TANZANIA

ICT

LeonardBoniface, January 11, 2007: Dear Maria,Janet,Hellen and all, Yes, it’s real important to let them know and am going to post the note with info in some of the forums so that many will participate. Since many women in Tanzania are aware of ICTs and its impact, so there is great contribution on their participation. In few years ago Tanzania said to be number 2 in Africa after South Africa on ICTs' availability and cheapest like computers(do any tax in TZ etc),but I'm sure Rwanda will lead or be number 2 in near future. In cell phones issues, TZ said to be number 2 after South Africa just two weeks ago, due to the high technology of the phones feature installed with Vodacom Tanzania, people can see to each other on phone in different location while talking, and this service even not much exciting in developed countries to so many people since is expensive to be connected with those companies, so there is a lot with ICTs in TZ(Tanzania) developed.so, women can be connected in many ways with ICTs and hope a lot of stories will be turned before the deadline. Kind regards, Leonard

ICT in Tanzania

JosephatNdibalema, October 16, 2007, Mendenyo:

Dear all,

After experiencing mushrooming of internet cafes during the past five years,Dar es salaam city which is the country's biggest commercial city with an estimated population of nearly 4 million people now are suffering from heavy cost imposed by Internet providers,during that time players were forced in this sector and the price was reduced to 500Tshs per hr,but today nearly half of them have been closed down.Weather this is measured by a number of internet cafes,that have been closed down in the last few years or the total number of people who have been locked out due to high costs of internet communication,the scenario is a big blow to Tanzania as well as Africa,where only 4 percent of the population have access to the internet.

This is the big blow to the development of internet communication industry in the country whereby so far only 2 percent of the total population have access to internet services according to UNDP Report released in 2006.According to a survey conducted by our organisation--UYOGA last month,currently 60% of Internet Cafes in Dar have been closed down between January and September this year,marginalising the city with the rest of the world.

Those Cafes,which are still surviving, have hiked their surfing prices by 50% in order to curb the surging operation costs.As a result surfing per hour has reached 1000 up from 500 and players in the industry projects that before the end of the year surfing cost per hour will be 1500 and 2000 Tshs.But Internet Cafe Operators still maintains that in order to breakeven internet users need to play at least US $ 2 per hour.

The truth is that weather we like or not,but to survive in the future,at least Internet Users relying on public Internet Cafes should pay US $ 2 per hour Hamis Hamza.one of the Internet Service Providers based in Dar es salaam said. This is another blow as majority of people in Tanzania like many African countries still survive below a dollar per day according to UNDP Report of 2006.

With the demand for internet sevices continue to glow strongly,surfing here is becoming expensive to thousands of people to to high costs introduced by ISPs.To most ISPs here,it is the same old business formular; when the production costs become higher than the expected,put the burden to the end users by increasing prices.We can't close down because that will not solve the problem since the people need internet then,the only solution is to increase prices,Fredrick Muta,Managing Director of Urafiki Internet Services says adding up to the operations costs such as rent, power,labour plus the cost of buying internet brandwidth from local ISPs,at the end of the day most of the cafes operate at a big loss,forcing some of them to close down while others opt to hike their chargies.Despite the fact that some major mobile phone operators have introduced Internet Services through their network,demand for Public Internet Cafes is still vital,bearing in mind that only minority of Tanzanians can afford to have sophisticated mobiles handsets,which are credible for accessing internet.

We are facing a break future as monthly operation costs exceed the turnover.....all these Internet Cafes will face closing the next few months Benjamin the Managing Director of Uhuru Internet Cafe told the organisation during the survey. With internet operation in Africa reaching 4 percent by the end of last year up to 2.6 percent recorded in 2005,Africans are paying heavily to access internet than their counterparts in the developed world,according to African Internet Service Providers Assocation (AISP).

According to AISP,currently the circuits from Africa to the US or Europe cost more than US $ 5000 a month,while cross-Antlantic links between North America and Europe can now be obtained for US $ 2.5 /Mbps/Month and for US $ 1630/Mbps/Month on international routes in Asia.Describing the situation,Mike Jensen of Association for Progressive Communications,an IT expert wrote in his report released in 2006.

A variety of factors are responsible for this situation,but the bigest cause is the high cost of International Connections to the global telecommunication backbones Jensen further wrote,Brandwidth is the life blood of the world's knowledge economy,but it is scarcest where it is most needed......For those {African Institutions] that can afford it,their costs are usually thousands of times higher than for their counterparts in the developed world,and even Africa's most well-endowed centres of experience have less bandwidth than a home broadband user in North America or Europe,and it must be shared amongest hundreds or thousands of users.

According to Jensen,another big cause is mainly the result of the lack of International Optic fibre infrastructure,which is necessary to deliver sufficient volumes of low cost bandwidth,and the consequent dependancy on much more expensive satellite bandwidth,currently it is estimated that less than twenty of the 54 African countries have International Optic fibre cable connections,and these are currently controlled by inefficient state owned operators which charge monopoly prices while neglecting to buld the national back bones needed to carry Local and International Traffic.

According to International Telecommunications Union Report released on 2006,Africa needs to invest US $ 11 bill per year in next 10 years to reach its target of 10 percent teledensity by the year 2010.The rivate sector is expected to be the key player in the fanancing of telecommunications development in the region.......According to Hamza Hamis whose organisation operates one of the popular internet cafes in Dar es salaam,the solution to highest internet costs for African countries is to have their own Independent Satellite that 'll be linked to the proposed submarine cable,said this 'll remove the current of African countries,which depend on the overseas satellite cable,to access internet at the highest cost.

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• FlashDriveEditor=JosephatNdibalema of Uyoga reports on the rising costs at Internet cafes in Dar es Salaam.
• ShopWithUs=<a href="http://www.opensage.org">OpenSage is a non-government organisation in Tanzania which provides open source and ICT services</a>.