[kictanet] Villagers to host digital world in East Africa

[Edith Adera]

Villagers to host digital world in East Africa (http://www.dailynews.co.tz/home/?n=2530&cat=home)


JAMES MPINGA in Lugoba, Coast Region, 14th June 2009

The dateline is an unlikely sleepy village called Lugoba now sitting on a super global 'knowledge highway' - whose residents did not know they have a high-level delegation of scientists and policy-makers from five East African Community (EAC) member states in their midst to prove just that.

The EAC citizens - and technical partners from Sweden - were out here to demonstrate that villages could soon be playing host to the most advanced technological networks across the world. The delegates from Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and hosts Tanzania were attending a regional 'hands-on' training workshop on community fibre networks at the Peacock Millennium Hotel in suburban Msasani in Dar es Salaam (June 9-12, 2009).

At the end of the workshop, they declared in a joint communiqué: "Community fibre networks are not only within reach to serve and empower our communities in the region but also, the cost of implementation is now cheaper and affordable.

"With emerging national fibre infrastructure now under implementation and the launching of submarine cable to link east Africa with the rest of the world for the first time on fibre, it is necessary for the communities to prepare to take advantage of this fibre infrastructure to stimulate socio-economic development,"

The regional workshop convened and organised by the Tanzania Commission of Science and Technology (COSTECH) and sponsored by Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC) was inspired by the availability of emerging national fibre networks in the region built by governments, national operators, power and energy utilities, rail companies as well as water organizations among others.

However, there weren't any illusions that all this will happen tomorrow. "Services may take a long time to reach the 'last mile' in each country and therefore it is important for the community to be sensitized on other possibilities of building their own networks bottom-up," they cautioned, adding that the 'first mile' was the greatest challenge in creating awareness about the benefit of community fibre networks among them.

The events in rural Tanzania provided a fitting backdrop to neighbouring Kenya which celebrated its ascent to a major technological take-off after the much-awaited East African Marine System (Teams) fibre optic cable landed in Mombasa. The cable, launched by Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki yesterday at Fort Jesus in the seaside city, the country's second biggest, connects the East African nation to worldwide cable networks.

On June 27, 2009 Tanzania will be connected to another artery on the global highway - the Seacom - linking it to its SADC neighbours in South Africa and Mozambique. In both Kenya and Tanzania, the cable will improve Internet connectivity and reduce the cost of data transmission - and create thousands of jobs, especially in the telecommunications sector.

Tanzania alone has more than 7,000km of fibre 'jealously' guarded by public utilities unaware of the immense opportunities that ICT now provides due to outdated legislative frameworks - or simply unwilling to share it out. The delegates therefore called on governments to live up to the "important role of creating an enabling environment for community networks to thrive."

"Here in Lugoba village... not even the president knew that his own village had gone 'digital' until someone sent him an e-mail message from his own place of birth (Lugoba) ... the president was then in Washington, DC," narrated Theophilus Mlaki, who took some of the delegation on a field trip to Chalinze and Wami last week - where ICT is changing lives among the villagers.

The regional workshop also recommended that all stakeholders should take advantage of emerging national fibre networks now under implementation to work with rural communities yet to be covered with communication services. Unfortunately, the emerging projects are often not interconnected and hence fell short of appropriate synergy. However, where the networks traversed, they provided an opportunity to serve the rural communities.

The objective of the event was therefore to: . Build awareness on the potential for customer/ community fibre deployment in helping to meet connectivity needs; .Lay grounds to effect policy changes that may be required to allow for community owned fibre infrastructure developments, and Encourage the use of fibre for improving connectivity.

The regional workshop brought together 28 participants who included ICT regulators, ICT ministries, Chair ICT Parliamentary Committee Kenya, managers of community owned networks and members of academia. The Royal Institute of Technology of Sweden facilitated the workshop.
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