Open Access Infrastructure and the Cost of Mistrust
Recently I’ve been writing about the relationship of openness and trust in open movements which has led me to think more about the strategic role of trust in general. Now I find that almost every…
Africa Telecoms Infrastructure in 2014
A look back. My review of African telecom infrastructure development in 2014. Undersea Cables Perhaps the most noticeable thing about undersea fibre-optic cable development around Africa was the soundless popping of project bubbles that failed…
Google, Facebook, and frickin’ Laser Beams
I have such a complicated relationship with Google and Facebook that I sometimes find it hard to write about them. I don’t mean complicated in the sense of conflict of interest although it is true…
AfTerFibre – GitHub, KML, and finally a plan
The idea for AfTerFibre is simple enough. Distribute the load of gathering information on terrestrial fibre optic cable projects in Africa by creating an online resource that anyone can contribute to. When I conceived of this project, I just assumed there would be an easy way to this. After all, we have Wikipedia, Ushahidi, Fusion Tables, and loads of rapidly growing Open Source GIS initiatives.
A Gentle Plea to Telkom’s CEO
We recently sent a request to Telkom to send us a map of their terrestrial fibre network in South Africa. This request was in the context of the AfTerFibre Project, which is attempting to crowdsource a…