Tag Archives: policy

If I Had 50 Million Dollars

2 Replies

Money TreeIf I had any poetic talent, I would have done this in rhyming couplets set to the music of the Barenaked Ladies but sadly today you are left with my prose.  Hum along with me anyway.

If you work in the area of Open Government, Open Data, Transparency,  or even just ICTs and Development in general, you have probably heard of the Making All Voices Count (MAVC) initiative.  MAVC is a Grand Challenge for Development which brings together the UK Department for International Development (DFID/UKAID), U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Omidyar Network (ON), and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) to create a $50 million fund to “support innovation, scaling-up, and research that will deepen existing innovations and help harness new technologies to enable citizen engagement and government responsiveness.”

On Saturday, in response to an increasing number of interactions around MAVC that I’ve had over the last few weeks, I tweeted the following:

which garnered a few reactions.  Most interestingly @wayanvota issued a challenge to speak up and say just what was wrong with MAVC.  I was a little surprised by his reaction as I thought there were some fairly self-evident problems, mostly related to what happens when there is a large pot of money on the table.  It then occurred to me that perhaps this was perhaps not self-evident to all or perhaps even that I was simply jaded and cynical.  My first thought was to blog about the challenges that I think MAVC will face.  But frankly it’s easy to be a critic and anyone engaged in the field of philanthropy knows that it is hard, very hard indeed to do well.  If I had the time, I could pick holes in development initiatives all day.  Like shooting fish in a barrel but not as much fun.

So, perhaps more challenging, more constructive, and more fun would be to say, well *what would I do*. That is to say if someone said, here take this bag of 50 million dollars and go forth to create more open governance in the South.  A challenging prospect.  Achieving impact through the giving away of money is much more difficult than achieving impact in the private sector. Philanthropy lacks that marvellous feedback loop called the market which provides plenty of data for self-correction.  This doesn’t, as some suggest, make philanthropy bad. It just makes it more challenging.  So herewith my suggestion as to how to most effectively spend 50 million dollars on Open Government in the South.

My recipe is very simple.  I would pick 10 universities, one each in 10 countries in the South.  I would endow a chair for Cyber Law and Governance in each university for 10 years giving each university 5 million dollars.  That’s it.  Maybe I’d keep a million or two back to fund and facilitate networking among the universities but that’s it.  Here is my rationale:

  1. Open Governance, if it happens at all, has to be home-grown.  The power imbalance in development assistance hasn’t gone away.  Putting southern researchers in control of the agenda is a start towards mitigating that problem.
  2. Open Governance is still in its infancy.  There is no significant body of evidence of it making a difference in the South.  Granted MAVC plans to fund research, as do others, but what is really needed is sustained dialogue in the south between informed civil society and government.  Think of the role that someone like Michael Geist plays in Canada or Rufus Pollock in the UK.  Universities were and are the critical enablers for them.  We need more of that in the South, that is to say dialogue not solutions.  Solutions emerge naturally from constructive dialogue.
  3. Open Government is complex.  There is a kind of naive optimism around Open Government which comes from the forty thousand foot view that many donors have.  Kenya, the poster child for Open Government in Africa, has experienced its own challenges with Open Government. There are vested interests, entrenched centres of power, contradictory priorities (protection of privacy, cyber security, etc), lack of capacity and many other issues, all of which take time and engagement to deal with.  This calls more for sustained local dialogue, engagement, and capacity building than for entrepreneurs building open data apps.
  4. Most countries in the South have a critical lack of institutions that can engage on cyber governance issues.  It is not just Open Government but digital privacy, surveillance, cyber security, Internet governance and a host of other issues that demand a generation of researchers and policy-makers with the interest and capacity to lead their countries and probably the world to better decision-making on these issues.  Invest in those institutions and you will get Southern leadership on these issues and make it easier for future funders to find the right places to engage.
  5. Policy work is a long game.  Institutions need to know they can commit beyond a few years.  This would allow them the time and resources needed to bring about real change.

My 2 cents or 50 million dollars as the case may be.

 

Unpacking Our Mobile Broadband Future ITU Y U NO LIKE WIFI?

14 Replies

ITU Y U NO LIKE WIFI?The future is mobile.  We all know that.  We read it everywhere.  In the UN Broadband Commission‘s recently published report entitled, The State of Broadband 2012: Achieving Digital Inclusion For All, ITU analysts boldly announce their belief that:

“mobile broadband could prove the platform for achieving the boost needed to get progress back on track – at end 2011, there were already almost twice as many mobile broadband subscriptions as fixed broadband connections.”

But what does it actually mean and is it really true?  When talking about our mobile broadband future, it is essential to distinguish between devices and networks.  The two things are not necessarily the same thing.

The Future is Mobile Devices

This future I believe in.  Small, low-power wireless devices whether phones or tablets are taking over the way we interact with each other and with content.  New markets and services are being created every day for mobile devices.  The world of app and apps stores are creating new opportunities for innovation and adding value.

The Future is Mobile Networks

This is the future mobile operators would like you to believe in but the evidence is increasingly not in their favour.  Here are some statistics that may change your perspective of our mobile broadband future.

Global Smartphone-originated Data Traffic

Global Smartphone-originated Data Traffic
January 2012 – Source: Mobidia

A recent study by Mobidia revealed that about 70% of smartphone data traffic travelled via WiFi and not mobile networks.  Keep in mind that this research was not done in Africa, it was done in the industrialised world.  What we are seeing overwhelmingly is WiFi become the default form of data access and cellular access being relegated to those times when WiFi is not available, an increasingly rare phenomenon in the rich world.

The figures are even higher for tablet traffic.  And while we’re at it, since when are tablets “mobile” devices?  Of the fifty million tablets sold in the United States, only 8% have mobile capacity.  The tablet is not a mobile device, it is a WiFi device.  Google’s Nexus7 tablet is WiFi-only.  Both Microsoft’s new Surface tablet and Apple’s new iPad Mini are likely to launch as WiFi-only devices.  Why would Apple and Microsoft do that?  Well, one reason might be to avoid the painful process of negotiating mobile carrier agreements.  Imagine if computer manufacturers had to negotiate ISP agreements to connect a computer to the net.  The latest tablet is also a whole lot cheaper than a smartphone.  Compare a $200 Nexus7 tablet with an $800 Samsung Galaxy S III smartphone.

So what’s my point here?  My point is that the UN Broadband Commission’s recently published report on Achieving Digital Inclusion mentions WiFi exactly twice, both times parenthetically.  Mobile operators would like you to believe that the future of mobile broadband lies in the LTE networks that they are building.  And certainly that is partly true but only partly.  If the Mobidia stats are to be believed, about 30% true.

Mobile operators have no interest in WiFi because they currently have no control over WiFi networks although that is beginning to change in the U.S.  And we get reports like the one from the UN Broadband Commission because the dialogue at the ITU is dominated by operators.  The Broadband Commission itself is chaired by Carlos Slim, the richest man in the world.  The irony of putting the richest man in the world in charge of a commission to connect the poor appears to be lost on the UN.

In any discussion about the mobile broadband future of Africa, WiFi is simply not part of the discussion.  Yet the evidence is before our eyes of the strategic importance of WiFi to our “mobile” devices.  It’s cheap and fast and grew to solve the problem of affordable access by chance not by design.  It happened because WiFi is an open space for technology developers to innovate.  No carrier agreements required.

Also not mentioned in the UN Broadband Commission’s report is the potential of Television White Spaces spectrum, a space for with the potential for massive innovation in rural access.  Another area not controlled by mobile operators.

The benefits of WiFi go beyond just cheaper access.  They also create the opportunity to eliminate the weakness of a single point of failure that mobile networks create.  WiFi infrastructure can make it harder to wilfully shutdown communication in a given geographic region.  The key to resilient networks is plurality of access and WiFi is already embedded in every smart device you can think of.

It would be nice to see WiFi recognised for the powerful role that it is already playing in mobile broadband and to see it figure in national strategic broadband plans for the future.

Monty Python's Mr. Creosote. Perhaps leave some for someone else.

How the ANC is Squandering South Africa’s Digital Future Give us a leader!

3 Replies

Monty Python's Mr. Creosote. Perhaps leave some for someone else.The release last week of ResearchICTAfrica (RIA)’s report on mobile phone pricing in Africa has provoked a little controversy in South Africa. The facts are quite damning. South Africa has some of the highest mobile costs on the continent. This is odd given South Africa’s comparative wealth and infrastructural advantages. By rights South Africa ought to have the cheapest phone calls and the fastest bandwidth on the continent. We don’t. Why would that be? Well in South Africa we are very good at finger pointing. Industry points to government and the regulator. The regulator points to industry and government. And the government points at the regulator and industry. And so this merry-go-round has gone on since the turn of the century.

So whose fault is it? Where does the blame lie? Lloyd Gedye from the Mail & Guardian interprets the report to mean that ICASA has failed and indeed the reports clearly states that

“The regulation in March 2011 by ICASA of the termination price that operators charge each other to terminate calls on each other’s networks has not had the intended outcome of creating a fairer competitive environment and a reduction in prices for consumers”

But for me this is like blaming a man with a wooden sword for failing to conquer a lion. ICASA is terribly mismatched in terms of its ability to go head to head with the telecoms industry both in terms of independence and resources. So perhaps ICASA has failed but whose fault is that?

Predictably the RIA report provoked a storm of obfuscationese from industry. Vodacom spokesperson, Richard Boorman, says

“Mobile Termination Rates (MTRs) are not an industry-wide cost that the consumer bears — the net cost of MTRs to consumers is and always has been zero,” he said. “MTRs are paid by operators to each other to terminate calls on the other’s network.”

Err what? So it doesn’t matter what mobile operators pay each other, it is always the right price? Holy magical thinking Batman! They also argue that call quality is higher in South Africa and that South Africa’s geography is more expensive to service than countries like Kenya and Tanzania. Having travelled in Kenya and Tanzanian recently, I can say this does not bear out in my experience. And did I ask for higher call quality? Could I please have a cheaper, crappier call option? There is some truth to the argument about geography but not nearly enough truth to explain the call cost disparity revealed in the report. Really this is just the standard litany of excuses that the likes of Vodacom and MTN trot out every time more evidence is presented of market failure in South Africa.

So is industry to blame? Well, yes but it is like blaming the lion for eating the wildebeest.  They are accountable to their shareholders. They employ all the tricks available to them to maximise their advantage, except they don’t have teeth, they have lawyers .  Now when government was a major shareholder in Vodacom, this got to be pretty muddy ground indeed. Happily that is done with. You could wish for industry leaders with a little more vision who see both the social and economic benefits of driving down costs and increasing access but there we would need to blame the shareholders who opt for self-interest.

So, if it isn’t really ICASA’s or industry’s fault, where does the blame lie? The fault lies with government and in South Africa the government of the last eighteen years is the ANC. I hate saying negative things about the ANC. For such a long period in my life, the ANC has represented the spirit of justice, of resilience, of endurance in the face of overwhelming odds that it is hard to bring myself to criticse the ANC openly. But like William Shatner in a corset, sometimes you have to recognise that things have changed.

What have the ANC done wrong? It is quite simple. They have failed to take telecommunications seriously. They have consistently relegated communications as a junior ministry and appointed ministers for reasons other than their competence and vision. The result has been the unhappy, bitter, finger-pointing environment that we have today. And sure, I too am pointing the finger here squarely at the ANC. But the buck has to stop somewhere and I believe that we would be in a very different South Africa had someone with vision and leadership been given the helm of the Department of Communications some years ago.

And things are getting worse. Minister Dina Pule recently announced a full review of South Africa’s ICT policies kicking off with a two-day Colloquium which starts tomorrow in Midrand. On the surface that sounds pretty good and about time. Well, it would be if it had not been outsourced to Deloitte. Outsourcing to large consulting firms is basically an announcement saying I have no idea what to do and will need someone else to blame if things go wrong. Government and industry alike find it hard to resist the siren call of the big-name consulting firm. Pay me. I have the answer you need.

So all of the planning has been handled by Deloitte and some industry insiders. But perhaps that’s not so bad. The incumbents are forever making the point that they are the only one’s deserving of more spectrum because only they really have the capacity to roll out infrastructure nationally. There is a certain simple plausibility to this but really it is like saying money should only be given to the rich because only they know how to manage it properly.

More insight can be found in a new book by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson called Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty. The book is an ambitious, sweeping look at history providing a theory of why some countries have prospered and other haven’t. They divide countries into those with inclusive versus those extractive governments. There is a good review of the book in The Economist and a good interview with Daron Acemoglu on Econtalk. I’ve only just started reading it but one story that has stood out for me is how Venice went from hugely influential city-state to tourist backwater. It is summarised well here:

“Upward mobility drove the city-state’s wealth and power. Its innovative commenda, a partnership in which capital-poor sailors and rich Venetians shared the profits from voyages, allowed those of modest background to rise through the ranks. This fluidity threatened established wealth, however. From the late 13th century the ducal council began restricting political and economic rights, banning the commenda and nationalising trade. By 1500, with a stagnant economy and falling population, Venice’s descent from great power was well under way.”

When a wealthy elite stifle the rise of new players, bad things happen. That is a good description of where the telecommunications industry is in South Africa at the moment. We need to create opportunities for new blood to enter and rise in the telecoms sector. It will be good for everyone in the end. And that’s why the incumbents are NOT best placed to implement South Africa’s broadband future, at least not on their own.

So how can we make this happen? I believe it is simple. The ANC need to appoint new leadership in the Department of Communications and to elevate the ministry to frontline status. It probably needs to be a young minister who understands the potential of the sector and that the digital age is not just a twitter acount managed by a digital consultant.  Stick that in your Colloquium Agenda.

 

—

Postscript for ICT4D funders:  If you want to make a difference in Africa, you should be funding RIAs’ work.  Seriously.

Africa and Television White Spaces

6 Replies

If you google “televisions white spaces”, you’ll see a small storm of news generated last week by the FCC’s finalising the rules for the use of television white spaces spectrum in the U.S. TV white spaces spectrum was first announced in Nov 2008 by the FCC but was bitterly protested broadcasters and wireless microphone manufacturers, among others that the devices would interfere with television broadcast and wireless microphone use alike.

So what are the television white spaces? Back when radio spectrum was first allocated for television broadcast in the early part of the 20th century, broadcast and broadcast reception technology was crude by today’s standards. In essence, broadband transmitters had to “shout” because the reception devices were a bit deaf. In order to cope with these loud services, regulators decided that gaps should be left in spectrum assignments as “guard” bands to prevent television signals from interfering with each other. These “guard” bands are also known as television white spaces because of the “white” noise signal that appears on a television in these unused bands. Aside: this makes sense but it really, really doesn’t resonate in South Africa where a call for “white spaces” just says all the wrong things. Sigh. Can’t we call them something else?

So anyway things have changed. Wireless technology has evolved a great deal and now devices can be designed that operate efficiently within these “guard” bands without interfering with television broadcast. The original idea was that the devices would be able to sense what television channels were in use and serendipitously use the empty “white spaces” wherever they were available.

The Nov 8 2008 policy decision has been hanging fire while the FCC have debated the various objections to white spaces spectrum use. On 23 Sep 2010 the FCC finally set down clear rules for white spaces operation. Instead of spectrum sensing, the FCC have decided that all television white spaces (TWS) devices must register online with a centrally managed database which tells TWS devices what spectrum they may use in the area that they are being activated. While this removes some of the serendipitous possibilities for innovation, it directly addresses the concerns of broadcasters that spectrum sensing technology was not sensitive enough to ensure an interference-free environment for broadcasters. The door was left open however for spectrum sensing in the future.

So why is TWS spectrum important?

  1. You don’t need a spectrum license! Or at the very least licensing is very, very lightweight. This means that you you can deploy TWS technology in a very similar manner to other unlicensed wireless technologies such as WiFi. This means more market entrants, more competition, and ultimately more service and better prices for consumers.
  2. You don’t need to re-farm spectrum! Re-farming spectrum which involves moving existing spectrum holders from one band to another band is notoriously painful and long-winded. Just look as the pain-in-the-behind that iBurst and Sentech’s spectrum holding in the 2.6GHz range has been for that process. TWS spectrum can re-use unused television spectrum without moving any existing spectrum holders.
  3. It’s lovely spectrum! Television spectrum is capable of penetrating obstacles such as trees and building much more easily than WiFi spectrum or WiMax for that matter. This means that it will be MUCH easier to deploy this technology and it can be deployed a lot more affordably. It is not without downsides. You don’t get as much throughput through TWS spectrum, probably more like 2Mb/s but frankly that is plenty for loads of applications.
  4. This is such an opportunity for Africa. Pundits are estimating that the TWS market may be worth 4 billion dollars in the U.S. This is a country that already has broadband and is packed with television broadcasters. Here in South Africa it would be hard to find a place where more than a half dozen television channels were in use. Likewise the need for affordable connectivity is so much greater. This is SUCH an opportunity!

So What Needs to Happen?

Blog about it. Tell your regulator. Tell some journalists. Tell your politicians. Bug Google and Microsoft who have been champions of this technology in the U.S. but mute about it in Africa. The Google Public Policy Blog trumpets this decision but no mention of it on the Google Africa Blog. <disclaimer>Sorry Google, I just want more from you on this continent. </disclaimer>

Right now manufacturers are gearing up for mass production of TWS devices. If we can put appropriate TWS regulation in place, we can seize the day as these devices become available.  Otherwise,  this opportunity will pass and mobile operators and broadcasters will lock down this space.

WGSDIA – Launch Gmail Zero

5 Replies
This entry is part 4 of 4 in the series What Google Should Do In Africa

This is yet another post in a series in which I have the temerity to offer Google my unsought armchair strategic advice on what they should be doing in Africa.

In May of this year, I was over the moon about Facebook launching Facebook Zero, a service which offers free text-only access to Facebook including messaging.  If you click through to an image or other service and you pay but for the basic stuff it’s free.  On this continent, where the cost of access remains a barrier to innovation, that is pretty incredible.

Part of the reason it is so incredible is that Facebook doesn’t have staff in Africa.  They don’t have an African programme or a programme manager for Africa.  The closest office they have to the continent is their European office in Dublin, Ireland.  Yet, they figured out what so many other companies, projects, social movements and development agencies didn’t, namely that the cost of access is the dominant factor for online participation in Africa.  Facebook Zero hits that issue directly on the head.  Unfortunately you get all the rest of Facebook with that which may or may not be ok with you.  Right now though it has the potential to be a serious hearts and minds winner on the continent.

Back in the United States, Facebook has just outstripped Google as the most visited site in the country.  Here in Africa, Google and Facebook are pretty much neck and neck. Google have been doing some  amazing mapping work; they’ve done some great capacity building of varying types; developed innovative applications; sold some advertising, etc.  Some of the stuff they are doing like the Google Global Cache is making a real difference.  They’re pretty busy in Africa.

But the fact remains that Google does not take Africa seriously.  Let me explain.  First let me say that by Google I do not mean any of the many remarkable Google staff who live and work in Google offices around the continent.  I mean whoever is pulling the levers on Google’s Africa strategy.  Africa is not a profit centre for Google.  Nobody’s job is on the line if Google Africa doesn’t meet their advertising revenue targets.  I think this is done with the best of intentions, perhaps to give Google time to better understand the environment they’re working in or perhaps to allow infrastructure to improve to the point where sufficient traffic exists to class Africa with other regions.  Whatever the reason is, the downside is that then it doesn’t matter if Google’s strategy in Africa fails.  It’s just Africa… failure is expected.

But not necessarily.  If Google were to try something as audacious as Facebook, to zero rate a text-only interface to Gmail and Gchat, a Gmail Zero if you will, that would open up interesting possibilities.  Perhaps one might argue that Facebook is already there with its messaging and chat services.  But I think a Gmail Zero would have a different application.  I can see Gmail as the entrepreneur’s tool of choice.  Facebook is still to much of a walled garden to be as profoundly useful as a standards compliant email account.  That would really get the bits flowing and where more bits flow… more ads flow.

Of course it’s easy to think up ways that Google could make a real difference in Africa.  Spending other people’s money is a piece of cake.  While we’re at it, could we have a better Gmail?  GMail needs to go on a diet for Africa.  A Gmail Lite with some slimmed down javascript would make email a lot more pleasant on slow links.

That’s not too much to ask is it?  Gmail Zero and Gmail Lite.  Two great tastes etc…