Regular TV on the Web and Web TV on your regular TV

The term convergence in ICT is no longer vogue, that however does not mean that it is still not happening in a big way. With a broadband connection you can watch regular TV shows via the Internet through web sites like You Tube and Hulu.

Even more amazing is the increasing number of purely web TV shows, (or TV shows that are available online) which can also be watched on your regular TV.

Here are a few 'TV' shows that I have stumbled upon and enjoy watch on my computer, to stay in touch with news about Kenya and keep learning new stuff on technology, especially the Internet;

Through YouTube ;

• International Rugby Board (IRB) Sevens
• CNBC Africa -or is Africa Business News (ABN)
• Citizen
• NTV
• KTN

KBC TV use Jump TV embedded in their main website to stream all their TV programming, 24/7 I believe.

Aly Khan Satchu is blazing the trail with his very own web TV show RichTV and podcasts, daily providing reporting and insight on the Nairobi Stock Exchange. Noteworthy was his interview of Micheal Joseph. Aly Khan is also featured on traditional media at CNCB Africa and writes weekly in the Nairobi Star.

The BBC show a short version of the weekly technology show Click. Shame its just a short version in the USA.

CNET are blazing the trail too with their own TV shows on all things technology!

Last and definitely not least, my latest find and a must watch for all web designers is Doctype TV !

Broadband Internet in Kenya

Wow, what a rant by Kahenya Kamunyu, on the broadband mess in Kenya and why he is angry! Here is my response on this critical issue.

Is there a problem with broadband in Kenya? Is it a mess? Yes, at least I think so and agree with Kahenya. We however need to define the problem; is there no broadband Internet? Is it not accessible in enough places in Kenya? Is it too expensive? Are the speeds not fast enough? Further we need to define broadband so that we are all talking about the same thing. I would propose a ubiquitous always on Internet connection that supports the basic services and satisfactory user experience with applications offered on computing hardware devices. For this article I will use the following definition, an always on Internet connection with a minimum speed of 256 kbps in at least one direction.

Is policy the factor hindering growth in investment in broadband technology?

If Kahenya means an absence of policy by the government of Kenya (GoK) then that is not true. We have the following policies that address broadband access to accomplish further ambitious goals; Vision 2030, the Kenya ICT Policy and the Ministry of Information and Communication (MOIC) Strategic Plan 2008 – 2012. The MOIC strategic plan addresses the need for increased international bandwidth, better national connectivity and last mile technologies.

The way that the GoK handled the development and roll out of M-PESA (and other money transfer services via mobile phones) surely indicates that the GoK is interested in technology as a driver of economic growth. The Ministry of Finance (MOF), MOIC, the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) and the Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) looked the other way long enough to allow the services to take off and then introduced favorable regulations.

Is broadband in Kenya = 3G

Kahenya does not speak about the quality or cost of the Safaricom 3G service. Is the Safaricom service poor or does Kahenya just dislike Safaricom and would rather use 3G service offered by Zain, Orange or Yu. Or does he believe that competition will result in better quality of service and a lower cost offering to subscribers.

Is $25 million too much to pay for a 3G network license? If so why did Safaricom pay this fee? I do not know the answer to this question. I do however believe that Kahenya, and most Kenyans, are overly fixated with mobile telephone technology as the medium for the delivery of broadband Internet.

Yes, Safaricom, Zain, Orange and Yu have delivered voice telephone services to millions of Kenyans who had long given up on Telkom fixed line telephone services. Kenya has never had more than 300,000 fixed telephone lines.

The critical questions we need to ask as Kenyans is, can 3G (or any other mobile phone technology) offered by the 4 mobile network operators (MNO’s) be the primary way we access broadband Internet services?

None of the countries with a high uptake of broadband Internet, defined by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) as number of subscribers per 100 inhabitants, depend primarily on wireless broadband. Rather these countries rely primarily on DSL, cable or fiber-optic infrastructure; all fixed rather than wireless technology. I will concede that there is increasing fixed-mobile convergence to ensure ubiquitous seamless Internet connectivity. MNO’s are using this convergence to off load high data traffic to fixed networks to decongest networks and improve on user experience.

Last mile is still the weakest link

Kenya has made great progress in the past decade with international connectivity, through the under-sea fiber optic cables, and through the terrestrial fiber optic cables throughout the country. A have a good backbone network with great redundancy. The Kenya Internet exchange point (KIXP) project by the Telecommunications Service Providers Association of Kenya (TESPOK) has been a great success. Most of the former are examples of successful private and public investment projects. The weakest link remains the last mile. Fiber to the home (FttH) is too expensive and hence only available in a few commercial buildings in the cities. In a few apartment blocks in select residential areas in Nairobi there are fiber optic connections complemented with copper wire for the ‘last drop’.

Specific goals for broadband Internet in Kenya

Perhaps Kahenya is right that policy is the problem. To be more accurate more specific goals are required for improving the number of subscribers to broadband Internet in Kenya.

The MOIC strategic plan 2008 – 2012 refers to the very low number of broadband subscribers in Kenya. 3,300 subscribers or 0.01 per 100 inhabitants according to the ITU. ( 3.4 million Internet users or 8.67 users per 100). TESPOK offers a much higher number of broadband Internet users; 120,000.

The MOIC strategic plan however does not offer any goals on how many broadband subscribers Kenya should aim to have by 2012. This is a missed opportunity. The document instead offers goals for the number Internet users and number of institutions with access to broadband.

The MOIC lists GSM, CDMA, WiMAX, WiFi and “Internet over power (KP&L Co.) lines” as solutions for the last mile. Only the cable or fiber-optic links on Kenya Power and Lighting Company (KP&LCo.) infrastructure is fixed. The goals need to be more specific and ambitious and unless there is a major breakthrough in the next generation wireless technology more though needs to be given to fixed infrastructure. These will ensure that their is a definite plan of action to increase access to broadband Internet.

Solutions and lobbying rather than "Bitange Ndemo must go … "

Really! Will ignoring Bwana Ndemo who is willing to attend Skunkworks, mingle with techies and understand their struggles and technology needs improve matters?

Does Kahenya really believe that giving Ndemo the cold shoulder will cause him to do better as the PS at MOIC. Does Ndemo determine government policy and directives on his accord? There are so many more actors in this sector; Kibaki, Raila, Pogohisio, Njoroge, ministers, MP’s, the private sector and investors.

It is in the best interest of all stakeholders and especially Internet users to continue working with Ndemo and support him. That the MOIC has a strategic plan based on Kenya's Vision 2030 plan is great progress. More solutions need to be determined and then offered to the key actors and then lobbied for. TESPOK can play a great role once they realize that they can multi task and take on other projects other than IXP’s.

We can fix the last mile problem and increase affordable broadband Internet services offerings. A key aspect in enabling Kenya realizes it’s amazing potential.

Internet at Home in NC, USA

AT&T DSL

I live in a small town in North Carolina (NC) with a population of approximately 10,000, half of those are students at the local university. The terrain is mountainous. These factors significantly limit the Internet options.

I opted for the AT&T DSL service because there was already a telephone line into the house I am renting. There was also cable but because I wanted to watch rugby I took the counsel of one White African and tracked down Direct TV who offer Setanta.

I chose the AT&T - FastAccess DSL Direct 3.0M service, which has the following features;

• DSL without a phone line (I have a VOIP telephone account with Vonage)
• 3 Mbps/384 Kbps (Maximum Downstream /Upstream)
• $42.95 per month
• Modem (2-Wire 2701HG-B) that supports a Wi-Fi network, at a cost of $100 USD for a 2 year contract.

The Good;

The uptime of the service has been fantastic; the Internet connection has failed about four times in 1 year. On 3 of occasions I have powered off the modem and powered it on again and the Internet connection was restored.

The Internet speed measures up to the advertised speed. I test often with SpeedTest.net.

The Bad;

It took me 9 weeks to sign up with AT&T and get Internet at home. The combination of being new in the USA and then having to deal with the bureaucracy of the US government and AT&T was terrible. I had to get my social security card, drivers license, pay a security deposit of $50 with AT&T (I did not have prior credit history) and then wait 3 weeks for AT&T to resolve their internal issues and connect me.

The Ugly;

Customer support at any large company is bad, it is horrific with the monstrous Ma Bell (AT&T).

On the fourth occasion that my Internet went down. It took me a whole hour to call in to 1 888 321 2375, waiting for the most of this time, and spoke for 15 minutes with 2 people who did not come across as competent or were at the end of an 8 hour sift and were brain dead.

My problem was my Internet was down, the first person checked on this, walked me through powering down my modem which I had already done 3 times earlier and then had me open the command prompt (CMD) and do a ipconfig which yielded strange IP addresses. He then asked me to do a an ipconfig remove which I later figured was a wrong command it should have beenipconfig renew.

He said he could do no more, he thought one of my drivers had failed. He handed me over to the support plus department where a lady began by professionally confirming I was the account holder and then started sales pitch about the wonderful service that ConnecTech offers; $149 for 6 months, $249 for 1 year or $99 for a one time remote service with a 5 day guarantee. I think AT$T are insane to even have such a service, let alone hand off a client to this department before they have done all they could to fix a problem.

Needless to say I did not accept either service and opted to fix my machine myself if AT&T were so sure the Internet connection was good. I was certain my hardware and software were okay and I did not need drivers reinstalled for $100USD. I removed the Vonage box that the Internet hooks up into and connected directctly to the laptop did an ipconfig and wow my service was back up. I then reconnected the Vonage box and Internet still up. Problem fixed.

New wine ... get rid of the old wineskins

Lots of software development is happening in Kenya spurred by the innovation of mobile money transfer services M-Pesa and Zap and and a significant increase in the number of Internet users connecting primarily through mobile phones.

It is debatable whether mobile phone networks have the capacity to deliver Internet services so that users no longer require computers; netbooks, laptops or the desktops. Going by the prediction my old lecturer, an old school telecommunications veteran, made in 2003 that the delivery of Internet services using mobile phone networks was not viable. I do not think we have much to fear. Network developers will deliver the mother of all clouds!

If the statistics that there are more mobile phone users in the developing world than in the developed world. That the fastest growing mobile phone market is Africa. Then software developers in Africa are now in a very unfamiliar position. They are on the cutting edge. They have the opportunity to drive the next steps in the provision of Internet services. The software developers of Africa need to be very bold, dream big and push ahead to meet the great need that exists on the continent of Africa. They must resist the mother of all temptations to look to the West or East for ideas or models; they will be well served to focus on the needs in the huge African market.

PesaPal is a new online payment service that is receiving rave reviews and I applaud them on developing this service. That said, let me play the devils advocate and ask a few questions. Who is this service aimed for? Those that cannot get Paypal in Kenya? Will Kenyan's be willing to pay more to a middleman to be verified? Payments can already be made from the customer to the merchant using M-Pesa or Zap. The merchants can receive payments on their mobile phone wallets, unlike credit card holders that required Paypal to accept funds then then transfer them to their bank accounts.

Easy Travel Point on the Safaricom Live portal enables travel bookings to be made and then integrates the payment using M-Pesa on the website. I have not tested this service from the browser of a mobile phone but hope that this is available. This is a Bernsoft service.

Kenya Airways have released a version of their website for mobile phone browsers . It provides great services. The url is also very catchy! Well done Kenya Airways! They have struggled in the past with their website but are now doing very well.

This is a great time to be a software developer in Africa!

2009 a great year for ICT in Kenya!

I am changing the focus of this blog to provide a commentary on information and communication technologies (ICT) in Kenya.

2009 is proving to be a great year for ICT in Kenya.

Two undersea optical fiber communications cable projects have been completed, connecting Kenya with the rest of the world. Until now Kenya has been dependent on satellite technology, which is expensive and has high latency (delays), to connect to the rest of the world for telephone and Internet. The moaning and lamentation about continued high connectivity costs and very little reporting on the increased bandwidth and reduced latency threatens to overshadow the significance of the moment. But then again, perhaps this is Kenyan characteristic is not so negative if viewed from the perspective of the great desire to have affordable excellent Internet connectivity. Looking in hindsight the current debate mirrors that of mobile phone costs which have in the course of time reduced as the mobile phone operators have recovered their investment and competition and numbers of subscribers have driven costs down.

The growth in the numbers of people using mobile phone, the increase in the use of relatively cheap mobile to access the Internet and the innovations in money transfer (MPesa and Zap) are fantastic.

The Kenya Communications (Amendment) Act 2009 is a milestone with the inclusion of a regulatory framework for e-commerce. Again the focus by many Kenyans and especially media is the lamentation about the desire by government to control and reduce media freedoms. Whilst it is understandable that media would rather not be controlled and they should be very grateful that they are dealing with GoK and CCK, which in comparison to most African countries has developed a good framework for regulating the ICT sector. Just ask the South African's.

These three things, better Internet, innovation in the use of mobile phones to connect to the Internet and as a means of money transfer and a legal framework for e-commerce will significantly improve the lives of many in Kenya. Many will look back to 2009 as the beginning of amazing times.

"Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." Sir Winston Churchill, Speech in November 1942, British politician (1874 - 1965)