News

Top stories South Africa: Neotel to scoop bandwidth boon Access to internet highlighted by new global report South Africa: Corporate governance and ICTs South Africa: Acces boom full steam ahead South Africa: National broadcast slammed again South Africa: Icasa delays mobile TV policy South Africa: Mobile penetration increases steadily Broadband "glut" predicted in Africa Mobile(ising) Africa Senegal: Linking up through technology IGF gets under way in India East Africa prepares for global IGF South Africa: Where to now with universal access? South Africa: Nothing new with Neotel Nepad e-schools on the blink

APC editors select the latest news on ICT policy in Africa and internationally. Recommended news articles are marked with a star.

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 South Africa: FOSS activists take on electoral commission
02/09/2008 (Tectonic) -- The head of South Africa’s government open source working group, the chief technical officer of the State IT Agency and the Shuttleworth Foundation have laid a complaint with the Human Rights Commission against the Independent Electoral Commission for excluding non-Internet Explorer users from it website. |

 South Africa: Space for WiMax on the cards
18/08/2008 (mybroadband.co.za) -- The South African government wants some of the scarce radio frequency spectrum that will be freed up through the country's impending move from analogue to digital terrestrial television to be made available to telecommunications operators wanting to provide wireless broadband services. |

 APC: Another take on piracy needed
05/08/2008 (APC) -- As new copyright laws attempt to keep pace with the shifting landscape of digital cultural production, legal restrictions on media use and distribution are being championed by heavyweights in the global media industry. This has led to the web of restrictions on media consumption becoming denser. APC hopes to re-shape the discourse surrounding piracy by providing a thoroughly researched, credible alternative to the industry’s data. |

 South Africa: Courts could liberalise telecoms
05/08/2008 -- Pundits in South Africa are holding their breath ahead of a ruling that may mean the immediate liberalisation of the telecoms industry - and give value added network service providers the same rights as telecoms giants Telkom, Neotel and the country's cellular operators. |

 South Africa: Privatisation needs regulation, says expert
05/08/2008 (APC) -- Privatisation without regulation does not necessarily improve service delivery, and may even decrease access to ICTs for the poor. This is the view of US-based academic and ICT policy analyst Robert Horwitz, who was speaking at a one-week research workshop held in Johannesburg in July 2008. Horwitz is no newcomer to South Africa, or to the politics behind antennas, cables and wires. |

 South Africa: Mozilla funds translation team
29/07/2008 (Tectonic) -- South Africa’s award-winning multilingual software developer, Translate.org.za, has been awarded a grant by the Mozilla Corporation to extend its translation tools. |

 Privacy protection: New APC partnership launched
10/07/2008 (APC) -- A new online privacy and data protection consultancy firm called 80/20 Thinking is partnering with APC to support initiatives in developing countries that are working towards strengthening democratic processes and civil liberties. |

 SOUTH AFRICA: Internet back in big business
07/07/2008 (mybroadband.co.za) -- South Africa’s lack of internet and broadband penetration has, for a long time, held local online ventures at bay. But this is changing and larger companies are starting to invest in websites and e-commerce ventures again. |

 SOUTH AFRICA: Internet providers lose out on licences
07/07/2008 (mybroadband.co.za) -- Technology companies hoping to win a licence to build their own voice and data networks have been snubbed by the regulatory authority - they will still be forced to lease their bandwidth from the incumbent telecoms operators. |

 SOUTH AFRICA: Amazon Dot Gone
02/07/2008 (mybroadband.co.za) -- According to the most recent shipping guidelines on Amazon.com, South Africa is now the only country in Africa not able to receive standard or expedited shipping. It seems rampant theft has everything to do with it. |

 SOUTH AFRICA: Industry furious after blunder over Telkom
02/07/2008 (mybroadband.co.za) -- Telkom SA has avoided a punishing R3,7 billion fine for anticompetitive behaviour after a high court ruled that the Competition Commission cannot refer a complaint against the operator to the Competition Tribunal. |

 e-WASTE: First round to the environment at the IEC
13/06/2008 -- A majority in the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) has rejected a move to put more flame-retardant chemicals in electronics. But environmentalists caution that one battle has not won the war on environmentally hazardous technology. |

 Breeding toxins from dead PCs
13/06/2008 (Guardian) -- The dumping of the developed world's electronic trash, or e-waste, is in direct contravention of international legislation and is causing serious health problems for inhabitants of the shanty towns that have sprung up amid the smouldering dumps in Lagos and Accra. The Guardian's Richard Wray reports. |

 KENYA: Competition could lower mobile costs in Kenya
09/06/2008 (Computerworld Africa) -- Kenyan mobile-phone users are hoping the market entry of a new provider, Econet Wireless, will offer competition and lower the prices of phone calls. The current GSM [Global System for Mobile Communications] service providers, Safaricom and Celtel, are demonstrating duopolistic tendencies, with each refusing to lower cross-network call charges. Calls within the networks remain relatively cheap compared to calls from one network to the other. |

 Global call to back free and open standards
19/05/2008 (Tectonic) -- The Digital Standards Organization (Digistan) and its supporters are calling on governments around the globe to use only free and open standards. The organisation, which was set up to defend and promote open digital standards, plans to adopt the Hague Declaration on May 21. Organisations and individuals supporting the effort are also being asked to sign the declaration. |

 APC supports call against more chemicals in PCs
05/05/2008 (APC) -- APC is supporting environmentalists’ calls for South Africa to oppose moves to increase the use of fire retardant chemicals in electronics. More chemicals could increase the difficulty and danger in recycling electronic waste, or e-waste, and may pose serious health risks to consumers. |

 KENYA: Infrastructure merchants get go ahead
24/04/2008 (Computerworld Africa) -- Faced with rising infrastructure costs, the Kenyan government is set to issue licences to companies dedicated to building telecom infrastructure. The move is expected to lower the infrastructure costs for telecom operators - especially new entrants. |

 Microsoft's latest anti-hack tactic
21/04/2008 (Techarp) -- Microsoft has released an "update" that checks if your version of Windows is licensed. If not, your system will be disabled. Activists say the anti-piracy download dressed up as an update is nothing less than spyware. |

 ZIMBABWE: Election results still on ice
10/04/2008 -- Calls are mounting for Zimbabwe's electoral commission to release the full results of the country's recent election. Will they confirm what everyone already knows, or thinks they know? As vote tallies were posted overnight on the doors of individual polling stations more than a week ago, campaign workers for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change reported them to party officials by cellphone text message. But it takes more than that to hold dictators accountable, it seems. |

 SENEGAL - Idlelo: 'Patents threaten African software development'
08/04/2008 -- The South African minister of public service and administration says that software patents posed a considerable threat to the growth of the African software sector. Speaking at the opening of the Idlelo 3 free software conference held in Dakar recently, Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi also alluded to Microsoft, saying some of its software decisions were “unfortunate”. |

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 South Africa: Neotel to scoop bandwidth boon
18/03/2009 (Mybroadband.co.za) -- The country's second national operator, Neotel, has become the anchor tenant on the broadband marine cable Seacom. The fledgling operator is now poised to deliver vast quantities of cheaper bandwidth to South Africa. |

 Access to internet highlighted by new global report
12/03/2009 (APC) -- How do we ensure access to the internet is a human right enjoyed by everyone? This is one of the critical questions asked by an annual publication that highlights the importance of people’s access to ICT infrastructure – and where and how countries are getting it right or wrong, and what can be done about it. |

 South Africa: National broadcast slammed again
11/03/2009 (Mybroadband.co.za) -- THE SABC has again been criticised in a report on corporate governance prepared by Deloitte & Touche for Communications Minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri. The report says there is a lack of accountability at the broadcaster. |

 South Africa: Acces boom full steam ahead
11/03/2009 (Mybroadband.co.za) -- South Africa is set for an access boom. That's according to industry analysts who suggest that last year’s court case between the Department of Communications and Altech, which allowed local network operators and smaller businesses to roll out their own networks, combined with the imminent landing of the SEACOM sub-marine cable on South Africa’s East Coast has set the scene for a major shift in the local access landscape. |

 South Africa: Corporate governance and ICTs
11/03/2009 (Mybroadband.co.za) -- A draft of the Third King Report on Corporate Governance (King III) has been released for public comment. Unlike previous reports, King III deals with ICT governance in detail for the first time. However, some lawyers are not impressed. |

 South Africa: Icasa delays mobile TV policy
26/02/2009 (MyBroadband.co.za) -- The Independent Communications Authority (Icasa) unexpectedly withdrew an invitation to apply for mobile TV licences recently. |

 South Africa: Mobile penetration increases steadily
17/02/2009 (MyBroadband.co.za) -- Cellphone penetration in South Africa has gone up, but average spending has continued to dwindle as a result of various pressures on consumers. According to the latest figures from the South African Advertising Research Foundation, 67% of adults in the country have cellphones. This was up from the previous survey, which showed that 60.5% of South Africa had cellphones. |

 Broadband "glut" predicted in Africa
16/02/2009 -- Industry pundits argue that it's unlikely that all the fibre-optic cables planned for Africa are going to succeed. And, perhaps for the first time, projections of a "capacity glut" are being made. |

 Senegal: Linking up through technology
12/02/2009 (APC) -- Seven women and thirteen men from Anglophone and Francophone Africa and the Caribbean met during the last days of September in Gorée Island, Senegal. They have many things in common, but one in particular is their ability to make innovative connections between gender, agriculture and ICTs. This ability has led them to be finalists of the Gender, Agricultural and Rural Development in the Information Society (GenARDIS) small grants fund... |

 Mobile(ising) Africa
12/02/2009 (Balancing Act) -- Three hundred and eighty people gathered from all over the world in Johannesburg recently to discuss how mobile phones might be used for social and political purposes in developing countries. The topic clearly touched a nerve, writes Russell Southwood. |

 IGF gets under way in India
12/01/2009 (KICTANeT) -- The First East African Internet Governance Forum was inspired by the realization that there was a need to address the limited participation of African stakeholders in global internet governance debates. That's according to KICTANeT's Alice Wanjira, who was speaking at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) currently taking place in India. |

 East Africa prepares for global IGF
26/12/2008 (Computerworld) -- Representatives from Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda have gathered in Nairobi to discuss common issues regarding internet governance, in preparation for next month's global Internet Governance Forum (IGF). |

 South Africa: Nothing new with Neotel
01/11/2008 (Mybroadband.co.za) -- Businesses are complaining that South Africa's second national operator is not promising much - at least right now. |

 South Africa: Where to now with universal access?
01/11/2008 (SANGONeT) -- In recent weeks the CEOs of two national development agencies in South Africa, the Small Enterprise Development Agency (SEDA) and Universal Service and Access Agency of South Africa (USAASA), were fired or suspended for incompetence or misconduct. These incidents raise serious questions about the integrity and intent of the people entrusted with guiding development efforts in the country, writes SANGONeT Director David Barnard. |

 Nepad e-schools on the blink
30/10/2008 (MyBroadband.co.za) -- The e-schools satellite learning programme, run by the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad), has linked less than 100 schools in Africa to the internet. That's after promising to connect some 600,000 schools on the continent in 2003.
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 TIGA awards for ICT and government delivery
30/09/2008 (UNECA) -- The Economic Commission for Africa and the the Canadian Fund for Africa have launched the Second Technology in Government in Africa (TIGA) Awards. The awards aim to recognise the work of African governments in the effective use of ICTs for public service delivery. |

 South Africa: Citizen journalism under the spotlight
16/09/2008 (Highway Africa) -- More than 700 journalists from over 40 African countries were expected to attend the 12th Highway Africa conference in Grahamstown, South Africa. The conference is the world's biggest gathering for African journalists and took place on 8 - 10 September. This year's theme was citizen journalism. |

 Google edges into Africa
16/09/2008 (BBC) -- Google is helping develop a system to bring high-speed internet connections to three billion people in developing countries in Africa and elsewhere. The 03b Networks system aims to use satellites to provide broadband services at the same speeds as those on offer in rich countries. |

 SAT-3 reinforces market monopolies in Africa - Study
08/09/2008 (APC) -- An APC study examining the impact the SAT-3 fibre optic submarine cable has had on telecommunications in four African countries has found that the potential of the cable has not been properly exploited. Instead, ownership of the cable by telecoms incumbents in the countries researched has reinforced their market positions. |

 South Africa: Court rules on free networks
02/09/2008 (The Weekender) -- A landmark ruling set to shake up the telecommunications sector has been issued by a South African high court. The ruling effectively ends the incumbent Telkom’s lingering monopoly by decreeing that technology company Altech has the right to build its own network. |

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