[kictanet] ISPs slap Ndemo-but who is to blame?

Thu Sep 23 15:44:12 EAT 2010

Lol..all I am saying is that this will bring a shift on the status quo.

By the way, just wondering, are there folks from Treasury/Min of Finance in here listening on these discussions? Do we have a “non-political”, professional,  small business administration (SBA) equivalent in Kenya?

Edwin

Sales without Customer Service........is like stuffing money into a pocket full of holes.
DAVID TOOMA

From: Walubengo J [mailto:jwalu at yahoo.com] 
Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010 3:37 PM
To: Edwin Onchari
Cc: 'KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions'
Subject: RE: [kictanet] ISPs slap Ndemo-but who is to blame?

Nice ideas - by the way - dont shout too  much, I know a couple of chaps who are doing this "under the hood" ;-)

And so maybe the question would be to what extent has the Regulatory environment failed to address this segment of business that perhaprs can have a +ve impact on the Internet retail prices? 

I know they unbundled the last-mile during the fixed-telcom days, probably it is about time they also unbundled the "last-mile" for the mobile operators? that would be quite an interesting proposition - but it can get most of your ideas running over rather than under the hood.. 

walu.

--- On Thu, 9/23/10, Edwin Onchari <eonchari at lynxbits.com> wrote:

From: Edwin Onchari <eonchari at lynxbits.com>
Subject: RE: [kictanet] ISPs slap Ndemo-but who is to blame?
To: "'Walubengo J'" <jwalu at yahoo.com>
Cc: "'KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions'" <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
Date: Thursday, September 23, 2010, 4:08 PM

With the ISPs supply chain (support, reselling, etc)  “outsourced” to independent providers, prices will come down and yes, content will come. Picture this:

·         Their overheads in getting connectivity to homes (some quite “remote”) will be diminished as entrepreneurs such as myself will be willing to offer last mile services by offering connections to the flats/apts where I stay and buy bandwidth from the cheapest provider and resell – competition then sets in. I have to be the most affordable in my estate/village

·         I could offer virtual apartment searches at a minimal cost (this is an underground industry by itself as we speak-apartment viewing costs 1K a day)

·         I could offer bespoke, hosted SaaS, etc,  at affordable rates (people can now afford to be online all the time)

·         I could supplement my income teaching class 8’s, form 4’s, college students in Math, Science, etc. Schools can enhance their distance learning offerings

·         TV stations can have their shows online ( I hate commercials and programs that least interest me), with millions ready to watch these at affordable rates…enormous advertising revenue for them.

·         I can make extra income by becoming a customer service agent of company X that can ill afford to hire me full time. Giving the company’s customers 24/7 support, cheaply.

·         Order a consignment of bananas from Kisii, or Tilapia from Migingo (the seller there is able to access a digital village and market his/her produce, cyber rates will be less than 25 cents per minute of high speed access)

·         I can access government services at anytime of the day

·         The list is endless

In a nutshell, innovation will kick in, content will be available and users will be in abundance.

Edwin

Sales without Customer Service........is like stuffing money into a pocket full of holes.
DAVID TOOMA

From: Walubengo J [mailto:jwalu at yahoo.com] 
Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010 2:39 PM
To: Edwin Onchari
Cc: 'KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions'
Subject: RE: [kictanet] ISPs slap Ndemo-but who is to blame?

@ Edwin,

By saying ISPs/Telcos to "Open Up their Supply Chain" do you mean "Force down the Retail Cost in order to stimulate demand?" - Hoping to recoup cost through larger volume sales?

Again, the ASSUMPTION here is that lower costs will automatically stimulate demand. Perhaps there's no demand because there's no local internet content and as such dropping cost may not really increas demand. 

Put differently, 90% of the Kenyans who are currently NOT using the internet, dont, simply because there's NOTHING in it for them (why would my Dad get online? or that farmer in Kirinyaga? to do facebook, yahoo, youtube?(.. the current hot content "locally" here)). 

In other words even giving them FREE internet will not get them online...but it might get the Operators broke, forcing some of them to close shop and eventually deny the few 10% of the current Kenyan Internet Users access to the 'Net...far fetched but possible.

walu.

--- On Thu, 9/23/10, Edwin Onchari <eonchari at lynxbits.com> wrote:

From: Edwin Onchari <eonchari at lynxbits.com>
Subject: RE: [kictanet] ISPs slap Ndemo-but who is to blame?
To: "'Walubengo J'" <jwalu at yahoo.com>
Cc: "'KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions'" <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
Date: Thursday, September 23, 2010, 2:16 PM

Walu,

The ISPs/Telcos are to blame for the sheer lack of innovation on their part. The one asset that they have not leveraged on is the abundant; under-utilized IT human resource and entrepreneurial base inKenya. Open up their supply chain to include this group(s) will see the last mile issue sorted = more users= shared costs on the bandwidth procured by ISPs=lowered retail prices

My take,

Edwin

From: kictanet-bounces+eonchari=lynxbits.com at lists.kictanet.or.ke [mailto:kictanet-bounces+eonchari=lynxbits.com at lists.kictanet.or.ke] On Behalf Of Walubengo J
Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010 1:04 PM
To: Edwin
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions
Subject: Re: [kictanet] ISPs slap Ndemo-but who is to blame?

Yawe,

I think everyone (including ISPs) ASSUMED that the marine cable will automatically crash the RETAIL internet prices.  But ofcourse that turned out to be false.

At the same time, it DOES NOT mean the marine cable was a wasted effort.  It simply means the marine cable is NECESSARY but NOT SUFFICIENT to bring down retail internet prices.

I am not sure at this moment in time whom to blame for this. But I know its not Dr. Ndemo nor the ISPs/Telcos. I am investigating this phenomena, and perhaps, sometime future I could share the results...

walu.
@ Nnenna, your quotes from Senegal, Ivory Coast are juicy - but dig deeper - since at face value, the mobile internet prices in .Ke look cheap, but in long term reality(usage) they ARE NOT!

--- On Thu, 9/23/10, robert yawe <robertyawe at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

From: robert yawe <robertyawe at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: [kictanet] ISPs slap Ndemo
To: jwalu at yahoo.com
Cc: "KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions" <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
Date: Thursday, September 23, 2010, 11:38 AM

Hi,

The ISPs have now teamed up and agreed that the cost of "International" Internet access will not be coming down soon because we have less than 2.6% penetration.

Dr. Ndemo, this is a slap on you, wield your big stick, or sorry not possible you recently handed it over to Orange.

There is only one solution to this issue lets concentrate in developing local content thereby reducing the dependence on the over hyped marine cable.  But based on the discussions on the commodity exchange system this will be an up hill task as we question the credibility of everyone he tries to setup a local online application or service.

I read an article on how Hon. Kilonzo is planning to setup green houses in all the schools in his constituency while the others are trying to provide computers to children who are not able to get a balanced diet.  

Again I repeat "I am ashamed to be a member of the ICT fraternity" but like was once said by a disgruntled KANU memebrr "I shall remain the opposition within"

Regards

Robert Yawe
KAY System Technologies Ltd
Phoenix House, 6th Floor
P O Box 55806 Nairobi, 00200
Kenya

Tel: +254722511225, +254202010696

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