Tag: infrastructure
Open Access, Africa, and Yochai Benkler
Since the announcement of the EASSy undersea cable in 2005, Open Access has been a term of significant debate in the development of undersea cable initiatives and in the general strategic development of communication infrastructure in Africa. Yet, it is...
The Death of Fixed Lines in Africa
Today I want to push back a little (just a little) against the conventional wisdom that mobiles are the only communications infrastructure future for Africa. There is an implicit understanding in ICT4D work in Africa that mobiles are the future...
Africa, Innovation, and The Incredibles
Philip Auerswald recently took advantage of arch-villain Syndrome (from the Pixar movie The Incredibles) to paint a tongue-in-cheek picture of his relationship with Bill Easterly. Entertained and emboldened by this, I was reminded of my own insight from watching (more...
Municipal Broadband Investment in South Africa
There’s an interesting AFP article on the city of Johannesburg’s 1 billion Rand (~105 million USD) contract with Ericsson to deliver municipal broadband infrastructure. In it they quote an anonymous “telecoms expert” who says: …that municipalities were already stretched to...
South African National Broadband Forum
I am getting quite excited about the upcoming South African Broadband Forum next week. Inspired by the coalition that emerged in the United States to get broadband infrastructure investment on the political agenda in the run-up to the U.S. election,...