Many Possibilities

Fair Mobile – Two Years On

By Steve Song, on May 17th, 2011

In which I re-assert my self-appointed role of digitally holding African mobile operators’ feet to the fire for their rent-seeking behaviour. In today’s spotlight is Vodacom South Africa.

Vodacom recently announced their Annual Report for 2010. Vodacom is doing very well thank you very much and industry pundits gather to laud them for their hard work in the service of their shareholders. But how well are they serving South Africa? About two years ago, I started writing about the high cost of voice and SMS services in relation to income in Africa. Have things changed much? Here is a breakdown of Vodacom’s 4U pay-as-you-go offering in April 2009 versus May 2011:

Vodacom 4U Service	April 2009 (ZAR)	May 2011 (ZAR)	Price Drop
General Service calls (Peak)	2.85 / min	2.58 / min	9%
General Service calls (Off-Peak)	1.12 / min	1.12 / min	No Change
Vodacom to Vodacom (Peak)	2.85 / min	2.58 / min	9%
Vodacom to Vodacom (Off-Peak)	1.12 / min	1.12 / min	No Change
Vodacom to MTN / Cell C (Peak)	2.99 / min	2.75 / min	8%
Vodacom to MTN / Cell C (Off-Peak)	1.30 / min	1.30 / min	No Change
Vodacom to Telkom (Peak)	2.85 / min	2.75 / min	4%
Vodacom to Telkom (Off-Peak)	1.12 / min	1.30 / min	-16%
SMS (Peak)	0.80	0.80	No Change
SMS (Off-Peak)	0.35	0.35	No Change

So the news is not all bad, prices have come down a little although critically SMS prices have not come down and in one case call charges have gone up, probably due to Telkom’s divestiture of Vodacom. Why did I choose the 4U plan? Well it is the one plan that is still the same after two years. Is it the cheapest plan? I have no idea. I’ve been to university but I couldn’t tell you which pay-as-you-go plan is best for me. They are deliberately constructed with a bewildering array of options which make calculating the right deal for you nearly impossible. So my choice is not scientific perhaps but hopefully representative.

Now, let’s turn to another Vodafone property, Kenya’s Safaricom. Same parent company, different pricing scheme. Here is their Ongea Tariff from May 2009 compared to today’s prices.

Safaricom Service	May 2009 (KES)	May 2011 (KES)	Price Drop
Safaricom to Safaricom (Peak)	10 / min	3 / min	70%
Safaricom to Safaricom (Off-Peak)	10 / min	3 / min	70%
Safaricom to Other Network (Peak)	25 / min	4 / min	84%
Safaricom to Other Network (Off-Peak)	25 / min	4 / min	84%
SMS (Peak)	5	2	60%
SMS (Off-Peak)	3.5	1	71%

Quite a striking difference. It would be nice to give full credit to Safaricom but it is thanks to Airtel’s aggressive entry into the Kenyan market (their prices are even better) that obliged Safaricom to drop their prices. Also, note that in Kenya, effectively there are no more “plans”. It is 3Ksh/min on net and 4Ksh/min off-net. 1Ksh per SMS on-net and 2Ksh per SMS off net. I can understand that pricing plan.

So what does that mean in today’s terms? Well, in Kenya, for a peak rate call to another network, you will pay about 4.5 US cents per minute and 2.2 US cents per SMS to another network (Airtel is 1.1 US cents). In sunny South Africa, the price is 39 US cents minute and 11.4 US cents per SMS. Yes, all in all about 9 times more expensive. Does this blow your mind? I can’t wrap my head around it.

Happily, Fair Mobile is back in action thanks to ResearchICTAFrica. They have been researching mobile prices and looking for a good Macdonalds-style metric to compare pricing across countries. Their first go at this was to compare cost of a litre of cooking oil to the number of minutes of airtime that you could purchase for that price. Have a look at the presentation below.

But they have found something even more ubiquitious than cooking oil to compare to. I won’t spoil the surprise though. Stay tuned for more interesting results from them.

Chiclete Com Banana

By Steve Song, on May 14th, 2011

On Wednesday this week I was fortunate enough to spend a couple of hours chatting with Gilberto Gil. I am still pinching myself.

When I was 17, I was an exchange student for a year in Brazil. It was there I was introduced to Musica Popular Brasileira (MPB) which translates to Popular Brazilian Music but the translation doesn’t do it justice. Musica Popular Brasileira is a unique mix of latin american, african, folk and pop sensibilities that mixes catchy melodies with complex rhythms. Gilberto Gil was not only a pioneer of MPB, he was also one of the first Brazilian artists to become internationally famous as well.

My love of Brazilian music is bound up in the massive cultural impression that Brazil made on me as a teenager. Suffice to say I’ve been a lover of MPB ever since. Gilberto Gil, Chico Buarque, Maria Bethania, Caetano Veloso and now a host of others define me in the way that we allow ourselves to be defined by music, connecting with an attitude, an aesthetic, an emotion.

Of course Gilberto Gil isn’t just an amazing musician. He has also had a successful career in Brazilian politics culminating in his post as Minister of Culture in President Lula’s government. He wasn’t your average Minister of Culture either. As a champion of Open Source culture he helped lead Brasil towards more progressive intellectual property approaches including supporting the Creative Commons and promoting Open Source software development.

So, brilliant musician and champion of one of the things I hold close to my heart, I was understandably a bit apprehensive about meeting him. At this you may be wondering, what ARE you doing meeting with Gilberto Gil? A very happy stroke of luck. Together with Swiss production company, DreamPixies, Gilberto Gil is making a documentary called Connecting South that explores his unique perspective on the world, combining music, indigenous knowledge and philosophy with the open culture movement, technology and its implications. First prize would have been to get Mark Shuttleworth to talk about the origin of Ubuntu but thanks to challenges with his schedule, I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to participate.

Often, meeting one’s heroes can be a disappointing experience. They are never what we imagine to be and there is a natural tendency to build them up beyond reasonable expectations. So, I was prepared to be disappointed. I was also nervous that I was going to make a complete ass of myself. I shouldn’t have worried.

He brought something to our conversation that I wasn’t expecting. Humility. I still can’t get over the fact that the person I was talking to was an international music superstar, visionary politician, among many other things. We got two hours to talk about things we both love: open culture, Brazilian music, Ubuntu philosophy, and the enormous potential for transformation that lies before us as we face challenges bigger challenges than the world has ever faced before.

Perhaps that is just a talent, making people feel at home. Whatever the case, Gilberto Gil’s obvious humanity and humility in the face of his remarkable achievements are a profound inspiration. An inspiration to do more, to do better, to be better.

And as a bonus I don’t think I said anything egregiously stupid. Being able to sit on the rehearsal later that day with Vusi Mahlasela only reinforced that sense of inspiration. Thank you.

What I liked about the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship

By Steve Song, on April 6th, 2011

Guilty admission. I am a fault finder. Show me a perfect rose and I will find the petal that is slightly wilted. Or at least that’s how I grew up. I’ve spent much of my adult life learning to behave differently but it still comes out from time to time. What’s wrong with being critical? Science (with a capital S) and the entire canon of western philosophy is based on the notion of critical thought and the importance of understanding the weaknesses of an argument in order to craft a better one. But is criticism the best way to find truth? Let’s imagine knowledge as an physical structure. If I look at the edifice of your knowledge and I detect a weakness in the foundation, is pointing out your flaw the most important thing I can do? What if I chose not to focus on that but to rather emphasise how innovative your second-floor window design is and how that will help me improve the design of my structure. This is building on success as opposed to emphasising flaws. This positive approach can help break down the defensive positions that we find ourselves in when engaging with others, especially others who are at work in similar fields to us.

Of course criticism has a role to play. If I thought a flawed foundation was going to put anyone at risk, I would speak up but it might be easier to make someone aware of the virtues of a stronger foundation than to point out bad a flawed one is. Because like it or not, we own the foundations of our knowledge and we don’t like it when someone tells us we bought a lemon.

Faciliator extraordinaire Sam Kaner has an excellent table in his book the Faciliator’s Guide to Participatory Decision Making which explores these two different value systems:

	Either / Or	Both / And
Value System	Competitive	Collaborative
Type of Outcome Expected	Win / Lose	Win / Win
Attitude toward “Winning”	To the victor goes the spoils	Your success is my success
Attitude toward “Losing”	Someone has to lose	If somebody loses everybody loses
Attitude toward minority opinions	Get with the program	Everyone has a piece of the truth
Why explore differences between competing opinions?	To search for bargaining chips, in preparation for horsetrading and compromise.	To build a shared framework of understanding, in preparation for mutual creative thinking.
Essential Mental Activity	Analyse: break wholes into parts	Synthesise: integrate parts into wholes
How long it takes	It’s usually faster in the short run	It’s usually faster in the long run
Underlying philosophy	Survival of the fittest	Interdependence of all things

So what does this have to do with the Skoll World Forum? I mention it because for the most part, the Forum embodied this notion of interdependence, of openness, of our collective need to work together to solve the most pressing problems of our time. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that almost everyone at the event, young or old, rich or poor, were friendly and ready to engage whether milling around or in more facilitated environments.

I talked to people standing in queues, I barged into conversations, people spontaneously joined tables. It reminded me of a great XKCD t-shirt I have always wanted to buy and wear to events. Not that amazing perhaps but also not that common especially if you’re like me, better in small groups than in big events. My last experience of something like this was last year at AfrikaBurn where the spirit of the gift economy is very strong. So real kudos to the organisers of the Skoll World Forum who have done an amazing job at cultivating a spirit of openness and engagement. I got a lot out of it because the participants were so willing to give.

And was it perfect? Not at all. And here I still bite my tongue not to expose its flaws in order to show you how clever I am. Maybe I’ll get over that completely one day.

Many Possibilities

Fair Mobile – Two Years On

Chiclete Com Banana

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