As at December 31, 2006, Vodacom Group recorded 28.2 million customers across its networks operating in South Africa, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lesotho and Mozambique, reflecting a 9.5% increase in the three months since September 30, 2006. The growth in the customer base is a result of high gross customer connections of 4.5 million for the three months since September 30, 2006. The Group's non-South African operations comprised 6.4 million customers, or 22.7% of the total customer base. South African operations South Africa includes the operations of Vodacom South Africa and the Smartphone SP (Pty) Limited Group. South Africa increased its customer base by 7.8% since September 30, 2006 to 21.8 million customers of which 2.9 million are contract customers and 18.8 million are prepaid customers, reflecting increases of 6.7% and 8.0% since September 30, 2006, respectively. To date customers joining the Vodacom network together with customers leaving the Vodacom network due to number portability have totalled about 20,000. This is less than the number of new connections which Vodacom usually activates in any one day. As far as contract customers are concerned, Vodacom has gained twice as many as it has lost through number portability, and as far as prepaid customers are concerned it has lost more than it has gained. Vodacom South Africa has retained is leadership in a highly competitive South African mobile communications market with an estimated market share of 58% on December 31, 2006. The SIM card penetration of the cellular industry in South Africa is now an estimated 80% of the population. South Africa customers, year-to-date ARPU, churn, 3 month inactive customers and estimated market share as at December 31, 2006 compared to September 30, 2006 are as follows: South Africa customers, year-to-date ARPU, churn, 3 month inactive customers and estimated market share as at December 31, 2006 compared to September 30, 2006 are as follows: South African Operations September 30, 2006 December 31, 2006 % Change Customers (Thousands) 20,201 21,785 7.8 Contract 2,675 2,854 6.7 Prepaid 17,440 18,840 8.0 Community Services Telephones 86 91 5.8 ARPU (ZAR) 124 127 2.4 Contract 528 524 (0.8) Prepaid 61 64 4.9 Community Services Telephones 1,017 960 (5.6) Churn (%) 43.0 37.9 (5.1 pts) Contract 11.0 10.3 (0.7 pts) Prepaid 47.7 42.1 (5.6 pts) 3 Month Inactive customers (%) 10.2 9.7 (0.5 pts) Estimated market share (%) 59 58 (1.0 pts) Non-South African operations Vodacom's non-South African operations increased their total customer base by 15.7% since September 30, 2006 to 6.4 million customers. Satisfactory customer growth was achieved in all Vodacom's non-South African operations. Vodacom's non-South African operations' customers, year-to-date ARPU, churn and estimated market share as at December 31, 2006 compared to September 30, 2006 are as follows: Non-South African operations September 30, 2006 December 31, 2006 % Change Vodacom Tanzania Customers (Thousands) 2,593 2,973 14.7 Contract 12 13 8.3 Prepaid 2,573 2,951 14.7 Public Phones 8 9 12.5 ARPU (ZAR) 53 53 - Churn (%) 35.2 35.5 0.3 pts Estimated market share (%) 55 55 - Vodacom Congo Customers (Thousands) 2,027 2,332 15.0 Contract 16 16 - Prepaid 1,988 2,290 15.2 Public Phones 23 26 13.0 ARPU (ZAR) 83 81 (2.4) Churn (%) 30.0 30.4 0.4 pts Estimated market share (%) 49 49 - Vodacom Lesotho Customers (Thousands) 238 261 9.7 Contract 3 3 - Prepaid 231 254 10.0 Public Phones 4 4 - ARPU (ZAR) 76 77 1.3 Churn (%) 20.5 19.7 (0.8 pts) Estimated market share (%) 80 80 - Vodacom Mozambique Customers (Thousands) 694 856 23.3 Contract 11 13 18.2 Prepaid 682 842 23.5 Public Phones 1 1 - ARPU (ZAR) 27 29 7.4 Churn (%) 41.8 45.8 4.0 pts Estimated market share (%) 33 35 2.0 pts

Broadband users can look forward to faster bandwidth in the near future as Telkom's plans to integrate voice, data and television (triple play) will drive the adoption of X-DSL technology and a shortening of the loop-link. This is according to Telkom's broadband executive officer, Alphonzo Samuels, who reveals Telkom is "doing lab tests on newer variants of X-DSL". X-DSL refers to newer and faster variants of DSL, such as ADSL2, ADSL2+ and VDSL. On the radar Samuels also confirms Telkom will appoint contractors to assist in shortening the loop-link, which stands at an average of 5.5km, compared to an international average of between 1.5 and 2km. "We're aiming to move the points of presence closer to the customer - the net result would be faster bandwidth." Samuels explains that X-DSL and a shorter loop-link are necessary before Internet Protocol TV (IPTV), which is entering pilot stage, can be rolled-out. "When one talks about video broadcasting, it's obvious that higher bandwidth is required to get quality pictures to the viewer," he says. Crucial to survival "Telkom will embark on an IPTV trial with Microsoft and Alcatel, and once the trial is completed, a decision will be made on how to proceed further," says Samuels. "But right now we're still in the conceptual stage of deciding how we want to conduct the trial." He adds that the plan is to follow the Microsoft/Alcatel model that has been successful in other countries. Samuels believes the ability to offer triple play services is crucial to the survival of any fixed-line telecoms company, citing the examples of France Telecom and British Telecom, which recognised the need to provide value-added services. While admitting the second national operator's (SNO's) arrival influences Telkom's strategy development "to an extent", he notes that Telkom would have looked towards offering triple play services anyway, denying the SNO is the catalyst for Telkom's reconfiguration. Aiming for a million "Our ultimate aim is to have one million DSL customers within the next five years," he says. Telkom presently has slightly over 120 000 ADSL subscribers. Samuels adds that if IPTV is to be launched as a fully-fledged service, it is likely that Internet service providers' capping policies require review. There is a possibility that Telkom will buy a broadcast licence, he confirms, but declines to comment on who the potential content-providing partners would be.

Located at the crossroads of the Mediterranean, Malta in two straight days provided the setting for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (GHOGM). Beginning last Friday the Heads of government meeting brought Foreign Ministers to the core of discussions.The Ministers looked at issues such as trade, information and communication technology (ICT), terrorism, good governance and the challenges faced by small states. Speaking at a news conference before the summit, Malta's Prime Minister Dr. Lawrence Gonzi expressed the hope that CHOGM will produce a programme of action for the coming years which will promote development for all Commonwealth countries. In the resolve to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, nations should work together through their diversity to transform strategies into opportunities. The Malta meeting, amongst other things, specifically targetted the bridging of the digital divide. The rapid growth of what is now known as the "information society", requires global discussion and solidarity if the gulf between the developed north and the developing South has to be narrowed. Beyond the confines of the Commonwealth however, a lot is already being done to encourage digital solidarity. The information society is said to have produced a tantalizing array of new information and communication technologies that today have transformed the approach to global development. Access to these technologies is spreading rapidly and by some estimates, more than seventy five per cent of the world's population now lives within range of a mobile network. Yet, the long-heralded promise of information and communication technologies remain out of reach for most of the developing world for the information poor, economic and social gaps are rather widening both within and between countries. To capture the promise of the new information and communication technologies (ICT) for all, the United Nations called for a World Summit on the information society (WSIS). The two phased summit began in Geneva two years ago and concluded a fortnight ago in Tunis, has as objective to assess progress of global action for digital solidarity. In his address to participants in Tunis recently in UN Chief Scribe Koffi Annan said the information and communication technologies "must generate new momentum towards developing the economies and societies of poor countries, and transforming the lives of poor people". He stressed the need to give all citizens of the world access to tools and technologies they need, with the education and training to use them effectively. Digital solidarity in other words involves bringing down the costs of connectivity, computers and mobile telephones, making them universally affordable and accessible. To bridge the digital divide all stakeholders have to get down to the specifics of expanding digital opportunities. In Africa and other developing countries, as the UN SG insisted, the opportunities are immense. The rapid spread of mobile and wireless telecommunication has spurred entrepreneurship and engineered small businesses to take root. However, the needs of the ordinary citizens of the developing world are more basic and down to earth. Three square meals a day, roads, water, electricity and health remain top priorities in most of the developing world. Before providing information and communication technologies, it is necessary to firstly make available the aforementioned basic necessities for a decent livelihood.

The winners in the 2005 Technology Top 100 Business Awards programme have been announced. Bell Equipment won the Minister?s Award for Overall Technology Excellence for large enterprise while EDH took the prize for Overall Technology Excellence for small enterprises. The Technology Top 100 Awards programme showcases the best South African technological and innovative companies and demonstrates the technological prowess that exists in this country. Bell Equipment, manufactures heavy duty high-tech equipment for mining and quarrying, construction, forestry, sugarcane and rough terrain materials handling. "Bell has maintained consistent market focused innovation and development and has established an international reputation and credibility for South African technology," according to the organisers. "Its worldwide orders for articulated dump trucks show South Africa?s manufacturing viability and world-class status. Bell?s products and services surpass their customer expectations." Bell also took the awards for Leader in Innovation and Leader in Marketing. EDH, develops products for the military and sport markets. Its core expertise is the design and development of 3D tracking radar systems. "Its technology is used in diverse markets, ranging from demanding military applications, to teaching and training in sports like baseball." The company's three-dimensional Tennis Serve Speed Measurement System is used at Wimbledon and recognised by the ATP, WTA and ITF Davis Cup Tennis Management Systems. Africa's eye into the sky Also winning was SALT (PTY) LTD, builders of the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT), named the Adjudicator?s Honorary Technology and Innovation Ambassador. SALT is the largest optical telescope in the Southern Hemisphere and the second largest in the world. Together with local and international partners the company developed a sensory array that accurately measures the primary mirror segments to 50 nanometres as well as a stellar tracking mechanism to position the telescope instruments at an accuracy of up to six microns. The SALT control system is the first to use National Instruments LabVIEW software development environment for such a complex control system. SALT used several existing technologies in building climate control (with subcontractor TF Design) to create an innovative temperature control system for the telescope. SALT improved on the Hobby-Eberly Telescope?s temperature control and mirror alignment efficiency for stellar observations. SALT managed to reduce the cost of construction to $10-million to ensure its viability. "SALT positions South Africa as a country that produces world-class technology, competitively and productively; and provides world-class research and development opportunities for high-tech science and technology," said the organisers. Category winners Prism and Anglo Technical Division were both named leaders in research and development. Prism develops secure transaction technology through the integration and support of transaction products, solutions and services. Its technology spans the chip card, transaction terminal, and infrastructure and security space. Anglo Technical Division, a member of the Anglo American Group, is internationally renowned for developing leading edge technologies such as cryogenic electromagnetic technology, airborne gravity gradiometry, radio frequency and radar applications. The Leader in Commercialisation award went to Nimue Skin who "successfully commercialised its range of professional skin care products for environmentally damaged skins, acne and hyper-pigmentation edge". BreatheTex, a Port Elizabeth based black empowerment SME that commercialised a lamination technology five years ago, was named Leader in Empowerment. Both the South African Post Office and Allied Technologies were named Leaders In Portfolio Management. "The SAPO has made major strides through technological innovation and transformation to achieve viability as an organisation", while high-technology Telecommunications, Multi-Media and Information Technology (TMT) solutions group Altech Holdings "focused on providing value-added products, services and solutions through the convergence of TMT, driven by market demand". The Leader in Design award went to Truck Engineering who developed a significantly improved chassis that has penetrated the USA recreational vehicle market successfully. Timbali Technology Incubator were named Leader in Social Innovation. Timbali licenses its high-tech agriculture business model to aspiring agri-entrepreneurs giving them the means to become effective, prosperous farmers.

Cheap and accessible broadband is a key factor in determining whether or not South Africa will achieve its economic growth target of 6%. So says Mark de Simone, vice president, Middle East and Africa for Cisco Systems. De Simone was speaking at The Economist?s fourth business round table with the government of South Africa, a high-profile affair that attracts heavyweights like Finance Minister Trevor Manuel and Reserve Bank Governor Tito Mboweni. De Simone says that broadband ? which is defined as high-speed internet access ? is essential for South Africa to develop skills in the information, communication and technology (ICT) sector. This sector, argues Simone, is every bit as important to economic growth as rail, ports and airports. Cheap and accessible broadband has been the dream of many South Africans. But despite promises to the contrary, South Africa remains a stagnant backwater in global broadband terms. De Simone says that government initiatives such as the legalisation of communication medium voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) have been a good start. ?But there is not enough competition at moment to initiate growth,? he laments. The good news is that companies like Cisco see promise in South Africa. Simone says that SA is one of Cisco?s top four emerging market countries among Brazil, India and China. Cisco has committed R80m over the next two years to facilitate ICT skills development. Thoko Mokgosi-Mwantembe, CEO of Hewlett Packard (HP) South Africa, agrees that there is increased need for broadband. Like Cisco, HP remains bullish on opportunities in South Africa, but sees skills development as a challenge. Mokgosi-Mwantembe identifies three ways of solving this problem: mentorship, improving technology adoption and affordability, and focusing on areas in which we have a global competitive advantage. This story first appeared in Moneyweb Business in the Citizen.

DAKAR, 22 November (IRIN) - As world leaders call for the benefits of new technologies to be shared more evenly around the globe, the reality on the ground in West Africa is a stark reminder of just how much work remains to be done. Gathered together at the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis last week, international leaders such as UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and African Union President Olusegun Obasanjo argued for a bridging of the so-called digital divide between regions rural and urban, rich and poor. "There is a tremendous yearning, not for technology per se, but for what technology can make possible," Annan said at the opening ceremony. "I urge you to respond to that thirst, and to take the tangible steps that will enable this Summit to be remembered as an event which advanced the causes of development, of dignity and of peace." Many argue that promoting mobile phones and the Internet ? otherwise known as ICTs, or information and communication technologies ? is essential to the achievement of Millennium Development Goals such as the elimination of extreme poverty and the improvement of health. But in Niger, the world's poorest country according to the UN's Human Development Index, only two out of every 1000 people use the Internet. "In Zinder, people aren't used to the Internet yet," said Ali Lamine, proud owner of the first Internet cafe to be set up in Niger's second-largest town, located in the dusty desert stretches hit hard by this year's food crisis. "When I opened my cyber cafe, I spent three months advertising on local radio, inviting everyone to come and discover the world via the Internet. But it was a waste of time. Only a few NGO workers turned up to surf from time to time." "Look," he said, waving at the half-empty shop. "Only five of the ten computers are in use. At this rate, I'll have to shut down." Cash, according to Zinder resident Maimouna Hassan, was at the heart of the problem. "I'd be more than happy to surf but the Internet costs so much in Zinder," she said. While the hourly rate had come down in recent years, she said, it was still triple the cost of rates in the capital Niamey. So Lamine is caught in a vicious circle: he cannot lower prices unless an increase in customers allows him to cover his high overhead costs. But in a country with an adult literacy rate of under 15 percent and with more than half the population living on less than one dollar a day, the Internet's heavy reliance on text and US $3/hour rates could be a tough sell. And while telephones may not require a high level of literacy, coverage is rare outside major centres and expensive even within towns. Despite three new mobile phone companies, the majority of the vast land-locked country's 10,000 villages remain outside network range. So it is hardly surprising that only six out of 1,000 people in Niger, according to the UN Development Programme's latest report, owned mobile phones in 2003, a fraction of the global average. Recurring themes But Niger's technological challenges are not unique. The digital divide is gaping across most of Africa where a population of nearly one billion accounts for less than 3 percent of the world's Internet users. And the UN estimates the rate of Sub-Saharan Africans with a mobile at about a fifth of the global average. In Guinea, for example, where a political and economic crisis has left the government hard-pressed to provide even basic services such as water and electricity, telecommunications are erratic at best, even in the capital. "I sit here day after day, customers come, I try their numbers, but none of them will go through," said Mamadou Diang Diallo who owns a small roadside shop, known as a telecentre, where people come to make phone calls in Conakry. "Sitting in this cubicle of a phone centre is no longer worth it. I think I'll switch to selling bread and butter here." At the same time, some enterprising individuals are taking advantage of the possibilities afforded by ICTs in a country where Internet use has grown nearly five-fold since 2000, according to Internet World Stats. "We recognised this opportunity and seized upon it," says 29 year-old Moustapha Naite, who has grown his Mouna Communications, an Internet cafe in Guinea's capital, from two to 40 computers in a short time. "The Internet is like a drug - once you taste it, it becomes a part of you." Naite sees himself as more than a businessman, saying that he is building up the technological infrastructure in a country where the majority of people live on less than one dollar a day. "This will help everyone plan for the future and alleviate poverty," he says. Innovative approach In vast neighbouring Mali, the mobile phone market is growing but there is less than one land-line per thousand inhabitants in rural areas, according to the ministry of communication. And the majority of Internet cafes are located in urban centres. In order to help remedy this situation, Mali has embarked on a countrywide UNESCO-sponsored programme to launch 50 community multimedia centres that combine radio and ICTs to transmit information to those who may not have the means or the education to access it online. Through call-in shows, operators can answer people's questions by wading through the Web's mass of content to provide information that is both relevant and translated into the local language. The centres are also intended, over time, to become a store of knowledge on matters such as health and income generation at a fraction of the price of building up a traditional library. "Today, with the many opportunities offered by ICTs, governments have to work to provide access to the largest possible number of people," Mali's President Amadou Toumani Toure said last week at a meeting of municipal leaders. "That's how we will bridge the digital divide between rural and urban areas." Neutral technology? But not all Malians are so enthusiastic about an impending flood of outside information and its potentially corrupting effects. "We can't control what goes on in cyber cafes," said Oumou Toure Traore, a women's rights activist in the capital Bamako. "The kids often end up going to porn sites." And there is also the question of priorities, even beyond such basics as clean water and a reliable food supply. "The Internet is still a tool for the elite," said Gregg Zachary, a US-based author who has written extensively on technology and development in Africa. "What's needed for the masses in Africa is electricity, radio and cheaper cell phones." "Cheaper Net, broadband, you don't hear much demand for that," he said over the phone from Cameroon, adding that the recent summit in Tunis was unlikely to have much impact on the lives of ordinary Africans. It remains to be seen which technologies, if any, will have a positive effect in West Africa. Although Mali has in recent years climbed out of the cellar and into the middle of the regional and continental pack in terms of access to telecommunications, it remains mired fourth from the bottom in the UN's Human Development Index. Even so, the country's communication minister, Gaoussou Drabo, is convinced that new technologies and the potential they offer for 'leapfrog' development are the keys to a brighter future. "We've missed out on all the revolutions but we can't afford to miss out on this one if we ever want to take off."

TUNIS, Nov 18 (IPS) - "People say, 'what are you talking about: it's just a computer, it's just a telephone -- how can there be gender issues over technology?' There's still no understanding of how things like computers get into institutions and are incorporated into existing male-dominated power structures," says an Indian woman delegate here for a global meeting on making the so-called Information Age benefit all people. What is crystal clear is that the 'digital divide' includes a wide gulf between how men and women participate in this new age. And that correcting the imbalance will not be as easy as installing more Internet lines or boosting the number of mobile phones. 'Digital divide' has become ubiquitous in describing gaps between how the world's people own and use the Internet and other information and communications technologies (ICTs). Usually the term refers to the gap between rich and poor countries, but it can also mean fissures within countries, or between the sexes. According to a set of principles issued after the first part of this global conference -- the World Summit on the Information Society -- in 2003, governments are working to make men and women equal players in the Info Age. "We are committed to ensuring that the information society enables women's empowerment and their full participation on the basis of equality in all spheres of society and in all decision-making processes. To this end, we should mainstream a gender equality perspective and use ICTs as a tool to that end," they declared. But the message was lost from the moment that only one woman appeared among a roster of men for the opening ceremony of WSIS part two here in the Tunisian capital, says activist Magaly Pazello. "The gender dimension has kind of been put on the backburner in the negotiations and documents of the summit. There is no explicit commitment that guarantees the rights of women," Pazello from the Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN) told the main session of this gigantic gathering Thursday. Women, she added on behalf of civil society's gender caucus, "would like to participate at all levels of decision-making, including in the development of infrastructure, financing and the choice of technologies. We'd also like to participate in a debate on the ethics of technology itself and its application." Debates are needed because the issues are complex, emphasises a report released here Thursday. "Even in countries where access is no longer much of an issue and (the use of ICTs) is high, inequalities in actual use can hamper women's development opportunities," says 'Women in the Information Society' a chapter in a report 'From the Digital Divide to Digital Opportunities'. "We can say little about women's equal and active participation in the information society just based on access. Access is a necessary but not sufficient condition to closing the gender digital divide," adds the report, published by United Nations agencies and various partners, including Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC). No doubt ICTs are important, "enabling women to overcome isolation and move towards increased opportunities", but there is little statistical data to back up that qualitative evidence, adds the chapter. Women are also slow to start using new technologies, it says. "This gender divide persists as we move to countries with more developed 'info states'." For example, in Taiwan in 2004, 93 women used the Internet for every 100 men but only 70 women accessed the Internet via mobile phones for every 100 men. "While the gender gap has recently vanished in a few countries with high Internet penetration, such as Canada and the United States, this is not the case among other countries well known for their info states, such as Norway, Luxembourg and the UK," says the document. "At the same time we also see a number of countries with very low overall penetration that do not seem to experience a gender divide", including Mongolia, the Philippines and Thailand, where more women than men use the Internet, it adds. "Much remains to be done in order to understand better why gender gaps exist and why they matter," the report says. In a stuffy meeting room here so small that participants, including the translator, were forced to sit on the floor, a group of women concluded this week that ICTs have far to travel to live up to their potential. For instance, the Internet has led to more sexual harassment and exploitation and "enables men to buy sex and exchange millions of images of women and children," said Mavic Cabrera-Balleza from ISIS International Manila, a women's communication group for the Asia-Pacific region. Four years ago, 10 percent of sales made on the Internet were sex-related, she added. Janice Brodman, director of the Centre for Innovative Technologies in the U.S.-based Education Development Centre says "ICTs have in fact continually eroded human rights for women and will continue to do so in the future if we don't take steps now."

Veteran technologist and chairman of global computer chip giant Intel, Dr Craig Barrett says South Africa has the opportunity to leapfrog to become an early adopter of developing wide-range wireless broadband technology WiMAX. This technology should theoretically be able to connect everybody within a 50km radius ? in other words the whole of Johannesburg and half of Pretoria ? with a single base station. Telkom said earlier this week that it had successfully trialled WiMAX with Intel, and this would in future complement its deployment of copper-based broadband ADSL. Barrett said apart from Telkom having completed its trial, the State IT Agency (SITA) had also selected WiMAX to deploy broadband to rural areas. Although Barrett acknowledged South Africa?s low penetration levels of PCs and internet connectivity, he said the county had made some ?good progress? on the technology front ? citing the more than 50% penetration of mobile phones as one example. But, he warned: ?Competition in the digital area is not about standing still?. Barrett believes a connected society cannot be achieved without the three pillars ? citizens, government and business ? working together to achieve it. He?s confident the country can see progress if this happens, qualifying that WiMAX can be a relatively inexpensive technology to implement if there?s competition. Head of Intel?s sub-Saharan Africa operations Jacques van Schalkwyk said it was working with ?multiple enablers? in South Africa on this score. Everybody was waiting for the spectrum to be allocated, which would enable this competitive environment we talk about, he said. Barrett said SA compared fairly well on the various measures like the World Economic Forum?s ?Network Readiness? index and The Economist?s ?e-Readiness? index, coming in the top third in the former and mid-way in the latter. Things were ?relatively positive and moving in the right direction?, but there was still lots of room for improvement, he said. The 66-year old Barrett, who?s been with Intel since 1974 and became CEO in 1993, and chairman in May this year, was in South Africa for the first time since the late 1990?s. Barrett said he travelled to 30 countries a year and had come to South Africa this time not for any special event, but rather to ?see what?s happening here?, as a fast growing region and the hub of sub-Saharan Africa. He did, however, also donate a supercomputer worth more than $1m to the Merake Institute for medical research on HIV / AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis while at a presentation in Sandton on Thursday late afternoon. Barrett was surprisingly well-versed on the dynamics of the South African environment, but shied away from political questions like black economic empowerment and refused to be drawn into any overly critical commentary on the country?s widely acknowledged slow pace of deregulation. Instead he said merely it was important for any growing economy to have access to affordable connectivity. Barrett said technology was the increasingly backbone of everything, and economies were driven by knowledge-based industries. He emphasised the importance of education and of spending money on research and development. ?If you do this well, you get growth, if you don?t, you get stagnation or fall behind the rest of the world,? he said. He also urged the South African government to take the lead in rolling out services electronically, and to design policies to support to development of new technologies. Asked for his views on whether the technology market was again becoming over-heated, he said the IT bubble had occurred specifically because of unrealistic stock price valuations. The only share currently trading on bubble valuations was Google, but that was an isolated scenario based on people?s views of its growth potential. As far as the PC market was concerned, he said this was growing at about 10% to 15% a year. Barrett said much of this growth was being driven out of developing countries, which had low PC penetration. ?I don?t see any of the dynamics of the 1990?s?.

After sorting out the power divide (in favour of continued US governance of the internet), the UN information summit in Tunis yesterday moved on to a much more important matter - the digital divide. Curiously, there is a whiff of optimism in the air. It is not because of anything that has been said or done in Tunis - although there was plenty of worthy debate - but because of a number of initiatives that have been building up steam for some time and will be coming to fruition over the next few years. The most interesting of these is MIT's $100 (?58) clockwork computer, a prototype of which was shown at the World Summit on the Information Society. Aimed at increasing internet access in poor regions such as Africa - where barely three of every 100 people are on the net - it could have a dramatic effect on education, medicine and farming. Conceived by Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of the celebrated Media Lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, it can be sold for one tenth of the price of a commercial computer because it uses free open source software, doesn't need to earn big profits and doesn't need a marketing budget. Initially, it will be sold directly to government departments. A similar project, Ndiyo (it means "yes" in Swahili) is being developed in Cambridge, while a handheld alternative to PCs, the Simputer, is being designed in India. It is hoped the latter will be manufactured under licence by other companies. Together with a parallel movement by manufacturers such as Motorola to make affordable mobile phones for the developing world, it could significantly accelerate the arrival of the information revolution in poor countries. One of the interesting things about these initiatives is that they are not grandiose schemes handed down by supra-national bodies, but highly practical and grounded in real markets with commercial as well as social ingredients. Compared with initiatives such as these, the row over who should run the internet seems more like a sideshow. Of course, in the longer term it is ludicrous that a truly international phenomenon such should be run by the US and subject to a veto by the US Department of Commerce. But the organisation in question, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) hasn't done a bad job so far in the limited area in which it has power (assigning domain names such as dot.com and controlling the net's root servers), but the rest of the internet - thank goodness - looks after itself. This year's compromise is that Icann will continue to run the system while a new multinational committee will sit on top of it to talk about cybercrime, junk mail, viruses and other problems. This is the thin end of the wedge. It is unlikely, and undesirable, that one country should control such a global network. But until the UN puts its own house in order by controlling member states imposing censorship on the web, such as China and Tunisia, it won't have the moral authority - let alone the management skills - to do the job itself.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 18 (UPI) -- Since eBay announced its decision to buy out Luxembourg-based Skype for $2.3 billion two months ago, it has become clear that Voice over Internet Protocol is not only here to stay, but that it has considerable potential to allow businesses to flourish. Yet while few now would regard VoIP as a passing fad and instead regard it more as a possible replacement for conventional telephone networks, there is already a debate on whether Internet phones would actually be good for businesses or not. Canadian information-technology firm Info-Tech Research Group, for one, is adamant that broader VoIP use among corporations would be harmful for business growth. "Companies that are already banning peer-to-peer applications, such as instant messaging, should add Skype to its list of unsanctioned software programs," said analyst Ross Armstrong. The problem, however, is not about being able to get people actually talking through their personal computers. Rather, Armstrong said that the problem was that while Skype's popularity and usefulness continues to increase, it is increasing the vulnerability of computer networks globally precisely because of its wide use across borders. Having started operations in August 2003, Skype has ballooned into a global network of over 61 million registered subscribers who have downloaded its software so they can communicate via their personal computers for free. Skype said the program has been downloaded over 186 million times in 225 countries and territories over the past two years. By allowing Internet users to talk to one another for free, Skype has become a formidable force in the development of VoIP. In fact, so strong has the company's presence been in the global telecommunications market that long-established names including Google and Yahoo!, not to mention Microsoft, have all been eager over the past few months to join the VoIP bandwagon. Nevertheless, InfoTech's Ross argued that getting companies to use VoIP for business purposes could backfire. "Approximately 17 million registered Skype users are using the service for business purposes. Until an organization specifies instances where Skype use is acceptable and outlines rules for client-side Skype settings, that's 17 million opportunities for a hacker to invade a corporate network," he warned. Specifically, Ross said that there are five major problems with Skype's network as it exists now, namely that it is not standards-compliant; its encryption is prone to attacks; it is undetectable and untraceable; it blurs the line between personal and business calls; and companies using Skype risk a communication barrier with countries and institutions that have already banned the service. "The bottom line is that even a mediocre hacker could take advantage of a Skype vulnerability," Armstrong said. His arguments might well be valid, but at the same time it appears that there is no going back, and not only because Skype and its partners want to further the use of VoIP worldwide. VoIP use "will be fueled by the business case of cost reduction and an enhanced efficiency in communications and data networking," said Richard Hurst of South Africa-based IT Web Market Monitor, which expects VoIP revenues to surge to $93.33 million (630 million rand) by 2009 from $4.44 million (30 million rand) in 2005. It is estimated that about 55 percent of large companies in South Africa have already undertaken a voice optimization study to figure out how best to meet their evolving telecommunications needs in the future, even though smaller companies are taking a more wait-and-see approach to the technology. Moreover, "as users and corporations become more acquainted with the technology and services, the cost saving driver will not disappear but rather be complimented by other business drivers such as remote networking applications, enhanced features, and wireless access," Hurst said. The impact of VoIP is being felt in Eastern Europe as well. According to research group IDC, VoIP minute use will quintuple this year from a year ago and more than triple in 2006. Meanwhile, spending will more than double this year and grow by 80 percent in 2006. "Rapid broadband deployment in 2004 and this year has given VoIP providers access to a massive base of technology-savvy customers," said Emir Halilovic, senior communications analyst at IDC. "Moreover, the presence of these connections has opened doors to alternative operators, creating a more competitive telephony environment and further fueling uptake of VoIP as a service in itself as well as a possible value-add to other Internet services," Halilovic added. IDC said that Poland was the single biggest VoIP market in the region, followed by Hungary and the Czech Republic.

World leaders are meeting in Tunisia to discuss the digital divide, but is technological change helping Africa to move forward? There are 85 million mobile phones in Africa, many used for communication that land lines have failed to deliver. And where there is no bank, you can now use your phone to transfer money. Farmers can find out commodity prices before selling their stock and health messages can be delivered by text, depending of course on good connections. However cost and access are still huge issues for the majority wanting to join the new information society.

Tunis, Tunisia - Nokia today opened its first office in Tunisia. The new facility, located in Tunis, will employ ten people responsible for managing relationships with Nokia's customers in the country and providing them with consulting services and technical assistance. "The mobile subscriber growth rate in the Middle East and Africa is one of the highest in the world," says Dr. Walid Moneimne, Senior Vice President, Europe, Middle East and Africa, Networks, Nokia. "There are currently 2 billion mobile phone subscribers worldwide and we expect that by 2010 this number will have reached 3 billion. We are expanding across the Middle East and Africa to meet the demands of this growth and share Nokia's strong experience and state-of-the-art products and solutions with our customers." Nokia is well positioned to capitalize on this growth with its localization strategy and commitment to bringing resources, people and products to where they best serve customers. "Our commitment to our customers has made Nokia a leading mobility company. This commitment and leadership is illustrated by our comprehensive and ever-growing product portfolio for operators and consumers, our extensive research and development, and our ability to move rapidly to meet demand," continues Dr. Moneimne. Nokia 2 Billion Award celebrate achievements in the ICT sector Nokia yesterday presented four ambassadors of mobility with Nokia 2 Billion Award for their involvement in driving the global adoption of information and communication technology (ICT). Awards were presented by Simon Beresford-Wylie, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Networks, Nokia. The ceremony took place at the World Summit Award Gala and was attended by visiting dignitaries from around the world. The awards were presented to the International Telecommunication Union for its activities in the development of telecommunications; the heads of Telecom and Post in Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark as the fathers of NMT; Groupe Sp?cial Mobile as the fathers of GSM; and to a group of inventors of SMS, the most widely used data service. The winners were presented with scholarships and community involvement projects in their name, as well as a Nokia 8800 with special engraving. The World Summit Award is held in the framework of, and in cooperation with, the United Nations' World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), which is held in Tunis, Tunisia, November 16-18. At the summit, Nokia promotes universal access to communications technologies, celebrates two billion mobile subscribers and showcases mobile phones and network solutions for bridging the digital divide. For further information on Nokia Middle East and Africa, please visit its web site at www.nokiamena.com. About Nokia Nokia is a world leader in mobile communications, driving the growth and sustainability of the broader mobility industry. Nokia connects people to each other and the information that matters to them with easy-to-use and innovative products like mobile phones, devices and solutions for imaging, games, media and businesses. Nokia provides equipment, solutions and services for network operators and corporations. www.nokia.com and www.nokiamena.com

Microsoft announce that, as part of its continued commitment to apply information and communication technology (ICT) as a driver of social and economic development around the world, it would be a signatory of the World Summit on Information Societys (WSIS) Pledge to Connect the World with the aim of increasing digital connectivity to 1 billion people by 2015. The pledge will be introduced on the first day of the WSIS conference in Tunisia, and supported by leaders representing government, the private sector and civil society. The second phase of WSIS, organised by the United Nations and the International Telecommunication Union, will foster a multi-stakeholder approach to enable millions of people to take advantage of opportunities in the digital economy. "Since WSIS I, we have set a goal to extend our ICT capacity building efforts to a quarter of a billion people over the next five years, and at WSIS II we are supporting the broader Connect the World pledge of connecting 1 billion people by 2015," said Jean-Philippe Courtois, president of Microsoft International. "We believe that through innovative public-private partnerships tailored to meet a communitys needs, both targets are achievable and worthy endeavours." "Without question, ICT represents an increasingly key driver for social and economic change, particularly in rural regions around the world," said Amir Dossal, executive director of the United Nations Office for Partnerships (UNFIP). "The combination of creative ideas and assets that multinational companies bring to the table are instrumental in helping to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, and ensure that ICT can improve the day-to-day lives of the underprivileged around the world."

World leaders are meeting in Tunisia to discuss the digital divide, but is technological change helping Africa to move forward? There are 85 million mobile phones in Africa, many used for communication that land lines have failed to deliver. And where there is no bank, you can now use your phone to transfer money. Farmers can find out commodity prices before selling their stock and health messages can be delivered by text, depending of course on good connections. However cost and access are still huge issues for the majority wanting to join the new information society. What is your experience? What is technology doing for you? Do you feel left behind by new technology? Or do most people not miss what they never had or needed? What could technology be doing for Africa's development?

At least 800 000 villages -- or 30% of the world's villages -- are unconnected to any kind of information and communications technology (ICT), and this requires an investment of about $1-billion to rectify. This is according to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), whose secretary general, Yoshio Utsumi, addressed a press conference at the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis, Tunisia, on Tuesday. Utsumi is also the secretary general of the WSIS. "In order to get the villages connected, we need $1-billion and we are spending $100-billion on mobile investments every year," said Utsumi. He said that to achieve the goal of connecting these villages, only 1% of money spent on mobile investments is required. "I am very sure in five years, the situation will be different in terms of internet access." ITU statistics show that 942-million people in developed economies enjoy four times better access to fixed and cellphones, and eight times better access to internet services. They own 13 times more PCs than the 85% of the world's population living in developing nations. He said it is essential that everyone has access to ICT. "The task is challenging, but we must rise to it if we are to keep the promise of the information society." In June, the ITU launched an initiative dubbed "Connect the World" after the realisation that making a simple telephone call was out of reach for at least one billion people. Partners to this initiative are the governments of Egypt, France and Senegal as well as various private firms, United Nations agencies, the European Commission and regional African satellite-communications organisations. The Connect the World initiative comprises three key issues -- an enabling environment, infrastructure and readiness, and applications and services, which together constitute the primary areas the ITU feels need to be addressed in developing effective measures to stimulate ICT development. According to the ITU, to qualify for membership all partners must have current ICT development projects in one or more of the above areas. "Every Connect the World partner is working to make a difference, and it is our hope that the projects they are showcasing will serve to stimulate new partnership and inspire others to join us and launch their own development activities," said Utsumi. Recently, South African President Thabo Mbeki said the fact that telecommunications costs in his country were 10 times higher than those in developed countries was unacceptable. According to the Community Information Network for Southern Africa, South Africa has many projects involving ICT networking, and aims to improve access to ICT in order to share experience, information and generating new ideas collectively. The ITU has been an important player in the emergence of the information society and is the leading agency organising the WSIS on behalf of the UN. The WSIS was to be opened on Wednesday by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan under the theme Summit of Solutions. The summit is held in two phases -- the first was in Geneva in 2003. Ten thousand participants from UN agencies, governments, private sector and civil society -- including at least 50 heads of states, 30 of whom hail from Africa -- were expected to converge in Tunisia's capital.

TUNIS - Botswanas position is in contrast with the Africa one, which concentrates more on the technical administration of the Internet. In fact, Botswana is nevertheless very concerned about the way that the Internet is developing largely on a public policy vacuum, says Motlhatlhedi Motlhatlhedi, the deputy permanent secretary in the Ministry of Communications, Science and Technology. Motlhatlhedi, who is attending a preparatory meeting for the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) said on Tuesday that progress on the issues of privacy on the net, security, respect for others religions and culture, multilingualism and other objectionable material require a policy. Botswana, which shared the same view with South Africa, China, Arab group and South America emphasised the need for a multilateral government mechanism to tackle the issues. They are not being adequately addressed in any of the existing governance institutions, he said. Instead the Internet continues to develop at a very fast pace threatening to overwhelm our societies while we look on helplessly. He explained however that Botswana was in agreement with Africa in taking a cautionary and gradual approach to change the existing Internet governance framework. Meanwhile Botswana is a step ahead, as its ICT policy called Maitlamo aimed to bring all Batswana to the ICT world, was awaiting presentation to Parliament. Motlhatlhedi recently told a WSIS national preparatory conference in Gaborone that Botswana had started implementing some of the Maitlamo projects. He said the ongoing undertakings include legal revisions, the liberalisation of the telecommunications sector, postal policy to determine better delivery of postal services and access to television and radio. Meanwhile, a resumed WSIS third preparatory committee meeting (PrepCom-3) failed to reach a consensus on who should run the Internet because the United States was steadfast on being the e-sheriff of the world wide web. The developing worlds two-year effort to push for an international body which controls a system that guides traffic across the global computer network drew a blank. The issue caused a rift between the developed nations and the developing ones during the first phase of WSIS in Geneva in 2003, as the US which gave birth to the Internet said repeatedly it did not intend to cede control of the domain-name system to a bureaucratic body that could stifle innovation. Almost 900 million people use the Internet. The number is reported to be growing hence the call for the US to share control. World leaders including Vice President Ian Khama would therefore meet in Tunisia for three days from today against the background of this stalemate. Motlhatlhedi explained prior to the last PrepCom-3 meeting meant to wrap up on what to take to the heads of state and governments that we are going to leave here with the Internet still in the US hands. WSIS is aimed at bridging the digital and knowledge divide between the technology-empowered and technology-excluded developed and developing world. The Tunis WSIS will bring together political, business and civil society leaders to take action to narrow the knowledge gap and to consolidate the information society through public-private partnerships. BOPA

Development agencies, the UN and poor countries are clamouring for the wonders of information and communication technology to cure the ills of the developing world: rich people have computers, poor people do not, therefore giving poor people computers will make them richer. At the World Summit of the Information Society in Tunis on 16-18 November, these ICT lobbyists will bemoan the ??digital divide?? and call for a Digital Solidarity Fund. Dazzled by the allure of e-commerce, the global information society, e-learning and other buzzwords, they believe that new technology will allow them to leap-frog decades of incompetence and corruption and achieve rapid development. But the barriers to technological development are exactly the same as the barriers to any economic development: market restrictions, lack of contract law, state controls, customs duties, bureaucracy, corruption and so on. With these still in place, diverting resources to ICT is just another white elephant--the contemporary equivalent of the dams, highways and aluminium smelters that were going to drag Africa up by its infrastructural bootstraps in earlier decades. The Internet and mobile telephones appear to have revolutionised wealthy economies and everyone else wants a taste: India's famous success in contracting outsourced work over the Web and by phone looks like a wonderful example of what can be done--although it applies to a tiny part of the economy. But it is not ICT that has made wealthy countries rich, it is open economies that have allowed ICT to bloom and flourish. To determine whether an economy is open and capable of developing, we need to ask about its business freedoms, its laws, its courts and its investments rules. For ICT specifically, we also need to know if the country allows private Internet Service Providers, if its telecommunications system allows competition and what access citizens have now or may have to commercial providers. And, of course, we have to ask how many people can afford PCs or cell phones. In Ethiopia, for example, without competition, Ethiopia's state communications monopoly is not forced to improve its service or decrease costs. Ethiopia is Africa's largest recipient of foreign aid but it still charges the average Ethiopian--who earns roughly $700 a year--just under $100 to subscribe to a local mobile phone provider. For anyone lucky enough to have a phone line, the prohibitive cost of using the internet--almost $200 a year--makes joining the network economy practically impossible, despite the benefits it might bring. In reality, there are not only all the usual economic and legal obstacles but also, in many countries, the political obstacles set up by regimes that are terrified of their people getting free access to information. Iran, China, Saudi Arabia, Cuba and others will be pushing for regulation of the Internet at the Tunis summit. Even where ICT is welcome, few policy-makers understand how to help the e-commerce, e-learning and even e-healthcare that could allow their people to gain access to the markets and resources of the world. Just look at the telephone: more than half the world's population has never made a phone call and there is nothing new or complicated about telephone services. One-third of the world's population has no access to electricity. Often, technology is wrongly seen as an end, rather than a means to an end and the international agencies offering solutions this month to the digital divide have tended to hinder rather than help the deployment of ICT. Nowhere is this more apparent than in ICT/education projects, not least in rich countries, where the overwhelming focus is almost always on buying computers, and not on teacher training, curriculum design or actually improving learning. Without clear objectives, it is difficult to measure results. Moreover, development agencies seldom learn from these mistakes. Projects that receive funding now were most likely designed several years ago--in the meantime, needs have changed, flaws have been identified, and the project is doomed. But there is a glimmer of hope. The radio remains the most widespread application of communication technology in poor countries today but the rapid spread of mobile phones in some African countries does show that enthusiastic local entrepreneurs can indeed leap-frog, by wireless transmission, the infrastructural failures of governments that have failed to provide telephone or electrical lines and have prevented entrepreneurs from providing them. High-profile international meetings about the digital divide can be used to bring attention to the real barriers to economic and ICT growth: state control, regulation and excessive taxation of the economy in general and ICT in particular. That is what the poor of the world need. That is the great divide we must bridge.

ICT solution firm ATIO Corporation says that the African GSM market has considerable growth potential, and is now a threat to local centres. Marketing director Nicholas Maweni Marketing has indicated that the South African call centre industry is the most advanced on the continent. This is due to the marketing of several benefits to overseas operations, relative low labour costs, neutral English accents, government's openness to deregulation, sophisticated technology solutions and refined outsourced business models. However, South African operations are beginning to sit up and take notice of an emergent African call centre industry. Three key trends are being watched. First is that the proliferation of GSM networks in Africa is opening up communications at the local loop. Recent research by Wireless Intelligence indicates that the GSM networks in Africa by the first quarter of 2005 serviced 85,4-million users. User growth has already tipped 48% since quarter one 2004. The room for further growth of the African GSM market is substantial. Secondly, deregulation is another trend. By taking a more ?hands-off? approach to national telecommunications infrastructure, governments are beginning to see the benefits of stimulating economic growth. There are increasing opportunities for private sector market-makers to innovate off established infrastructure or set up new GSM or broadband networks free of legacy infrastructure. Thirdly, a further trend stands in Africa's favour. US and UK customers are becoming increasingly used to hearing cosmopolitan accents when calling a contact centre. This is both a reflection of globalisation as well as the fact that in the US and UK local populations themselves are made up immigrant communities. There is therefore a lower barrier to entry into the call centre market for African operators where a communications infrastructure offering literacy and English language proficiency, especially in Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. This trend has a direct bearing on job creation for a low skilled labour market, offering job opportunities that did not exist five years ago. Nevertheless, it is still difficult to do business in Africa. While there is a well-established call centre industry in South Africa that competes with India and Ireland for international outsourcing contracts, the same credibility does not extend to other African countries. There are two reasons for this, firstly overseas clients require assurance that African call centre agents meet first world standard as customer touch points, and local knowledge of business dealings is necessary for the brokering of outsourced call centre operations. Two strategies have been adopted to address these challenges. Overseas companies partner with African businesses as a means to enter the local market and ensure international standards are met. African-based call centres, on the other hand, seek out enabling technology partners operating on the continent with expertise in call centre managed services. This latter partnership draws on cutting edge technology platforms (with common standards), training solutions, and business processes to leapfrog existing call centre operations, including those in South Africa.

How is the Internet governed today? The internet governance controversy in Tunis turns on the question of who manages a key part of its infrastructure ? the domain name system (DNS), i.e. the rules that computers and networks use to find each other. These rules are currently managed by the California-based not-for-profit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), under a Memorandum of Understanding with the US Commerce Department. In effect, this arrangement gives the US government the sole right to decide when a new Top Level Domain (TLD) can be introduced into cyberspace, whether it be a new country code (.uk, .fr, etc) or a new ?generic? TLD, such as .com or .eu. The fact that the internet has become a strategically vital part of most countries? communications infrastructure, and one that directly affects economic growth and social development is prompting many to question whether one government alone should supervise such an important part of the infrastructure. Many countries see the internet as a global resource, and some even argue that all nations should have a role in setting policies through a multilateral institution. Internet Governance has therefore become an issue which is debated at the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis. What is the Commission?s position on internet governance? The 25 nations of the European Union will speak in Tunis with one voice, expressed by the UK Presidency and supported by the European Commission. The EU view has been repeated many times in the past months and has remained essentially unchanged in recent years. The EU advocates a free, stable, democratic Internet that is open to the world. The EU believes, first of all, that ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, is doing a very good job. The privatisation of the technical management of the world-wide domain name system in the hands of the California-based non-profit organisation ICANN was strongly supported by the EU in 1998. The Commission believes that one should not try to change this successful example of management in private hands. ICANN carries the trust of the global Internet Community. Secondly, the EU believes that governments should not have a say in the day-to-day management of the Net. To involve governments in this work could create unnecessary burdensome structures and could even endanger the Internet? stability. The EU therefore supports an approach to Internet governance that even further removes government control from ICANN. For many years, this objective was also shared by the US administration. Such an approach would also allow complete the privatising of the day-today management of the Net by phasing out the oversight functions of the US Department of Commerce over ICANN. Thirdly, the EU believes that on important policy issues concerning the functioning of the Internet ? such as spam, cyber crime and, most important, ensuring access by all citizens to the freedoms offered by the Web ? a new "cooperation model" is needed, in other words: a light and transparent mechanism for deliberations between governments. The Commission welcomes the fact that the US has already expressed their interest in a closer cooperation with other governments to address public policy and sovereignty issues concerning the country code top-level domains. The Commission takes the view that in these discussions, we should bring all nations to the same table and not exclude anyone. Only in this way will we spread the understanding that freedom of expression on the Internet is the starting point not only for a democratic development of societies, but also for their prosperity. However, for such deliberations, we do certainly not need to establish new structures or even to call in the United Nations. We can instead build on the existing structures, in particular on ICANN. With regard to the new model of cooperation proposed by the EU, Commissioner Reding could envisage the following: ?If governments around the world are genuinely committed to a free, stable, and open Internet, the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) of ICANN could be a suitable body to help putting elements of the new cooperation model proposed by us Europeans into practice.? http://europa.eu.int/information_society/activities/internationalrel/global_issues/wsis/index_en.htm [Graphic in PDF & Word format] How can information and communication technologies help developing countries? Information and communication technologies (ICTs) ? which include everything from old-fangled telephones and broadcasting equipment to the latest smart, do-everything devices ? are vital to any country?s long-run economic competitiveness, social cohesion, good governance and quality medical care. National research and education networks play a strategic role in enabling schoolchildren, students, businesses and citizens to use these technologies productively, in ways that overcome the inadequacies of existing markets and public services. ICTs need infrastructure, but hardware alone does not make an effective information system. To make the hardware useful, international co-operation schemes also support energy supply, training, policy and planning, and ICT applications development. These schemes are helping many developing countries to skip older generation ICTs and access newer, cheaper and more useful ones directly. As developing countries? economies liberalise, so a growing share of telecommunications infrastructure investment must come from the private sector. To attract this investment, governments, with donor support, may provide low-interest loans or risk guarantees. At the very least, they need to ensure that regulation fosters enterprise and competition. Where the market cannot meet development needs, e.g. because providing connections to poor and rural areas would be unprofitable, governments may help through innovative public-private partnerships, incentives, or public provision. Donor support is often important in launching and expanding such initiatives. To harness the development potential of ICTs, the EU works with international aid programmes coordinated by inter-governmental or non-governmental agencies. The European Investment Bank (EIB), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD, and the European Development Fund (EDP) ? an initiative for African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries ? are all important partners in investing in ICT for development. For example, around ?110 million from the 9th European Development Fund for ACP countries goes to ICT-related aid. Most developing countries view ICTs as an integral part of their development plans, and ICTs form a significant part of many EU-funded projects. http://europa.eu.int/comm/development/body/cotonou/index_en.htm How are EU-funded information and communication technology (ICT) projects contributing to development worldwide? Research and education - G?ANT2, the high-speed pan-European research and education network, connects European researchers with colleagues in North America, Japan, Latin America, the Asia-Pacific rim, North Africa and the Middle East, South Africa, Caucasus, and Central Asia. Because research is inherently global, G?ANT2 strives to offer a seamless worldwide service enabling researchers to share knowledge and co-operate, irrespective of which specific network takes data to the individual scientist. G?ANT2?s geographic coverage, technology skills and services attract interconnection requests from all over the world. - ALICE (America Latina Interconectada Con Europa) connects Latin American national research and education networks to G?ANT2 via a Latin American regional research network, RedCLARA. ALICE is 80% funded by the European Commission (@LIS Programme), and has 4 European partners (France, Italy, Portugal and Spain) and 19 Latin American ones, including the Latin American research networking association CLARA. ALICE has greatly enhanced the ability of researchers in Latin America to join in research projects around the world. The EUMEDCONNECT network infrastructure serves research and education communities around the Mediterranean ? currently Algeria, Cyprus, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Malta, Morocco, the Palestinian Authority, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey and is 80% funded by European Commission (EUMEDIS Programme). Before EUMEDCONNECT, there were almost no internet links among Mediterranean countries, and very few research and education links between these countries and Europe. - TEIN2, the Trans-Eurasia Information Network, is providing a regional backbone network for research and education within 10 Asia-Pacific countries (including 6 developing countries which directly benefit from 80% funding under the European Commission?s - Asi@ICTProgramme). TEIN2 facilitates scientific collaboration within the Asia-Pacific region, with its neighbours (e.g. Australia and India), and with Europe (via G?ANT2). The regional ALICE, EUMEDCONNECT and TEIN2 network infra-structures are linked via G?ANT2 to: - research and education networks in more than 30 European countries, - the major research networks in North America (Abilene, CANARIE, ESnet) and Japan (SINET), - the South African research network, TENET, - the research networks on the Caucasus and in Central Asia (via the SILK and SPONGE projects), and - access to the commercial internet (optional service, terms and conditions apply). Health - BEANISH is an EU R&D project that networks European and African countries to develop ICT applications to combat diseases such as HIV/AIDS. It enables governments, universities, private firms and NGOs to tailor open-source software to specific local needs, and train people to use it. - T@lemed is a project that combines medical diagnostics with network technology to deliver advanced clinical expertise from large hospitals to remote rural communities in Brazil. Medical data and images are transmitted via network infrastructure provided by the ALICE (America Latina Interconectada Con Europa) or RedCLARA networks. RedCLARA links researchers across Latin America, and enables them to exchange medical data and opinions with European colleagues via RedCLARA?s European counterpart, G?ANT2, using a transatlantic link. Upgrading networking technologies for the worldwide web - 6NET, a European project with 35 partners from academia, research and private industry, has demonstrated the viability of Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6), which is needed to upgrade the worldwide web?s carrying capacity and support its exponential growth. 6NET has developed tools and expertise for migrating from today?s IP4 to IPv6 networks and tested a range of IPv6 applications. Its findings, including a comprehensive user manual, have been made available worldwide. In the southern Caucasus and Central Asia, the SILK and SPONGE projects used European Space Agency (ESA) equipment to supply a satellite-based IPv6 service. Many other IPv6 or dual IPv4/IPv6 networks are now being rolled out around the world, enabling developing countries to skip several technology generations and access the latest, high-performance networks directly. How does the EU contribute to information society policy making worldwide? The European Union strongly supports international cooperation in the ICT field. In line with the WSIS Declaration of Principles, the programmes and projects supported with the least developed countries and regions aim to fight poverty and to empower citizens by helping them to access and use ICTs. International cooperation takes place at three levels: political - the EU and its Member States work with non-EU countries and international organisations to promote policies in which ICTs play a key role. Examples include: a joint ACP-EU position on ?Information Society for Development? (adopted at the WSIS-I meeting in Geneva in 2003); the EU-China Information Society Dialogue and Information Society Week and the Euro-India Co-operation Forum, regulatory - the EU works with international partners to ensure that each country?s rules governing ICTs are mutually compatible. This helps to ensure that ICT systems are interoperable, which in turn facilitates international trade, and scientific and technological - the EU has been taking part in international scientific and technological cooperation schemes for over two decades, during which has gradually opened up EU research programmes to players from all over the world. Its monitoring of international research developments also provides early warning of new technology trends that may make it necessary to update rules governing ICTs. Vehicles for international information society cooperation include: the EU-Meditarranean programme EUMEDIS, which runs Information society projects in the areas of healthcare networks, electronic commerce, tourism and cultural heritage, industry research and innovation, and education, the EU-Latin American programme @LIS (Alliance for the Information Society), which supports ICT applications for local e-government, e-education and cultural diversity, e-public health, and e-inclusion. @LIS also provides -discussion fora for EU-Latin American networks of regulators and researchers, and in addition promotes open and international standards, and the EU-Asia (Asi@ICT) programme, which promotes trade and technology ties between Asia and Europe. Asi@ICT covers ICT applications in agriculture, education, e-governance, environment, health, and transport. The EU also has bilateral agreements with China and India

Development agencies, the UN and poor countries are clamouring for the wonders of information and communication technology to cure the ills of the developing world: rich people have computers, poor people do not, therefore giving poor people computers will make them richer. At the World Summit of the Information Society in Tunis on 16-18 November, these ICT lobbyists will bemoan the ??digital divide?? and call for a Digital Solidarity Fund. Dazzled by the allure of e-commerce, the global information society, e-learning and other buzzwords, they believe that new technology will allow them to leap-frog decades of incompetence and corruption and achieve rapid development. But the barriers to technological development are exactly the same as the barriers to any economic development: market restrictions, lack of contract law, state controls, customs duties, bureaucracy, corruption and so on. With these still in place, diverting resources to ICT is just another white elephant--the contemporary equivalent of the dams, highways and aluminium smelters that were going to drag Africa up by its infrastructural bootstraps in earlier decades. The Internet and mobile telephones appear to have revolutionised wealthy economies and everyone else wants a taste: India's famous success in contracting outsourced work over the Web and by phone looks like a wonderful example of what can be done--although it applies to a tiny part of the economy. But it is not ICT that has made wealthy countries rich, it is open economies that have allowed ICT to bloom and flourish. To determine whether an economy is open and capable of developing, we need to ask about its business freedoms, its laws, its courts and its investments rules. For ICT specifically, we also need to know if the country allows private Internet Service Providers, if its telecommunications system allows competition and what access citizens have now or may have to commercial providers. And, of course, we have to ask how many people can afford PCs or cell phones. In Ethiopia, for example, without competition, Ethiopia's state communications monopoly is not forced to improve its service or decrease costs. Ethiopia is Africa's largest recipient of foreign aid but it still charges the average Ethiopian--who earns roughly $700 a year--just under $100 to subscribe to a local mobile phone provider. For anyone lucky enough to have a phone line, the prohibitive cost of using the internet--almost $200 a year--makes joining the network economy practically impossible, despite the benefits it might bring. In reality, there are not only all the usual economic and legal obstacles but also, in many countries, the political obstacles set up by regimes that are terrified of their people getting free access to information. Iran, China, Saudi Arabia, Cuba and others will be pushing for regulation of the Internet at the Tunis summit. Even where ICT is welcome, few policy-makers understand how to help the e-commerce, e-learning and even e-healthcare that could allow their people to gain access to the markets and resources of the world. Just look at the telephone: more than half the world's population has never made a phone call and there is nothing new or complicated about telephone services. One-third of the world's population has no access to electricity. Often, technology is wrongly seen as an end, rather than a means to an end and the international agencies offering solutions this month to the digital divide have tended to hinder rather than help the deployment of ICT. Nowhere is this more apparent than in ICT/education projects, not least in rich countries, where the overwhelming focus is almost always on buying computers, and not on teacher training, curriculum design or actually improving learning. Without clear objectives, it is difficult to measure results. Moreover, development agencies seldom learn from these mistakes. Projects that receive funding now were most likely designed several years ago--in the meantime, needs have changed, flaws have been identified, and the project is doomed. But there is a glimmer of hope. The radio remains the most widespread application of communication technology in poor countries today but the rapid spread of mobile phones in some African countries does show that enthusiastic local entrepreneurs can indeed leap-frog, by wireless transmission, the infrastructural failures of governments that have failed to provide telephone or electrical lines and have prevented entrepreneurs from providing them. High-profile international meetings about the digital divide can be used to bring attention to the real barriers to economic and ICT growth: state control, regulation and excessive taxation of the economy in general and ICT in particular. That is what the poor of the world need. That is the great divide we must bridge.

The most cost-effective and efficient way to deliver Internet access to rural areas is to exploit the massive investment in cellular networks already made by the global mobile phone industry, according to the GSM Association (GSMA), the global trade association representing mobile network operators across 210 countries of the world. Speaking at the ITU?s Global Regulators Symposium in Tunis today, Tom Phillips, Chief Regulatory Officer of the GSMA, said, ?Mobile phones are in the hands of more than one quarter of the world?s population today. We are building on this momentum to bring convenient and cost-effective Internet access to users on a global scale. Governments should work closely with the industry to extend the reach of these services to as many people as possible.? ?After 15 years of investment by mobile phone operators, almost 80 percent of the world?s population live in areas covered by cellular networks*,? said Phillips. ?Analysts estimate that the global operator community is spending about US$50 billion each year further enhancing this global footprint. ?There are many places where it simply doesn?t make economic sense to duplicate this coverage with networks based on alternative wireless technologies,? added Phillips. ?For that reason, regulators shouldn?t mandate the use of a specific technology. Instead they should allow individual operators to decide how to provide Internet access to rural communities.? Phillips was speaking during a debate at the Symposium on the best way to provide Internet access to rural areas of the world. He highlighted how the existing cellular infrastructure can be used to provide a wide range of information and communications technologies, from simple voice calls to email to Internet access. More than two billion people are using mobile phones around the world, creating huge economies of scale for the mobile industry and making it increasingly viable to provide coverage in the more sparsely populated areas of the planet. As second generation (GSM) networks evolve into third generation (W-CDMA & HSPA) networks, operators will be able to add new services and applications that deliver a media-rich wireless broadband experience to users on top of the existing voice, text-messaging and Internet access services. The roll out of W-CDMA mobile networks is gathering momentum ? there are now 86 networks worldwide offering multimedia services to users. This widespread uptake of W-CDMA clearly demonstrates that building on the existing end-to-end mobile ecosystem is often more viable than rolling out and implementing unproven alternative broadband access technologies from scratch. ?The value of an end-end mobile system cannot be overestimated from a user perspective. To deploy fragmented wireless access technologies to the same level of ubiquitous coverage and mass-market take up would require a huge investment on a par with that made by the global mobile industry over the past 15 years,? Phillips added. While mobile phones are typically the most cost-effective way to offer Internet access in the developing world, they are still too expensive for many of the world?s poor. The mobile industry is working hard to reduce the cost of handsets and extend coverage into rural areas, but it cannot tackle the digital divide on its own. "Governments need to ensure that the appropriate radio spectrum is available, mobile phone usage isn?t impeded by high taxes, and wireless networks are subject to appropriate levels of regulation that promote instead of discourage investment", Phillips said. "If teledensity is your goal, mobile is the best way to get there" Countries with fair and transparent regulatory regimes are seeing a boom in investment by mobile operators and a corresponding boom in mobile phone usage. Last year, the mobile industry invested more in Pakistan, for example, than all other direct foreign investment combined. Mobile penetration in Pakistan has leapt to 7% from 2% two years ago. *World Bank estimate. Notes to editors 1. More than 1.5 billion people worldwide are connected to GSM mobile phone networks, many of which are being upgraded to provide Internet access using GPRS and EDGE technologies. 2. Many GSM operators are also planning to offer Internet access and other multimedia services using W-CDMA networks. Worldwide, 159 W-CDMA networks have either been rolled out or are under development, according to research firm Informa Telecoms & Media. About the GSM Association: The GSM Association (GSMA) is the global trade association representing around 680 GSM mobile phone operators across 210 countries of the world. In addition, more than 150 manufacturers and suppliers support the Association?s initiatives as key partners. The primary goals of the GSMA are to ensure mobile phones and wireless services work globally and are easily accessible, enhancing their value to individual customers and national economies, while creating new business opportunities for operators and their suppliers. The Association's members serve more than 1.5 billion customers - 78% of the world's mobile phone users.