South Africa Connect

Ory Okolloh discusses how government and civil society need to prepare for broadband.

Ory Okolloh addressed the audience at the National Broadband Forum to give her perspective on the draft framework based on her experience with e-citizenship, e-government and democratic participation. Ory is a Kenyan blogger and open-government activist who runs Mzalendo, a civic website that tracks the performance of Kenya’s Parliament and its Parliamentarians. She is also the founder member of Ushahidi.

She started off by speaking about how civil society should plays its part in the broadband revolution. Firstly, she pointed out that just as government needs to be held accountable for information made available online, so should civil society organisations. The questions to ask are: How open are we? How accessible is information from my organisation? Secondly, she said that civil society must prepare citizens for broadband by encouraging them to be content creators. In Kenya her organisation is preparing for broadband by running bar camps with local content generators in order to ‘localise the internet’ and make content relevant and usable to the public.

Ory spoke about how lucky we are as South Africans to have Freedom of Information legislation, something which Kenyans have been lobbying their government for eight years now. She encouraged South Africans to use the law in our favour – to demand that information is made available online and to challenge government, using relevant legislation, when these demands are not met.

The next step is making information accessible – and that means making data available in usable formats that can be remixed, mashed-up, mapped and interpreted by citizens, for citizens. Ory also spoke about how in preparing for broadband we should build applications or platforms for both the web and the mobile phone. While the advent of broadband is hot on our heels, at the moment people are most likely to access information through their mobile phones.

That brought her to her final point of how barriers to entry need to be as low as possible to enable citizen participation. She used the example of Mzalendo, which runs on $20 a month for hosting fees mainly, thanks to the strong user-generated aspect of the site. A strong online citizen movement is a powerful way to hold government accountable.

Steve Vosloo speaks about how broadband will change the way learners participate in the knowledge economy.

Steve Vosloo, 21st Century Learning Fellow at the Shuttleworth Foundation, painted an inspiring picture of what teaching and learning could be in the future if South African students were broadband-enabled.

Steve started off by reminding us of the hopes that South African leaders have had for South Africa even from 1996 – to be an information society, made up of knowledge workers who participate in the knowledge economy on a global level. What this means is that access to information through ICT is critically needed to allow us to plug in to this knowledge economy, not only as consumers or receivers of information, but as participants too.

Steve spoke about the skills that youth are gaining by being actively engaged with content – they are learning critical reading, skills problem solving, and how to share and collaborate - these kids are learning how to be active 21st century citizens.

In a non-broadband enabled world, education was about acquiring information, trusting the knowledge authorities and asking no questions, it was a one of instruction.

Compare this to an information-rich broadband enabled world (this is the electrifyingly exciting picture of learning that Steve paints!) - where homework becomes user-generated content, that is not written for the teacher to read, but is written for a wider audience, a change of focus which has shown that students improve their writing ability and quality. And when your homework is published on the web, it means that your circle of friends broadens – you learn inter-cultural competence and awareness, and are positioned for peer-to-peer learning. And with a global outlook it means your eyes are opened so that problem solving become global, you have a broader audience and a bigger voice. Essentially this opens learners up to an information rich world that is about constructing meaning from multiple sources, and involves debating, questioning, and interacting.

Steve gave some exciting examples of the type of homework that could be assigned to children in a broadband-enabled learning environment. For example, instead of asking students to read the opening scene of Macbeth at home – how about asking them to find a few video examples on YouTube, and then get them to write a critical comparative analysis of these on their homework blog? The second example he used was one that is actually happening through the popular chat application Mxit – it’s called Dr Math where kids can log in and ask for help with their maths homework from University of Pretoria students.

The point that Steve made through the latter example was how broadband need not give rise to ‘high tech’ education tools, it can enable in different ways, at different speeds, depending on the level and needs of a community. The point is that it enables an array of interactive, participatory, skill-building opportunities for young people.

The other critical point that Steve made was that this approach is completely aligned with outcomes-based education – it teaches learners how to be critical, analytical, communicative, and how to work in a group. He also said that it won’t suddenly turn bad teachers into good teachers – what it will do is empower learners to keep teachers accountable.

Without access to affordable broadband, the ‘participatory gap’ is widening in South Africa - what this means is that South African youth are faced with unequal access to the opportunities, experience, skills and knowledge that will prepare them for full participation in a knowledge economy. This is where broadband steps in as a critical enabler that will truly fulfill the vision of a participatory, information society in South Africa.

Indra de Lanerolle at the National Broadband Strategy Forum

The second presentation from today’s National Broadband Strategy Forum painted an exciting picture for the future of content in a fully wired South Africa. Using the small platteland towns of Rosendal and Ficksburg as an analogy, media consultant Indra de Lanerolle pointed out that the founding fathers of Rosendal made the decision to do without a train station, while Ficksburg went the opposite way, and decided to allow the train to run through the town. As a result, Rosendal has remained small, isolated and remote, while Ficksburg has grown into a developed, thriving town. The phenomenon of preferential attachment – that connections will flow to entities that are already well linked, is the same, says de Lanerolle, for broadband users and small towns.

According to de Lanerolle, the arrival of broadband has several consequences for the creation, distribution and use of content, and he painted several possible scenarios for the content industry in South Africa.
The first was that broadband might mean the end of content as we know it. As mass media outlets battle with the Internet for advertising revenue; newspapers, television stations, record labels and the publishing industry have begun to lose out to the online world. He cited the case of ITV in the UK, who, until 2007 had been the largest recipient of advertising in the United Kingdom, although they had to spend 1.3 billion pounds on content per year to make themselves so. In 2007, however, Google UK, who spent nothing on creating content, beat them out of the advertising battle. South Africa hasn’t yet reached that point in the competition cycle, but as Ronnie Apteker, the founder of Internet Solutions, and now a well-known local film producer has pointed out, without mystery there are no [profit] margins.

Content is threatened by broadband because distribution networks and business models are threatened by broadband. In South Africa, media distribution methods have always been controlled by monopolies or oligopolies. There is one plant in South Africa that makes compact discs, and it’s owned by one of the record labels. Newspapers have to fit into the production schedules of the few entities that own printing presses. There are no real “independents” in the music industry because the major record labels control the distribution channels.

Regulation of these channels is also controlled. Telecoms, radio and television are controlled through regulation, and you need a license to broadcast. Traditionally, these monopolies have been able to sustain their control because they reach agreements with the regulator to clamp down on competition in return for meeting various obligations, including content obligations.

Distributors of content have also been able to control the physical and intellectual property of the content – physically through the technology (the sheer size of boxes of film made it easy, in the old days to control movies) and through law by the use of rights.

These rights were, in the past, governed by arcane systems, which divided the world of consumers into complex territories and markets. Ironically, it was these arcane systems that lead to piracy in the case of the local film Tsotsi – the systems of markets, rights and zones meant that many people pirated the film because it was unavailable to them through legitimate markets.

In a broadband world, however, every user has access to the means of distribution and broadband connects every point of production and consumption to every other point. The digital nature of the space also means that there is no physical property that can be locked down by distributors. DRM was an attempt to do this, but has proven to be, on the whole, unsuccessful, and is falling away as a method of control. DVDs had controls for different markets and zones, but the easy availability of crack codes has made this unfeasible. Broadband undermines all of these traditional business models.

So the question, says de Lanerolle is this: Should we care about the disintegration of old models? The answer, he says, is ‘yes’ only if we have a very narrow view of our (national) interests. He quoted Bill Clinton’s famous campaign phrase: “It’s the [whole] economy, stupid!” – the potential for development with broadband is so great that these opportunities should be embraced.

He cited a pilot project in the British region of Cornwall as an example of the potential of growth through broadband connectivity. Cornwall is a remote area, relatively inaccessible by car, and without any major cities. But it super-wired, as a result of a pilot project by the British government to connect the entire region through super-fast broadband connectivity.

As a result, labour productivity in Cornwall went up by up 5-10%, and the increased business process efficiency that resulted grew Cornwall’s GDP by up to 10%. What this example also showed, he said, s that the digital divide isn’t just a question of comparing the developed and developing world. It’s also about the degrees of ‘wiredness’.

Simple reductions of rates that make access cheaper are not, de Lanerolle said, a solution to the need for development. Reducing rates for telecoms, like Telkom had done for call centre development, will never be enough. If Skype or Google Voice allows calls to be made for what is, essentially, free, it makes no sense for telecoms’ offerings to be anything less than the benchmark of connectivity.

Deregulation, he says, is not the answer though. Content in South Africa is still regulated by the framework used before 1994, which is getting increasingly out of sync with the telecoms regulation as competition increases. As an example, digital migration of television is not introducing any more comepetition in South Africa. One possible cause of this is that there is no integrated approach from civil society or government to the issue of broadband content development or regulation.

Another challenge to content in the context of broadband is that of consumption. 93% of South Africans are reached by radio, 83% of South Africans can access television, and only 7% use the internet. How to make broadband as available as radio and television is a huge challenge.

Broadband, says de Lanerolle, should be defined broadly. It’s a moving target, and people’s levels of connectivity shift as their access to applications moves. It’s not possible for many people to access Web 2.0 applications and develop content because their connections and technology are not sophisticated enough.

The final scenario de Lanerolle painted is one where the flow of content shifts and becomes more of a conversation. With the potential collapse of traditional distribution methods, which operate in a one-to-many model, the potential exists for more horizontal, conversational models, and it’s this potential, according to de Lanerolle, that makes the possibilities for audiences much more exciting.

Arthur Goldstuck presenting on the state of broadband access in South Africa, during the first session of the S.A. National Broadband Forum

Arthur Goldstuck was the first speaker to kick off the SA National Broadband Forum, by providing an introduction to the importance of, and key challenges facing broadband development in SA. He presented ‘further findings’ from World Wide Worx’s Internet Access in S.A. 2008 report, which the company is officially releasing today. The company usually resists forecasting for more than a year ahead but for the first time they have ‘stuck their necks out’ to include long-term trends on internet access and usage in South Africa, with predictions up to 2013. Goldstuck noted that the predictions were based on a ‘fairly good case scenario’ for growth in the coming years.

At the moment South Africa has 1.058 millions unique broadband users, with the explosion of wireless broadband making a huge contribution to internet access in South Africa in the last few years. Interestingly, Goldstuck showed how Telkom prices for broadband access have consistently decreased, though from August ’07 no further price decreases have taken place.

With the huge growth in ADSL and wireless access, Goldstuck predicted the “death of dial-up”, he says that within 3 years dial-up will no longer be offered as a commercial offering, and no marketing spend will be allocated here.

There is certainly more to come – using this map, Goldstuck spoke about the many developments that the laying of underwater cables will provide for Africa and South Africa. At the moment we access the internet at 0.8 gigabytes per second, but with the laying of the Seacom cable (to be completed by June ’09), we’ll improve to 2.58 gigabytes per second. The ultimate goal, as predicted by Goldstuck - 10.5 terabytes per second in 2013.

According to Goldstuck there are four main drivers to affordable broadband access taking S.A. by storm. Firstly, as undersea cables are laid, ISPs will start having more flexible pricing schemes as they are freed from commitments to Telkom. This is predicted to only largely benefit the end-user after two years, though small decreases should start taking place before then.

This will also drop the barrier to entry for new ISPs, the second driver to affordable broadband. Small operators will be able to buy large-scale fiber capacity, giving them the opportunity to compete with the larger, more established ISPs.

Thirdly, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are playing a very important role in getting people connected to the internet, with 3,500 additional people being connected to the internet at work last year alone. As broadband access becomes more affordable, SMEs will provide an important platform for getting people connected to the net through their offices.

Cell phone connectivity is the fourth driver, though Goldstuck mentioned that this is not as significant as the media hype created around it. Interestingly, Goldstuck mentioned how there is a huge amount of ‘accidental’ access through cell phones – as people come across this quite accidentally, and don’t really understand how to effectively utilize the service on their phone. Cell phone access contributed 450,000 new users this year, but is set to grow exponentially by 2013, as we see cell phones being built to allow better access, and as people start discovering and building their experience in accessing the internet on their cell phones.

In summary, the forecast for broadband access in South Africa looks upbeat with a dramatic increase in the next five years. As Goldstuck mentioned in the beginning – this is a ‘good case scenario’ as more and more people are finding alternative ways of connecting to the net. This scenario would be an even better scenario if government were to get involved and take active steps to get South Africans connected as digital citizens, as both consumers and creators on the internet.

As a final comment, Goldstuck showed a music map of the world, which represents access to affordable digital content for entertainment purposes – the U.S. takes a large proportion with European countries coming in soon after – South Africa is shown as an almost invisible sliver. This also represents what Goldstuck calls the ‘access’ divide – it is not only about access to affordable broadband but use of this broadband that needs to be considered to make South Africans active participants on the worldwide web.

‘Welcome to the Broadband Strategy Café. This is not a conference; the aim is to foster engagement between people. There will be few presentations, and more contribution. Collectively we are smarter than we are individually. We need to ask meaningful questions and talk about them. We need to contribute, listen, understand and cross-pollinate.’

- Steve Song.

Steve Song shows world café methodology

The National Broadband Forum kicked off this morning with an introduction by Natasha Primo, National ICT Policy Advocacy (NIPA) coordinator for the APC. The forum has been convened by South Africa Connect, Sangonet, APC and the Shuttleworth Foundation. The purpose of the forum is to discuss, debate and work around ICT policy issues and affordable access to broadband for the South African public.

Access to broadband is the new digital divide. Although South Africans and Africans have access to mobile technology they nonetheless cannot access rich multimedia. The aim of this forum is look at how participants, who hail from a variety of different sectors of society, can build on interests and synergies at this day-long event. The objective of the forum is to discuss how to make a broadband strategy a national priority within South Africa, and how to engage people on key issues on this topic.

World Café methodology

Under the guidance of Steve Song from the Shuttleworth Foundation, participants are engaging in round table discussion for a large portion of the conference, in between the more formal presentations. Each table has been provided with large sheets of white paper and coloured pens. Participants have a 20-minute time limit to get creative - drawing, discussing, brainstorming - and develop ideas that will add to the main issues that the policy framework hopes to address. A table host remains at the table after the 20 minutes are up, and guides new participants on the ideas that were built during the previous session. At the end of the day, the ideas will be gathered together and put to the group for inclusion into the policy framework. We can already hear voices raised in excitement and enthusiasm!

Twittering for broadband

As resourceful and switched-on as ever, the forum participants are Twittering up a storm in between some interesting discussion and idea-doodling on paper. You can access the tweets here, please feel free to participate!

The South African National Broadband Forum, which is due to take place on the 24th of March in Johannesburg, will feature key presentations from some of South Africa’s most dynamic and enterprising thinkers in the online space. These speakers will guide and inspire the day’s discussion around developing a National Broadband strategy for South Africa.

All presentations, as well as the discussions from the day are going to be blogged on this site by the African Commons Project. Keep an eye on the front page for wrap-ups, summaries and interviews from the day’s proceedings.

Arthur Goldstuck

Arthur Goldstuck is a South African journalist, media analyst and commentator on information and communications technology (ICT), internet and mobile communications and technologies. Goldstuck heads the World Wide Worx research organisation, and has led research into ICT issues such as the effects of IT on small business, the role of mobile technologies in business and government, and the technology challenges of the financial services sector. He regularly provides strategic insights and guidance on trends at conferences and corporate events across Africa. His presentation “Broadband Infrastructure in South Africa: An Introduction” will examine the importance of and key challenges facing broadband develpment in South Africa.

Indra de Lanerolle

Indra de Lanerolle grew up in London, the son of a South African exile, and now lives in Johannesburg where he teaches, researches and consults on media for social change, mobile media and storytelling. He was a senior producer at the BBC and ran a television business in Johannesburg and has produced some of the most popular television shows in South Africa. His films and programmes have been recognised throughout the world including an Emmy nomination, a Peabody Award and the Silver Lion at the Venice film festival. He has presented papers on media for social change and IPTV. Indra’s presentation will examine the constraints and opportunities in the creation of South African creative content.

Ory Okolloh
Ory Okolloh is a Kenyan blogger and open-government activist. She runs Mzalendo, a pioneering civic website that tracks the performance of Kenya’s Parliament and its Parliamentarians. Okolloh’s own blog is called Kenyan Pundit, and it tracks her work with Mzalendo and her other efforts as part of the rebuilding of Kenya, following the post-election violence in late 2007. Okolloh is part of a wave of young Africans who are using the power of blogging, SMS and web-enabled openness to push their countries forward and help Africans to truly connect. Tools like Ushahidi help to link a people whose tribal differences, as Okolloh points out again and again, are often cynically exploited by a small group of leaders. Only by connecting Africans can this cycle be broken.

Steve Song
Steve Song is the Shuttleworth Foundation’s Telecommunications Fellow. He is focused on providing the organisation with support and thought leadership on access to communications infrastructure and its impact on social and economic innovation and growth. He has worked in the area of ICTs and development since 1991 and was involved in the early development of the internet for the non-profit community in South Africa, including developing some of the first websites for non-profits in the country, and pioneering the first online searchable newspaper archive in Africa.

Steve Vosloo
Steve Vosloo is Communication and Analytical Skills Fellow for the Shuttleworth Foundation, guiding the organisation’s strategy in terms of tackling the challenges that face South Africa from an education perspective. He began his career as a web developer, working in both Johannesburg and London during the dot-com boom. Since having moved back to South Africa he has developed a passion for the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) for socio-economic development. Steve was the Design & Usability Team Leader at the Centre for e-Innovation for the Provincial Government of the Western Cape and ensured that the award-winning Cape Gateway portal was as usable and accessible to as many citizens of the Western Cape as possible. He has also presented at numerous UN conferences on e-government, local digital content and youth and ICTs.

Steve has a Masters degree in Information Systems from the University of Cape Town and recently completed a one-year Research Fellowship at Stanford University, where he researched youth and digital media.

Natasha Primo
Natasha is National ICT Policy Advocacy (NIPA) coordinator for the APC, and a gender and ICT specialist, whose interest in broader policy issues led her to join the APC policy team. She was chair of APC from 2005 to 2007.

DRAFT FOR DISCUSSION - 18 March 2009

Preamble

The world is in the midst of a global financial crisis which poses a threat to all emerging markets including South Africa. How we respond will shape the next 5 – 10 years of our future. All sectors and stakeholders in South Africa will have to work closely together to turn the impending crisis into an opportunity. Not only is it necessary to mitigate the impact on jobs, our economy and society but it is also critical to stimulate recovery and address a number of development deficits, and job creation, at the same time. Broadband offers one of the ways forward to do this.

Over the last five years, developed countries have taken steps to invest in broadband as a driver of economic development. In South Africa we have pursued a number of strategies to promote affordable broadband. While these have yet to deliver, we are on the cusp of major broadband infrastructure rollout. Seacom, a submarine cable initiative, will link South Africa to India and Europe by mid 2009, breaking the monopoly of Telkom’s SAT3 cable and bring down the cost of international bandwidth. The judgment in the Altech legal challenge opens the way for anyone to build and operate a high speed broadband network further reducing the barriers to deploying broadband internet.

Broadband is not only an issue of high speed networks, it also provides a platform for disruptive Web 2.0 technologies that enable ordinary people to produce and distribute content on the Web – as the success of YouTube, Flickr, and Facebook demonstrate. These technologies are likely to become as ubiquitous on mobile devices as they are on more conventional broadband infrastructure. This poses a challenge for local content industries to generate and distribute content for a broadband world. Content is a critical driver of the demand for broadband infrastructure and services, while broadband provides a new means of content production and distribution.

While many industries are currently facing crises in their service delivery and business models with the growth of the Internet (e.g. print and media industries) and many fear job losses that can come from increased digitization, crises also provide the opportunity to shift to new business and development models if catalytic support can be provided to increase awareness, build skills, invest in content, and explore how to shift to new more sustainable models, since the Internet is here to stay.

Broadband can also help facilitate e-citizenship and e-governance in order to enhance relations between citizens and government to build and strengthen our democracy.

Improved availability of electric power is a necessary component for rolling out broadband, particularly in rural areas. The environmental challenges of our times demand an exploration of alternative sources of energy to sustain broadband infrastructure.

Broadband penetration in South Africa lags behind countries with a similar level of development such as the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Turkey. South Africa has fallen into fourth place in internet penetration in Africa, which is a shocking position for the continent’s biggest economy to be in. One of the reasons for this is that there hasn’t been a coherent policy framework to guide the development of broadband. The election of a new government provides an opportunity to look at the policy framework with fresh eyes and to consider the inter-related components needed to develop a coherent national broadband strategy.

To stimulate discussion on what would constitute the broad framework for such a national broadband strategy, here are some of the elements that the organizers of the National Broadband Forum felt would be building blocks for a new comprehensive strategy.

Draft Framework

Goal

All South Africans should have affordable broadband access to the Internet.

How to achieve this goal

Supply side objectives: Take steps to maximize fibre and wireless broadband infrastructure in urban and rural areas

Means to do so: All stakeholders should commit themselves to the following approaches:

1. Incentivise the building of more fibre and wireless broadband infrastructure

2. Prepare regulatory frameworks for fair access to and sharing of infrastructure, where appropriate, in the interests of maximizing the network effect of having as many people online as possible.

3. In the construction of municipal broadband network to meet their public administration needs local government should be required on a cost based, non-discriminatory basis to make available their considerable excess capacity to the public either as a public services or for commercial purposes.

4. A strategy to support the roll out of broadband networks to smaller municipalities to ensure equitable access to broadband outside of major centres as part of a public works initiative to create jobs, stimulate private investments, and deliver public services.

5. Government must make the spectrum needed for wireless broadband available – timeously, equitably and affordably - to maximize the rapid deployment of infrastructure across the whole country.

6. Where possible, an integrated approach to stringing cable in cooperation with other infrastructure build-outs should be coordinated, particularly with regard to power lines and roads and in new spatial developments.

7. Research into renewable and alternative energy sources should be undertaken to find ways of powering up broadband connectivity, computers and handsets in areas of low power. All new infrastructure should rely on renewable energy sources from the outset.

Demand side objectives: Take steps to stimulate the provision of content and use by citizens, private sector and consumers for using broadband

Means to do so: All stakeholders should commit themselves to the following approaches:

While the availability of affordable bandwidth will stimulate the development of commercial content and services, strategies to incentivise the production of necessary uneconomic content and services need to be developed, these could include:

1. National, provincial and local governments should prioritise the production of digital content, particularly in local languages, to drive the take up of e-government services which have the potential to improve service delivery in a a broadband environment.

2. Government should support R&D and innovation in content, networks, software and new technologies by creating a non-discriminatory business and regulatory environment that balances the interest of suppliers and users in areas like intellectual property rights, digital rights management and copyright. Government and the private sector should support libraries, archives, and educational institutions to digitize content and make the transition into a broadband environment.

3. Content industries should be incentivised to develop digital broadband content.

e-Governance and e-citizenship objectives: Take steps to enhance e-governance and e-citizenship in a broadband environment.

1. Without compromising existing services, national, provincial and local governments should digitize and distribute public sector information and improve access to public sector content online in anticipation of affordable broadband access for all.

2. The mandate of the Media and Diversity Development Agency should be expanded to support the media to transition to a broadband environment.

3. Universal Service and Access policy should be expanded to support community-based networks.

4. National, provincial, and local governments should prioritise the recruitment of staff who understand broadband technology and the potential of new media.

5. Non-confidential government data, especially geographic data, should be opened up to allow external parties to interface with government in innovative ways.

Education objectives: Steps must be taken to stimulate the adoption and use of advanced broadband connections in order to fully realise the potential of ICTs and digital media to support learning and teaching.

Means to do so: All stakeholders should commit themselves to the following approaches:

1. All South Africans must have access to broadband-enabled ICTs, and know-how to use them effectively.

2. Every school and university student, teacher and lecturer must have ICTs that can connect to the network through high speed broadband connections to be able to communicate, collaborate, and participate in effective learning and teaching practices.

Assessment of progress objectives: The implementation of the national broadband strategy should be monitored according to an agreed set of indicators in order to ensure the goal and objectives are met.

Means to do so: All stakeholders should commit themselves to the following approaches:

Specific timetables and benchmarks should be established to help encourage successful implementation and advancement of national broadband policies, incentives or programs.

1. A system for regular and timely collection and publication of data concerning the deployment, adoption, and use of high-speed broadband should also be instituted to ensure that our national goals and timetables are being met.

2. South African broadband networks should provide South Africans with the network performance, capacity, and connections they need to contribute to the country’s social, cultural and economic development and to compete successfully in the global economy.

This draft framework was authored by Willie Currie of the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) and developed by the co-conveners of the South African National Broadband Forum, 24 March 2009, http://www.apc.org/en/events/africa/south-african-national-broadband-forum: The Association for Progressive Communications, SANGONeT (Southern African NGO Network), South Africa Connect, and The Shuttleworth Foundation.

The curious approach to the telecommunications sector of the Mbeki era has finally collapsed under its own contradictions. As president, Mbeki regularly complained of the high cost of telecommunications as a drag on the economy. But he failed to see that his own government’s policy of ‘managed liberalisation’ was at the root of the problem. The government was simply unable to introduce competition into the sector to bring down prices because it was too busy protecting its own stakes in the telecom industry – in Telkom, Vodacom, Neotel and Sentech. Altech’s successful challenge in the courts to this government cartel over policy and regulation and the Minister’s capitulation has finally created the conditions for competition in telecoms in the country.

What can the new government learn from this? First, trying to manage the introduction of competition to push down prices in an industry in which you are a major player is over. The government should now take the opportunity to divest its shares in the telecom industry in favour of broad-based black economic empowerment. One simple step could be to transfer its shares in Telkom, Vodacom and Neotel from the Departments of Communication and Public Enterprises to the Public Investment Corporation. The government can return Sentech to the SABC – the experiment of trying to move Sentech beyond its core business as a signal distributor to wireless broadband operator had demonstrably failed. There may be value in retaining Infraco as a public wholesale broadband supplier but its grand plans of building submarine cables to London and Brazil should be scrapped. Seacom and EASSy will shortly be landing their cables in South Africa in 2009/10 and bringing down the cost of international bandwidth dramatically. Initiatives such as Infraco or the development of municipal broadband networks are appropriate ways government can participate in the sector, provided they are structured on open access principles and don’t discriminate against market players.

Second, the new government should develop a simple set of principles for a national broadband strategy and use them to amend the Electronic Communications Act to reflect a fully competitive telecom environment. The government should encourage ICASA to complete the competition regulations in chapter 10 of the ECA as soon as possible. Within a national broadband strategy there are a range of important functions which the government should focus on:

• promoting effective competition in infrastructure, services and applications across different technological platforms
• developing policies to encourage investment in new technological infrastructure, content and applications to stimulate demand for broadband
• developing policies that promote access on fair terms and at competitive prices to all communities
• regulatory frameworks that balance the interests of suppliers and users with regard to access to knowledge and intellectual property rights
• encouraging a holistic approach to broadband availability and diffusion in terms of supply, demand and development
• encouraging research and development in the field of ICT for the development of broadband and enhancing its economic, social and cultural effectiveness.

To do this government should appoint a Chief Technology Officer as a junior minister in a two-tier cabinet who can interface effectively with the planning commission in the Presidency. There is no need for any grand policies – a coherent national broadband strategy will suffice – and government can concentrate on enabling the emergence of a fully competitive sector to expand affordable broadband access for all citizens.

Willie Currie is the Communications and Information Policy Programme Manager of the Association for Progressive Communications

This post is courtesy of our guest blogger, Alex Rosen, Alex works at the Enterprise Division of Google but writes in his personal capacity. Alex also posts on his own blog, www.alexrosen.com.

While the meaning of that title no doubt extends beyond technology, it would be a mistake to not recognize the place that social technology and the Internet played in this man’s campaign. It would be more of a mistake to not look forward to the future and take a look at how Obama is planning to use his new post to transform how American (and the rest of the world) approaches technology policy.

First, a look back. Arianna Huffington, of popular news blog The Huffington Post, perhaps summed it up best at the recent Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, where she commented, “Were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not be president. Were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not have been the nominee.” By building a netroots movement, with an epicenter at my.barackobama.com, Obama’s campaign leveraged a generation of voters who spend more time tapping away at their keyboards and keypads than they do watching CNN checking their “real” mail.

Obama defined himself as a tech-savvy candidate. Photos of him tapping away at his Blackberry, 28,000 followers on popular micro-blogging platform Twitter, and a brilliant iPhone app to rally users to make swing-state calls highlight the savviness that this candidate brought to the first truly Internet run campaign. This was in direct opposition to the older Senator McCain, who just started using email and never seemed to get the power of the web to rally supporters.

Obama’s savviness does not stop here. He’s already put together a tech transition team that reads like a who’s who of Silicon Valley. The team is headed up by Julius Genachowski, formerly of IAC and founder of the startup incubator LunchBox Digital. Genachowski also led the group that advised Obama’s Tech and Innovation plan and included technology experts such as Stanford Law professor Lawrence Lessig and Craigslist founder Craig Newmark. It was this document that originally trumpeted the call for a new cabinet position: Chief Technology Officer. Who will fill this role is now the subject of widespread speculation.

Genachowski is one name. As an early supporter and advisor to Obama, he’d be an obvious choice. But so would others. Perhaps the most high profile is Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, seen standing with Obama as a member of his economic transition team. Schmidt and others, however, have denied the rumor that he’s interested. The usual list of high tech names are also rumored to be up for consideration: Jeffrey Bezos of Amazon, Steve Ballmer Microsoft, and Bill Joy of venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins would bring a deep knowledge of the Internet industry to Washington.

But would we really want a Washington outsider in the role? In a post on CNET.com, James Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is quoted as saying, “”We’ve seen lots of times where people have brought in gurus from the high-tech community, and they give up after a year because they’re frustrated. Knowing how the government works is important.” The CTO will need to bring a strong understanding technology to help bring Washignton’s systems up to date with the 21st century, but they’ll also inherit a long list of difficult policy questions, including the net neutrality debate, the agenda for the recently opened white space spectrum, and how to increase access to broadband. These are questions that require close collaboration with offices such as the Federal Trade and Communications divisions and therefore a fairly deep knowledge of how things get done in Washington, which can often be different from agile West Coast companies.

No matter who eventually gets slated for the role, it’s clear that they will help define this new role for the United States and possible the rest of the world. Other countries have a laundry list of technology policy issues that need immediate attention, not the least of which is South Africa. I’ll leave the speculation of who could staff this role in South Africa to my local colleagues, but suffice it to say the country would benefit from this role as it figures out how to get Internet into the hands of its citizens and effectively leverage technology to help solve difficult education and health problems.

Naming a CTO, of course, does not guarantee anything will get done. I, for one, hope that Obama will carry and continue the lessons he’s learned from the campaign into a presidency that uses social technology to keep citizens informed of happenings in politics and make their voices heard. Obama and his team still have that list of the millions who signed up at my.barackobama.com. His emails, however, has been noticeably absent since his victory. Sure, it’s only been a week, but who says just because you’re President-Elect, you can’t continue to post updates to Twitter and lead a netroots movement? As we look forward, it will be up to him, as well as the new CTO, to define the appropriate ways to use these technologies from the oval office rather than the campaign trail. I sure hope that Obama’s November 5th tweet won’t be his last.

This article originally appeared in Business Day on the 11th of November 2008

A FLURRY of court action, with Communications Minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri on the losing side in two recent rulings, has again lifted the telecommunications sector out of the doldrums in which it found itself as a result of a lack of policy clarity and regulatory delays.

The Pretoria High Court denied Matsepe-Casaburri’s application for an urgent interdict to prevent the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) from issuing certain licences after the Johannesburg High Court refused to grant her leave to appeal against its judgment setting aside certain prohibitions in the telecommunications sector.

Matsepe-Casaburri can, of course, seek further relief from the Supreme Court of Appeal . If she does, it will open up a protracted legal process at the expense of taxpayers and consumers and again plunge the sector into limbo, delaying essential licensing and regulatory requirements needed to open up the market — not only to meet SA’s 2010 requirements but to provide relief to beleaguered consumers and business users.

The constraints being placed on the sector’s development — and on the economy more widely — by high telecoms prices and poor quality arising from the lack of competition in the market, have been the subject of several critical reports, including the 15-year Presidential Review.

Some relief from these constraints should flow from the high court ruling setting aside certain prohibitions in the telecoms sector and upholding the automatic conversion of their rights into the new licensing regime.

While those who would finally be able to enter the market unconstrained have been rubbing their hands in glee at these rulings — and those who thought they had got in through the flawed licensing process and closed the door behind them gnashed their teeth — not much has been said about the significance of Judge Norman Davis’s carefully reasoned judgment reasserting a sound institutional and administrative basis for a sector so long paralysed by indecision.

The original action was brought by hi-tech company Altech after it was excluded from the list of value-added network service (Vans) licensees, granted under the old Telecommunications Act, that would be converted to electronic communications network services (ECNS) licences under the new Electronic Communications Act. It also sought relief from a prohibition on Vans being able to provide their own network facilities without having to obtain these from incumbent licensed telecom network operators Telkom and Neotel.

The matter hinged on ministerial policy direction to Icasa last year, instructing the regulator to determine which, if any, Vans should be authorised to provide and operate electronic communications facilities or be granted ECNS licences. These are licences that permit an operator to build national networks and compete directly with the fixed and mobile operators in the market.

This direction related to the contested ministerial policy directives from 2005, which were interpreted by the regulator at the time to mean that Vans could self-provide. The day before the directives were to become operational, the ministry issued a press release rejecting this interpretation — resulting in a string of stranded investments, abandoned business plans and “pirate” operators.

In the process of selectively converting licences to the new regime, Icasa, with a largely new council, overturned its previous ruling, confirming the ministry’s view that operators could not self-provide. In terms of what Davis referred to as Icasa’s “tainted” licensing conversion process, Icasa envisaged that those selected Vans that received the new licences from the regulator after last year’s policy direction, with no clear criteria for their award, would be entitled to self-provide. So business plans were dusted off, investments resurrected and illicit services sought to become legal.

As a result, the respondents in the Altech case included not only Icasa, its chairman and Matsepe-Casaburri, but a long list of would-be licensees, who, having bayed for years for the opening up of the market to fair competition, were quite content to close the door behind them, having acquired licences in this flawed process.

However, in granting the relief sought by Altech, Davis declared the prohibition on self-provision in direct conflict with the enabling legislation and ordered that all Vans operators licensed before the start of the conversion process be allowed to “self-provide”, in accordance with the initial policy direction and the initial interpretation offered by Icasa in 2004. The judgment represents a defence of independent regulation and due administrative process. In striking down last year’s ministerial directives, Davis pointed to the significance of the regulator’s independence entrenched in the Icasa Act and to the requirements of the Public Administrative Justice Act.

He clarified the much-debated issue of whether ministerial directions are even reviewable by a court of law. He acknowledged arguments that the courts could not gainsay policy directions that depended on executive authority.

He contended, however, that Matsepe-Casaburri overstepped the line of pure policy or directions of a general nature when she prescribed to Icasa how the licence conversion would take place. In doing so, her actions shifted from those of an executive authority to an administrative action that fell within the ambit of the Public Administrative Justice Act. The directives, insofar as they constituted an administrative action, interfered with Icasa, Davis contended.

He argued further that even if the ministerial directives were not reviewable in terms of administrative justice, they were ultra vires or beyond the scope of the Electronic Communications Act. This illegality, he argued, was primarily because the act forbade the minister from interfering in the granting, amendment or renewal of licences.

In doing so, Davis defended the independence of the regulator, not on the grounds of some inappropriate international practice that had been policy-laundered in South African sector reform, as the concept of independent regulation has been caricatured, but because of its centrality to the creation of a certain policy and regulatory environment conducive to investors, supportive of competitive entry and protective of consumers.

Davis’s judgment further reminds us of the role of policy directives: it highlights the legal requirement on the regulator to simply “consider” any ministerial directive. The implication of this is that the onus is on the regulator, as the specialist agency, to decide what is in the public interest.

The judgment cuts through the defence of the ministry and Icasa that any automatic granting of network licences to former Vans operators would result in an absurd and unsustainable proliferation of network providers. This, Davis points out, is simply not correct. Only spectrum is scarce and it is anyway licensed separately. The real cost of building and operating a network would inhibit all 600 potential applicants from operating a network.

Perhaps most significantly of all, while arguing that justice required his immediate halting of a process “tainted by illegality”, Davis declined to substitute Icasa’s decision with his own on the grounds that it would undermine the separation of powers that underpinned the action. To do so would result in a decision that would be made without the benefit of the regulator’s expertise. Whether the regulator has the capacity to do justice to this decision is a matter for another discussion.

There is little doubt that the judgment gives the respondents cause to reflect on their various interests and to consider the hygiene of their administrative decisions.

In so doing, they should accept the outcome of the systems crafted and agreed to through various consultative processes precisely to test decision-making and protect against the infringement of fundamental principles in this critical sector of the economy.

Gillwald is director of Research ICT Africa! at The EDGE Institute.