Weekly news roundup August 23

Created By: Esther on 23-Aug-2007 12:00 AM

Africa 4th in Broadband Penetration - Study Shows
Africa has been rated fourth in broadband penetration among six continents that were sampled by the Economist Intelligence in the year 2007. The study conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) rated Africa as fourth in its uptake of broadband services within the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region scoring 7.4 behind North America 10, Western Europe 9.9, Central and Eastern Europe 7.6. After MEA came Latin America with 7.3 and Asia Pacific 7.1 within the six regions under review.was


Stakeholder Partnership Key in Improving Access to ICT - Meles
Forging a strong partnership between all the stakeholders, government, the private sector, international agencies and the donor community was of paramount importance to provide adequate infrastructure and services to rural community, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told an international conference on ICT.


Council to Advise South African President on ICT Trends
A Presidential International Advisory Council (PIAC) is to advise President Thabo Mbeki on how best to take advantage of Information Communication Technology (ICT) as an economic enabler.The Department of Communications is facilitating the PIAC meeting on Information Society and Development (ISAD) to be held from 24 to 26 August 2007 in KwaZulu-Natal.



Africa: Cost is Irrelevant, But Speed Not!
A leading Seychellois ICT pioneer is offering options to the government on how best to finance the country's quest to get connected to a regional submarine fibre optic cable project. Marc Hoareau the man credited with connecting Seychelles to the World Wide Web, says the private sector which is the sole provider of ICT services in Seychelles should be the principal backers of this national ambition.


A Need For ICT Coops For The Poor
There have been reports emanating from Parliament suggesting that the Information Communications Technology policy recently passed by Parliament will amount to no more that a 'pipedream' in the words of one of the opposition members.
Perhaps so. However, the opposition is charged with much more, in this particular instance, than to pass judgement on what they perceive to be the inevitable outcome of the policy. One would have expected the opposition, or any other caring and enlightened members of Parliament, to highlight the central position of IT in contemporary international economy.


Celtel Covers 80 Percent of Sierra Leone
Eighty percent of Sierra Leone's 4.9 million populations have now been linked to the outside world.
The Managing Director of Celtel Mr. Ted Sauti -Phiri says one out of ten Sierra Leoneans now use Celtel network as the company now covers three-fourths of the country.

NCC and Six Years of GSM
The month of August is a memorable month for the Nigerian telecoms sector. It is the month when the revolutionary GSM technology that has transformed the communications system of the country began. Prior to GSM, Nigerians could not boast of an effective system of communications and had only 400,000 thousand lines to a population of over 130,000.000.

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