Category: Telecom Policy
Telecommunications and access issues.
Why does everyone want to kill WiFi?
Reading the tech news in South Africa, you get the impression that WiMax is going to very shortly solve all of the country’s broadband issues. Articles like this one give the impression that WiMax will shortly be available in every...
South Africa: Income Spent on Communication
The conventional wisdom in the ICT4D community is that people in developing countries spend a higher percentage of their income on communications than the global average. For South Africa, this notion became is widely accepted (I think) thanks to the...
Seacom Sets Date, Reveals Pricing
Seacom has emerged as a clear front runner in the African undersea cable stakes. They are the first initiative to declare a completion date, 17 June 2009 (after which cable company Tyco will incur performance penalties). More impressively they have...
African Undersea Cables – Map
In the spirit of the previous post consolidating information on African undersea cables, I compiled the image at the right to create a consolidated picture of existing and future cable initiatives around the continent. The relative cable sizes are roughly...
Connected Cities: The Rebirth of Geography
As Mark Twain once said, “reports of my death were great exaggerated”. This could be very aptly applied to the optimistic perception that the Internet and cheap telecommunications meant that it didn’t matter where you were, the so-called “death of...