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defyfear
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Posted: Friday February 24th, 2006 15:50 |
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This is a substantial investment and who will get the main benefit of such asn investment?
Africa’s bandwidth cable
By Lesley Stones, Business Day, February 2006 23-02-2006.
AN UNDERSEA 9900km cable linking Africa to international telecommunications networks has won valuable support from British Telecom, Saudi Telecom and Teleglobe of Canada.
The three foreign operators have joined a consortium of mainly African operators constructing the cable to bring much needed high-speed bandwidth to the continent.
China Telecom and Malaysia Telecom have also shown interest in supporting the mammoth construction project.
Members of the Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System met in Johannesburg last month to thrash out the finer details of the task.
A procurement working group will meet this month to assess the tenders submitted by construction companies.
Financial agreements should be signed off in June so construction can begin in July or August, with a completion date in the fourth quarter of 2007.
The cable is expected to cost $200m, and will run from Mtunzini in SA to Port Sudan, with landing points in six countries.
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Bredder Tukoma
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Posted: Sunday February 26th, 2006 22:34 |
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Bro your a regular source of technological news. Reading your posts is like the African version of tommorrow's world. I dont hear anyone else thanking you so keep it up.
Crucial info.
I expect Western companies will be adverstising their African headquaters within Africa with an African inet address. But overall good news I feel. The more Africa can tune in to the internet the easier it is for the small man/ manufacturer to adverstise his services. When you check it they are estimating a cable size for internet/telephone traffic for a continent. Bet my right arm it will be undersized within 5 years.
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defyfear
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Posted: Wednesday March 8th, 2006 01:46 |
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Looks like Rwanda with the help of American companies will be getting more of this. But from the news and politics section and in the greater world wide web there is some power consumption concerns going on in that region. Here it is.
I dont know what is going on but Rwanda border the heavily conflicted Democratic Republic of the Congo and to make an investment of this magnitude is very questionable in my opinion. But hopefully local Africans can benefit and we can hear and read their side of the story.
Semi-heavy weights in financial, computer and telecommunication industry are involved with this.
This is from Rwanda GNU/Linux User Group which is down for some odd reason
http://rwlug.linuxorbit.com
Terracom wins Rwanda telecom bid
Written by Administrator
Saturday, 15 January 2005
KIGALI, RWANDA
— By Geoffrey Kamali —
People happily sipped champagne at the Terracom Communications
office in Kigali after the company had been selected as the
preferred bidder for national telecom provider, Rwandatel.
Terracom, owned by American enterpreneur, Mr. Greg Wyler, edged
out two other firms for the deal. The winning company will get
a licence to operate both a landline and a mobile network.
Rwanda’s Privatisation Secretariat chief execituve,
Mr. Bonaventure Niyibizi, told Procurement News (PN) in an
interview last week that his team will now enter into talks with
Terracom over specific conditions expected of the company.
“If they do not agree with our objectives, then we’ll move to
the reserve bidders. We’ve not rejected the other bidders. We’ve
only selected the preferred bidder,� he said.
The other bidders include South-African-based R-com, owned by
wealthy business man, Mr. Miko Rwayitare and Maracom, based in
Israel.
Terracom which started its operations in the country last year,
is providing high speed wireless internet services to Kigali
residents and rolled out a 10km fiber optic cable network around
the city.
Mr. Wyler told PN last year that the infrastructure being laid
by his company would allow users to use telephone, internet, data
access solutions as well as television capabilities over the
internet platform.
The company has embarked on an advertising campaign for calls to
Europe and a flat rate to users on its network at rates as low as
Frw 145 ($0.20 cents).
Last edited on Wednesday March 8th, 2006 02:02 by defyfear
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defyfear
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Posted: Wednesday March 8th, 2006 01:59 |
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Ghana was suppose to be the key to IT infrastructure in Africa but now Rwanda is be remade into this key. Something must be happening in Ghana and it IT development. Maybe it has slowed. But sometimes Wyler speaks as if he is making Rwanda anew with his comments. It looks like he is entitle to be the spokesperson to say how Rwanda will ultimately turn out. The President of Rwanda Paul Kagame seem to be signing these contracts in the back room in virtual silence.
Need cheap DSL? Go to Rwanda
By Ashlee Vance in Mountain View
Published Thursday 23rd February 2006 10:04 GMT
Not too long ago, a high-speed internet connection in Rwanda cost close to $1,000 per month. A whopping 22 customers could afford to buy this service from the national telco - RwandaTel. Then, Terracom arrived.
Terracom started laying fiber throughout Rwanda, bought RwandaTel for $20m and dropped the price for a combination high-speed internet connection and phone line down to $80 per month. Greg Wyler - the American entrepreneur cum do-gooder behind Terracom - sees affordable internet service as a key step to establishing Rwanda as an African IT hub. And that may well mark the first time Rwanda and IT hub have appeared in the same sentence.
"In Rwanda now, we have about 350 kilometers of fiber," Wyler said in an interview with The Register. "So, if you are a company and want to get into the African market, then basing your headquarters in Rwanda is a great idea.
"There is a vision here that, if we do this in Rwanda, and it works, then maybe people will take the same approach in other countries. Maybe the rest of Africa can come out of the digital divide."
Over-zealous internet advocates in the US often push the idea that pumping high-speed connections into low income neighborhoods or poor schools will somehow lift the downtrodden from their slums and carry them to the panacea that is technology and the future of our economy. Such talk proves more embarrassing than helpful, especially when it's just talk.
Similar conditions hold for anyone hyping a cure for the digital divide in Africa. Rwanda, for example, remains just over a decade past a devastating civil war. The ethnic conflicts that drove the war linger, as does a slumping, rural economy.
Rwanda, however, does appear to be a nation on the mend. Most of the news stories relating to the country now document the trials of those accused of genocide during the civil war. In addition, some form of international guilt over not aiding Rwanda during the 1994 crisis seems to have captured the attention of aid organizations who are now willing to send money and people to the country. And, while not universally cheered, President Paul Kagame receives credit for pushing Rwanda in the right direction, especially from an economic point of view.
"He is bringing in business to Rwanda and helping create a stable environment," Wyler said. "The President has a real entrepreneurial spirt and real business acumen."
Wyler arrived in Rwanda two years ago, looking for aid work as a teacher. While hunting down a job, he ran across a project to put computers in Rwandan schools and link them to the internet via satellite connections. The plan, which included the purchase of $2,300 PCs, appeared too expensive and inefficient to Wyler. Why purchase expensive computers and then deliver just 64kbps connections to the students?
"The thing is that money is not the problem," Wyler said. "The problem is the way they spend it. You'll find that a lot of money goes to consultants and to buy $2,300 computers when a $500 computer will do. So, I started a company to try and give them an idea of how to do this."
Wyler zeroed in on building out the country's networking infrastructure. If you're going to buy computers, they may as well connect to the internet at a useful speed - 300kbps and up - and at an affordable price. After one year, Terracom managed to overtake RwandaTel in subscribers. In October of 2005, Terracom bought RwandaTel for $20m.
“I am optimistic that Terracom will expand telecommunications and reduce prices to its respective customers and Rwandans at large,� said Rwanda's Finance Minister Dr. Donald Kaberuka when the deal was announced.
When pushed, Wyler tries to dodge financial questions about Terracom. For example, the funding for the company comes from unnamed investors in the UK. In addition, Terracom does subsidize some of its services at the moment, but won't provide details on the scope of the price breaks. The firm highlighted its for profit intentions after laying off 136 workers, following the RwandaTel buy.
"I try not to talk about the investors or financial issues," Wyler said. "People tend to get caught up in that."
Laying fiber in Rwanda
While turning Terracom into a successful service provider is a long-term goal, the company will focus for now on laying more fiber and bringing cheap internet connections to as many people as possible. So far, close to 700 people have signed up for the combination ADSL and phone service, while thousands use free dial-up services.
Over the next few years, Terracom will work with Sun Microsystems to put 20,000 thin client computers in hundreds of Rwandan schools. The thin clients do not have power hungry processors, disk drives or fans and require about 20W as compared to a 200W PC. The power savings should make it possible to run the thin clients on solar power, according to Wyler.
Terracom plans to manage the servers behind the thin clients, and Sun will likely donate some of the gear in the project.
The need for solar power highlights just how difficult the actual practice of "bridging the digital divide" remains. That type of solution, though, stands as the only means of accomplishing such an ambitious project.
"If you grow up in an environment where you live in a mud hut and you don't even have a screwdriver, it's hard to participate in the world economy," Wyler said. "You don't know the tools. So we need to move to where everybody in the country can work on new tools that can aid a developing nation and help bring the economy up to speed."
A number of countries around Africa have contacted Terracom with the hopes of establishing their own high-speed networks. The company, however, remains cautious about stretching beyond Rwanda.
"Everybody wants us to do this in their country," Wyler said. "In order for us to even think about expanding, the country would need to have a political environment that is clean and forward thinking. If we can get the computing density up in Rwanda, then it's a great model for these other countries."
For Wyler, the major quest revolves around making Rwanda an attractive place to do business for technology entrepreneurs eyeing Africa. If the country can outpace neighbors, then it could become a type of IT hub in the region.
On a broader scale, the high-speed network can help with other humanitarian projects taking place in the country. Aid workers could, for example, track those infected with HIV more efficiently by taking laptops out into the field and sending data back to a central database. In addition, the schools can tap into free course material from the likes of MIT or Stanford.
Wyler doesn't claim that the next Google or imeem will appear overnight in Rwanda, and that's refreshing. He does, however, think the country can develop a very real internet economy, and that's believable. ®
It looks like international humanitarian agencies will be Terracom biggest paying costumers. This is coming from him. Still at least some local Africans can benefit. I wish much more though.
This article is too revealing. Wyler is spilling the beans too much. I can see how this will ultimately work out.
Now to add more fire to this matter.
Last edited on Wednesday March 8th, 2006 02:01 by defyfear
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defyfear
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Posted: Wednesday March 8th, 2006 02:12 |
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Terracom staff train in US
Date: 22nd-December 2005
The New Times
Terracom, in conjunction with Alltel, one of the largest communications companies in the United States, is training Rwandans with a view to opening a customer support centre in Rwanda. The Terracom Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Greg Wyler, who recently visited the trainees at Alltel, said his company’s efforts were geared towards building the best customer support in Africa.
A release by Terracom, the company that recently acquired 99% shares in Rwandatel, also indicated that the company was sending its staff for training to avoid bringing in consultants. ‘The training at Alltel is designed to ensure Terracom’s customer service will meet all American standards.
Terracom’s goal is to build the capacity of Rwanda in order to increase exports and compete on a world market’ the release states in part. It adds that the trainees will return after a three-month training stint in Arkansas and that a team from Alltel will visit Rwanda in January to review the new customer service centre. Terracom recently launched its EasyCall Fixed Wireless phones with flat rate calling. The phone service is the first flat rate phone service in Africa, where users have unlimited calling on the network for one price.
According to the release, Terracom also recently launched the ADSL network, with the lowest internet rates in all of Africa. The ADSL which is available in Kigali will be extended to the rest of the country over the next twelve months, the release adds.
Terracom SARL acquired Rwandatel two months ago and offers services that include mobile and fixed phones, Internet, Mobile Internet EVDO, Mobile Television, Fixed Wireless, Wireless broadband and ADSL.
Alltell’s CEO Scott Ford visited Rwanda several months ago and met with his Terracom counterpart Greg and Paul Wolfowitz, the president of the World Bank.
As I noted before about Wyler he has contridicted himself he said
his company’s efforts were geared towards building the best customer support in Africa.
but his worker's training will
The training at Alltel is designed to ensure Terracom’s customer service will meet all American standards.
This getting very apparent. Being the best customer support in Africa but customer service will meet all American standards.
Right.
He got World Bank on his side. And World Bank represent America's interest overseas in Africa.
This will be an interesting followup.
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okaforworld
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Posted: Wednesday March 15th, 2006 03:56 |
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| Goodluck to their efforts.
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