[kictanet] FW: [www.eThinkTankTz.org] ICT BACKBONE: A solution in search of a problem or is it just a white elephant?
waudo siganga
emailsignet at mailcan.com
Tue Jun 17 19:53:36 EAT 2008
Thanks for sharing the interesting situational analysis in TZ
Harry. Interesting that technology may be moving so fast that
solutions are searching for problems. Looking fwd to hearing more
from the writer.
Waudo
On Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:20:28 +0300, "Harry Hare" <harry at africanedevelopme
nt.org> said:
Dear Colleagues,
As we await our own FON, there could be some lessons from this
experience. One year after the commissioning of the government
funded terrestrial fibre optic network in Tanzania, the network
has remained relatively idle. Some basic business fundamentals
could have been ignored or assumed. Read on.
Harry
From: eThinkTankTz at yahoogroups.com
[mailto:eThinkTankTz at yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Rama Mwikalo
Sent: 17 June 2008 00:36
To: ethinktanktz at yahoogroups.com
Subject: [www.eThinkTankTz.org] ICT BACKBONE: A solution in
search of a problem or is it just a white elephant?
National ICT Optical Fiber Backbone:
Is this a solution in search of a problem or just a white
elephant?
It is a sad indictment of the current state of the ICT backbone
infrastructure when a newly commissioned ultra-modern optical
fiber system is sitting idle with absolutely no customers; zero.
This may sound like an exaggeration but it is not a very big one!
Apart from the standard internal and management traffic required
to keep the system chugging and humming along, there are
practically no paying customers to speak of on the system. The
old adage, some may say myth, that says “if you build it, they
will come” was probably taken too literally by the companies that
decided to invest their hard-earned T-shillings in the ICT
optical fiber infrastructure. The system has been idle ever since
it was officially commissioned little over a year ago, according
to Charles Makakala – a member and regular contributor to the
Tanzania e-Think Tank online discussion group. All we can say is
that whatever business plan was used to justify this investment,
it
was not a plan for spiking the ball on the 20 yard - to use an
American football metaphor.
By all accounts, what has been implemented is an ultra-modern
state of the art transmission system based on the latest high
capacity DWDM (Dense Wave Division Multiplexing) fiber optics
technology. According to Mr Makakala, the system has been
deployed across nine regional traffic hubs including some smaller
towns, and it has an estimated transport capacity of nearly 4
Gigabit per second. Just so we all know, this represents enough
bandwidth to carry up to 400 times the current voice traffic
generated by all major mobile phone operators namely, Vodacom,
Celtel, Tigo and Zantel.
It would have been hilarious if it weren’t downright cruel for
these well-meaning folks to have invested so much to achieve so
little. This is undoubtedly an important national venture and the
service is desperately needed for the development of our country,
so what went wrong?
No one could have expected – not by any stretch of imagination –
that in a country that still requires more ICT investment – not
less – there would be a glut of data transmission bandwidth
sitting idle and begging for customers but there are no takers.
In the meantime, Tanzanians of all shapes and stripes are
burdened with one of the highest and out-of-reach
telecommunication service tariffs in Africa. Needless to say,
there is a huge disconnect; it makes very little sense and
clearly deserves a detailed examination and analysis.
Considering the way things have turned out, perhaps we should
begin by speculating or asking what was the business plan that
was used to justify the implementation the optical fiber
infrastructure that has been deployed and commissioned? Who were
the targeted customers and were they consulted to determine what
it would take to get them on board as paying customers? These
are basic market research questions
If the ICT backbone was
built hoping “customers will come”, well we should not be
surprised now that the chickens are coming home to roost and the
outcome is so dramatically different from the investors
expectations not to mention prayers.
Some of the basic and fundamental market research and analysis
questions that should have been asked are:
§ Who are likely to be the major customers for the
optical fiber super-highway and where are they geographically
located?
§ What are they planning to use the optical fiber
bandwidth for?
§ How much aggregate bandwidth is need and, more
importantly, where is that bandwidth needed?
§ What special interfaces are needed by the customers?
§ What kind of problems are these “potential customers”
currently experiencing that the optical fiber infrastructure
would be ideally suited to solve?
§ How much are they expecting and willing to pay for the
bandwidth in order to subscribe to the new service?
§ What other competing technologies are available and how
much are they paying today?
We can delve a little deeper into some of these questions a
little later to try to come up with possible answers that may be
helpful feedback into the next ICT infrastructure project whether
privately or publicly funded. As a way of illustrations, I am
planning to use broadband internet access, mobile phone and
triple-play which are considered to be the “killer applications”
(to employ an overused term) for the national fiber
infrastructure.
I will also say a few words about the appropriateness (or lack
thereof) of assigning the management of a government funded ICT
optical fiber backbone to TTCL. Since I am not employed by any of
these companies I can afford not to take sides in the proverbial
“mwamba ngoma” tradition. I get chills down my spine when I hear
that the mobile phone companies are among the targeted customers
for this government funded initiative in which TTCL is the
designated operator. Last time I checked, TTCL was still
competing against the very customers it is supposed to serve!
God help us should, in the unlikely event, the system encounter a
catastrophic failure, a possibility that cannot be ruled out;
would TTCL be expected to give top priority to its own mobile
phone customers over its competitors or are they likely to be
fair and even-handed?
And so we bear witness to the specter of the least successful
mobile phone service provider trying to bail out its more
successful competitors! It takes two leaps of faith to believe
that TTCL will be even-handed and quite frankly, I am not at all
surprised why the targeted customers appear to be dragging their
feet. The business model needs to be revisited. And as I said
earlier, I intend to address this issue and others in a follow up
contribution.
Rama Mwikalo
Technology Consultant
Silicon Valley, California, USA
(512) 947-7668
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