>>
>
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