GENERATION BLUETOOTH:

Or

A Guide to Ghana’s Emerging Information Society

By Emmanuel.K.Bensah Jr.

June 2010

POLICY:

v   GLOBAL ICTS – THE SILENT REVOLUTION

v   THE INFORMATION SOCIETY AND THREATS THEREOF

v   WHEN YOUR PHONE COMES TOO CLOSE TO CALL

v   WHEN BANKING ON IT GOES WRONG

v   MICROSOFT-YAHOO: IT DOESN’T GET ANY MORE EPIC THAN THIS

v   VODAFONE’S PURCHASE OF GHANA TELECOM: MATTERS ARISING

v   WHEN WILL THE NATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS AUTHORITY STAND UP?

v   NEW COUNTRY FOR TELECOM’S MEN

v   IT’S MY YAHOO! AND I’LL CRY IF I WANT TO

v   I FACEBOOK THEREFORE I AM

v   TECHNOLOGY—THE MOTHER OF ALL DEVELOPMENT?

v   WHY GHANA TELECOM MUST NOT BE SOLD(1)

v   WEST AFRICA—THE NEW TELECOM’S FRONTIER?

v   WELCOME TO THE REAL THREE “G”—THE GLOBALISED GOOGLE GENERATION!

v   NO COUNTRY FOR MICROSOFT’S MEN

v   (POD)CASTING ASPERSIONS ON GHANA’S MEDIA

v   ANTI-MICROSOFT FEVER HEATS UP

v   WHERE DID WTIS DAY GO?

v   GOOGLE FLIES, GOOGLE FALLS?

v   ENTER THE G4 OF MOBILE TELEPHONY

v   LET TECHNOLOGY (AND FREEDOM) RING! (1)

v   LET TECHNOLOGY (AND FREEDOM) RING! (2)

v   CALLING ALL GHANAIAN HOTLINES—PURC, WE NEED YOU!

v   THE RISE AND FALL OF GATEWAY BROADCASTING SERVICES(GBS)

v   TECHNOLOGY TO DIE (HARD) FO(U)R!

v   CSI LAS VEGAS GIVES ME FOOD FOR THOUGHT

v   CITI97.3FM SHOULD CONTINUE TO SET PACE ON ICT & MEDIA

v   EMERGING FACE OF ICT SUPERPOWERS

v   GOOGLE, MICROSOFT ON THE NET, WHICH IS THE FAIREST OF THEM YET?

v   THERE WILL BE YOU TUBE

PRACTICAL GUIDE & ANALYSIS:

v  SHOWCASING GHANA2008 WITH ICT(1)

v  SHOWCASING GHANA2008 WITH ICT(2)

v  SLEEPLESS AND WIRELESS IN ACCRA(UNCTAD XII)

v  MOBILE MADNESS, AND PIE-IN-WHO’S SKY?

v  TECHNO-ACTIVISM 101

v  WHAT A DIFFERENCE A WEEK AWAY FROM TECHNOLOGY MAKES

v  LISTLESS AND UNWIRED @ ACP SUMMIT IN ACCRA

v  THE CONUNDRUM OF THE GHANAIAN BLOGGER

v  DIGITALLY-EXUBERANT PRESIDENTIAL FLAGBEARERS?

v  HOW METRO TV AND TV3 FARED IN GHANA ELECTION ‘08

Global ICTs—The Silent Development Revolution

By E.K.Bensah II

When the American poet and musician Gil Scott-Heron wrote the poem "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised", he perhaps got it right with regard to the development of ICTs in the context of the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS).

Before 2005, WSIS had assumed an unclear UN process that had little practical connection to development. Now, it is virtually impossible to talk about the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) without talking about the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

When world leaders met at the UN in 2000 to draw up the MDGs, one of the goals was to achieve universal primary education. Given that education is, in essence, a passport to one's future and opening up of possibilities for any child, UNESCO has led the way of hosting seminars on Knowledge Societies in the Context of WSIS. For UNESCO, its vision of knowledge societies is based on four principles: freedom of expression; quality education for all; universal access to information and knowledge; and respect for cultural and linguistic diversity. UNESCO is far from the only UN agency involved in the WSIS process, but its role as one of the pre-cursors of the WSIS is moot.

Despite the critical involvement of UN agencies, such as FAO and UNDP at WSIS, it is clear for many observers that the Second Phase of the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) that took place from 16-18 November in the Tunisian capital, Tunis, was disappointing. It certainly was for civil society organizations (CSOs) who, after an alleged stabbing of a French journalist, were denied by the Tunisian authorities to hold a Citizens Summit on WSIS. For others, however, one of the more concrete things, to have emerged from the whole summit was the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)-sponsored One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), going for one hundred dollars.

The brainchild of the Professor Nicholas Negroponte of MIT, the lime-green laptop is made of rubber, so that when it closes, it will be sealed to protect it from environments, such as harsh environment in northern Kenya. It can be powered by a retractable crank that can be used to generate 10 minutes of power for every one minute of cranking up the machine.

Negroponte's team turned down Apple's offer to use its operating system, opting instead for a slimmer version that uses a 500MHZ processor and open source software under Linux. It is equipped with a 1GB flash RAM instead of a hard drive, a word processor, email application, and programming system.  

Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called it "an impressive technical achievement", adding that "it holds the promise of major advances in economic and social development."

Pressed on why laptops in place of "proper" development, MIT argued that laptops are tools to think with. More specifically, their relatively affordable price of hundred dollars is coupled with how they can be used for work and play, drawing, writing, and mathematics.

In October this year, Uruguay bought 100,000 of the machines for schoolchildren aged six to 12, with a view to procuring a further 300,000 for every school-going child in the country by 2009.

Here in Ghana, Finance and Economic Minister Baah-Wiredu announced in the annual reading of the budget that the laptops in question will be introduced to Ghana from next year.

For many observers of the WSIS process, the laptops have constituted not only something concrete coming out of WSIS, but something that can be used to facilitate development. In the long run, WSIS has highlighted the importance of using ICTS to facilitate development, and so rural areas being able to afford to use such ICT tools is moot in getting closer to the Millenium Development Goals of halving poverty by 2015.

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has piloted studies, for example, where the use of ICT tools, such as mobile phones, has helped farmers in Senegal to obtain prices of goods.

Yoshio Utsumi, Secretary General of ITU and of the WSIS Summit, said that "the WSIS was not an end but a beginning." What the Tunis phase did was remind one about the much-talked-about Digital Divide; how to govern the internet, and how to use ICTS for development. Whilst the Digital divide—as evidenced by the chasm between those who have ready and steady access to computers and, by extension, the Internet – very much exists even within countries (such as the rate of using the internet cafes in Accra as compared to the rate in the Northern region, which is three or four times the cost), the use of ICTs for development, for example, is being facilitated by non-governmental agencies like the Accra-based GINKS, which aim to " provide information and Knowledge sharing that will facilitate capacity building for ICTs Products and services"

Other developments are also taking place. One notable one is that of a story in the Ghanaian Times of 1 April 2006, in which it was reported that Accra Girl's Secondary School has become the "first school in Africa to have an electronic learning (e-learning) center to facilitate the adoption of [ICTS] into its academic programmes." The issue of internet governance, however, is a murkier—and more technical affair that merits as much consideration and study as those issues that pre-dominate international development.

Internet Governance, concrete outcomes

The issue of internet governance has assumed similar dimensions characteristic of the North-South divide in, say, the international trading system. If at the WTO, it is the so-called QUAD (comprising Canada, the US, UK, and Japan) that have a major say surrounding the decisions made on the multilateral trading system, so it is that when it comes to the internet, the US is right at the heart of controlling how domain names, for example, are assigned.

A communiqué produced by the European Commission in late April 2006 has argued that this system of control by the US is slowly changing—and that is also thanks to the Tunis Agenda on the Information Society that came out of the WSIS Summit last November.

In the Agenda, paragraph 63, for the first time, recognises that "Countries should not be involved in decisions regarding another country's country-code Top-Level Domain (ccTLD). Their legitimate interests, as expressed and defined by each country, in diverse ways, regarding decisions affecting their ccTLDs, need to be respected, upheld and addressed via a flexible and improved framework and mechanisms ".

Put simply, this means that unlike before when countries needed the approval of the US Commerce Department before changing, say, ghanasundayworld.com to ghanasundayworld.gh, countries, exercising their sovereign right, can now go ahead and change it—ensuring that the existing non-profit ICANN (Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers) oversees the change through regional registries, such as AfriNic, which helps, as its website maintains, to " provide professional and efficient distribution of Internet number resources to the African Internet community, to support Internet technology usage and development across the continent and strengthen self Internet governance in Africa by encouraging a participative policy development" .

Even the decision to create "ghanasundayworld.gh", before Tunis, would have meant seeking assent from the US! What this old way of doing things would have meant is that if Ghana were considered not strategic enough a country, the US Department of Commerce cold turn down that domain name.

Some of these technical issues were discussed at the first-ever forum on Internet governance, which the Greek government played host to in October 2006. This year, the second Internet Governance Forum was held in Brazil, where the issues of content regulation; the duty of states to protect freedom of expression online, including the protection of children online; a set of global public policy principles—including, inter alia, an Internet Bill of Rights were discussed.

The future of WSIS

At the UN level, monitoring what WSIS will do to the access to information is a key concern.   Malaysia's Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Jamaludin Jarjis, said last year that "access to information should now be regarded as a utility and basic human right." He adds that conventional development means were no longer adequate in today's economic climate, where knowledge capital was the new currency and the new, raw material."

The UN, at a Geneva meeting, in July 2006, maintained the world body should continue to play a leading role in expanding information and communication technologies to promote development.  The World Summit requested that a UN group on the Information Society ought to coordinate the work of the UN system.

It bears reminding that although the WSIS process seems rather nebulous to many in the sense that linking ICTs to development seems rather tenuous, in the long run, what remains clear is that as long as the Internet and ICTS are with us, so, too, will WSIS. It is a process that remains critical to the MDGs, and like most revolutions, its legacy for posterity can only be for the betterment of society

The Information Society and Threats Thereof

By E.K.Bensah II

To the Guardian newspaper, it is “Discgate”. To the rest of us, it is the loss of data of 25 million people—which included the name and date of every child; along with parent’s national insurance numbers and bank details— by the UK’s HM Revenue early last week, which is a serious wake-up call to aficionados of the information society who have come to believe that moving to an increasingly IT-related world is the way forward.

That the data was not encrypted and that a junior clerk is alleged to have botched his work brings into sharp relief two things: the need to fine-tune measures to protect important data, and a sensitisation of staff working with IT to the pitfalls inherent in the information society. Let’s face it, sacking the clerk was to be expected, but it certainly does not bring back that data of 25 million people! What it does do, in my view, is remind us about the potential perils and pitfalls inherent in an information society.

The so-called Information Society, understandably, may represent yet another nebulous concept coined by the perceived behemoth of the UN. What it is, in effect, in my view, is a global society, where ICT tools--not just computers, but mobile phones; radios and whatnot –- serve as critical roles in our "development" --irrespective of where you may be.

This means, for example, that it is a society where mobile internet is a reality; where there is an always-on internet (broadband); where it is not just accessible, but relatively affordable for all; where Internet cafes are within the environs of major cities, hang-outs, and even the country-side, where life is that much quieter; and where blogging facilitates an openness unparalleled in the facilitation of the work of the fourth estate.

Given that Ghanaians are wont to over-do things, I believe in the same manner should Ghanaians pause to reflect over their role and responsibility in an ever-evolving information society.

Whether we like it or not, the information society is here to stay –and that necessarily is not a bad thing. It means that our access to information is increased and, better still, that access is to a plethora of information. To the degree that it makes or mars us is what we must grapple with, for the rapid explosion of mobile phones – both in urban and rural areas – while a positive development, calls for important safeguards of our privacy.

Already, we have become accustomed to going everywhere with a mobile phone—when we don’t take it, most of us feel something is missing—and as we increasingly move towards a more sophisticated information society, where WAP-enabled mobile phones, PDAs, and smartphones become cheaper—and the norm, it behooves us to further pause and question not just the impact of such changes on our lives, work, and families, but how exposed it leaves us to attack by miscreants who can—and will—exploit our 24/7 access to our phones.

Without adequate regulation, we will see an information society running amuck, and where with our already-jammed and over-subscribed phone networks, personal information we input over our wap-enabled phones to access the Internet becomes cross-linked with other user’s data.

A few months ago, I accessed my Yahoo mail through my mobile phone, only to see someone else’s username, password, and email. I refreshed the page, but the person’s username and password was all I saw. Rather naively, I selected “sign in”, knowing that no-one else had been using my mobile –let alone access my Yahoo account online. In I went—to see that person’s emails. I had to reset my phone before I was able to access my own account again. I failed to report it to my provider, believing it to be a one-off thing. What if it wasn’t?

This, in my view, calls into question a need for, say, wap-enabled firewalls to prevent any personal data on our mobile phone getting out there. That one can even write a text message, and send it as an email, not only reflects how mobile phones have enhanced our convenience, but how we ought to be more responsible in how we comport ourselves online. We must all by now be familiar with the 419 emails, yet time and again, we hear stories of people having fallen foul of it. It’s all about their choice and their responsibility—or lack thereof.

Mind your data
An attempt at a rules-based information society is one of the reasons why the first-ever Internet Governance Forum took place in Greece from 30 October to 2 November 2006. It might have gone unreported in mainstream media, but it certainly was an impactful event in the sense that it set the tone for how the information society could begin to be crafted and regulated.
In the UK, they have gone one concrete step further.

Recent data from the UK’s data privacy watchdog – the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) – indicates that 4.5 million web users aged between 14 and 21 years of age are cavalier in the way they give up information on the Internet, especially when visiting social networking sites, such as the very-popular Facebook, or Rupert Murdoch-owned MySpace.

Even search engines, such as Google, are receiving complaints that information associated with web searches made under an individual’s name brings up expressions that these individuals made in their youth but, which could be detrimental to their career. To this end, the ICO has recently issued new guidance for young people using the Internet that they have made available on a website: http://www.ico.gov.uk/youngpeople.

Furthermore, in the light of the monumental blunder at HM Revenue and Customs, the British government has agreed to conduct what it calls “data security spot checks” across government departments, which is to be spearheaded by the Information Commissioner’s Office; furthermore, data breaches of the magnitude of this loss will be made a criminal offence.

According to silicom.com, a UK-based site on IT that informs the business world on enhancing its work through technology, the Information Commissioner Richard Thomas who welcomed these new powers said in a statement that by making this data breach a criminal offence, it would “serve as a strong deterrent and would send a very strong signal that it is completely unacceptable to be cavalier with people’s information.”

Much closer to home, from West African Examination Council (WAEC) results to National Service placements online, Ghanaian data is already computerized and automatically made part of the information society, with attendant qualms over what happens with the data, notwithstanding.

With the imminent introduction of the National Identification Authority and its consequent issuance of ID cards for Ghanaians, the possibility of exposure and loss of our personal details will be more real than it is now where it is hidden among a maelstrom of papers at, say, the passport office.

Our reliance on ICT and its tools may be inevitable, but might we remember to complement it with traditional methods, which are deemed more reliable—lest we end up with a Ghanaian version of “Discgate”!

When Your Phone Comes Too Close to Call

There is a scene in TV Africa’s running of the hit show Prison Break when the son of protagonist Lincoln Burrows (awaiting a death sentence within days) gets through to the secret-service-hunted-lawyers trying to stop his father’s sentence—only to have the two murderous secret service personnel (who had, hours earlier, killed his stepfather and mother) locate him within moments of his call. We see that this was not the first time they had located the son the moment he picked his call. You might think this is a rather science fiction scene. You’d be wrong—for this is very science fact! Welcome to the world of Global Positioning System (GPS)-enabled phones!

To most of us in the developing world, GPS might appear to be a bit fancy. However, countries like the US have been enjoying it since 1999, when the US’s Federal Communications Commission pushed through an act requiring all handsets to incorporate the technology. Known as the so-called E911 system, it enables emergency services accurately locate and pinpoint location of a mobile phone caller.

With predictions that GPS-enabled phones will quadruple by 2011, small wonder it has caught the attention of the American public. While we here in Ghana struggle for phone calls that can get through at all, most Americans have begun to place premium on GPS-capability—right there with GPRS (mobile internet)/wap capabilities, and multimedia.

With the issue of “Discgate” still lingering in the minds of people, you could have been forgiven for thinking that the fallout of the loss of 25 million people’s data would serve as reminders of the need for privacy; instead it seems to be the last thing on people’s minds.

Take last week, when Information Week reported that American university students from Montclair State University will require its students to buy and carry special cell phones equipped with GPS. If you thought that this meant that privacy had been jettisoned, here’s one for keeps: in Japan, defence ministry officials are being required to carry GPS-enabled phones so they can be located at all times. The rationale behind this is that if these officials can be located during the weekends and at all times, this will help reduce potentially-corruptible behaviour.

If one were tempted to think that this is an information society going mad, let’s just say that it less that – and more a sign of things to come!

Big Brother Watching?
Google has released a beta version of Google Maps for your mobile phone, which means that you can be located through triangulation of your cellular network. In English, it means you be located, through Google Maps, without having to lug round a GPS-enabled phone; all you need is a GPRS-enabled phone (which most phones in Ghana are). If you think it’s too high-tech, you might be spooked to know that my mobile provider (that’s always in touch) enabled me download it on my mobile through its regular GPRS. While Google Maps was not able to establish my specific location, I could clearly see “Accra”, “Nsawam”; “Swedru”; “Larteh” and “Tema”.


With this free application, which can be downloaded from Google’s mobile page (http://m.google.com), the user’s location is seen as a blue pulsating dot. If the application is unsure of the location, it will display a paler blue circle. Unlike traditional GPS, this one can be used indoors—and drains your battery less.

Mobiles and Wireless Take Centre Stage
The wireless and mobile phone community won out last week when -- after a month-long diplomatic meeting in Geneva that was attended by delegates from observer companies, including AT&T, Boeing, Intel and Sharp, -- delegates from 164 countries agreed to earmark what silicon.com calls “new sections of the finite spectrum for mobile phones and other wireless products.”

Once this new treaty comes into force, mobile phone users will experience clearer connections and faster downloads of music, movies and other data in what is known as 3G—or future generations of handheld devices. If you ever wondered, “3G” is a term coined by the UN agency in charge of telecommunications—the International Telecommunications Union (ITU)—to define mobile communications technology. Associated with 3G are increased bandwidth, and the ability to work over wireless air interfaces.

We must all now be aware of that familiar mobile phone interruption when we’re listening to the radio or watching television. What this new treaty seeks to do is to allow mobile technology use higher high-quality frequencies—without the television of television services or users of radio waves, including airlines, meteorologists and the military.

Who’s the Sleekest of Them All?
About.com has an interesting site, where you can review the top latest 20 mobile phones. They include Motorola, ZTE; Apple; Sanyo and Nokia. The prize, however, goes to Samsung, which features no less than nine new phones—quite a number of which look suspiciously like re-hashed Motorola RAZR’s. This site is certainly a boon to the mobile phone fanatic: http://cellphones.about.com/library/bl_ss_lat1.htm

Alternatively, you can check out a UK-based “Phones Review” site, where, as far back as May, they listed “Ultimate Top Ten Mobiles of 2007”! You won’t be surprised to find a Motorola; Samsung; and LG in there: http://www.phonesreview.co.uk/2007/05/13/phones-review-ultimate-top-10-mobiles-2007

When Banking on IT Goes Wrong

Last two weeks, I was a poster-child for disappointment and frustration towards that payment system, which most of us have become used to; and that which we like to call the ATM, or Automated Teller Machine system. In short, the system failed me – much to my chagrin – and at a crucial time when I needed it most.

It all started with a trip downtown into Accra with the family, which called for a stop by the ATM of my bank. When I got the error message from the first ATM, I shrugged it off, feeling it was one of those things: maybe the festive period had spawned a huge number of withdrawals and the system had heated up. My mind began to change when I went to the second ATM some 10 minutes away—still unable to withdraw.

It was with the third ATM somewhere in town when the frustration begun to build. Seeing frustrated customers shaking their heads and muttering not-so-sweet nothings to themselves compounded the arrival at a decision that something was awry with the ATMs. The straw on the camel’s back was at Airport Shell, when the money pretended to be coming, only for the ATM to issue me a slip of paper, claiming I had “exceeded the daily limit”! This took the biscuit, and prompted me to get to my phone to my bank. They explained engineers were working on the system, and I wondered why they didn’t have the courtesy to have a message displayed at the ATMs that works were in, say, progress.

Far beyond the lack of customer service Ghanaians are wont to rightly complain about, this experience underscored—yet again—the extent to which we have thrown caution of IT and ICT tools to the wind, fully embracing such-systems – with all their imperfections – as if our life depended on it, all the time forgetting that, like this experience, it needs must let us down.

I believe that it will let us down because it is a system created and maintained by human beings. Consequently, the margin of error of its perfection will be greater on some days. This is no mere philosophical pondering but, in my view, a reminder of the importance of complementing old practices – such as keeping money on oneself – with new ones, where we rely on the banks to take care of our money for us. The day the money “refuses”—or fails—to come out is the day we find ourselves as poster children of ridicule. We can certainly avoid it!

Where’s that Mobile?
One thing we certainly cannot avoid is the usage of our phones this year. As it has become an indispensable tool, so has the need to further maximise the functions on it.

This week, we turn to the generation of phones that started using USB connections. Although as far back as 2003/2004, mobile phones, like NOKIA, could be connected to the computer, the cable used was one that was specific to NOKIA. USB connection was introduced to the computer around 1997, but it would be from 2003, early 2004 that they would begin to be commonplace on mobile devices, like NOKIA and MOTOROLA.

Even today that many phones are USB-compatible, few people are chosing to use their mobile devices…as mass storage devices. Quite a number of my colleagues, for example, both own USB flash disk and a mobile phone—but none take the opportunity to exploit the mass storage capability that the phones offer. There are two main reasons for this.

First of all, if the phone has, say, 20 MB space, there is evidently little incentive to use it as a mass storage device. Arm your phone with a memory card, and you might contemplate it. I suspect however that this activity exercises few people’s minds when they’re going to bed!

Secondly, even if you do have, say, 1 GB space on your phone, which is still not de rigeur for many mobile phones, the contemplation of it as a storage device when you have your USB flash disk purposefully for storing data will not be a visceral act.

In my view, these are the two predominant reasons why the trend towards storing important data on your mobile phone has not become the norm. With time, however, this trend will probably not catch on—except for those who consider themselves tech-savvy, and make that extra effort to maximise and exploit that humble of devices.

Smile, you’re on candid camera
Whether you’re a commuter, driver, or passenger, consider yourself a walking reference if you have a camera phone. Even if you are not used to taking pictures with your phone, the very fact that there is one at all on your phone gives you sufficient power to be able to make real impacts and contributions.

Back in 2003 when camera phones were either on high-end phones or non-existent, a close relative of mine who was involved in a serious car accident, which saw the-said relative end up with broken feet, was able to capture the scene of the accident—with a standard digital camera, that had video recording. The video would go to prove the guilt of the driver that slammed into the car from the opposite direction, because the son who was a passenger had the presence of mind to capture the scale of the accident and damage caused before anyone – witnesses or otherwise -- could unwittingly tamper with the evidence.

It would be ridiculous to think that one would carry a camera to capture accidents, but it’s clear from this very real and near-fatal accident that the digital camera was as critical a witness as the two relatives involved in the accident!

More recently, the President’s accident in November 2007 was a moot case, for witnesses on the scene were able to take pictures almost-instantaneously. Some claim they even took video coverage on their mobile phones. As I was in the vicinity leaving a work-related assignment, I arrived on the scene some twenty minutes after the incident. Still, armed with my standard camera, I was able to capture quite a few memorable shots, which I uploaded on my blog. Within two days, the number of people who had typed “kufuor and accident” and happened on my blog surpassed 50.

Whatever the case, it is clear that whoever you are, and wherever you may find yourelf, the phone has become an accessory to capturing a little piece of history that can assist you in an accident, or simply bring a joy to your face—something much needed this New Year!


Bye-Bye Netscape
It was sad news early this year, when reports came in that internet browser, Netscape, is dying a slow death, on account of the new business focus by its parent, America Online (AOL). The new focus by AOL is for the company to be more ad-supported, and, apparently, there is no room for Netscape within this new focus. Furthermore, the success of the Mozilla Foundation, which pioneered the successful FIREFOX browser, will continue to be subsidised by AOL at the expense of Netscape. The long and short of it all is that AOL is pulling the plug on Netscape, preferring for people to use FIREFOX. All that said, the portal netscape.com will still be available for those who hark after the good old times of when Netscape ruled before Internet Explorer came to steal its thunder.

Microsoft-Yahoo: It Doesn’t Get Any More Epic than This

Like the Ghana-Nigeria game last week Sunday, it does not get any more epic than this—and I am not talking about today’s final.

Computer-giant Microsoft has gone and done it again: it’s gone and made a proposal to acquire yet-another enterprise. This new catch is nothing less than the search engine “Yahoo”—and it wants to acquire it for $44.6bn. It might be too early to speculate on the modalities of this acquisition, but what is clear is that this latest move to take over YAHOO is a way of stymieing the competition that Google offers.

At least that is the rumour going round. You have got to give it to the information society: its 24/7 access to information has made pundits of all of us. Little wonder therefore that the degree of speculation on Microsoft’s motive has been as rife. In the same vein, Microsoft’s move might come as little surprise given Yahoo’s reported falling profits. Reports from the financial media indicate Yahoo’s been approached before, with the latest being in February 2007. The Board of Directors at Yahoo would reject it.

Microsoft Bad Boy to Cash in on Yahoo in Freefall?
The situation at Yahoo in 2008 is a different matter altogether. With impending job cuts and profits that are predicted to only materialise in 2009, prospects of a boom for Yahoo are not going to happen any time soon. You can imagine that this has made Yahoo rather jittery. Question is: jittery enough to sell its soul to the devil?

Make no mistake: Microsoft has delusions of grandeur that are so big it’s not funny. The European Commission had been behind the company’s tail since 1999, on account of Microsoft’s decision to force Internet Explorer browser on users, by bundling it with operating systems. Small wonder browsers like Netscape—as I reported last two weeks—have bitten the dust. Norwegian browser Opera had also made similar complaints to Brussels, home of the EU’s executive arm, and the EC lawyers have followed suit by slapping heavy fines on Microsoft. According to a press release on the Commission’s website of March 2004, “heavy” turned out to be a €497 million fine against Microsoft for “abusing its market power in the EU”. This, somehow, has not seemed to deter it.

Microsoft’s Got a Reason
Microsoft sees a merger with Yahoo as a great way of taking over not just search engines (Google accounted for 56.3% of all Web searches in December, compared with a combined 31.5% for Microsoft and Yahoo) , but online advertising, which Google is reported to have handled brilliantly through its AdSense service. Should the deal go through, Microsoft will inevitably make even more money, and seek to compete directly with Google. For some strange reason, Yahoo had not cottoned onto this. It would prove to be its undoing, setting the stage for this explosive development that has left many technology insiders with baited breath.

There is no question that search-engine Giant is cognisant of the developments, for it has made both public and private offers to both castigate the decision (on the grounds of being a threat to competition and stretching it to the point where it states this bid merits scrutiny by worldwide policy-makers), and conciliate Yahoo, by offering to partner it. Yahoo executives have bought time by coming out to say that nothing about the Microsoft merger is set in stone.

Google’s Offer Yahoo Cannot Refuse
Although it’s not great news for Yahoo, insiders predict that Yahoo being subsumed under Google—for all the mixed signals it might give off as conceding to Google its superiority in the search-engine world—would be far less harmful than under Microsoft.

The idea that falling for Microsoft represents the quintessence of the Faustian pact cannot be any clearer when you read reports from users using the Yahoo-owned Flickr photo-sharing site writing in groups created on that service messages to Microsoft stating: “Keep your evil grubby hands off our Flickr.” Reports even indicate that users are threatening to dump Flickr if the merger is approved.

What might probably go against Microsoft is CNET News.com report that a federal district court in Washington, in 2001, ruled that the company had consistently violated the law “by stifling the threat to its monopoly position posed by Netscape, which popularized the Web browser.” The article maintains a suit was brought by the Clinton administration, but settled by the Bush one. The outcome, simply put, is that a federal court and a three-member team of technical experts monitor Microsoft’s behaviour.

It goes without saying that this team will be seriously scrutinising this bid, for that Microsoft is being monitored suggests the manifestation of its delusions have been all-to-real for the past six years.

For the rest of us as users, will it be the grass that suffers as two elephants (Google and Microsoft) battle it out (and note: I’m still not talking about the final game of CAN2008!)? After all, which Ghanaian is unaware of a Yahoo email account (whether Yahoo.com/yahoo.co.uk is moot); Yahoo Messenger and Yahoo groups? All of these unique add-ons/services have become part of the daily lingo that is part of the information society many of us in the developing countries have come to (sometimes) love and accept. Now, in the event of a Microsoft-Yahoo merger, what will happen to these services?

At the time of writing, Google is offering to bail out Yahoo, whilst simultaneously discouraging it from going into the claws of Microsoft. A partnership between the two has been proposed, whereby Yahoo would outsource its search and advertising functions to Google, so that it could focus on its comparative advantages, which include mobile applications, social networking and content sharing. If this formula were to go ahead, the company would keep its independence.

Battle not Over
With prospects of Microsoft dominance in both the software and internet world, we are going to see many actors—like Google and the European Commission—that would be quick to avert this hostile takeover. Google, because of the threat it would represent in the search engine world—and less email (remember it was only in 2007 that Yahoo’s mail moved from 1GB to unlimited, when Google, since 2004, had been unlimited!) – and the EC, because it’s watching Microsoft like a hawk.

As the web becomes a space where big scrambles are played out, we are certainly going to see more of these virtual mergers and acquisitions. If there was anytime a “Big Brother” was watching, it is now—and it’s on Microsoft.

Vodafone’s Purchase of Ghana Telecom: Matters Arising

The 70% acquisition by Vodafone of state-owned Ghana Telecom may be a done-and-dusted deal, subject only now to parliamentary approval in the august house. There are, however, serious issues arising that merit some consideration.

First of all, one would have to be from Mars not to know that this is an election year. After the announcement was made in 2006 to privatise, why is it only now that the putative sale has gone through, some five months before general elections? Secondly, despite the fact that there was a breather after France Telecom and Portugal Telecom were rejected some months back, at what point did Vodafone up and decide to make the bid, which, if we believe the opposition, was a non-starter, on account of the fact that there were other bidders ready to pay more than the $960million?

In December 2007, Kenya, where Vodafone operates as a mobile operator under Vodafone Kenya, was in the concluding stages of privatising state-owned Telkom Kenya, with the winning bidders France Telecom taking control by 21 December, 2007. The uncanny similarity of an opaque bidding process coupled with a privatisation so close to general elections makes for an explosive coincidence that is so serious it’s not funny. One might be tempted to think that this has nothing to do with Vodafone, till we read that an offshore-registered company by the name of Mobitelea was offered an opportunity to acquire 25% of Vodaphone Kenya Limited at the same price Vodafone had acquired them. This prompted civil society groups in Kenya to argue that “the privatisation of Telkom Kenya cannot…be deemed regular until the true picture of its ceding of [mobile provider] Safaricom shares to Vodafone Kenya is unravelled and rectified.”

Here, there is little proof that anything irregular has gone on despite the manner in which the sale went through so quickly, but reading the *Financial Times* account of the sale was sufficient to prompt speculation that given that the country is experiencing a budget deficit, the government might have seen a sale so close to the election as an opportunity to make amends around the economy.

Practices elsewhere
Still, whilst Kenya can talk about Vodafone Kenya bidding for a part of Safaricom, Ghana cannot even talk about a Ghanaian consortium ready to buy GT. This is one of the unique things about this privatisation. The online encyclopaedia Wikipedia tells us that Vodafone has three networks in the Middle East and Africa that are majority-owned: Egypt, Qatar and now Ghana. In the first case, state-owned Telecom Egypt owns 45% of Vodafone Egypt. In the Qatari case, Vodafone went in as a mobile operator, securing a 45% stake in Qatar Telecom, the Middle Eastern country’s second mobile licence provider. When we come to Ghana, a significant 70% was not only at stake, but also of our state-owned provider, prompting one to wonder why such a high figure, and why the land-line provider? Reports in the Ghanaian media indicate that Globacom had also made a bid, but had to settle for second best through a mobile service.

Questions Unanswered
Those are not the only questions. Reports in the media suggest that the minority’s concern was that Vodafone comes in as a strategic investor with little experience in landline provision. That it is setting up new services in New Zealand, where Vodafone also operates, that look like landlines and mobile lines combined should not be sufficient to assuage our fears of how it will manage our broadband services, national fibre optic system, and others. What of our national security? There is anecdotal evidence of our state security – BNI -- monitoring landlines; how far will the security services go in allowing a mobile provider with plenty of capital to share the monitoring of our landlines? Thirdly, all mobile providers have had to pass through GT for their operations. Now that Vodafone’s acquisition is semi-complete, will Vodafone’s supreme interest be in the regulation of the other providers, or a rough-and-ready competitor alongside them? Will the lines be indefinitely blurred on all these issues?

Making Gmail Safer
The London-based Guardian newspaper reports that Google is out to make life easier for all of us—at least those using gmail.com. Though the service has not been wholly rolled out yet, the new feature aims to make using sending and receiving emails through gmail a safe experience, especially for those using Firefox and Internet Explorer 7. The official Gmail blog says that “at the bottom of your inbox, you’ll see information about the time of the last activity on your account and whether it’s still open in another location.” There is also a link that will show “Recent activity”, indicating when and how you logged on (either POP3 or Mobile), as well as your IP address. It will also enable you sign out of all sessions remotely.

I can say from personal experience that many a time, I’ve been able to simultaneously access my gmail account through the computer at work; through my mobile phone through ONETOUCH’s GPRS; as well as through an external device that can connect to the internet. It’s even possible to open two pages in gmail, where you can compose a message in one, and view incoming mails in another. This new system might clearly put paid to such practices which can only be the boon to a potential scammer.

I can say for Yahoo that when you log into messenger online, it indicates to all of your friends that you are “mobile”. Anytime I have tried to access it on my work computer, I’ve had a prompt warning that I am logged in elsewhere. Such 2.5G services of GPRS enable us do more than we could ever dreamt of…

…including MMS on ONETOUCH
Given the discussions over the acquisition of Ghana Telecom, it was very easy for one to speculate that the bad service that ONETOUCH was providing was due to sabotage. That calls to the 24/7 hotline produced a degree of mendacity or ignorance by the call-service people that there was nothing wrong with the network only went to fuel speculation that sabotage was in the works. We may never know what caused ONETOUCH to provide customers with irregular service from the beginning of July up to a few days ago until they tell us. What I can say, though, is that despite the irregular service, which included the signals being at their very lowest, and beeps from phones that there was “no service”, the multi-media messaging service seemed to start working at that same time!

I know only because when I took my sim card from my phone to put in another one, I received a message asking me to accept “multimedia settings”, which I reluctantly did. Deciding to test the waters, I sent my other GPRS-enabled ONETOUCH number an MMS. Within minutes, it had been sent, and I had received it on the other number. This was rather ironic, considering the ONETOUCH network itself was working poorly. Still, not one to complain too much, I tried again, and again. The MMS does work now. Contrary to the promotions that had gone out a couple of months ago about free MMS, which spun mendacity to its highest when it claimed that the servers were down, when in actual fact, the system had not been set up properly, the promotions that came with July have revealed a promising ONETOUCH user experience—provided we can make those calls!

US airports lose more than 12,000 laptops a week
Whether you believe this information to be hyped up by computer manufacturer Dell or not, bottom line is that according to a survey by the Ponemon Institute, around 637,000 laptops are lost every year at US airports. The report maintains that “close to 10,278 laptops are reported lost every week at 36 of the largest US airports, and 65% of those lost are not reclaimed.”

Dell has used this data to launch a security service that uses technologies such as Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking to recover lost laptops. Furthermore, the US Federal Trade Commission has produced a leaflet “Keeping Laptops From Getting Lost or Stolen”. A website is also available to this effect: http://www.OnGuardOnline.gov

When will the National Communications Authority stand up?

The NCA is an agency of the government with oversight to, in effect, regulate the telecommunications sector and implement terms of Ghana’s National Telecommunications Policy. According to the policy (2004) that can be downloaded from the Internet, while the Ministry of Communications is “responsible for the definition and elaboration of Government policy regarding telecommunications”, the NCA has a number of roles that it plays in implementing the policy, which include: “regulation of competition, including interconnection; tariff regulation consistent with Ministry policies; monitoring of operator activity, performance, and compliance”, and last but not least “consumer protection.”

Reading the policy itself is enlightening, for the policy sounds robust. There is a section on “Principles of Transparent regulation” that explains that NCA “shall promote public participation in and awareness of its activities and ensure that the public has adequate access to sector information.” Only last week, I checked to see whether the website of the NCA that is still under construction, and with some limited information about the sector, has managed to offer some new information. There is still nothing. Neither is there what there ought to be--as stipulated in the policy: an Annual Report in collaboration with the Ministry of Communication publishing “up-to-date industry information…” made available “for public review.”

Protection for Whom?
In what would prove to be an unprecedented move last year, the Authority not only threatened ONETOUCH and MTN to stop selling re-charge cards, but that they should also improve the quality of their service, otherwise huge fines would be slapped on them. This was a historic feat of epic proportions it appeared, for even with the psychedelic MTN plane then-still-perched at the Tetteh-Quarshie interchange and MTN flags virtually drowning any Ghanaian ones, the Authority barked. At the eleventh hour, the Authority yielded, allowing both mobile providers get away with only an agreement to improve their services.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t call that consumer protection.

Giving customer service a new life?
Then there is the recent case of Gateway Broadcasting Services (GBS) that entered the country in October last year. I do not know of anyone--and I know three official establishments around my workplace use GBS--that has been able to get through to GBS customer service. Beyond one who had given out his mobile number to subscribers (regrettably, he is no longer working for the company), no-one else can be contacted when one’s service is cut off -- either accidentally or not. When your payment has been made, the several landlines that have been given will forever put you through to a call centre operating outside Ghana in…Southern Africa, where, it stands to reason, there is a more clinical approach in dealing with you, given that the people are not in the country. As helpful and “nice” as they sound, nothing beats having Ghanaians help when I want my service re-connected , even if I have to have to lose my voice in doing so.

The anecdotes aside, such continuous practices remain an indictment of the NCA’s work. As a regulator of the telecommunications industry, it behoves it to ensure standard regulation--as stipulated in the policy. To wit: "all public telecommunications operators shall be required to establish service level agreements with their customers, which identify the minimum quality of service standards to which customers are entitled, and the remedies and compensation available when service falls below such standards."

Concrete steps
The biggest step to ensuring regulation, in my humble opinion, would seem to be a clear and necessary *adoption* of the National Telecommunications Policy as a working document for all in the first place! Another issue is of toll-free numbers. The other day, the sixth biggest bank called to inform me that they now have a toll-free number that operate 24/7. If banks can do it, why not our MDAs? And certainly, why not NCA? Just a small query: I noticed the toll-free number works on the ONETOUCH network for now. In the event of government passing through any privatisation of GT by way of a totally-unnecessary emergency bill, will Vodafone not seek to make profit by disbanding the toll-free nature that GT has a great interest in maintaining?

Nigeria’s NiTel to be Privatised…for Vodafone?
As if the attempt to privatize Ghana’s national provider Ghana Telecom is insufficient, British-based Vodafone is ready to hit the Nigerian market with the acquisition of ECOWAS neighbour Nigeria’s only landline provider. Rumours and accusations of the phone company being “beleaguered” and “inefficient” don’t wash with me. They are code-words for any excuse to privatize. An article in Nigeria’s *Punch” newspaper actually goes further arguing that: “…we can be certain about one thing: NITEL is currently bedeviled[sic] by multifaceted problems. These problems include malfunctioning lines, erratic billing system, poor customer satisfaction, infrastructural decay and a backlog of worker’s salaries…” It seems to me that chance would be a fine thing were NiTel to escape privatization.

NiTel Privatisation Not New
As far back as May 2002, then-President Obasanjo was planning a divestiture of the state-run phone company. It had been scheduled for March of that year, but had to be postponed for September 2002. It is interesting to note that still at that time, 51% was what was being offered to the so-called strategic investors!

On a more serious note, whereas the incumbent Ghanaian administration has put forth 70% of GT to be privatized, even the horror stories associated with NiTel have warranted 50% to Vodafone. Why such discrepancy one wonders? Is it that Ghana Telecom has more of these calamities at its doorstep than NiTel? Let’s examine them for a second. Last time I looked, GT was offering broadband4u (broadband4u.com.gh); dialup4u; ExZeed company which offers 24hour service to ONETOUCH subscribers, where MTN has not a 24-hr hotline, and Tigo’s is non-existent (exists only as a number); a mobile provider since 2000 (albeit itself bedeviled with astronomical prices when it started, with sim cards then going for around GHC150!); Ghana Telecom University; EasyFone (which enables landlines to be set up more easily than ever before).

According to the reports I’ve been reading, M-Tel, NiTel’s mobile operation that is a year younger than NiTel (having been established on October 2001), has only 176,000 subscribers. Compare that to MTN Nigeria that has 15,873,000 active lines. Switch to Ghana, and we find that where MTN Ghana is around 4 million subscribers, with ONETOUCH around 1.4m. That is subscribers over one million, yet Nigeria’s is able to attract only a fraction. Despite this, it is being sold for 50%!

Is it me, or is there something odd about the whole rationale of the GT purchase?

Still always about politics?
Then I think, and think some more, and remember how early last year, South Africa’s Standard Bank, operating under Stanbic Bank, was so keen to take over state-owned Agricultural Development Bank (ADB). One of its main motivations for the attempted sale (which incidentally, the government, according to financial papers two weeks ago have *de-prioritized*) was so that it could use the entry of Ghana as a gateway to penetrate the Nigerian market. A year ago today, Reuters reported that Standard Bank had bought a part of Nigeria’s IBTC Chartered Bank Plc, which expertise is in investment banking with 55 branches across Nigeria. Standard Bank spokeswoman Kim Howard would say that "If you are going to have a pan African strategy, you have to include Nigeria."

Looks like this time, they decided to strike Nigeria after an attempted one here in Ghana. Whether they will succeed remains moot. Whatever will happen with the sale of GT, it has become crystal-clear that the stage has certainly been set for a new revolution before our very eyes.

Forget the Industrial Revolution. We are all sitting at the cusp of a revolution that implicates a sector so critical to our lives we could never have imagined. To think that a consortium of former MTN executives are bidding—so the telecoms newsletter Balancing Act reports – for NiTel is not just a reflection of the motivation of big people with big capital, but where the next wars might be fought. Forget your Cold War. Prepare yourself for the Telecoms Wars.

New Country for Telecom’s Men

There’s a new country for the telecommunications sector—the Africa region. Already, Vodafone has made it as clear as day in reports that should it get a successful bid for Ghana Telecom, it would be a gateway into the ECOWAS market. A couple of weeks ago, we read that India was bidding for MTN. I suspect the reason for the bid was also to tap into the AU market by taking over the South African-based giant. France Telecom, in the latter part of last year, was reputed to also see a successful bid of GT as a way of entering the West African market.

Ghana’s ailing regulator?
These days, these types rarely mince their words, for the benefits they reap from potential subscribers are so great that there is no use engaging in mendacious statements that will divert our attention on their coming. The bottom line rules and they know most of us know. That is why our regulators should step in to protect us. So far, Ghana’s regulator – the National Communications Authority–has been irregular in providing a semblance of protection for the consumer, leaving us all to the vagaries of any Tom, Dick or Harry of a provider to come and reap tremendous dividends at the expense of quality service.

But back to this new country: we are seeing a mapping of a new landscape that no-one could have predicted a decade ago, where telephony has assumed power politics dimensions.

Think about it: that India has been bidding for a South African mobile provider is less about telephony and more about politics. India is an emerging power—and South Africa is considered a “hegemon” in the 53-member African Union on account of its economy. Back in 2004, a lot of talk was made about IBSA, or an alliance that comprised India, Brazil, and South Africa. Some of us observing the political scene wondered where Nigeria was in the whole set-up, on account of its oil, and populous country.

Enter, suddenly, the dragon of West Africa—Nigeria— with an indigenous telecommunications provider that is predicted to take the AU countries—and the world—by storm. Already that Globacom’s ad has been featuring on CNN regularly speaks volumes about the aspirations of this indigenous African mobile provider. And aspirations it will have, too!

Globacom opened in fellow ECOWAS country Benin on 5 June—much to the delight of many Beninois. The *Nigerian Tribune* newspaper reports that “the number of Okada riders adorn[ing] with the green colour of Glo were intimidating.”(Does MTN’s Y’ellow come to mind, anyone?) Clearly, without forcing a pun, Glo painted the town red, but mostly green! What was even more interesting was what brainchild of Glo Dr.Adenuga said at the gathering. In his speech, he made mention of the fact that Glo as a West African brand was happy to be in Benin Republic and that it was their belief that the black continent should benefit from the advances in technology.

Significance of Regulating
Never mind the fact that the bottom line reigns supreme. Consider this: in August 2007, I blogged on my Ghana blog that I was happy to see the Beninois phone regulator give MTN a “biting hard time”, on account of the fact that when MTN changed its name in the West African country, it failed to inform the regulators, who struck back by switching off the network, and raising the original sum of $10million to a vertiginous $620million. Take a small country like Benin fighting a Goliath like MTN. It worked. Though the stand-off died down in intensity, the authority showed it had teeth. Here in Ghana, we have seen only threats—but little action.

As I write this, the European Union commissioner for Information Society is working on a plan to reduce tariffs for European mobile subscribers. Does the African Union have the political will to ever consider an African Union Commissioner for Telecommunications that might just do the same thing? Failing that, can we bring greater pressure to bear on our sub-regional organisation’s telecomms institutions (for those that exist) to follow suit?

Stop press—Vodafone buys GT?
At the time of writing, news has just come in from the GhanaCyberGroup that Vodafone, by the close of Wednesday 2 July, will become the new part-owners of Ghana Telecom, acquiring 66.7% in the state-owned company. The divestiture-friendly government had marked GT down as one of the companies, along with the state-owned Agricultural Development Bank, to sell GT, and its mobile phone provider ONETOUCH to what it likes to call “a strategic investor.”

Though the price the government had put down was $1bn dollars, reports indicate that Vodafone made the acquisition for slightly less than that figure, at $960 million. Regulations governing the privatisation state that Ghana Telecom’s incumbent mobile provider that is known as ONETOUCH should be tripled, and fixed-line network capacity must also increase. By the end of the first quarter of this year, ONETOUCH was trailing behind MTN and Tigo respectively with a subscriber base of only 1.4 million customers.

New Cyber-group formed
There’s a new group in the virtual world that plans to take the internet by storm. Known as the Industry Consortium for Advancement on the Internet (ICASI), the non-profit group created by Cisco, IBM, Intel, Juniper and Microsoft will address what they call “multi-product security threats.” By this, they mean that they will allow vendors and customers work together to fight global IT security threats, and “resolve them in a government-neutral way.” They don’t quite elaborate what they mean by the last statement, but what we do know is that last month , a group of countries came together to create the *International Multilateral Partnership Against Cyber Terrorism (IMPACT)” that is funded by private businesses as well as governments based in Malaysia. The centre is to offer emergency response, training and other resources.

As to whether it will do so in Africa remains to be seen! I cannot help but wonder how quickly such groups are formed when Western interests are threatened, without resort to the global group that is the International Telecommunications Union, which surely ought to supervise even such private ventures.

ICANN opens up new top-level domains
As the internet opens up, and the emerging countries of China grow accordingly, it has become an article of the development of a pluralistic information society to open up domain names. To that end, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers(ICANN) will introduce new top-level domains (that include .com; .org; .biz), including the so-called Internationalized Domain Names that are written in Chinese and Arabic scripts.

Up until recently, ICANN has micro-managed the creation of TLDs. The new vote in late June to approve a policy proposal that will form the basis of a set of rules to create and manage new gTLDs will enable the creation of as many new gTLDs as there are domain names under the .com TLD today. This will come to around 70 million. This new development means that corporations and big business could begin to run their own domains, such as france.ebay, instead of ebay.fr.

Glo Benin Sells 600,000 SIMS in Ten Days
You might have gathered by now that Globacom is preoccupying a lot of minds off-late—and not without reason. While the world was celebrating World Environment Day on 5 June, Globacom was celebrating for a different reason—it has set up shop in the ECOWAS country of Cotonou, creating what will prove to be exciting times for the small country. It is exciting also because the service provider is not a foreign-based one, but one just from next door in Nigeria. To boot, the excitement has translated into a significant number – 600,000 – being sold under two weeks of being in the country. Management of Glo Benin will announce Glo Per Second Billing; MultiMedia Messaging Service (MMS); Glo Magic Plus; mobile banking; musical ring-back tones as well as vehicle-tracking.

It’s my Yahoo! and I’ll Cry if I Want To

The Microsoft-Yahoo! soap, in its second week, was turning out to have more thrillers than a CAN2008 tournament. The actors remain the same, but some have made their presence felt more than others.

The protagonist has got to be Yahoo! itself whose fifteen minute of fame has been abused by now: like MTN, it’s everywhere you go (on the online world)—and not without good reason! The prospect of a “Microhoo” merger—too horrible to contemplate to some—has significant weight on the battlefield that is the online world.

It’s all about the money
Like I said last week, Microsoft, the antagonist, is suffering from delusions of grandeur: it would like to dominate both the online and software world. That we all have been speaking Microsoft Office for what seems like years is a testament of the computer-giant’s preponderant power. Never mind the fact that it has triggered anti-trust issues, Microsoft’s advantage is that it has presence, and none of us—no matter where we are—can avoid it.

But so do Yahoo! and Google. The thing, though, is that Yahoo!’s profits have been falling. This is why Microsoft has sought to capitalise on it. Yahoo! has, since last week, gotten a bit smarter in the sense that it is holding Microsoft back—on account of the money it’s offering. Microsoft’s offer of $44.6bn means that it is offering $31.00 per share. Yahoo! believes this is a no-no, and wholly insufficient for a company of this scale. The search-engine portal has smelt the coffee and woken up to possible strategies it can deploy to offset Microsoft.

Not that the third actor, which came riding through the sunset as Google, hasn’t tried upsetting Microsoft.

Beyond the search-engine giant’s both private and public castigation of Microsoft last week, Google’s chief legal officer, David Drummond, has written on Google’s blog that: “the openness of the internet is what made Google—and Yahoo!—possible.” He continues that “a good idea that users find useful spreads quickly. Businesses can be created around the idea. Users benefit from constant innovation. It’s what makes the internet,” he continues, “such an exciting place.” He finally goes on to say what the company has seen the move to be all-along—nothing more than a “hostile bid.”

If anything is clear, it is that the stage remains rife for a high-noon shootout among the usual suspects, especially with Yahoo!’s enlisting of America Online (AOL).The UK’s Times Online reports that Yahoo! and its team of advisers from Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers—both investment banks—have spent the past week “evaluating possible tie-ups with media and technology firms that would save it from being swallowed by Microsoft.” It would be interesting to note that this very-same AOL has 5% of its stake owned by…no less than Google. It will certainly make for interesting times as the soap develops.

At the time of writing, reports have just come in indicating that Yahoo has well and truly rejected Microsoft’s offer on the grounds that the offer “substantially undervalues” its “global brand, large worldwide audience, significant recent investments in advertising platforms and future growth prospects, free cash flow and earnings potential, as well as our substantial unconsolidated investments”.

While we leave the big players to play chess games among themselves, let’s just remind ourselves of some of the features that Yahoo! has that has so endeared us.

YahooMail
The UK’s Sunday Times reports that while Yahoo! and Microsoft lag behind Google in ad sales as well as internet search, they both have “a huge lead in email and instant messaging.” This must make sense to a lot of Ghanaians, for I have rarely come across a Ghanaian who does not have at least one email address that is not a Yahoo one. It is a shame that Yahoo never sought to establish a yahoo.gh domain, given the extent of patronage by Ghanaians. With Yahoo Mail’s capacity unlimited since May 2007, I can bet my bottom dollar that many migrated from Microsoft’s hotmail to the more reportedly-user-friendly Yahoo!

Yahoogroups
For as long as I have been aware of Yahoo, Yahoogroups has been around—making it easy for people to set up list-serves on any topic under the sun. Armed with your Yahoo! ID, it is a five-minute step-by-step process that you need to go through to create a name under http://groups.yahoo.com/group/

Yahoo Answers!
I happened upon this way back in February 2006. Apparently, it had been around a few months before, but only really hit it big in that year. In my view, Yahoo! Answers is one of the most effective real-time, 24/7 question-and-answer forums that enable you check questions similar to yours. It’s like having a permanent Agony Aunt! Best of all about this service is that you get 2 points each time you answer someone’s questions. When you answer a question that the questioner deems to be the “best answer”, you get ten points.

The questions, themselves, too, are manifold and in all categories, and you are sure to find any answer to a question you are looking for. If not, you can go ahead and create it yourself. The catch with asking is that you lose two points. Evidently, the idea behind it is to encourage you to answer as many questions as possible. Occasionally, you get a celebrity asking a question, and trying to elicit answers for a worthy cause. You can access the site by going to http://answers.yahoo.com.

Price of Liberty
Just so one does not feel that the online world is all doom-and-gloom, it is worth remembering the proverbial remonstration that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. In the virtual world, it could not be truer! Here’s one for keeps: a website on the UK-based Silicon.com chronicling so-called digital blunders.

I Facebook, therefore I am

There are many happy people swimming in the information society here in Ghana who are totally oblivious to the phenomenon that is Facebook. There are many satisfied with doing the occasional searches in Google; checking their electronic mail, and surfing the Internet on anything and everything. That you can go to any internet café around town that has a working connection and access such-things might not only underscore the 24/7 access that we so (unwittingly) crave and want, but remind us that the virtual world can serve as a substitute for what many call the “global village.”

Whatever you might think about this village, if ever we wanted to de-bunk the platitude of living in one, the mere muttering of “Facebook” would disgrace us.

Facebook is a social networking site that has become a phenomenon almost overnight. I say “almost”, because though it was set up in February 2004, it would be 2005, and only in 2007 before many people I know using Facebook would be heightened to the sensitivity of what the service offers, and add me as “a friend” to join the network. That the term “social networking” existed before Facebook suggests that they were not the pioneers of the service.

In fact, it would be MySpace—now owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s New Times Corporation — that would be launched in 1999 to blaze the trail for what we have now come to know as social networking sites. Suffice-to-say, however, Facebook has blazed the trail in terms of user-friendliness and easy registration. Online encyclopaedia Wikipedia reports that there are 64 million active users.

An Unearthly Experience
If we forget about the numbers for a second and think about the experience it offers, it is fair to say that there are no surprises why Facebook is as successful as it is. For a service that was started by Harvard students, and meant to be US-centric, it has risen so exponentially it’s no longer funny—to become a keen competitor to MySpace that started it all before Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg came down from Harvard to rain on MySpace’s parade.

I first started using it around June 2007, because I was invited by “friends”, who turned out to be classmates from secondary school. It has taken a while for those from primary school to begin getting in touch. I can tell you that the speed with which I added “friends”—both classmates and otherwise was truly an unearthly experience, for being able to read their profile and find out what they were up to did really feel like you were in some “global village”.

One cannot under-estimate the voyeuristic power of being privy to the lives of people you went to school with several years ago. That you can follow their marriages and the trials and tribulations of their lives all make for an experience that you can only put down to as being one of the benefits of being connected 24/7. Especially so, when one day, you wake up to see that you can even edit your Facebook profile by way of your mobile phone!

Priviledged glimpses
It meant that you could let those checking your profile (which is difficult, in fact to tell, unless they write on your “wall”) know what you were doing hour-by-hour or minute-by-minute if you wanted. For a nano-second, you felt that the world was, as F.Scott Fitzgerald’s character Nick Carroway describes the “Great Gatsby” in the eponymous novel, “at a uniform attention forever.” Uniform because everyone was speaking Facebook – a language those connected could understand. It didn’t require manuals or constant emailing to the manufacturers; everything was self-evident. The fact that any change on your profile meant that Facebook would send you an email was telling, because it meant that you could go about your business and still follow up on who was sending you a message.

These priviledged glimpses into the life of one’s friends has elicited short-winded elations only the information society can produce. More seriously, it has given vent to what many feel is a significant loss of time. Small wonder, therefore, that a 23-yr-old Catholic student has given it up for Lent. The Independent Catholic News reports that Ellie Harrison sometimes logs onto the site even before she has breakfast! Determined to go on a “Facebook Fast”, the MA Russian studies student has publicly declared what a lot of Facebook users would probably be in denial over—their addiction to the site.

Facebook Groupies
In another kind of digital exuberance, which can only go to underscore the time-loss associated with the site, I started joining all kind of Facebook groups—just because I could. The Facebook neophyte that I was in June 2007 believed that it was important to join and continuously connect with others. Still, I was also a key part of some of the groups: one particular Ghanaian Facebooker created a group to Stop the Sale of the Agricultural Development Bank; I joined, but realised I was unable to participate as much as I had wanted to, resigning myself to merely forwarding useful articles on the proposed sale to the group.

Then one day, it all changed.

Work got seriously intense for a couple of weeks, and by the time I actually logged into my profile, I was more-than-inundated by friends sending me “free drinks”; throwing virtual sheep at me; tickling me artificially; smiling at me virtually and whatnot that I opted for a break. My secret, though, was not to tell anyone. In between the messages and the sheep came a degree of self-regulation. At the time of writing, I have some 50-odd requests to join something or other I have not yet honoured, and a friend has just invited me to an event across the other side of the world I cannot possibly participate!

Facebook Fantasies, Digital Elations
We all are cognisant of the pitfalls inherent in a 24/7 information society, yet because we cannot escape it, we strike a fine balance—for that is as much as you can do. It’s when you read about a Facebooker mobilising Colombians to stage a mass demonstration for revolutionary Marxist army forces using Facebook that you begin to wonder about the possibilities these social networking sites truly can offer. Or the fact that pedagogical/academic debates are being started around the privacy – or lack thereof – of Facebook and its ability to offer comprehensive deleting of data, and what that means for innovation and ideas on the internet that you think that Facebook could be onto something big.

And something big it has been onto for a while. Its dalliance with Microsoft has been no secret. In October 2007, Microsoft invested a vertiginous $240million in Facebook. Microsoft has been instrumental in providing significant revenue for Facebook’s advertising, just because it has been selling the Facebook’s internet ads. The most important development through this dalliance is that Microsoft has been able to acquire a 1.6 per cent stake of the popular social networking site, now valued at $15bn.

Even though the Microsoft-Yahoo! saga might have bitten the dust after two weeks, possibilities are real for mergers, especially because of keen competition offered by MySpace, which, in my view, is to Facebook what Yahoo! is to Google.

The Future is Facebook
The online terrain is well and truly ripe for adventure – and you can bet your bottom dollar that Facebook is going to be in the thick of it. Last two weeks, it launched a Spanish version of its site, prompting reminisces of Yahoo!’s multilingual platform. The significance ought not be under-estimated, because one can very well imagine that with Facebook in the working six languages of the UN some day, we will not just be speaking its language, we will well and truly be thinking it.

Technology – The Mother of All Development?

Imagine being stuck in traffic on a rainy Monday night in Accra. You are priviledged enough to own a laptop, which you whip out to start writing a report. Given that the inside of the taxi is dark, you request that the inside light be switched on so that you can see what you are typing. You know that by the time you get home, you’d be dead-tired, only fit enough to eat dinner, do a few things and settle down to sleep in front of television news. During the write-up, you remember that you have to send an email, but you are inhibited by the fact that you are on the go. So you decide to whip out your GPRS-enabled phone. You log into your email and compose a message. You only breathe a sigh of relief after you see “message sent.” The job is already half-done for tomorrow.

Imagine a world where this is all possible. Now imagine no more—for this is happening in twenty-first century Ghana! Now, if there had been “hotspots”, venues or areas where wireless connection were seamless, there would not have been any need for the phone to send email; a mere connection to whatever public wireless connection available would have sufficed. That is where the West has succeeded where Ghana needs to do better. For a minute, while the taxi has not reached its destination, allow me turn to let you in on a small secret.

Next Saturday is a day celebrated as a mouthful only the UN could come up with – World Telecommunication and Information Society Day (WTISD). It is no accident that this hybrid day is celebrated on one day; the explanation is rather prosaic. Since 1969, the UN’s agency in charge of telecommunications has been celebrating World Telecommunication Day. After the November 2005 World Summit on Information Society(WSIS) in Tunisia, the UN called upon the General Assembly to celebrate an information society day as well. This was so that the panoply of issues that emerged from the Tunis summit would be recognised as remaining important in the development of ICT. In March 2006, the UN’s General Assembly would stipulate that World Information Society Day be celebrated every year on 17 May. In November 2006, an ITU Conference in Turkey would decide to celebrate both events on that day by organizing what the ITU website describes as “appropriate national programmes.” These would be with a view to “stimulating reflection and exchanges of ideas”; “debating various aspects of the theme with all partners in society”; “formulating a report reflecting national discussions on the issues underlying the theme.” All this would be fed back to the ITU and the rest of its membership.

Although this year’s theme is about disability, it seems appropriate to make reference to the One Laptop Per Child(OLPC) initiative, which was launched in Tunis in 2005. According to the home page of the project’s wiki at laptop.org, “OLPC espouses five core principles: (1) child ownership; (2) low ages; (3) saturation; (4) connection; and (5) free and open source.”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OLPC – cite_note-0

Who’s Laptop? Who’s Profit?
Truth be told, it would be in January 2005, when Nicholas Negroponte would first publicly announce the company’s intentions to build what would become known as a $100 laptop. In 2008, when we reduce this innovation of its complexities, we reveal bare – yet again – a turf war between no less than Intel—a for-profit entity that is one of the leading companies in computer processors—and the OLPC, which is a non-profit entity, using open source software to provide affordable machines to people in the developing world. Does Microsoft’s OOXML and Googe’s abortive attempt fight it come to mind, anyone?

Uruguay and Nigeria are two of the countries that have attracted attention around OLPC for different reasons. Uruguay deployed 100,000 for use as recently as December 2007, whereas Nigeria ordered 1,000,000 of them, but after the elections in 2007, the deal failed to materialize. Last year, Minister of Finance and Economic Planning Baah-Wiredu talked about it in the budget. As to how far it will go is a moot point.

The bottom line about laptops is that it is a great learning tool. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the speed with which children born in the 21st century take to computers is phenomenal. The skills that computers facilitate in children are unprecedented and must be harnessed. So imagine what they can do for adults who are afraid of technology. Whether we like it or not, technology is here to stay, and it seems to me that a careful consideration by all into buying into this idea is fundamental if we are all to move society forward.

There are of course, issues. In most developing countries, there are donors that support substantial parts of the country’s budget. This might cause problems in how money is disbursed, for the expectation of donors might hold supreme. Nonetheless, a vision about a society where even the so-called illiterate, like the disabled, can play constructive roles in society from technology like affordable laptops seems a society I would like to see for posterity. After all, is that not where the future lies? If adults are more reluctant, might we not consider educating and sensitizing our progeny about its benefits?

Mobile Madness
As the tax on talk-time beckons with incredible celerity, policy-makers can give us statistics on why they feel the tax is necessary. A considerable amount of noise has equally been made about the number of handsets that Ghanaians possess in the country. Often-times, it is perceived –rightly or wrongly — as a sign of the wealth of the country’s citizens.

However, in these parts, statistics matter less—someone might tell you “we don’t chop statistics!”—and seeing things “fili-fili”, or for yourself is what counts. To assume that many ECOWAS nationals come from the sub-region to study at the distinguished Kofi Annan IT Centre of Excellence is wholly insufficient if you are not factoring the extent to which the centre is helping broaden the minds of Ghanaians and West Africans in a greater appreciation of ICT and what it can do for society in particular, and development in general.

A long-harboured pet-peeve has been blogging and the commitment by it—or lack thereof—by Ghanaians on blogging. The genesis for the frustration stems from the categorical fact that Nigeria—an ECOWAS neighbour we love to hate—outnumbers Ghanaian bloggers probably by three to one. Many of the bloggers in Ghana appear to be written by non-Ghanaians. There simply is no excuse for this. What distinguishes Ghanaians from Nigerians so much so that they can be such prolific bloggers?

A case in point is a Nigerian journalist acquaintance who was blogging when he was working for a paper here in Ghana. He engaged me in a short instant messenger discussion today, telling me that he will come to Accra soon, but he is currently in Lagos, working on a paper that will send him to Accra as a correspondent. Before we ended our discussion, he pointed me to a new blog he had started writing. Though his internet connection was as sporadic as mine, I was pleasantly surprised to see him join the blogosphere-venerated CITY Photo Blogs, which sees bloggers post a picture of their city every day. The sporadic connection is important, because it appeared he was in an internet café.

Let us think a minute about the number of cafes that exist in Ghana, and pause for a moment as to where Ghana might have gone wrong. We are quick to assume that the Nigerians in Ghana are doing 419 when they enter internet cafes, forgetting that though it is an unwholesome practice, it has built dexterity for computers and technology that Ghanaians possess but are not translating into the much-talked about blogosphere.

Having celebrated Mother’s Day, might we remember that in the same way that none of us would be here without our proverbial mother, so it is that the information society as we know it today would be a whole lot less sophisticated than it is were it not for technology and telecommunications. (Belated) Happy Mother’s Day! Happy World Telecommunication and Information Society day (in advance)!

Why Ghana Telecom Must not be Sold (1)

Whether the sale and purchase agreement of 70% of the state-owned Ghana Telecom is ratified by Parliament or not, the agitation around it will remain in the minds of Ghanaians for years to come. In my view, it will remain a test-case of how *not* to sell a strategic public asset without consultation of the people.

Even if it might appear tardy, there are many Ghanaians who are cottoning on to the fact that a major strategic asset is being divested — and that they might not like it. Were you to scan the horizon of the past fortnight, it would be fair to say that the private media has largely done a commendable job in sensitising Ghanaians about this most important of sales. From CITI FM ^[1] through Radio Gold and Joy FM ^[2] to Uniiq FM ^[3], the sale has exercised quite a number of people. I would like to offer my most robust submission yet devoid of the rationale associated with scientific and “empirical” thought.

It is Ghanaian
Ghana Telecom was a wing of the then Post & Telecommunications (P&T) Corporation that was established after World War II. Until then, P & T was a department of the Ghana Civil service under the supervision of the Public Works Department (P.W.D). Established as Ghana Telecom in June 1995 after it was incorporated as a successor to the telecommunications division of the then P&T, it has gone through vagaries of change–including even a logo change around 2005 –to reflect how it would sit at the cusp of major changes in the telecommunications sector.

We have been burned before
It is true that this government is not the first to have initiated the privatisation of the company. Indeed, in 1997, Telecom Malaysia Berhard bought some thirty percent of its shares, with the government retaining the rest. The Malaysians sat as both management and board members. Failing to reach targets during their five-year tenure, they were jettisoned by this same administration, only to bring in Norway’s Telenor. Regrettably, the efficiency generally associated with this Scandinavian country did not translate into their management of Ghana Telecom, even as they sat in their capacity as management and not share-holders. In December 2006, they were kicked out by the government.

Even when Ghana had rejected the Malaysians and the Norwegians in effectively managing and “looking after” GT, what makes us so sure that the British-based Vodafone (with South African influence) will do better? Must we yet be roasted at the altar of a theoretical capital injection of a $500million, which we are not even sure will arrive, especially at a time when we have a toothless and pusillanimous National Communications Authority that will not be able to effectively regulate an effective foreign monopoly?

Diverse products, mismanaged environment?
The specialists can bandy around figures that point to gross inefficiency in GT till the cows come home, but they can never escape what the legendary Mark Twain wrote–to wit: “there are lies, damn lies and statistics.” Even if we were to accept the plausible argument that GT is mismanaged and in dire need of capital injection, we cannot take away from the fact that despite this “mismanagement”, GT was able to roll out DIALup4u, despite the fact that many foreign cards were on the market that enabled internet access with no less than a GT landline base. On top of that, GT rolled out an aggressive campaign around 2005/2006 of BROADBAND4U (est.2004), which is now reportedly available in all the regions of the country.

I am not quite sure how dedicated a Vodafone Ghana will be to ensuring that the remotest parts of the country will have broadband internet access. As a state-owned company, it will always be in its interest to ensure deep penetration of its products in the country–and the bottom line is not always what counts. Contrast that with any strategic investor that comes into the country: unless the government monitors, there will be scant attention paid to the provision of rural telephony.

Granted, landline provision for a long time was problematic, until GT came up with Easyfone, which made it very easy to set up a landline. This is not just personal experience: I know of friends and colleagues who, under Easyfone, managed to get themselves a landline within three weeks tops.

Know your NCA
Remember that last week we talked about the role of NCA ^[4] as a regulatory agency. Any regulatory agency ought to put premium on complaints, and how to respond to them. Seeing as Ghanaians like to talk a lot on their phone—the prohibitive Communication Services Tax of 6% has not decreased this!—it would seem to me that having a complaints page on the NCA website on http://www.nca.org.gh would be optimum.

Contrast this with the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC)—Ghana’s water, electricity and gas regulatory agency— on http://www.purc.com.gh ^[5], which has a complaints page on their newly-designed site, which link can be reached here: http://www.purc.com.gh/complaint_form.php ^[6]. The site even asks you when best during the day you can be contacted. I have sent an email using the NCA form on “enquiries”, and wait in anticipation when they will get back to me. I have yet to try the PURC site as I don’t yet have a complaint. I will be sure to get back to you on the NCA in the event that I am contacted.

That said, regulation of the telecommunications industry is much more than a complaint form.

NCA Should Consult Public on any Liberalisation…
According to the National Telecommunications Policy, the NCA is supposed to “for all liberalisation and licensing decisions”, “conduct public consultation proceedings, inviting input from the industry, the Ministry, consumers, and other interested parties as to the course of action that will be in the best interests of the development of the country and the objectives of this policy.” Do you remember the last time any member of NCA contacted any of us to proffer information on what we think is best for the development of the industry in this country? If so, kindly let me know, because I for sure don’t remember being consulted as a consumer on whether I think the Vodafone acquisition of GT is good for my country! I heard economist Mr.Kwame Pianim, Chairman of PURC and — as he said himself –- Board member of Zain, speaking on a private radio station on Tuesday not only defending the sale as necessary for the injection of capital into a suffering economy, but also maintaining that “serious-minded” Ghanaians will understand the sale as important for Ghana. I don’t remember asking him to make that decision on my watch.

…and even before issuing a licence
Furthermore, according to the policy, the NCA ought to have conducted before the end of 2006 a “further review of market competition in the international segment…to determine the effectiveness and adequacy of competition.” If NCA believes it to be in the public interest, “additional gateway licenses may be made available.” We are told that the privatization of GT was broached back in 2006. Where was NCA to ask you or me whether it was in the public interest? Furthermore, where was a market review done when Nigeria’s Globacom was offered a licence?

…even providers offering next generation services
It is old news now that Globacom will come with a phalanx of new services, including 3G network. It should not be doing this in a vaccum if we had a properly-functioning National Communications Authority. According to the policy (2.3 Liberalisation and Licensing regime), subset on “frequency authorizations” (p.10), “when considering granting licences to offer next generation mobile services, NCA may grant preference to existing mobile license holders; however it shall conduct a market review to determine whether some licenses should be exclusively offered only to such licensees.” Which prompts the question: why were all the other mobile providers, including ONETOUCH left out? Could money not have been raised to ensure the state-provider’s landline obtain the edge over the other ones?

West Africa – the New Telecom’s Frontier?

From Ghana to Nigeria Telecom, the privatization bandwagon is on course in the ECOWAS region. If you recall that last week we touched on the West African neighbour of Mali’s landline set for privatization by the end of the year, you might also remember that NiTel was broached. Although incoming Globacom made some noises a few weeks ago supporting GT’s divestiture, the country itself has kept rather mute on what lessons the GT/Vodafone debate might hold for the regional giant.

It has always often been said that if Ghana is the gateway to West Africa, Nigeria is the destination. This much was confirmed when a couple of editions ago, we broached the issue of Stanbic Bank’s acquisition of a Nigerian bank after having missed the Ghanaian one – Agricultural Development Bank –by a whisker. In the telco industry, the situation is not that much different. The exception in the drama that has unfolded over GT is that Vodafone has itself kept mute over its potential acquisition of NiTel. There has been little in the press to suggest that it remains interested in NiTel.

Nonetheless, the Nigerian parliamentarians are unperturbed and have set the pace – unlike in Ghana – on ensuring some degree of accountability.

Judging from the Nigerian press at least, the debate has been non-existent to the fever-pitch degree here in Ghana. Instead, the lawmakers, accepting a major contention of NiTel having failed, have sought to find out why. To this end, the Senate Committee on Communications is to probe the roles played by concerned stakeholders in the fall of NiTel.

Nigeria’s Vanguard newspaper reports that some of those that contributed to the downfall of NiTel virtually defrauded the company of billions of naira in dues. Chairman of the committee Senator Sylvester Anyanwu at a press briefing alleged that the private operators were using as much as 75% of the capacity and infrastructure of NiTel for free, with some of them “enjoying a two-year rides in the company”.

Concrete steps have been taken to hold such people accountable, including a letter to the President of the Republic Umara Yar’Adua asking him to turn down the appointment of BNP Paribas as consultants and advisers in their repeated attempts at selling NiTel. Secondly, the Committee has managed to trace the origin of NiTel’s downturn to 2003 when a putative Dutch company-Pentascope–managed it [does Telenor in GT come to mind?] turning NiTels “profit profile into a loss despite the inflow of a N40 billion unsolicited loan for the company.” Third, unlike the lack of accountability surrounding Ghana’s National Communications Authority (NCA), the Committee has asked the latter’s Nigerian counterpart–better known as the Nigerian Communications Commission(NCC)–to “get off the fence and take a position in this ongoing debate and investigation of the irregularities in NiTel.” Finally, the Chairman of the Committee listed MTN Nigeria; Starcomms, Globacom; Shell; Ericsson; First Bank; Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas among many others who have failed to give account of their financial obligations to Nitel. This is no different in Ghana, where many companies owed GT millions, but was never broached in the contemplation of the sale to Vodafone.

In order to ensure that there is significant movement, the committee has asked the security agencies “to ensure that current and former staff of companies which played a role in the past botched privatization of NiTel were made to account for their deeds.” These include the Bureau of Public Enterprises(BPE), which has claimed to have played no role in the whole affair–despite the fact that, as the paper avers, “former staff of the BPE…played inglorious roles in the …sale of NiTel”. Unlike in Ghana where the NCA issued a fine and left no room for enforcing the fine, Nigeria has gone a different way. Failure to respond to the above queries, the paper continues, will force the Committee to invoke its powers under certain sections of the Constitution to ensure that they comply.

Vivian Reding’s Unwitting Push of Vodafone to Africa?

Like a bad smell, the ramifications of the acquisition by Britain-based Vodafone will not go away. Although most Ghanaians seem to be tight-lipped now about the sale, especially because they have been put before a fait accompli, elsewhere, the news is not so bright for Vodafone.

Forget the fact that Vodafone is in court in India over tax issues at the moment. Let’s just troop down to the UK itself for a while. According to Mobile News, the UK and Spain used to be Vodafone’s “cash cow”. Now, the revenues in those markets are not so hot. This is the reason why it’s been necessary for Vodafone to expand into Eastern European and African markets. The article reports that in its own home market of the UK, it has “shed customers.” With its churn up, “its voice revenues were down.”

On top of it all, the so-called combative European Commissioner for Information Society Vivian Reding – characteristically hot on the heels of creating opportunities for consumers – has managed to sideline a number of the mobile phone operators with her campaign on termination rates and the cutting of roaming charges that have normally been rather prohibitive. Companies like Vodafone have seen the future as not being bright, and jumped the pond to escape the wrath of Reding. As a consequence, 140,000 customers have been added to the Vodafone giant in Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa.

The coming of Vodafone to these markets have however coincided with phenomenal developments in the mobile phone, or telco industry–and no where has this been more significant than in West Africa.

Mali’s Privatisation Process Unclear

It is a fact that come the end of 2008, Mali’s landline SOTELMA will be privatized. Apart from the fact that we now know that BNP Paribas is a consultant/transaction adviser for the process–much like in the NiTel process above–little else is indicated in the press about the state of play. It appears that although the francophone press has touched on it, the Anglophone press probably could not care less!

Burkina Faso’s Landline Goes for IPO

Meanwhile, also in West Africa, the small ECOWAS country is pursuing an Initial Public Offer(IPO) for a (private) 20% stake in its state-owned ONATEL. The francophone online paper lesafriques.com reports that the state will retain 23%, whilst personnel will get 6%. It’s unclear what happens to the remaining 51%!

Regulating Guinean Telcos, Re-Nationalising Soltelgui

The small ECOWAS country will be getting its equivalent of Ghana’s NCA in a regulatory authority that has yet to be named. Tibou Kamara, the Guinean Minister of Communication and New Technologies, has indicated that the month of August will see the country’s first regulatory body. It is interesting to read that the Minister believes that a lack of a regulatory regime and a body that can play its rightful role is a “handicap” in the “normalization of services rendered by operators.” He says that it is not a witch-hunt, but an opportunity to ensure that all actors [in the industry] have a level playing field.

In the meantime, the country has the distinction of being the first out of Mali, Nigeria; Ghana; and Nigeria listed here to have 60% of its shares sold back to it by Telekom Malaysia by the end of September 2008 in a Settlement and Transfer agreement (STA). TeleGeography maintains that Soltelgui–Guinea’s state-owned company–was established in 1993, only to be privatized in the same year that Ghana Telecom was born–1995, when Telekom Malaysia purchased 60% of a stake for $US45million. After a decade of ownership, it seems the Malasyian telco has had enough and is up and leaving “as part of a broader review of its international investment strategy to focus on geographic regions closer to home. Could the same happen some day in Ghana?

Welcome to the Real Three “G”–the Globalised Google Generation!

In many more ways than we can imagine, technology has begun to assume a multi-disciplinary approach. In other words, you find that it is associated with, say, the security services (how the police, for example, can make effective use of camera phones and checking traffic infractions; and the service industry (as exemplified by how you can place orders online to have your food delivered, for example).

Only last Saturday, the BBC world service, in its “Heart and Soul” programme looked at the degree to which religion had gone hi-tech to the extent that people were even cyber-worshipping, without the need to step into a physical building. The conclusion the presenter drew was that for all the double-edged swords that come with the web, it continues to offer a platform for freedom of expression of all kinds; in that respect, he averred, it might not be as bad a place to worship as any other.

In my last article, I touched tangentially on the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), without fully going into how ICTs would help serve the organization. In this week’s article, I yet again refer to it, albeit superficially, in the context of the multi-disciplinary approach of technology. That I was able to, in two past articles, look at the role of technology as it pertains to both the small and big screen, in my opinion, speaks volumes of how integrated and wired it has become in our lives. What it also does, though, is buttress the multi-disciplinary aspect that has been conferred it.

This hydra-headed element of technology is both interesting and noteworthy. It is interesting because it enhances many facets of our lives; and noteworthy because it makes us pause to reflect and question whether there is sufficient literature on an emerging discipline. Should there be insufficient material out there that pertains to the developing information society of developing countries like that of Ghana, then surely, it behooves not just our ICT practitioners and academics join forces, but also our omnipresent regulators that have taken too much flak for too long to help educate us.

NCA Continues to Fail Ghanaian Consumers!

Let us take the case of the NCA. If we were to visit the website of Independent UK regulator OFCOM at www.ofcom.org.uk the week of 9 March, 2009, we see that it is consumer-oriented, with, inter alia, features on how the global recession will affect consumers; how consumers can make and submit complaints to OFCOM on harmful or offensive material they hear on the radio; research and market data and advice for consumers. Back here in Ghana, never mind that you’ll get similar material, you don’t even know what website to check the NCA on–is it http://www.nca.innovategh.com/, or the erstwhile http://www.nca.gov.gh? The fact that there’s a new government might be all well and good, but I don’t see how the website needs to change from its server each time there is a change in government. If this were the case, then surely the http://www.Ghana.gov.gh portal would be non-functioning; yet the very week the new government came into office, the site was updated!

Still on the multi-disciplinary approach, just as in the face of the global credit crisis, we seem ready to bury globalization and cast it back to the bowels of the earth; it has made me wonder whether it is not analogous to the study of technology?

Cruising to a Google Generation…

At the superficial level, could we not say that like globalization, technology is everywhere we turn–from our mobile handsets to the more-obvious desktop and laptop computers. On another level, could we not surmise that technology has globalised us all? Let’s face it: here in Ghana, how many tech-savvy consumers of technology do not own either a YAHOO or GMAIL account–or both, and a Facebook account for good measure? If there is any distinguishing characteristic between me and the average literate [and middle class] Ghanaian, will I not find affinity with them in these three?

For most of us who can remember when Google became a verb (back in 2006), you might note that we never say “I’ll MSN/askjeeves/altavista this”; the refrain is all too familiar–“I’ll google” this or that. This surely has to be the google generation that never was! But it is also more–it is a google generation that is globalised; globalised because everyone is talking about it.

…that is Globalised?

My only problem with this Globalised Google Generation is that we run the risk of becoming perfunctory beings operating on similar levels of consciousness. Surely the beauty of life is the diversity of it? Why risk becoming imitations of each other when we can become radicalized, different beings? Then I think about the astronomical rise of Facebook, and wonder whether I am truly living in 2009. The Facebook phenomenon has been discussed elsewhere and this column more times than one can imagine, but its phenomenal status cannot -and will not – be sneezed at. Its revolution has not–and will not–be televised.

Long before Facebook came to steal its thunder, MySpace held the fort as the veritable social networking site. These days, it seems to be so old news to even mention it. Yet, when we pause for a nano-second, we realize that there was a rationale for calling it a social networking site. We did not need Aristotle to remind us that man is a social animal before we went out there to start networking and connecting. We have always sought to connect and integrate. Human relationships are perhaps the greatest redemption of our desire to connect, and marriage, as one British commentator Chief Rabbi Jonathon Sacks said on BBC Radio Four in 2000, is “the greatest redemption of our loneliness”. What technology ultimately does is offer one of many platforms to facilitate socializing and networking–with Facebook taking it to amazing levels.

The Real “three G”

Some mobile providers have forever-talked about offering us 3G services, further connecting us. Some of us–Luddites and all–will choose to opt out; the up-and-coming generation might dig in as if their lives depended on it–till they get bored. Given that there is only so much technology can offer, it has become incumbent on us to find how it can complement–and not serve as a substitute–of our lives. I don’t know about you, but in so many ways I am in a paradoxical way happy to be part of what I call the “real three G”: the Globalised, Google Generation.

No Country for Microsoft's Men

By E.K.Bensah II

There is a stalker loose on the online world. It is going round killing competition and perpetuating monopolies through dirty tactics of vote-rigging. It has a remarkable ability to pay lip-service to development of any standards, whilst consistently reluctant in sharing what it knows. Last week, it became the victim of yet-another fine from no less than the Brussels-based European Commission.

It's Microsoft again.

Last week, the EU fined the software giant a record 899 million euros ($1.35billion) for using high prices to offset software competition. This fine, the latest sanction in the long-running battle, brings to €1.68bn the total sum that the executive wing of the EU has brought to bear on the software giant.  And it is not without good reason: Microsoft has – for four years since the fine was slapped on it for abusing its 95 percent dominance of PC operating systems through Windows—defied the EU by failing to pay.

EC Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes maintains in a statement that "Microsoft was the first company in 50 years of EU competition policy that the Commission has had to fine for failure to comply with an anti-trust decision." She adds: "talk is cheap; flouting the rules is expensive."

While observers and insiders alike may feel this is nothing more than the European Commission punishing Microsoft for being the market leader, there is a phalanx of committed people emerging from that ever-nebulous online world who argue to the contrary—that though the fine might have been steep, it sure as serves Microsoft right.

Delusions

Microsoft may be unpopular, but it's got a certain hold over us. None of us is deluded into thinking that the ability to use Microsoft packages does not make life easier for us. Or is it merely because we have been so used to it? The Free and Open Source Foundation would beg to differ. It, along with many in the open source software community, already have a bone to pick with Microsoft on account of the manner in which it is less than forthcoming on disclosing the codes it uses for its software.

Already, as Reuters reports, rival makers of work group servers, which operate printers and sign-ons for small office groups, have seen their markets diminish considerably because Microsoft stopped providing information they would have needed to hook up to Windows office machines.

This below-the-belt practice has only gone to consolidate the image of an insensitive giant that needs it wings clipped.

It will be re-called that the 2004 case for which non-compliance has landed Microsoft this heavy fine stems from the fact that Microsoft had been tying its Windows Media Player to the then-version of Windows it was using. Norway-based Opera, also another popular browser, complained to the EC that Microsoft had done the same thing with Internet Explorer.

Actions, not Words

As Microsoft has painfully realised, reneging on a four-year decision by claiming you will pay is not just setting a bad example for a company of its stature, but it's also terribly expensive. As to whether it will get about paying as quickly as possible is moot. Either way, the above-case has shown that there is something visceral in the company that chooses to do things that make it unpopular. Many people can only deduce this to be manifestations of an unprecedented rapaciousness. They would not be far off the mark.

At the time of writing, there is a closed-door meeting hosted by the International Organisation for Standardization (ISO) in Geneva, where the said-organisation was supposed to assist ISO members address serious concerns that prevented them from approving Microsoft's Office OpenXML (OOXML) document format (compatible with Microsoft Office 2003, 2007 and XP file formats) as a standard approved by ISO last September.

The genesis of it all is that there already exists a format—the one document format (ODF), which has been approved by ISO. Now this approval is important, because an increasing number of national governments and public authorities worldwide are committing to use only ISO-standard-approved products—which ODF is. Failure for Microsoft to ratify its version of OpenXML would mean that many would wave bye-bye to Microsoft's products, opting naturally for the standard. This would translate into falling profits—something completely anathema to a big-business venture like Microsoft.

So if that meant that Microsoft would use unorthodox measures—such as in August 2007, when a good 25 local partners that had not participated in discussions over OOXML paid their admission fee and gave OOXML a resounding corresponding number of votes -- all after Microsoft bussed them to a meeting in Sweden over the ratification of OOXML—it would do so!

Despite all this, in September 2007, ISO would fail to approve OOXML as an ISO-standard—much to the delight and glee of Google which promptly praised the move, saying: "our engineers conducted an independent analysis of the OOXML specification and found several areas of concern, which we communicated both to the ISO and to the public." It ended: "technical standards should be arrived at transparently, openly, and based on technical merit." Google has good reason to explain this development away, for it maintains that there is an already-"high degree of interoperability" and "wide support" for the ODF format, which is already operating in Gmail's Google Docs.

Investigations

In February this year, Microsoft was, yet again, found wanting by the European Commission over the issue of OOXML.  The anti-trust arm of the Commission has already begun formal probes against the company. In the first case, the EC said it was investigating a complaint filed by the European Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS) alleging how Redmond, Microsoft's headquarters in Oregon, had refused to divulge information about interoperability on a gamut of Microsoft's products. Furthermore, the EC said that it would be scrutinising the OpenOXML on the basis that it fails to work with competitors. They say bad things happen in threes—and this drama is no exception for the third and final probe resides on the EC investigating the role of the software giant in this ISO debate.

After Geneva

When all is said and done in Geneva, what will matter will be the voting. After the meeting, attending national delegations – as well as fifty others that took part in the vote last year—will have until 29 March to shift their positions, so that the Redmond-based giant might get a look-in towards a two-thirds majority. You can imagine that Google has clamped down hard against any approval—along with the open source community.

In the long run, whatever happens in Geneva will matter a great deal to the rest of us consumers, because it will underscore the need to practice the "eternal vigilance" Osagyefo Dr.Kwame Nkrumah talked about in all our dealings. It is frankly ironic that in the so-called information society that we are purported to live in, issues like these assume a Byzantian feel, being further reduced to issues worthy for geeks. For example, had it not been for interested parties who passed much of this information to me, I would have been none the wiser.

There will be blood

On more substantive issues, as to whether Microsoft will naturally fall from grace or be proverbially pushed over the edge by steep fines from the European Commission remains to be seen. Ultimately, the impact of these developments would depend on how we, as consumers, here in Ghana and beyond, respond.

Opera, for example, from this month will start using Google as its default search engine on its ever-popular opera browser for mobile. The release on its website of 27 February reads: "Google has been the default search option on Opera's desktop browser for seven years. This new mobile collaboration covers all global territories except Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States, and includes all of Opera's standard mobile Web browsers". What is perhaps implicit in the news is the fact that despite the erstwhile collaboration on the desktop browser, Opera is choosing to link to Google in response to the Microsoft-Yahoo saga a few weeks ago. By cementing its stance vis-à-vis Microsoft, the yawning gap between itself and the software giant will be clearer.

As for the rest of us, the atavistic tendency of Ghanaians to accept all that comes from the West as the best will present challenges on combating the growing menace that is Microsoft. As long as there exists no real online regulator of the virtual world—save the increasing presence of the EC—it is clear there will be battles… and blood. It probably behooves us to become passive resistors, by boycotting Microsoft goods, where necessary.

They say you don't kick a dog when it's down. The proverb scribes probably forgot to add "even if it is a multi-billion-dollar one". What is crystal-clear in what appears to be cries of blue murder against Microsoft is this: as long as the European Commission is here to stay and as long as virtual expansionist appetites continue to know no bounds – whether it finds expression in a Microsoft-Yahoo hostile merger, or Microsoft's strategy to extend market dominance through the use of Vista—reputed to be riddled with more holes than a Swiss cheese; or vote-rigging in Geneva to have its Microsoft Office standard passed at an international body—we are quickly and surely being reminded that the online terrain will be no country for Microsoft's greedy men.

ENDs. 

(Pod)Casting Aspersions on Ghana's Media

By E.K.Bensah II

Quite a number of Ghanaian media outlets—both print and otherwise—own websites. Rare is the website that provides the possibility of downloading digitally-recorded material. In the Ghanaian case, it is downright non-existent. I am not quite sure whether it is a technical lacuna within these organisations, or that the Ghanaian media feel there is nothing qualitative from, say, their radio stations for download. For whatever mysterious reason, the state of the Ghanaian media insofar as facilitation of ICT tools and applications, such as podcasts, remain downright execrable.

Each time I listen to the BBC, which I know many Ghanaian journalists are wont to listen to, I am both quizzed and mad. I feel quizzed because I cannot for the life of me understand why despite the fact that some journalists enjoy the privilege of being sent out of the country to consolidate their journalism skills, their training fails to translate into dexterity and/or an appreciation for the current ICT tools. I am mad because a number of these tools that are part and parcel of what is considered the "New Media" are free! If any of us are able to become, say, a blogger overnight, you can imagine how a journalist – writing in his capacity as a private person – can maximise the use of blogs. If that journalist works for a radio station, you can imagine how much he/she can benefit from the use of podcasts by the radio or television station.

Pleasure of podcasts

Put simply, podcasts are recorded digital media files – usually audio – that can be downloaded onto any device, including mobile phones. It is exclusively distributed over the Internet, often using syndication feeds, for playback on portable media players and personal computers. The term is what online encyclopaedia Wikipedia calls a 'portmanteau' term of "i-pod" and, it is assumed, "broadcast". The Apple I-pod is the brand of portable device for which "scripts" were developed. In turn, these scripts enabled podcasts to be automatically transferred to a mobile device after they were downloaded.

Listen to the BBC World Service and within each hour, you are bound to hear remonstrations by both the station's presenters and continuity alike to visit the world broadcaster's podcast page, so that you can enjoy and re-visit the rich experience that the World Service offers. It has been advertised so many times you might get the impression that these podcasts are for sale. In fact, they are absolutely free, and can range from a minimum of 5 minutes to more than 60 minutes.

Not just for radio

It would be erroneous to believe, on the strength of the BBC, that only radio can offer podcasts. The truth of the matter is that if you look closely to how the quality Western media is doing it, even newspapers are doing it. Far be it for me to plug London's Guardian newspaper, but you cannot avoid it, especially when it's been, for a long time, dubbed the best online newspaper. The website has a podcast page, where you can obtain audio downloads on Money; Culture; US elections; Travel; Environment, etc. You name it; the site has a podcast for it—even if it's only three minutes long. In my view, this is innovation at its best: taking the print platform and revolutionising it to the extent that it becomes real—without being too in your face. Surely the Ghanaian media is capable of this as well?

When UEFA-licensed coach Nana Agyeman suggested on a private radio station (with a "refreshing lifestyle") three weeks ago that sports journalists were generally uneducated in the journalism profession, he incurred the wrath of many. The truth of the matter is that journalism has ironically had bad press for so long –- what with solidarity money, or sole, to write stories; bad pay, and whatnot –- that when journalists are not seen to make the rest of Ghanaian's lives easier by making it pleasurable to read, watch, and listen to practitioners of their profession, they will only go to reinforce an image of their profession that is far from positive.

Let's face it: podcasts are not only supposed to educate us; they are supposed to make our lives easier. Issues with internet connectivity notwithstanding, last time I looked, most internet cafes enabled you download from the 'Net and even from and unto your storage devices. Even without a connection at work or in your home, if you knew you could re-listen to your popular breakfast, or lunchtime show, by way of a podcast, I could imagine you would end up feeling both sated and dedicated to your station of choice—knowing they not only care about the kind of programmes they produce, but want you to be further interested in giving you the opportunity to listen again. To boot, your productivity would inevitably be boosted knowing you would not make too much effort to listen to a programme on the hour, especially when you can catch it again—albeit without contributions by text and email you might want to make.

Future for Media can be Podcasting

Truth be told, the tectonic shifts in technology and the media is spawning not just a whole slew of terminology that was alien to us a decade ago, but a whole phalanx of media practitioners that are forced to become media warriors—armed with new ideas and new skills on top of the traditional ones they know. Despite the fact that organisations like the Ghanaian-based PenPlusBytes—Ghana's only Institute of ICT Journalism—has regularly offered training to Ghanaian journalists, the commitment by these journalists has been this side short of poor. I do not believe for one moment that aspersions should merely be cast on the individuals, for opportunities, in theory, ought to be made by the management of these media institutions. If that is failing, that it can only be incumbent on these media-warriors to grab up their skills and interest and teach themselves within the information society.

From my experience, the saturation of information is such that there are little excuses these days to be technologically-illiterate, especially when you are a practitioner of the proverbial Fourth Estate. Journalism, surely, ought to not simply be about re-hashing press releases, and waxing incessantly about issues that are bound to polarize us, but ought, in my view, to be about formatting, or packaging, the information within society by using the information society to inform society in the traditional gate-keeper fashion. Let's be clear: podcasting alone will not do this, but undoubtedly, it can revolutionise the media and, by extension, society into keeping in tune with what the twenty-first century has to offer.

Anti-Microsoft Fever Heats Up

By E.K.Bensah II 

Terribly jaded by the number of restrictions that Microsoft offers with any of its applications, a group of companies is striking back to end the Microsoft dominance. The attempt to break Microsoft's monopoly is being led by none other than the Redmond-based (former) rival IBM. 

The IT media reports that IBM is in effect leading a campaign to end Microsoft's dominance, by campaigning to promote open source software products. It will do so using a two pronged approach, to wit: encouraging computer manufacturers to start delivering Microsoft-free laptops and PCs; and secondly, asking Linux developers to look elsewhere for collaboration, such as Apple's distinctive Macintosh platform.  

Pressed for an alternative, IBM is likely to say that the computers manufactured by IBM would comprise its own OCCS package--better known as Open Collaboration Client Solution (OCSS). On top of that, it would come with Linux, free Lotus Notes, Symphony and Sametime. Lotus Notes is described as “"integrated desktop client option for accessing business e-mail, calendars and applications on [an] IBM Lotus Domino server”. Originally launched in 1984 for Microsoft's Disk Operating System (DOS), Symphony is “a suite of applications for creating, editing, and sharing text, spreadsheet, and other documents”. Sametime is described as “an enterprise instant messaging and web conferencing application sold by the Lotus Software division of IBM. Lotus Sametime provides enterprise instant messaging functionality, presence information, and web conferencing.” 

The idea behind it all is to offer considerably cheaper computers to the more-expensive Microsoft. For the latter, the tradition behind the expensive computers lies with the fact that any PC that chooses Microsoft as the company whose software would be delivered with the hardware they create have to pay Microsoft license fees for its products. Ultimately, the end-product ends up being that more expensive.  

Enter the Gang of Four

The four unusual suspects ready to unseat Microsoft includes IBM, but comprises Canonical; Novell; and Red Hat. They would be working with their local business partners in markets round the world to build and distribute a pre-loaded PC that features IBM's OCSS, as well as the packages listed above. It is reported that the final product will have the brand of the local IT firms that bring it to the market for retailers and consumers. 

The deal has, by way of objective, not just a desire to rid consumers of the stranglehold--read “monopoly”--that Microsoft has, but to ensure that consumers get a better deal for their pocket. It is a well-known fact that Microsoft packages are proving to be that much more prohibitive. The biggest snag for many people is that seeing as some seven-eighths of computer users worldwide have succumbed to the Redmond-based software giant's trap, why change now?  

Change we can believe in

The reason why the change needs must come stems from the very simple fact that Microsoft may be monopolistic, but it is because we as consumers have allowed it to be. We can unseat the company with the flick of a button if we choose to. The very fact that Microsoft's attempt to take over Google attracted such disgust and claims of Microsoft being money-hungry was, in my view, sufficient testament of what users think of Microsoft: it is a necessary evil--but, it is suggested, an evil nonetheless. Google has stepped in to point this out with its fights with Microsoft over OOXML. That Yahoo has partnered Google--and not Microsoft-- also reflects the stance of where man would like to see Microsoft. 

Sure, Microsoft has begun to embrace open-source, but I believe it to be self-serving. Microsoft has not deemed it necessary to set up an African portal (note that Google Ghana has been around for a few months now) yet it has partnered with the African Development Bank to offer ICT services to Africans. 

My fundamental view is that the rushing by African governments to partner Microsoft when all these tussles -OOXML and Microsoft's attempted takeover of Yahoo -- have been going on with Microsoft is not just a deep indictment of the attention African policy-makers pay to the big players and shakers of technology that can break or make us, but a serious restriction of policy space by Microsoft of AU countries to opt for alternatives. Being a large software giant does not mean I want to necessarily do business with you. 

AU governments, wake up! 

Where were the doctor's voices?

I would have thought that the Ghana Medical Association might have waded into the GT debate for the simple fact that thanks to ONETOUCH, members are all able to enjoy free calls and text messages with each other. This idea, the brainchild of one Brian Levine - founder of DocWorks --, was to ensure that doctors could be networked in several ways, including for consultations and referrals to other doctors or specialists. Launched at the beginning of the year, it is funded by ONETOUCH, and ensures that doctors use their own mobile phones to communicate for free on the ONETOUCH network, but have to pay when they go outside the network.

NCA (Still) Under Fire

If ever we needed evidence beyond this author that the NCA is incompetent as a regulator, let me simply refer you to an article by *Business & Financial Times* of June this year, when it reported that internet service providers in t he country had accused the NCA of “instituting a regulatory regime that does not support fair and transparent management of the country's frequency spectrum.” At the launching of a 56-page report on the state of the communication sector in Accra, the Ghana Internet Service Providers Association (GISPA) decried the lack of transparency in the management of frequency spectrum, as well as the lack of an effective dispute resolution mechanism.

Just to follow up on last two week's little experiment with the NCA, they never got back to me. Also, the last time they updated their website was…20 June.

Vivian Reding Corner

What the European Commissioner for Information Society Vivian Reding does for the 27-member EU matters. For that reason, over the next couple of weeks, I shall be looking at some of the policies that her directorate is coming out with.

To start off, road accidents are no alien phenomenon to Ghanaians. An unnecessary number of Ghanaian citizens die needlessly on the road every year. The National Road Safety Commission (which can be accessed at http://www.nrsc.gov.gh) has already been helping Ghanaians understand the gravity of road accidents, and offering an overview of accident-prone areas in the country. All that is great, but over at the EU, technology has been used to go that one step further.

With August traditionally being the month when Europeans go on holiday, Commissioner Reding has proposed a way of reducing congestion on the roads--radio bandwidth.

While here in Ghana, our ineffective National Communications Authority is accused of unaccountability in terms of frequency spectrum, the Brussels-based Commission is set to reserve a chunk of pan-European radio spectrum for technology that would allow cars and traffic control centres communicate with each other.

The objective is not just to reduce fuel consumption, but save lives and enable Europeans enjoy a hassle-free driving experience. How it works is that 30MHz of spectrum in the 5.9 Gigahertz band will be allocated within the next six months by governments across Europe to road safety applications, without interfering with existing services already in place, such as amateur radio.

Privatisation of Nigeria's NiTel on Course

With the stage set for an explosive finale of the GT debate as the time of writing, some hours away in Nigeria, the West African giant's state communications company NiTel is marching slowly and surely towards privatization, whereby 51% will be sold to the proverbial strategic investor. Although Vodafone was tipped to be interested a few weeks ago, other companies--such as BNP Paribas; Renaissance Capital; Rothschild/UBA; Merrill Lynch/BGL--have submitted their names to be the advisers of how to handle the sale of NITEL.

In the meantime, Transnational Corporation PLc has announced that the new boss of NiTel is a former executive of the US telecom giant AT&T, Mr.Kevin Caruso.

…as is that of Mali's SOTELMA

Apart from the UN-based International Telecommunications's Union website carrying news of the privatization of the West African country's state and landline operator SOTELMA, only much of the French press has carried it, with africanmanager.com reporting that at a meeting in Paris to discuss the privatization, at which BNP Paribas was present, Portugal Telecom, Maroc Telecom, Telecel Globe; Millicon; and Tunisie Telecom are some of the operators keen for a stake in SOTELMA.

Where did World Telecommunication Information Society Day go?

Where did WTIS Day Go?

By E.K.Bensah II

So, Tigo won an award for telecommunications company of the year; ONETOUCH launched its mobile tv outfit—BLACKSTAR TV; MTN outdoored its MTN swap kit; and Kasapa was runner-up to the company of the year for the Ghana ICT Awards. Can someone tell me when the promoters of World Telecommunication and Information Society Day can stand up?

It was as if it never happened. That Saturday 17 May, I scanned both the local and foreign media to find out whether the day had been celebrated. On the Internet, it seemed like every country was celebrating it—and considering most UN members also belong to the UN's International Telecommunications Union(ITU), it would not have been strange if they were. Instead, I consistently drew a blank. Especially painful was the Ghanaian media, which provided scant coverage of it in the news. Beyond the odd newspaper report, none of our Saturday weeklies had anything about the day on the Saturday itself.

The following Monday, I decided to ask some of my ICT journalist colleagues who were also monitoring. They all drew a blank, bar one who said that Ghana Telecom had said something about it on their website.

I do not know what it is supposed to say about the country—anyone can make up their own mind—but I believe it is a serious indictment of a country that aspires to be the ICT hub of West Africa. With companies like BusyInternet (reputed to be the biggest Internet Cafe in Africa) in the country that have propelled Ghana towards the image of a Ghana that is ICT-savvy, the lack of celebration of WTIS day puts paid to interesting anecdotal evidence about an emerging silicon valley in Accra.

Furthermore, the lack of celebration of the day reflects a lackadaisical attitude to the symbolism of such special days. Although we might be apportioning unnecessary blame to the media, I believe they are the ones that ought to stand up and promote the day for us. After all, the tools that they use—from the mobile phone, radio, satellite and television—represent the quintessential ICT tools that have come to be part and parcel of the work they do. In the same way that a week earlier, the media was able to report to us about the necessity of freedom of the press, so it is incumbent that they remind society how they are able to effectively do the work they do

The Future

I can only say that we can do better next time—and I believe we can. We still have one year to prepare—even if it falls on a Sunday! I presume there will be another Ghana ICT Awards next year and possibly other ICT-related events in 2009. I would like to take this opportunity to appeal to policy-makers, industry-watchers, and any emerging bloggers out there to make some big noise about WTIS day next year.

First of all, It could be used as an opportunity to bring pressure to bear on our regulators, such as the National Communication Authority, to exercise greater vigilance on the mobile service providers in the country. Issuing threats without implementing them has never been a good way of regulating. Secondly, it could be a moment to evaluate the communication services tax  (CST) or talk-time tax and establish whether it is yielding the desired outcomes it sought to do, and/or whether there needs to be a call for it repeal or not.

In short, there are many opportunities that a developing country like ours can maximise on special days that are celebrated globally to make changes that will benefit us all. Each year the information society becomes that more sophisticated and complex; the earlier we begin to recognise this and act accordingly, the better an information society it will be for us all!

Google Flies, Google Falls?

By E.K.Bensah  

The other day, I spoke with an ICT-journalist-colleague about Google's launching of Google Ghana, to which he said that Google veritably has an Africa strategy. We laughed briefly over why Yahoo is not even thinking about one at all, allowing the global giant to steal its thunder. So it was some bit of co-incidence to read a little later that Google--still in the throes of celebrating its tenth anniversary--is putting some considerable weight behind an ambitious plan to provide internet access to three billion people in Africa and emerging markets. It plans to do this by launching at least 16 satellites to bring its services to those that have fallen through the cracks of what appears to be an increasingly narrowing digital divide. 

According to Google's product manager Larry Alder, the project could bring down the cost of bandwidth in such markets by 95%. He goes on to confirm what my colleague said about Google's Africa strategy: “this really fits into Google's mission [to extend internet use] around the developing world”7. To date, partners working with Google have injected some $20m each to raise $65m, including a smaller contribution from a media advisory boutique called Allen and Company. 

While the UN's International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has secured wireless spectrum for the project, a technology entrepreneur - Greg Wyler - maintains that its satellites would be operational by the end of 2010. 

Google's drive to distraction

Though this project may be ambitious, some detracting observers believe Google's finger in so many online pies is profoundly ominous, and reminds us of where Microsoft went before its alleged nadir. In an article by Juan Carloz Perez on mybroadband.co.za, the author admonishes Google to stop “devot[ing] effort and resources to maintaining a host of non-search services that could potentially distract the company and affect the quality of its core search engines.” He points out that while Google is busy dominating the search market, “there is no shortage of competitors constantly trying to create a better mouse trap and capture Google's search users.” 

Profoundly reflective of the anecdotal Ghanaian Pull-him down syndrome (Ph.D), the sentiments expressed by Carloz Perez are not just telling, but are probably reflecting the fact that Google needs to mind where it treads. This is really not something that the online giant would not have thought about, for the higher one goes, the harder one falls. With Google's interventions against Microsoft's pitiful attempt to buy Yahoo in February this year, coupled with the former's attempts to frustrate Microsoft at getting a stake of its OOXML standard approved by the Geneva-based International Standards Organisation (ISO), no-one needs to be told that having an adversary like Microsoft could cause problems, given its own domination of software for computers worldwide. 

Google rocks, but its security questionable

It is a given that the meteoric rise of Google within the decade of 1998-2008 will have given vent to green eyes in many quarters of the Internet who might have failed to capitalize on opportunities as Google has done. That Google has failed on a number of projects (Google Video; Orkut; Google Base/Checkout) is hardly surprising, for you don't get to the top by only chalking successes. As to whether Google has learnt from some of its failings remains moot, but it's crystal-clear that it needs to better-evaluate. Stories that have run round implicating the search giant include reports by an Internet consumer advocacy group in June, Stopbadware.org, that reported that “Google was one of the world's top five network's responsible for hosting “badware” sites, mostly due to scammers and online criminals abusing the company's Blogger blog hosting and publishing service.” 

Another issue has been of spammers using Picasa Web album photo management site used in schemes to lure people to spam. Stories like these hardly help Google, for observers maintain that, like Microsoft that failed to work on the tightening of its security, the search giant might just be facing its greatest nemesis yet--making those of us that have come to rely on Google for a number of its services secure in the knowledge that the very data we seek to protect will not be compromised by careless security.

UN Agency wins Hollywood award

Rare is the case of Hollywood doing anything with the United Nations. The last time the two collaborated was in the Nicole Kidman/Sean Penn 2005 thriller The Interpreter, which was actually filmed in the UN building. The news that Tinseltown -- better known as Hollywood - has awarded no less than the UN's International Telecommunications Union (ITU) is very noteworthy. According the New Zealand-based SCOOP.co.nz, the Emmy award is in recognition of the agency coming up with a means “to allow high-quality video to reach devices ranging from mobile phones to High Definition Televisions.” The award recognized the Joint Video Team--comprising the ITU; the International Organisation for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) - “for its highly efficient video compression method to significantly reduce both the bandwidth needed to deliver high-quality video and the space to store it.”

Guinea's telco back to being State-owned

In a rather unprecedented move, the Guinean telecommunications company Societe des Telecommunications de Guinee (Sotelgui) has gone back to being owned by the State. Telecom Malaysia--former players in Ghana in the late nineties--divested its 60% stake in the company back to the government of Guinea for a token amount of $1! Interestingly, the government of Guinea is to pay Telekom Malaysia $2.04 million for settlement of outstanding debts.

This was possible through a settlement and transfer agreement with the government of Guinea, Sotelgui and TM International Bhd to dispose of 4.5 million shares of $US10 each, which represents 60% of the paid-up capital of the telco company.

The rationale behind Telekom Malaysia stems from the company's desire to focus its investment strategy back to geographical areas closer to the region.

Globacom to buy Telkom's assets in Vodacom?

If telco companies were baby names, they would produce some of the most unpronounceable names around. How's this for size: Vodaglo? Like Microhoo, a merger too horrible to have contemplated had Yahoo yielded to Microsoft, Vodaglo, if all goes well, will unmask itself as a merger of two Sub-saharan African countries' telco companies--that of South Africa's Telkom and Nigeria's Globacom.

Described by many as the fastest-growing telecommunications network, Globacom is Nigeria's second national carrier. Never mind the fact that it's bent on conquering Ghana's telco market after seducing Benin in June, the indigenous West African telco company is going places. Jo Fizelle of Johannesbourg-based Mowana Investment was hopeful that the government of South Africa would sell 39 percent stake in Telkom.

Globacom's biggest project to date is the submarine optic fibre cable from Lagos in Nigeria through 16 African countries, through to the UK and the US.

Vivian Reding corner: Roaming Texts to be slashed?

Over the next couple of years, the battle to help consumers use text messages at the lowest rates possible could prove to be an indicator of how much our governments care for the development of the telco industry. In the US, Congress is looking into why rates for text messages have doubled almost simultaneously. The companies in question are AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint Nextel, and Verizon Wireless.

In Europe, the ever-combative Vivian Reding is on her quintessential crusade to fight for EU consumers by arm-wrestling wireless providers to bring down the rate of the text messages of their inter-country roaming. The EU commissioner for Information Society has already submitted a plan to her colleague commissioners who will vote on it in the coming weeks. The plan is for nothing more than a fixed ceiling--rather than a fixed price. Reding says: “EU citizens should be free to text across borders without being ripped off.”

When on earth will the African Union have as civic-minded international public officials as Ms.Vivian Reding?

Enter the G4 of Mobile Telephony (2)

By E.K.Bensah II 

No-one said re-branding comes easy. Ghana itself has played host to a two-time re-branding of one telcobetween 2005 and 2007. First it was Spacefon-Areeba to Areeba; then from Areeba to the global MTN brand. It was a risky business for consumers, because they could never quite tell which quality of service they were going to enjoy. Anecdotal discussions with colleagues and friends alike reveal that Spacefon that charged into the country in 1996, when chips were going for what is now GHC26.00 turned out to have a better quality of service than its subsequent identities. I re-call that in 2004, the 0243 number I still use today cost me around GHC30.00. At that time, it was still Spacefon, but the revolution in service quality was never quite complete; call breaks were still a common factor and whenever it rained, I could barely make a call. 

Some might say this is part and parcel of learning from one's mistakes; others might say it is all part of becoming a global player. That the same business-oriented magazine I talked about last week, plus the October edition of Africa Business also dedicated a two-pager to Zain's re-branding can only go to confirm how much the company is breaking out into the world. I'd personally like to think that though it has some mileage to go, if ever there were a G8 of telco companies, Zain would be high on that list!  

Zain originally started off as Mobile Telecommunications Company in Kuwait, where its headquarters is based, before acquiring Celtel's 14-nation African operations in 2005 for $3.4bn. Celtel was a network that was owned by Africa's first telecoms entrepreneur Sudanese businessman Mo Ibrahim. After the acquisition of Ghana's ailing second landline provider Westel by Celtel in 2007, observers might have thought this acquisition was not going to go anywhere. I re-call both the Statesman and B&FT paper last year claiming that we would soon have 026 numbers from Westel. When that failed to materialize, I can imagine many people thinking then-Celtel's mobile aspirations had bitten the dust.'

Small in news, big in spread

It turns out it wasn't to be. Celtel started chalking the success in East Africa with its “One Network”, where roaming charges were eliminated within the countries of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania (and which had even the Europeans coming to find out how it was done) and where credit could be obtained from any of the countries. The re-branding of Celtel to Zain happened only early August (it must have been a muted affair--how many of you re-call this?), revealing it to be the no less than the 4^th largest telco company in the world in terms of geographic presence. According to the magazine, it is now established in 22 countries spread across the Middle East and Africa, “providing mobile voice and data service to more than 50 million active customers.” 

As for the innovative “One Network”, it was introduced in April to 14 million subscribers in four Middle Eastern countries - Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan and Sudan. In Africa, it is in Burkina Faso; Chad; Congo; DR Congo; Gabon; Kenya; Malawi; Niger; Nigeria; Tanzania and Uganda. Ghana  and Saudi Arabia will join once Zain commences operations in the two countries.

The Future is Bright for Zain

If MTN's nemesis is Nigeria-owned Globacom, Zain must represent a formidable competitor in the form of a super-nemesis to MTN. Last week, we touched on the putative hegemonic status of MTN, and concluded that Globacom was going places. Zain, I averred, was the odd-one-out because of its Middle Eastern roots. While that might be true to an extent, the “odd-one-out” status I conferred on the now-global player is deliciously premature. 

The magazine maintains that Zain is matching MTN “boot for boot as both players either inadvertently or otherwise avoide each other in their scramble for Africa.” It continues that currently, “both companies have annexed 15 African countries apiece and in the 30 different countries on the continent in which they have presence, both can be found in only 5.” 

We don't have to be geniuses to conclude from all this that the future is bright, and it's no longer on the France-based Orange as it was in 2003. Apart from MTN, Globacom, and Safaricom, the future now belongs to Zain. 

Let Technology (and Freedom) Ring! (1)

By E.K.Bensah  

The historic and unprecedented election of Barack Obama as the first Black, and 44^th President of the United States of America was an event that a large number of us followed mostly on television and the Internet. In this part of the world, where 24/7 internet is not quite ubiquitous but available if you have the money, a good number must have also used the internet to catch up on the campaigns through a variety of online news sites that we know very well. To be honest, I followed most of it on television, not making sufficient time to read as much as I wanted.  

Let's face it: the US elections are as much media campaigns as they are political ones. As much as we decry our politicians for failing to speak to the issues in the way that is done in the US, we know that the glitz and glamour, fine speeches and eloquence--or lack thereof--are what helps make or mar the candidates vying for the highest office. In Ghana, it is less the case--and for obvious reasons, for we do not command the control of the fraction of the money that the candidates had during the just-ended US elections (with some left to spare!).  

All this notwithstanding, there was something going on behind the scenes that helped Obama emerge victorious--and that was nothing more than mere technology. 

The Power of Text

An article in Bloomberg by one Christopher Stern maintains that one of the secrets of Obama's success was text messaging. I don't know what the statistics are for Ghanaians using text messages, but I do know quite a number do text. Although our culture lends us to want to speak more on a phone than text, the increasingly westernized and privatized lifestyles that is creeping into our lives, coupled with the number of radio shows that encourage SMS-messaging can only direct us unwittingly towards a society where a large number of us are compelled to text if we want our voices heard. 

In the Obama case,the voices that were being asked to be heard were those of prospective voters to go out and translate their voices to votes. We now know it worked. Still, the method in the madness included the Obama 08 team using millions of cell-phone numbers that it had amassed over the past 20 months or so to “blast” its supporters with the message to go out and vote. 

An article on RCRWireless maintains that both text messaging and mobile web were critical elements in the election campaigns of both Obama and McCain, albeit in greater and more innovative ways for the Obama one.  

Facebook Phenomenon

Like Obama himself, the phenomenon that is Facebook cannot be sneezed at. In my view, even more than You Tube, the social networking video site, Facebook gave the campaign an emphatic boost. If you are familiar with Facebook, which many Ghanaians are increasingly getting used to, you will know that what makes the site as useful as is in the manner in which one can add “friends”, or request people to be friends. In no way does a high number of friends--say 500-- indicate that you know as many people. Many times, the higher it is, the more indicative of networking it is. It is instructive to know that the “friends” and supporters for Obama's Facebook site were a vertiginous 2,477,000! This contrasts sharply with his Republican counterpart who was not only slow to use the internet to garner supporters, but which Facebook presence was this side short of poor. 

In fact, the whole Obama presence on Facebook looked like a tribute to an already-elected President long before the closing days of the election. Used highly in conjunction with his website, it was always going to be difficult for the high-patronage American Facebookers to avoid connecting with the campaign in more ways than we can imagine. 

Contrasted with the Ghanaian sites I reviewed last week, it's clear that there is a lot of work to do. Next week, I'll be looking at what kind of work that can be.

Let Technology (and Freedom) Ring! (2)

By E.K.Bensah  

The US papers report that during the summer, First-Lady-elect Michelle Obama had to slap her husband's hand away from his Blackberry as he sat with the family watching one of his daughters play football. I guess this is a scenario most men can relate to: being so consumed with an email you are expecting, or a phone call that just will not come.  

I believe it is safe to say that now that Obama is president-elect, he will be wishing that his Blackberry be permanently off--or maybe not! The papers report that the man is a techie (think about how he capitalized on social networking tools like FACEBOOK to get donations to the campaign) and even if he stopped smoking before running for office, letting go of the Blackberry might not be that easy. 

Techie challenges

While Obama's love-affair with his smartphone may all be well and good, given his new position as Commander-in-Chief of the US armed forces, and then some, aides have told the New York Times that transparency laws would dictate that his correspondence be open to the public. It is interesting to note that the last Democrat in the White House who was nearly impeached a decade ago did not use emails - and neither did the outgoing Republican one. We live to see whether this new Democrat will forego it, and exercise his presidential prerogative to keep mobile emailing on the go.  

Still, it is not difficult to see some of the privacy that he might lose or the potential hacking that might go on of his emails - never mind on his mobile, but also on his laptop, for it has been rumored that he will be the first to have a laptop on his desk at the Oval Office. For a public official which advisers sent memos to his Blackberry instead of printing them, restraining the “tech” quality of his character will prove to be perhaps more challenging that he could have imagined. 

Why text matters

Last week, I touched on the importance of text messaging in Obama's campaign and hinted that our presidential aspirants could do that much better. Truth is while the texting has not been done to the same degree as the latter, it has been encouraged--by potential voters like you and me! Both the NPP and CPP have launched short code campaigns to get people to vote. In the interest of fairness, I will refer you to another daily in town to find what these short codes are, especially because I have not seen one from the NDC or PNC. If anyone has seen one, they are free to enlighten me. While this is all well and good, I believe it reflects the lack of ingenuity of the parties in getting the voters out. Let's face it: in this day and age when we have all swallowed the effects of the nefarious talk-time tax, sending a text message--especially when it will take 1 ghana cedi from you--is bound to hurt a little to the pocket. Never mind that you might be a die-hard party person, or the fact that you get a “thank you message”, you will only do it so many times.  

Texting solutions, Facebook answers

What could instead have been done is for the parties to collate--like Obama's campaign team did with phone numbers--potential voter's numbers and contacts and the party machinery instead text YOU AND ME encouraging messages and text messages to go out and vote for them. Yes, it is costly, but the resources must be there in the first place to undertake any campaign, so this really is a given.  

How can we forget Facebook--credited for more than considerably helping in bringing Obama to where he is now? Where Obama used willing and eager volunteers to manage Facebook campaign for him, in Ghana, three of the parties with a presence on Facebook have interested die-hard supporters doing all the hard work with, it seems, little intervention from the flag bearers themselves. You could say they have little time, but a little time with your online constituents never killed anybody!

Social Networking Gets a Facelift

With the global economic crisis still looming large, and with Africa largely excluded in any solution to it (as exemplified by the invitation of only South Africa to a gathering of G20 countries), it is interesting to read that there is some salvation at hand: that star of web2.0 technologies that every one is talking about--social networking. Despite the manifold discussions about this new technology (Facebook; MySpace; twitter, etc), I do not believe that here in Ghana, people are going to get bored of it anytime soon. When I checked Facebook last week, there were some 24,000-odd members listed under the “Ghana” network; this excludes those Ghanaians that belong to non-Ghanaian networks. Already, we can assume that Ghanaians of all ages have cottoned onto the utility of Facebook beyond what some might consider digital narcissism--that is showing off your education, background and pictures of your travels and whatnot--and moved onto considering it as one where it helps connect and create synergies on issues as well as your ideas.

An article in silicon.com, by Peter Cochrane, reminds us of how social networking has created exponential growth. The author maintains that in a professional social networking group he belongs to, he has uncovered three tiers that stem from his first contact of friends: his own contacts are 524; but his contacts' contacts are 128,400; with the third tier (contacts of his contact's contacts) numbering a vertiginous 5,225,400! He continues that over the years, he realized that he had an average of the following multipliers: Tier 1-1; Tier 2- 239; Tier 3-21,250.

Put simply, for every new contact he adds, he gains an average another 239 tier 2 contacts; and 21,250 at tier 3. Overall, this network now gives him access to a whopping 26 million selected people - all just on the network he belongs to. Cochrane believes that once we finally move to web3.0, our machines will begin to cluster social nets “to share resource, information, knowledge and experience.”

Facebook is no different in the manner in which it is able to identify “mutual friends” of your friends--and it is amazing to discover the number of common friends you and your friends know.

When all is said and done, social networking's future is, as another silicon.com article maintains, in the facilitation of public services. The crux of the article is that such networks will begin to complement -and in some cases, replace - services provided by government. We already know the red-tapism associated with bureaucracy and some our Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs). The future is one where the public sector will exploit such communities so as to improve on the services they already provide. The biggest reason for the public sector's adoption of social networking would have to do with the cost. In other words, where cutbacks are being made by government, these online communities could help create synergies.

For example, in the West, one social networking community called NetMums, which provides parents with information about childcare could complement or replace social services that government provides. The same could be said in Ghana about, say, DOVSSU (Domestic Violence Support Unit) of the Ghana police, where if there existed a networking community for those who had been abused, it could help them identify each other needs more efficiently, with support and tips in a very cost-effective way than capacity-building or the rigmarole of bureaucracy of the Police service ever could.

GWCL Goes Hi-Tech?

It would be great to assume that Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) has gone hi-tech with the launching of its toll-free number, which can be reached on 0800-400.000. There were a few glitches from the beginning of its launch some two weeks ago, but now it seems to be working. It only rings once before you get a message “Welcome to AVRL Ghana water call centre. Please press 1 to speak to an agent”. Once you're done, it takes you to some hip-hop music before someone picks up after a few minutes. When you hang up, the person will call you to ask whether you were trying to call the centre. I guess the jury's out on how long this level of efficiency of the call centre is maintained!

Calling all the Ghanaian Hotlines--PURC, We Need You!

By E.K.Bensah  

Given Ghana's pretensions to an ICT-enabled information society, it sometimes surprises me that we have taken so long in obtaining hotlines for the key services that the country offers. As regards water, the recent announcement of Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL)'s hotline that is actually run by private South Africa managers Aqua Vitens Rand (AVR) is, in my view, too little too late, considering for how long they have been managing Ghana's water (Nov 2005) claiming that they would help rescue the yawning gap between those that have ready and available water--and those that do not. On the bright side, it can be considered better late than never. I re-counted my “experience” with them last two weeks, but think it is insufficient to judge whether a quick response by them when I hung up means they will respond accordingly to a water problem! 

On electricity, as far back as 2005, I was made privy to two special numbers for calling faults, located in Makola in Accra - 021.664546/021.664548. This control room is a twenty-four hour operation that is usually picked up by someone--usually a technician--that is monitoring electrical faults in the system. It is joyous to note that even at midnight, you can get someone. A few weeks ago, ECG introduced a new number into the system--021.611.611. I don't know about you, but the purpose of hotlines is that they are FREE. Last time I looked, some of the smallest and biggest banks in the country--including financial services claiming to give you loans in less than two days--have been advertising their hotline numbers for as long as two years now.  

Banks do hotlines better

The sixth biggest bank in the country that recently launched its international share offer over Africa moved very quickly from having a paid landline “hotline” some three months ago to having a free one which can be contacted almost 24/7. I wonder why banks that know they will get money from you can come up so quickly with these 0800 numbers when our major services in the country have to follow the trail that the banks have blazed--and even then, not very satisfactorily as not all services have a hotline available. 

Let's take the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) that I commended a couple of articles ago for their great website. It seems like websites have not yet embraced the concept of hotlines, for one still has to call 021.240.046 when you want to report a prolonged electricity problem--to which someone, when there, will pick up. Truth be told, the efficiency of the staff there can surpass those who work at the ECG fault room, who will tell you that there is a problem, but not necessarily be able to follow up for you on how the problem is resolved. For PURC, the staff, for the past two years since we started reporting to them, have always called back to give us feedback. It therefore further surprises me that they are unable to yet set up a hotline for people to call to buttress the resolution of electricity problems. If any friend, relative, or official of PURC happens to be reading, kindly add it to your action plan that PURC needs a hotline! 

Attitudes behind hotlines

As far as I know, no empirical data exists in Ghana on the perception of hotlines, but it seems crystal-clear to me that if hotlines are going to work in this fledgling democracy, then people are going to have to be ready to both monitor and evaluate the progress of these hotlines themselves. This means that when there is an electricity fault, you will be prepared to call the hotline and assess how quickly or not they respond--and COMPLAIN if they do not deliver. After all, with regard to the ECG, you are paying Ghana Telecom rates to obtain help on a service that should already be running smoothly! It is your fundamental right to check up on the hotline!

Whither the future of hotlines

By the time you read this paper, it might already be Election Day and most definitely -- as the Brits like to say--the day after the night before. As we move forward in our democratic dispensation, might it not be a great idea for *every* Ministry, department, or agency to have a hotline--including the electoral commission? For example, had there been a hotline (a permanent line of communication operating 24/7) established for the electorate, in both the local languages and English, a lot of (unwitting) malpractices might have been avoided. Most Ghanaians from all walks of life these days have access to some kind of mobile phone. They could have contacted an “0800” in the comfort of their homes and found out all they needed to know to vote. It is clear that the confusion that the early voters experienced for example was totally unnecessary!

You might re-call that a few weeks ago, the National Road Safety Commission launched its toll-free line for road accidents. Ever since the number (0800.10800) was given out to the public, I have tried many a time to call them--all to no avail. All I get is a “please don't hang up; we are trying to connect you”. The line simply does not work up until the time I am writing this--is anyone out there from National Road Safety Commission who can help?

Secondly, the number provided in the papers from the Client Unit of the Ministries to make complaints about the delivery of MDAs (0800.40006) does not work either? It is unclear whether the pilot project has taken off or not.

In the final analysis, it would seem if we wanted to deliver more efficiently on the services that we render, then we should be looking more concretely at a strategy that involves hotlines. First, the ECG “hotlines” should be made FREE; secondly PURC--as a significant regulator of water, gas, energy and electricity--should also have a hotline that can be accessed not only on ONETOUCH numbers or GT landlines, but on ALL networks.

Hotlines mean Employment

In the long run, the creation of hotlines creates employment as well. Take GT before Vodafone took over (as that is the only experience I know): anytime you called 101 on your ONETOUCH phone or GT landline, you would get someone at the end of the line to help you with either your internet connection or your EasyFone connection; with the beauty being that they can be accessed 24/7! Ditto with ONETOUCH, where you call 011 for help. The less said about MTN and TIGO hotlines the better! MTN doesn't work 24/7--and on weekends, it is even worse. Anecdotal stories have been flying around about TIGO and its non-existent call centre.

The beauty of the ONETOUCH/GT call centres has been thanks to ExZeed, a limited liability subsidiary of what was Ghana Telecom that employs, according to its website (www.exzeed.com.gh) some 381 personnel. It provides services to other companies as well, but it appears Ghana Telecom is one of its biggest customers.

ITU Fights Child Abuse

Networkworld reports that the UN's International Telecommunications Union has joined several UN agencies to launch an initiative to safeguard children from the Internet. Called “Child Online Protection (COP)”, the initiative will “bring together partners from all sectors of the international community with the aim of creating a safe and secure online experience for children everywhere.” Given the recent spate of cyber-crimes and cyber-threats, coupled with the increasing number of young people obtaining access to the Internet, the ITU, along with other UN crime-fighting agencies deemed it necessary to fight the scourge.

Friday, February 06, 2009

The Rise & Fall of Gateway Broadcasting Services (GBS)

Many Africans will remember the day when they woke up to the news that popular pay-TV Gateway Broadcasting Services (GBS) had gone “into liquidation”.

In fact, quite a number will remember the day of infamy when they would indefinitely be deprived of pay-TV. In a country where there remains a yawning gap between the rich and the poor (I like to delude myself we have a middle class sometimes!), the difference between paying for GBS and the still well-known DsTV was always going to hurt.

The Monday after the news of the liquidation, I asked a couple of work colleagues who subscribe to DsTV how much they pay a month; my jaws almost dropped to the ground. Although it varies depending on the bouquet you want, if you want a comprehensive one, with Africa Magic and whatnot, you will be hitting some GHC70-GHC80/month. That’s half of someone’s salary right there—if not *all* of it. Truth be told, it was less guilty paying for GBS, as the cost was half DsTV’s! There was some sense of satisfaction that you were part of the “masses” that wanted pay-tv, but were put off by the ridiculously-prohibitive cost of the competition.

When GBS broke out in late 2007, it immediately created two categories of viewers—those with a passion for football—and those with a love for movies and news. From the very start, we would belong to the latter; after all, sports is big on Metro TV, so why pay some twenty Ghana cedis extra just for instant gratification? I quite remember the sales people being profoundly troubled when we indicated we didn’t want sports—just movies. Obviously, it would have meant more profits per month for them; but we were steadfast. So it was that with the start-up of G-PRIME and a handful of stations, GBS would grow up slowly and surely. Here’s how I captured their entry on my Ghana blog in an entry of November 2007: “*There's a new satellite service provider in town, and I'm sure DSTV isn't too happy, even if it's enjoying its current monopoly like no-one's business. I heard on the radio yesterday that it's slashed its prices to GHC139 (US150) as start-up for its decoder, satellite and whatnot.

Meanwhile Gateway Broadcasting Services--owned by a Brit, Julian McIntyre, -- has been on the African continent for the past six months and in Ghana for almost a month. It really has been giving people's TVs a new life!;-)

It has fifteen channels, and is aiming to get a "G-Africa" by the end of the year, where it will show African movies only. I am happy to see that 2006-launched NBC hit HEROES, which started airing on the UK's terrestrial station BBC2 only this year is in its 13th episode on G-Prime, which is the major channel by GBS that features movies--both classics (as in popular 80s and 90s films) and otherwise.

Having been brought up to be awakened to the sensitivities of the underdog--whether putative or not--I am happy to say that though there remain some serious catching up by GBS over DSTV, I for one am not going to run to DSTV any time soon!*”

Inherent in that entry post was not only a happy man content that there was finally competition to the run-of-the-mill, but someone who was content to see a wide variety of movies on television, without having to wait for “foreign movie” on Metro TV on Saturdays, or go out to get a DVD—a categorically more expensive enterprise!

But GBS would be more about movies; it was also about news: SKY News; AL-Jazeera; BBC World News were the top three. While the latter two are on our terrestrial channels free-to-air every day, Sky News was a must-watch, especially if you wanted to catch up with news in Europe and Britain.


GBS Meant Much to Sports Fans
Even though I never cared for the sports, I acknowledged fully that it was always going to be difficult talking about GBS without whispering “Premiere League”. The sports meant that it had a serious competitive edge over its rival DsTV. You could argue that its success was largely predicated on that edge—and sometimes at the expense of its movies and series. That some movies would be repeated some five times in a month left one to wonder about the variety they claimed they had. Still, with the new segments that came along in May 2008, who could argue much. This is what I wrote in my entry of May 2008: “*After the three new channels -- G-Series; G-Africa; KidsCo -- "arrived", I next had a question for the ages: how on Earth did GBS procure Lipstick Jungle, which is an entirely new show on NBC in the States? How on Earth, when the show started airing only earlier this year?

It's clear that those are some of the insider secrets that only GBS staff would know--and would not be willing to divulge--no matter how hard I tried to interrogate them;-)

I have to say that G-Africa has been the bomb in the sense that it's exploded in our senses and--my God!--our minds and whatever else it can explode into. Sundays these days are to die for, 'cos there's only one station we tune to--and that's G-Africa. You've got your series and your Nollywood movies all vying for our attention--and plenty of attention they get from us!!! … I've had enough now--it's simply good! In all seriousness, it's hard to believe that you can even get a monthly subscription as low as GHC11.00!! (Circa $US11.00)

Friends and acquaintances comparing DsTV to GBS have great basis of comparison in the sense that the former offers its proverbial so much more. Question is: how much MORE TV can I watch?? I struggle even with these 17 stations that GBS offers in that I cannot watch even half of them regularly. We generally watch SKY news to catch up news in the UK; G-Prime; and MGM.”

It’s clear from that entry that beyond the excitement, GBS was promising in many respects. Given that hindsight is always 20/20, the post-mortem of their demise has been captured in some business papers in South Africa thus: “Pay- TV service provider GTV collapsed under a financial overstretch arising from overspending, cheaply priced subscriptions and content promises it could not honour.”

Lessons for the future
If we forget about the honouring for a second, I believe what we should be asking ourselves is how on Earth, as an update on the press release in one of the dailies reveals, did the GBS Ghana crew no nothing about a possible liquidation until a good TWO hours on that fateful Friday 29 January, 2009? Even if we are to take their word for it, what can this new government offer on liquidation laws to ensure that one does not experience such abysmal behaviour by corporate investors in this country?

Secondly, what protective measures are there to protect the consumer from any company—let alone a communications one—filing for bankruptcy? Laws are on thing, but this mess that GBS has left behind screams for regulation—and I cannot think of any other government agency to provide guidelines on these than…the National Communications Authority (NCA).

Is anyone listening?

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Technology to Die (Hard) Fo(u)r!

It’s difficult to start philosophizing about every movie Hollywood has made, but without a doubt, in the same way that the September 11 focus has driven a number of films after 2001, it is safe to say that so does technology regularly drive many a film from Tinseltown.

The latest one, in my review of the representation of technology on both the big and small screen, is that of the 2007 blockbuster summer hit with Bruce Willis. The role of the ordinary but affable New York cop John Mclean (with the inimitable style) is reprised by Willis, which character is asked to pick up a computer hacker and deliver him to authorities. For those who have not yet made time to see the film, the bulk of the action begins after the scene when Mclean goes to the hacker’s abode--only to have gargantuan gun-toting criminals, including a strange Spider-Man character who is able to get from the street to the hacker’s apartment in minutes by jumping acrobatically over railings, shoot his apartment down. I believe the essence of the film comes out here, for we get to find out why these criminals want the hacker dead.

With the basis set, the rest of the film follows the narrative, whilst continuing to provoke the viewer into wondering what would really happen if techno-criminals ever got to shut down the electricity grid of a whole country, cause traffic jams; and make away with astronomical sums of money, while prosecuting a murderous agenda of killing their team and all those who might stand in their way.

So, slowly and surely, the plot is broken down for us. “Die Hard Four” is in essence about how Thomas Gabriel, an aggrieved technophile who also happens to be an ex-employee of the United States Department of Defense, “amasses” a bunch of ill-intentioned and equally-experienced technophiles (including hackers) to shut down the information systems (including satellites) of the US. His motive stems from a huge grudge held against his former employers who failed to take him seriously when he warned them that terrorists were capable of bringing the country to a halt by hacking satellite and ICT systems—and he shut down parts of the country using his laptop! No-one listened to him, despite the fact that a facility in the outskirts of the capital that would download the country’s whole financial information into a database was built by this same Gabriel. It would turn out that Gabriel would use this as his base to prosecute his agenda. Ofcourse Maclean had to stop him—not without dodging a fighter plane, which communication’s system Gabriel’s aide was able to hack into.

So, this is Hollywood, and by all means, most of it is over the top.

Technology to Die For!
When we look a bit more closely, there is clearly something going on—and in my view, it’s about how technology can both look at us and kill us in foul sweep. We might feel like complaining every now and then when our broadband/dial-up internet connection goes off for the umpteenth time, or when the electricity provision is as sporadic as the disco lights in a night club. Truth is we might be better off this way after all. Cast your mind back to ideas or memories of how public services work so seamlessly in the West, and think for a second about their digitally-exuberant society where almost everyone is so wired that even authorities think about wiring the underground.

Now, imagine that reality here in Ghana, where regulation is normally this side of ineffectual, and we might just have a perfect storm of chaos in our hands. Let’s not even yet talk about our humble National Disaster Managament Organisation(NADMO) being equipped with ICT tools to manage disaster efficiently in the same way that the UN and multilateral organizations pledged never to have a repeat of the tsunami of December 2006 off the coast of Southeast Asia by establishing early warning systems (EWS).

Let’s talk instead about the coping mechanisms that would exist in the event of a breakdown of Ghana’s information systems. Let’s also think a bit about what the regulator—the National Communication Authority—as the first port of call could do in informing its consumers about the necessity of extolling the virtues of a sound Ghanaian information society, whilst remembering that these same consumers ought to be responsible in the utilization of the increasingly wired society. So it should be that using ICT systems responsibly should be part and parcel of any agenda that the NCA has for us. Examples could include using our mobile phones *responsibly* when (driving) in the car or walking in the street; or the health effects of sitting for too long in front of the computer.

At this point, it seems we might have reached a supreme case of bathos, having climbed down from the bombastic action film of Die Hard Four to the almost mundane usage of our mobile phones in the car. At the end of the day, what separates the latter two is the usage of technology, and the lessons therein.

For me, the film asks very well how reliable a wired world is; but more importantly, how on Earth do we find the balance between a technologically-driven world and the analogue one, whilst contemporaneously using technology to enhance our lives without going overboard? Finally, it is also a commentary on the human condition and its relationship with technology: where the antagonist used his technological skills to create destruction, the protagonist’s sidekick (Maclean’s hacker) used it for good by restoring the destroyed information systems.

If that isn’t food for thought to die hard for, I don’t know what is!

CSI Las Vegas Gives me Food for Thought on Technology

By E.K.Bensah 

There is a scene in Season 2 of Crime Scene Investigation (CSI)-Las Vegas (currently showing on Viasat 1 every weekday at 9pm, and repeated midnight) in which criminologist Catherine Willows is apprised of a stay of execution of what would turn out to be a copy-cat murderer, whom she helped convict fifteen years earlier--thanks to her investigative techniques. A new murder, bearing the hallmarks of the condemned killer about to be executed on death row, prompts her re-engagement into the case. Asked why she's so keen to get involved, she quips: “*Old case, new eyes, new technology*.” 

In my opinion, the symbolism of this scene cannot be sneezed at. Reading between the lines, what I understood from that line was that technology had advanced to the degree that one can investigate old cases more efficiently. Extrapolated to the non-criminal world, what is in effect being asked of us is to question how far this country of Ghana has come as far as technology is concerned; and where we are going with it? Short of providing a history of Ghana's long journey of ICT, I believe that we do not have to always wait for our governments before we begin to question what we can do to move things forward.  

For example, we know that Mobitel was one of the first telephony companies to enter the country in 1996; Spacefon followed shortly after, with Ghana Telecom's ONETOUCH chip being introduced around the year 2000 at exorbitant prices of around GHC100 at the time! Now, many of the companies have undergone metamorphosis, with Mobitel becoming Millicom, and eventually Tigo; and Spacefon becoming Areeba/MTN Areeba, and finally MTN. As the cost of the chips fell drastically, so did the names become globalised, with MTN being present all over Africa, and Tigo present in some AU countries. 

I am not sure whether Ghanaians have yet taken time to pause, reflect, and document--beyond the superficialities of people being able to afford more handsets than a couple of years ago--on where we are today in 2009, as compared to 1996. In thirteen years, how far have Ghana's ICT tools--never mind mobile telephony--been able to maker our lives more meaningful? In other words, what are the long-talked-about developmental challenges that this country has that remain today, but can be (or have been) improved with technology? 

Lessons from CSI

When we turn back to CSI for a moment, we already know what's going on: “CSI” is based on the premise that when hard, investigative work is coupled with advanced ICT tools, one can elucidate crimes more easily. The detective's work is far from discounted, but forensic criminologists help build a better picture in shedding light on crimes that have been committed. Back here in Ghana, in the same way, we can ourselves about the kind of ICT tools--from telephone, radio to mobile phones--have been effective and instrumental in enhancing the lives of Ghanaians within the decade that mobiles exploded on the market? 

Arguably, that DVLA off-late sends text messages to both prospective and existing drivers that their licenses are ready; or that banks send text messages to customers that they can go and pick up their cards from their branches, or even the fact that depending on one's bank, one can check one's balance suggests that things have moved on considerably. As to whether this is enough is moot.  

ICT Tools for…?

When we think about telephones, we think “passé”, for the increasing number--and availability--of mobile phones have eclipsed the necessity of acquiring a landline phone--save if you are in an office; otherwise most people are content with owning a mobile phone. Despite this, landlines are not totally outdated, for it helps one connect their laptop or desktop computer to either dial-up or broadband internet. Let's face it: the technology to connect to broadband to the internet is yet to be perfected, so we can assume that they will be around for a while! If not, the news that Zain has just launched broadband internet on its 3.5G network would not be welcome news. At the end of the day, the landline remains king. 

What, though, of our other ICT tools? How far has radio come--beyond there being a proliferation of stations? Have the stations been able to create synergies with their listeners by coming up to speed with the technology of the much-talked about podcasts? Or are listeners made to forever miss their favourite shows, only to rely on the venerable BBC to save podcasts of their programmes for us? And the websites of these stations, to what extent have they been exploited to serve the needs of their listeners. Have they merely been left as static sites, without being regularly uploaded? 

Still found wanting on Podcasts

Truth be told, most Ghanaian radio stations now all have websites, where they combine a series of multimedia tools, including streaming live radio (largely useful for the Ghanaian diaspora to catch up with home news), as well as regular news items. Where they can be found wanting is podcasts, which I have carped about a number of times. Sites like Joy99.7fm have some of the best websites out there, as well as CITI97.3FM, which in 2007 won an award for its site. 

However, the clear, blue water that exists between these sites and the BBC worldservice is not to do with space on their server, but a committed attempt to provide its listeners with a combination of glorified low-cost technology that has been made compatible to a Web 2.0 internet. Podcasts are nothing more than old-fashioned recordings recorded and saved electronically. 

I guess at the back of my mind, I must also be thinking “*Old case, new eyes, new technology*”. 

ekbensah@gmail.com / ONETOUCH.755.08.45 / http://twelvedaysintunis.blogspot.com

CITI97.3FM Should Continue to Set the Pace on ICT & the Media

By E.K.Bensah 

Last week, the Adabraka-based private radio station CITI97.3FM set a precedent by hosting on its morning show three ICT practitioners. Regrettably, I caught the show a little too late to catch the names of those at the studio; what I was able to make out is that one came from Accra's Institute of Technology; another from Kofi Annan IT Centre of Excellence.  

The breakfast show host Sammy Bartels spent the better half of nine o'clock getting those who had called into the show to pose questions to the guests in the studio. Many listeners were happy that this was a far departure from the usual politics; others wanted to know what the fibre optic was about, and what that meant for Ghana. Others were keen to know whether Ghana had a veritable information society, and if so, what did it entail for the country. I was particularly concerned about the issue of the role of the media in the dissemination of issues on and around technology. As one of the guests rightly pointed out, ICT empowerment is not about having a computer sitting on a desk on the table of a ministry. 

What ICT means for Ghanaians

I'm still in the dark myself about what ICT means for Ghanaians. At the profoundly superficial level, I am excited when I go to Accra Mall, pass by the internet café, and notice that good three-quarters of the users are on Facebook. It tells me not just that Ghanaians have connected to the social networking site in a big way (and therefore stand a greater chance of gaining exposure to the attendant benefits of mobile internets and whatnot) but are sufficiently excited to want to continuously connect and be part of what I would call a globalised emerging information society in a way that was impossible when Facebook was established in 2004. 

Citing the example of the BBC Worldservice's programme “Digital Planet”, which is a weekly programme discussing technology, I was keen to know whether Ghanaian media had come of age, so-to-speak, and was ready to grab the bull by the horns on setting up regular platforms for the discussion of technology. We all know and have complained about the dearth of development-related issues on radio, but I'm not sure we talk sufficiently about including technology. Often, it remains too easy for breakfast show programmes to use the newspaper reviews as a basis for the discussion of the day. Rare is the opportunity of geting something other than politics. In this respect, I think 97.3 CITIFM must be commended. 

We Want More!

That said, it must do and encourage more. Insightful and interesting though this show was, we will only really know whether CITI has bucked the trend of prosaic radio discussions once CITI initiates and does this on a regular basis. The onus, naturally, would not only be on private radio stations like CITI and its counterpart 99.7Joy FM, but a whole host of the stations that exist in Accra. I have heard Radio Univers with a programme on Saturdays looking at how to use the computer. In my opinion, Ghanaians must begin to transcend the mediocrity of the day, and go further in bringing us quality programmes like of BBC's “Digital Planet”. I must quickly add that though CITI's programme was interesting, it was--as we know--a panel discussion.  

Way Forward for Media and ICT

Steps to improve this include, as indicated earlier, having a regular show. If we can have shows discussing women's issues weekly, surely we have sufficient brains in this country to also proffer views on taking Ghana away from the cusp of information technology revolution to the forefront? Secondly, there must be a concerted effort to have podcasts (digital recordings) so that those who missed the show can listen and continue to make contributions via the radio station's websites. I don't know whether Uniiq FM or Radio Ghnana have a show on technology--I have yet to hear of one on the networks--but I believe the time has come.  

Are any of the radio stations listening?

ITU and Safer Internet Day

Whether you are a parent or not, this will concern you: forget the fact that your siblings or children spend too much time in front of the computer, and remember that any time they go behind a computer, there is always a danger lurking behind the screens. I'm talking about child predators and paedophiles that hide in chat rooms to catch unsuspecting children unawares. That social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook have exploded to astronomical levels makes the task of monitoring the little ones all the more difficult.

To this end, the UN's International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has marked “Safer Internet Day”, celebrated on 10 February. This day is marked to remind parents about the importance of protecting their children online. This is the 6^th Edition yet, and activities will occur in more than 500 events in 50 countries worldwide. The ITU, in this celebration, collaborates with government agencies worldwide, including on World Telecommunication Information Society Day (WTIS) on 17 May, which will be dedicated to “Protecting Children in Cyberspace”.

It is not that parents forget, but they simply need reminding that each time a child goes behind the computer, there are hidden dangers that the parents ought to be apprised of.  These include cyber-bulling to sexual grooming online. European Commissioner for Information Society Viviane Reding says: “the Internet binds the whole world together. The safety of our children who use it as a concern for everyone.” ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Touré added his voice saying that child online safety must be “on the ghlobal agenda.” He went on: “we must ensure that everyone is aware of the dangers for children online. And we want to promote and strengthen  the many outstanding efforts that are being made around the world, such as Safer Internet Programme.”

The EU has in fact gone further by signing a pact with Facebook, Google and MySpace to improve safeguards against the bullying and abuse of teenagers online. The agreement is signed by 17 site operators in the EU, and commits them to limit the risk of misuse by providing a “report abuse” button. Privacy settings are also required to be set at the highest level for under-aged children - anad to the degree that their profiles cannot be found easily on search engines.

Although a lot of the onus already falls on the parents to talk to their children about cyber-bullying and its attendant dangers, the pact, while voluntary, aims to push the same minimum safeguards on network sites used across Europe. The EU also released a video clip to raise awareness among parents and teenagers on Internet use. For more information, you can visit the website: http://www.keepcontrol.eu/

Ghana Police's New website

Ghana police has moved from ghanapolice.org to ghanapolice.info. The website is under construction, but is up-to-date insofar as using the picture of the new IGP Mrs.Elizabeth Mills-Robertson! There is also an emergency number on the site you can contact police on; it's 0277.522.288.

It is great to read that there is a link for DOVSSU; I wouold have hoped that there would be a proper website some day. Given the spate of stories in the media about child abuse and defilement, this link-- http://www.ghanapolice.info/dvvsu/dvvsu.htm-- while useful suggests a more holistic site dedicated to fighting the scourge of child abuse and domestic violence.

ekbensah@gmail.com / ONETOUCH.755.08.45 / http://twelvedaysintunis.blogspot.com

The Emerging Face of the ICT Superpowers (1)

By E.K.Bensah II 

For the past couple of weeks, I have written about Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook and Google quite a bit, prompting speculation in some quarters that issues surrounding these entities are--to use a common Ghanaian parlance--nothing to write home about. In my estimation, this would be an erroneous conclusion to draw. 

Microsoft matters, because in looking left, right and centre in most of the computers that fill our ministries, departments and agencies; schools; hospitals and organisations, Microsoft ranks highly--not because it is popular but because it is *the* standard. Despite the fact that I have moved to a Firefox browser, I find myself still referring to Internet Explorer for a number of items. The weaning-off period is proving to be longer than I imagined. It is also the case that Internet Explorer prints better on the network at the office than Opera and Firefox -- or perhaps because I've been used to it? 

That, perhaps, might be the challenge with most of us using Microsoft products. We have come to accept and adopt a love/hate relationship with it, because it's almost omnipresent. Omniscient, it certainly is not--for all the inexplicable blue-screens it is likely to generate on a whim. And what is it with that “sending report to the server”. I have always wondered whether it actually sends anything. Who monitors whether it sends it. If there is anyone out there who has written an algorhythm, or is basically too smart it's not funny to track these reports, kindly let me know. 

Microsoft Creates Double Standard

On a really serious note, though, Microsoft is not about to go any where soon -- especially now that the International Organisation for Standards has adopted an international standard based on Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) document format. Let's face it, my concerns a few weeks back (*No Country For Microsoft's Men*) were going to do little to change the configuration that Microsoft was planning--to ensure that there would be a double standard (no pun intended!) of the Open Document Format (ODF) and Microsoft's own. 

A report in *InfoWorld* documented the countries that voted - the standard was approved by 86 percent of all voting countries - and it makes startling reading: with the exception of South Africa that voted against the motion, and Kenya and Zimbabwe that abstained, all the other African countries represented (DRC; Nigeria; Ghana; Tanzania) approved the motion for Microsoft to pass the double standard. Interestingly, countries in the news for adopting a certain position left of centre (and then some) (Cuba; Venezuela; Iran; India; Ecuador; China; Brazil) voted no.  

In my view, it is as clear as crystal that even if the latter countries may not have been that well-versed in the issue, these countries that voted against are able to read between the lines of what a monopoly by Microsoft can and will mean. Small wonder it reflected in the voting, because they understood the ramifications of the vote. Nigeria's disappointing approval, followed by Ghana's speaks volumes about the depth of knowledge - or lack thereof - by these governments on this very important issue. It also underscores the need for more education on ICT-related issues. In my opinion, these developments point to only one thing--the online or virtual world is the new terrain for the emergence of ICT superpowers. 

Microsoft has gone and set the trend--incurring the wrath of the European Commission in doing so, what with the steep fine imposed on it a few weeks ago. Whatever the case, it has made its mark, and will continue to make it. If Yahoo goes ahead and merges with Microsoft, there will be consequences for how the online world will be configured. 
 
 
 

The G-Men

Then there's Google. An increasing number of personal correspondents that are friends and acquaintances are using gmail as their standard email. Many even use both gmail and Yahoo. Interestingly, fewer people are using hotmail, but I believe that might be more a reflection of user preference than a stance against Microsoft.  

I have specifically started with email, because that's where the action, so-to-speak, is at these days. Emails are not just reflections of our virtual identity--the other day, a colleague was telling me how some Ghanaians, for prestige, use “yahoo.ca” even though they might never have stepped out of the country to Canada! -- but an indispensable method of communication wherever you are. It's safe to say that Google's gmail is right in there. 

If we forget email for a while, we only have to look at the number of applications that Google is a part of. Blogger.com for the blogging community and the ever-popular YouTube for online videos are two of the more popular sites acquired by Google that attract millions of visitors daily. Google is set to link up with social networking sites like Facebook more closely than ever before. Already, it has a partnership, since 2006, with Facebook's rival, MySpace, to advertise search and advertising functions. Not to forget its association with DoubleClick that has fetched Google millions--and which Microsoft views as a threat to its MSN search. 

Pawning Yahoo

Even if it is a wholly insufficient rendering of Google's relative power, it is clear that Google matters--and the very fact that it is working on collaborations with Yahoo--not Microsoft--and countering Microsoft on its attempted merger with Yahoo, as well as speaking out against Microsoft on its expansionist tastes reflects a state of play that can only lead one to believe that just as in international politics, there is a bi-polarity that has fast and furiously emerged in the virtual, and that has lent a degree and aura of superpower status to Microsoft and Google. Yahoo probably acts as the balancing act, serving as a pawn to be used by Microsoft as and when necessary, but still retaining considerable clout and “soft” power (Yahoo Answers; Yahoo Mail; Flickr.com (photo site), and Yahoogrooups.com). 

Honestly speaking, Yahoo is not to be sneezed at. That it is caught in between Microsoft's greed and Google's strategic use of it as a counterweight to Microsoft does not mean that it does not matter. In terms of email, it commands serious respect coming behind gmail.com and leading Microsoft's hotmail.com. The Online encyclopaedia Wikipedia maintains that it is “the largest e-mail service in the world with almost half the market share.” Search engine-wise, it ranks second behind Google. Apart from offering the web portal yahoo.com, it also enables users communicate, thanks to Yahoo Messenger, considered one of the more user-friendly chat services around. The most interesting aspect of it all? Yahoo offers these services in over 20 languages, including Yahoo France; Yahoo Canada; Yahoo UK; Yahoo Ireland; Yahoo NZ--to name but a few.  

Google growth in Africa?

Language-wise, Google is also right there, offering Google France; Google Canada; Google Uk as well. However, Google appears to be more receptive to Africa, offering Google Nigeria and Google Senegal. It has yet to offer Google Ghana. In February *TechCrunch* reported that Google is expanding its presence in Africa. The article contended that this expansion was in an attempt to prepare for the fallout of a potential Microsoft-Yahoo merger. To boot, Google “is currently advertising or has employed staff in Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Nigeria and Senegal, and is expanding its Africa head office in Kenya.” Though some doubt whether it was a response to Microsoft, still the message is clear: Google's heading for Africa. 

This is not what we can say about Microsoft and Yahoo. Whereas Microsoft has a portal for some major European countries (Microsoft Belgium; Microsoft France, and Microsoft UK, etc), its portal for Africa caters West/East and Central Africa, but has a separate Microsoft South Africa! Yahoo has neither a separate portal for South Africa or for Africa for that matter. In fact, two weeks ago, on its own Yahoo Answers, someone asked this very question of why there is no Yahoo Africa--to which many ignorant Westerners surmised that it was probably because most Africans were too poor to have computers, so Yahoo did not find it profitable! Read for yourself here: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080319162618AA2eSns 

So, both Microsoft and Yahoo might be less receptive to the African continent, but this is not to say that they will not catch up--even if they remain behind Google! Far be it for any of us to promote Google, but it has something good going, and compared to its Microsoft counterpart, it's a more honest broker--partnering with the open source community, for example, to enable the developing world capitalise on shaking its dependency from Microsoft--all without necessarily forcing Google down everyone's throat. Whether in diplomacy or the virtual world of the Internet, players and actors like Google are needed. As long as Yahoo and Microsoft crowd out the African market--whether wittingly or not - there will be actors seeking to fill the vacuum, which Nature so fundamentally abors. 

Google, Microsoft on the Net, Which is the Fairest of  Them Yet?

By E.K.Bensah II 

All hail the desktop browser!  

The story goes that we are fast forgetting that we have a desktop and confusing it with our browser, and what it can actually do. When was the last time you complained, for example, that the computer was slow, when you really were thinking that it was the computer? At least, this is what Ed Burnette of Zdnet blogs is alleging.  

He maintains that his wife runs Windows XP on a Dell machine, yet had been complaining that the computer was “slow”. Consequently, he checked viruses, spyware; crapware; startup programs - all to check whether these might be the source of the problem. He even checked the Windows task manager to see whether any unusual programme was eating up the CPU or I/O. There was nothing. 

It turned out that the problem was too many plug-ins in no less…than the browser itself! Apparently, his wife had been using, among many other plug-ins, a Google toolbar plug-in; a Real Media plug-in and another bunch that was not recognizable. These were ultimately removed to make the browsing experience that his wife was so used to more efficient.  After re-starting the computer and the browser, the computer was “fast” again. 

To Burnette, in his wife's eye, it was the browser that was the computer: “everything was in the browser. It was the *browser* that was slow, not the computer.” More importantly, it spells what he calls “a major paradigm shift” that has occurred in the way computing is “surfaced to users.” 

In my view, Burnette's anecdote could be read as a cautionary tale of the extent to which we have sought to obtain instant gratification from our computer experience. Issues of connectivity and tele-density notwithstanding, it's as clear as crystal that the near-ubiquity of broadband internet that is tantamount to a - presumed -- 24/7 connectivity has created a situation whereby we feel we ought to *also* get the quickest access to any information we want--and not just because time is money. Even with dial-up access to the internet, we are willing to be a bit more patient, knowing that the speed does not measure up with what broadband could offer, whilst simultaneously hoping that the page we want will load up as quickly as it can! 

Still, the point about the browser becoming the new “desktop” is certainly not to be sneezed at. We've all been used to Microsoft's Internet Explorer as the more dominant of browsers. However, with up-and-coming new kids on the browser block, it's important to be circumspect of what browser will optimise your internet experience. 

Who's the Fairest?

Small wonder, then, that trawling the web would reveal a slew of compare-and-contrast articles of some of the latest browsers, which include Internet Explorer; Norway-based Opera; Safari; and Google-sponsored Firefox.  

The latest article by CNET.com.au compares these four without fear or favour, bringing us the latest versions of these browsers, and what's new about them. 

Quite a number of these browsers have released early versions of their work--known as betas--with a view to obtaining comments and suggestions from users who will offer constructive critique of what is and is not great about the browser. These include Mozilla FIREFOX 3.0, beta4.0, which has released version 3.0 and Opera browser 9.5 beta.  

As someone who has been priviledged to use all three browsers, I can say that Internet Explorer is a browser that I grew up with, and I have yet to see anything extraordinarily cutting-edge that it offers. Opera, on the other hand, is one that facilitated my learning of HTML more easily than the latter, because of its simple interface and user-friendly layout. As for Mozilla's FIREFOX, the browser was recommended me by a friend last year; and other internet café assistants have recommended it off-the-cuff when they encountered a problem in, say, printing. 

In 2008, I combine Internet Explorer with OPERA (if only for nostalgic reasons) and FIREFOX. I use Internet Explorer, because it works better--as the article maintained--in an office environment, given that Microsoft pioneered efficient office networking; and use OPERA to store pages (or tabs) that I use more often, such as gmail; news sites; and Yahoo Answers (among many other pages of interest), which I know I can open every day without having to re-open the same pages an interminable number of times. FIREFOX also has this functionality of tabs that can be stored for any subsequent internet sessions, all making for a more optimal browser experience. 

All that said, my opinion might not be as important as what is officially being said by, say, CNET.com.au. In its view, the prize goes to Mozilla FIREFOX primarily because it “has great features, impressive improvements all-round, a revised bookmarking system [you simply click on a star in the browser to bookmark]; and thousands of add-ons…”. On Internet Explorer, the article writes: “While Internet Explorer has attempted to innovate, it's simply evolution, not revolution.”  

Finally, for all those users of Apple's Macintosh machines I have done a disservice to, you will be happy to know that out of the browsers that were reviewed for Macs, both Opera (version 9.26) and Firefox 2.0 were up there, with Firefox obtaining this plaudit: “Firefox is by far the most extensible browser, thanks to its support for add-ons--from full-featured RSS readers to image-management capabilities.”   To read more about the other browsers for Windows users, you can visit the link at: http://www.cnet.com.au/software/internet, and for the Mac ones, visit macworld.com. 

Soft Power, Nato-Style

Belgium's *La Libre Belgique* reports that as of 2 April, the 27-member-and-Brussels-based North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) that was responsible for over-riding the UN Charter in 1999 to launch attacks on Kosovo, in Eastern Europe, will be launching its own TV channel on http://www.natochannel.tv.  

According to the Alliance's spokesperson James Appathurai, images from the website--which launch was scheduled to coincide with the ongoing Heads of State meeting in Bucharest--will be accessible to members of the public via the original Nato website on nato.int. Journalists will be able to obtain a password to enable them download images for their reports. There will also be a space for blogs. 

The rationale behind all this explicit propaganda stems from Nato Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer who has said that as far as the portrayal of real-time events in Afghanistan is concerned, Nato is still in the “stone age”. In that regard, the Alliance is losing the war on the “battle of the media” in Afghanistan. 

Since 2003, Nato has been in Afghanistan, with a force of 47,000 men, comprising 39 nationalities. Let's not be surprised that soon, Nato will be on YouTube! Can the African Union or, closer to home, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) learn any lessons from this? Imagine the boost for Africa had last week's African Union military intervention in the Comoros island been captured on an Internet-based African Union television channel! 

There Will be YouTube

By E.K.Bensah II 

Three Sundays ago, Pakistan was in the news for having managed to successfully block the ever-popular online video site YouTube. What caused jitters among the IT community was the fact that this block truly and surely served to remind us that the world wide web is not as robust as we think.  

Ofcourse, we had always known it. None of us could have pretended to think that any virtual system can be full-proof. It is for this reason that a number of international processes--as reflected by the UN-sponsored World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) - and others, such as the more recent Internet Governance Forum have been spawned--all with the sole aim of ensuring that some of these topics can be dealt with as delicately, meticulously and comprehensively as possible. 

To think, though, that a government can, on a whim, decide to block access to a worldwide website, because a right-wing Dutch politician has decided to post a video of a film he intends releasing that decries Muslims, ought to be a cause for concern primarily because it underscores the increasing fear that governments - both in the West and otherwise - have of these mass-democratising mass mediums. I use “mass democratising” to remind us that though they do not explicitly serve to act as agents of democracy, they foster an openness that we have all come to accept as an attendant part of democracy. 

Both The World Socialist Website and AsiaTimes Online are united in believing that the concern must be amplified to the point of citizens sitting up, smelling the coffee and ensuring that measures are put in place so that such free speech is not stymied.  

According to AsiaTimes, the other concern stems from how it was possible for the Pakistani government to prevent the rest of the planet seeing the site; it believes they are capable of doing it again. The paper speculates that “whether it be man or Mother Nature that causes damages to these systems, the end result is the same: Internet blackouts.”  

Forget science fiction, this is science fact

The blackouts caused by the blocking of YouTube by the Pakistan government are no figments of a puerile imagination predicated on science fiction; this is very science fact. The long and short of it is that the state-owned Pakistani telecommunications company not only blocked domestic access , but also broadcast instructions to a global audience(!) claiming to be the legitimate location for the website. It was this that caused a blackout affecting two-thirds of all websurfers for two hours on the Sunday in question, as internet routers across the globe were “instructed” (electronically and automatically) that YouTube's range of internet  addresses (IP's) originated from the false directions sent by Pakistan Telecom.  

In essence, what happened was a major deflection by the Pakistani government which “fooled” the routers in question - crucial for facilitation of internet - into thinking they were going to YouTube, when, in actual fact, they were going to a “black hole” that the Telecom authority had created so that users could not access YouTube. 

At the time of writing, the ban is over - but not in Armenia. 

More countries

Earlier this week, and in a totally-unrelated issue, an email was sent to a website along with a photo-capture of Armenia's access to YouTube having been blocked. The message read “ERROR: The requested URL could not be retrieved”, and you could see that the site was “youtube.com.”  

This latest ban comes in the wake of unrest in the East European country of Armenia, where the president has declared a state of emergency in the capital since 2 March. Consequently, no media is permitted to broadcast any information except official announcements. In what looks like a popular knee-jerk response by censors of free speech, we can already begin to see a pattern that is bound to repeat itself in the future. The rationale, I suppose, is that these censors believe that by cutting off what the-then Prime Minister of Great Britain Margaret Thatcher, in the eighties, called the “oxygen of publicity” -- in reference to what her country considered terrorists(the IRA)--including the internet, no-one can secretly broadcast the true state of affairs in the censored country. I believe that these reactions are not without reason. 

Popularity

According to Marketingvox.com, the online free encyclopaedia Wikipedia has been unseated by YouTube as the most popular social-media websites in the UK, “increasing traffic 56 percent from January 2007” to reach a whopping 10.426 million unique visitors in January 2008. One can imagine that it is not just in that country that it has become a phenomenon. It is a relatively easy-to-register-application - just like many of the social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, and can be registered by anyone anywhere. One can imagine that this ubiquity can necessarily be found wanting by those keen to censor free speech. 

If we forget about free speech-censors for a minute, this popularity, however, has found expression in a negative kind of trend that is emerging in workplaces. 

According to the Wall Street Journal, online video watching - especially through YouTube - has slowed productivity to the point that bandwidths of offices are being affected. 

The story maintains that companies across the US are preventing their employees from using and accessing Internet-video services at work, believing that they strain the bandwidth - necessary for work-related elements to pass through - to the extent that they almost slow the whole network of an area down. A study released last month by Nielsen Online, an internet tracking service, states that the heaviest consumption of the bandwidth is during weekday lunch hours between 12pm and 2pm. 

Such videos are reputed to be about seven times as large as audio files and 100 times as large as email. This has called into question the need for a policy by IT administrators and managers on the handling of the consumption--and the simple blocking of it seems to be the most effective way of helping conserve resources for a company, especially the very-often-costly internet.  

The future is still YouTube

With devices, such as the 8.1 mega pixel CASIO EX-Z9 -- possessing a 2.6-inch wide LCD display that enables users to easily navigate camera operations and enhance the review of images, as well as the “YouTube Capture Mode”, which allows videos to be recorded and uploaded directly to YouTube in as few as three steps - you could be forgiven for thinking that the future will be YouTube. CASIO may have pioneered this, but we can expect to see more brands and devices to have these functions. Those censors of free-speech might just have to ban such devices from shops, even if they are retailing--like this one--for around GHC150! 

Whether we like it or not, YouTube is here to say, and dare-I-say-it, there will be, in the subsequent months and years, more of it. 

PRACTICAL GUIDE & ANALYSIS:

Showcasing Ghana 2008 with ICT (I)

I had thought that given that it has been exactly a week since Sulley Muntari saved Ghana from disgrace at the 90th minute in the Ghana-Guinea game, normalcy would set in. Then I remembered that as Leonardo di Caprio’s character as a mercenary in Blood Diamonds said to an inquisitive American journalist investigating those diamonds, TIA-- or “This is Africa”.

More specifically, “This is Ghana”, where there are variations of normalcy as far as soccer is involved, but even more so, when football comes home. It is clear that on the ICT front, given the enthusiasm surrounding CAN2008 and the matches, there will continue to be more text messaging than ever.

Last Friday when I was leaving the office for home, I overheard a colleague exclaim to another that “I’ll call you when [Ghana] wins”, adding shortly after that “as for that, I can spare my credits!” Undoubtedly, the camaraderie created by the soccer fiesta is a magnificent reminder of how you most definitely do not need NOKIA to connect people via ICT (tools)!

Whilst we are making a lot of noise about showcasing Ghana, might we turn to some of existing sites out there helping to do just that.

Everywhere You Go
It’s true—it’s everywhere you go; they’ve even got a yellow un-flyable plane at the Tetteh-Quarshie interchange – but they are there. They also happen to be headline sponsors of Ghana’s national team--the Black Stars. Not all is necessarily bad on the MTN front, however. On your mobile phone—through GPRS—you can visit the company’s website mtnfootball.com/mobile. There, you can see summary of results of the latest game, including the score line, and a commentary of how the game went as it was being played.

The London-based Guardian website’s football page on football.guardian.co.uk is also a place to check. I don’t know which news site started the ball-by-ball commentary first, but I re-call that in the 2006 World Cup, those monitoring the Ghanaian games for the Guardian site brought a whole different feel to their game. Coverage of The Cup of African Nations is no exception—for the website, considered one of the most popular online newspapers around, is sure to thrill. You can also get in on your mobile by going to football.guardian.co.uk/pda.

Last June, I opted to leave the oft-inanity of Ghanaian radio to listen more to the BBC World Service. I knew I was right in doing so—as are many BBC listeners, who know they are getting unparalleled quality news and commentary when they listen to news or sport. Just to highlight: a colleague, disappointed by the lack of running commentary for GTV’s coverage of the Ghana-Guinea game last Sunday, decided he’d stick with the station and listen to the commentary from no other than the BBC World Service’s station on 101.3FM.

All that said, accessing CAN2008 score lines and reading up about the tournament on your mobile may prove to be a bit more challenging for your mobile. This is because whereas you can access BBC’s African football website on an easy-to-remember URL like bbc.co.uk/africanfootball, on your mobile, it’s no walk in the park; it’s more like a run through badly-cut grass: news.bbc.co.uk/mobile/bbc_sport/football/internationals/! Once you get there, simply click on “Africa Cup of Nations 2008”, and get access to the best of BBC Sport.

Finally, Ghana almost passes the online test with the official Ghanacan2008.com website. Small trick, however, is that you need to access that site via this URL: ghanacan2008.com/fixtures.php. The site is not designed specifically to accommodate mobile phones, hence the need to add the “PHP” extension, which is optimal for computer-based (HTML) web browsers. If you’re looking for news, pictures, and more, you are sure to find it here. Small caveat on the pictures is that the output will be optimized if your phone has a 640X480 or VGA screen, or higher.

Government is Coming Home!
Forget the fact that the ever-popular social networking tool that is FACEBOOK is all the rage these days. Be afraid; be very afraid -- for government is coming closer to home than you might ever want it to. Over-the-moon by the opportunities inherent in the so-called Web 2.0 world that we live in now, where social networking is globalised, and where everyone can connect together in some sort of digital exuberance, Western governments are leaving behind e-government, and replacing it with Web 2.0.

The managing director and COO of Government Insights that came out with a report about this trend says: “Gov 2.0 will replace e-gov as governments seek to gain additional value from citizen interaction and business transactions.” Inevitably, the cue here is the interactivity enshrined in the Web 2.0, which governments are keen to exploit. I specifically use “exploit”, because there’s a double-edged sword inherent within this trend. To me as a private individual, it’s screaming “where’s my privacy!.” I can expect, however, that those seeking to implement it are thinking that it will foster “greater participation and dialogue with citizens.”

What I can personally tell you about the experience with Facebook is that the more Web 2.0 applications are added to the system, the more it has put me off visiting—never mind using Facebook! Being bombarded by “Funwalls” and messages sent to “all friends” and being asked to send imaginary drinks to friends no longer becomes a boon to the pretenders of tech-“savviness”! I can very well imagine government departments adding so many applications to their websites to “enhance dialogue with citizens” they end up eating their own tail, and realizing that Web 2.0 just might be the future—but not for governments.

Showcasing Ghana 2008 with ICT (2)

So, you are keen to show Ghana off to the world—especially after that resounding trounce by the Black Stars, of Morocco. Even if we are a week away from the finals of the 26th edition of CAN 2008, it is still never too late to do one’s bit for Mother Ghana.

Camera Never Lies
Your average digital camera of between 4-5 mega-pixels can take a close-up picture of even your television set. Maybe you were not at the stadium, but you would like to be original? Grab your camera, focus it on the TV set, and capture (replays of) the image of the symmetrical Essien-Muntari delivery for posterity.

You can toe the line, if you are armed with your camera phone—but do bear in mind that unless you are holding a NOKIA N95, which already comes equipped with 5 megapixels (MP) your average camera phone will range from VGA--(640X480) to 2.0MP—enabled film quality. However, it will be a little less for wear—for the quality is never going to be tantamount to a dedicated digital camera.

After you have captured that picture, you might want to consider creating a video capture. Your average digital camera (be it SAMSUNG, CANON, KODAK or less well-known brands) will be equipped with video, but your mobile phone is a different kettle of fish altogether. Whether the capacity is unlimited or not, its ability to record clips depends – yet again -- on the capacity of your SD card. I found out very recently that the ever-popular MOTOROLA RAZR V3 flip-phone does not accommodate this type of card, going to confirm the suspicion that the aesthetics of a phone in no way determines its quality.

Once you’ve taken a video clip, you have to upload the picture somewhere. You can chose to store it on your computer or your laptop (if you have one). What you could also do is upload it onto the Internet. Question is where to?

Gee, this mail is good!
First of all, Google’s PICASA is a great place to start. By going to picasaweb.google.com/m/ on your phone, you will be asked to input your email and password. It’s preferable that you have a google mail, or GMAIL, account. Gmail, to be frank, is all the rage these days. For the fact that you can check any of your emails (yahoo is the only one that remains problematic being checked in gmail) through the service, and have unlimited and ever-expanding space (right now, it’s 63.4 GB and counting!) makes it a boon to both the luddites and tech-savvy people who might be both awed and impressed by the extent of this technology.

For instance, I have the priviledge of being able to check my work email through GMAIL—and respond to those mails accordingly. Excuses of not having received emails are (regrettably!) a thing of the past—as most people are cottoning onto how the service works. That my boss has now asked for assistance on the setting up of GMAIL has personally reminded me my bag of excuses around emails never being received have comprehensively bitten the dust!

In all seriousness, with your gmail account, you can access picasa on the web, and begin your uploading of those beautiful pictures of re-plays by our national team.

Secondly, FLICKR.com—a photo-sharing site—is also another great place to go. By clicking on http://www.flickr.com/tools/mobile/ , you can read up more about how to upload from your mobile phone. It might interest you to know that the top 5 camera phones uploading on that mobile site are: NOKIA N95; Apple I-Phone; Nokia N73; Sony Ericsson K800i and W810i. Incidentally, this is not a Google product--prepare to have your YAHOO email accounts ready for use on this site!

In order to avoid wasting more chances than striker Asamoah-Gyan in the Namibia-Ghana game last week, it might be a good idea to consider creating an online site where your thoughts can be recorded in reverse chronological order—or a blog.

Ready to Hit the Blogosphere?
For the past five years, blogs have also been the latest wrinkle, with one statistic claiming that in early 2007, bloggers would hit the 100 million point. You can imagine that if most Westerners are experimenting with blogs, then a fraction of that number will be by non-Western once, including African ones. This should not discourage you in setting up your own blog. A five-minute process, you can set up one on TYPEPAD.com; WORDPRESS.com and BLOGGER.com. The latter is one of the more popular platforms, and, you can probably guess, owned by Google.

Given that periods likes these turn the average citizen into an armchair strategist and well-experienced coach, why not take the opportunity to showcase some of your analysis and technical skills by writing and maintaining a blog—today!

Connecting Which People?
Nokia says that it’s done a survey, in which more than 50% of respondents in India, Pakistan and nearly 30% in Vietnam have indicated that they share, or would share, their mobile phone with family or friends. I don’t see Africa there, yet Nokia is keen to sell these to so-called emerging markets. Maybe Nigeria might get a look-in. Even so, no-one asked me whether I felt that would infringe my privacy. Whether it’s a cooked survey of the middle class within these countries or not, it can be argued that Nokia is living up to its slogan of connecting people by launching two new mobile phones—the Nokia 2600 and Nokia 1209.

Both phones are designed to be shared by five people, and both handsets would come with multiple phone books (one per person) and a cost-tracker, which would enable one see how much they have spent on calls.

The article from which I found this information claims this is an indication of “how in tune Nokia is with emerging markets.” I am not so convinced. What I do believe, though, is that there might be some value about phone-sharing, in the sense that an increasing number of families are buying mobile phones for the entire family—and not just the household. It’s probably about economics and convenience. The practicalities inherent in phone sharing may be challenging – ensuring that everyone gets to use the phone, for example – but, undoubtedly, we are led to believe that this is the way.

There will be Bluetooth
The new Nokia 2600 comes with a VGA camera (640X480), MP3 Player and FM radio, and will retail for €65.00, or around GHC80.00. The Nokia 1209, conversely, will go for €35.00. Just so that the phone-sharing makes sense, Nokia will most definitely be including nothing less than…Bluetooth.

It is interesting to note that despite the growing dominance of Bluetooth technology, there appears not to be any infra-red—unlike even some of the latest NOKIAs. Can we say that this means it’s dying a certain death?

Sleepless & Wireless in Accra (UNCTAD XII)

By E.K.Bensah II

I had the privilege of being a participant at the just-ended UNCTAD XII conference. In my view, it brought into very sharp relief not just how sophisticated international conferences have become, but how far the information society has come of age.

When I first started writing about the information society, I could almost imagine how high eyebrows might be raised at the prospect of such a society, where everyone is connected 24/7. Glitches notwithstanding, throughout the UNCTAD conference proper, that is exactly *how* connected we were. This is not some kind of digital exuberance; this is the reality of the twenty-first century, where ubiquitous internet connectivity is instrumental in our homes, work and private lives.

 Take the case of a colleague from a sister organisation in Geneva. Throughout the gathering, he was behind his laptop—either at the makeshift secretariat that had been set up for NGOs at the NGO centre – or in the official plenaries and roundtables making notes that he needed to collate and send back to Switzerland for publication. He was far from the only one. Back in the eighties when I would hit my pubescent period – before wireless and when I was even too young to know what international conferences were about – I re-call seeing on television people carrying huge notebooks and pens all over the place.

Today, the laptop is *de rigueur*. In other words, it has become a necessity not just by dint of its portability, but its utility, for if a laptop were useful only for playing DVDs and games, they would find precious space in people's luggage for meetings and conferences. That these portable devices have come to represent the (portable) version of what you would get on a desktop – in the manner in which it offers word processing and picture-upload capability and transfer (multimedia) among many other things – is one of main reasons why they have been recognised as important communication tools.

Battery woes

This is not to say that the pen and paper are dead—far from it—for one challenge about laptops is their battery. Very few are able to offer more than two hours battery life; when they do, it means you are paying rather steeply for a second battery. At UNCTAD XII, the pen and paper were great complements, for they enabled one to jot down ideas and prepare questions in a way that the laptop would not.

Then there is, of course, the A/C cord; the colleague in question had an issue of his cord being broken. It necessitated a change to a two-pin one for his trip back to Geneva. For the two days that that cord was not fixed, he could only use his laptop for some twenty-odd minutes, ensuring that he save every vestige of power he could. At the very worst, he worked on the desktop computers that the UNCTAD secretariat had provided the centre, so that the laptop could be spared. He did say one interesting thing that precipitated a lot of food for thought. When it was suggested him that he use my chord to beef up the power in his laptop, he decried how "that would force me to work even more." At one point he even lamented having broken from his work for dinner, when his laptop was waiting for him (to do some work)!

Creating 24/7 work?

While these may serve as funny anecdotes, in my view, it is also symptomatic of what I consider to be a worrying trend on how laptops and portable devices have legitimised the need to work *anytime*, which is not such a bad thing if you are a workaholic. For those of us that are not, that time for a break is critical for the soul in more ways than you can imagine, plus the fact that you get to take a break from staring or blinking incessantly at a screen that is bound to cause headache-inducing issues for the UN itself. I am not quite sure that the UN's International Labour Organisation would be very happy to see conference delegates working into the night to deliver reports on a conference of a sister organisation!

In all seriousness, at UNCTAD XII, the information society was well and truly alive—and very palpable. At the meetings, the laptops came in all shapes and sizes, and were, shall-we-say, well-ensconced on thighs (of all shapes and sizes) probably burning them against the very cold air conditioning flowing from the gargantuan systems that had been set up. Some of those who had their laptops on them were producing semi-transcriptions; others were writing draft reports; many others were simply writing notes from the meeting by capturing the essence of the discussions, with a view to sending them off to their organisations.

Some of these reports would turn into news items—and even blog posts—as exemplified by the Minneapolis-based Institute of Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) that produced no less than three rather detailed posts of the Civil society output as blog posts from 17-19 April and the main conference. The posts were produced by two of the staff that were here in Accra from Geneva and the US.

Africa (Bloggers) Disunited?

The blogging that was done by a few Western NGOs that were present at UNCTAD XII were so good that they put into shame the quasi non-existent blog entries by African civil society. Regrettably, parts of the African contingent spent quite a bit of time complaining *not* about the wireless so much as the mostly -English output of the civil society aspect of the conference. This was expressed in list-serves that were purposefully set up to facilitate communication among us, and face-to-face encounters. It was clearly a challenge that needs to be confronted.

Even more challenging however, was the extent of blogging by Africans. After the end of the conference, I surfed the blogosphere for inputs by Africans on UNCTAD XII. The owner of Africanloft.com, a popular social networking-cum-blogging site, emailed me to say that he was there at UNCTAD XII, and hinted that he would write a more comprehensive post after the conference. I only got his mail when I sent him two posts for upload, while simultaneously decrying the state of non-blogging by those who wrote about the African Union summit in June last year – also right here in Accra. Why were these same bloggers—even if they were unable to make it to Accra—not blogging about the issues discussed? Or was it a case of conference-fatigue by African bloggers?

I daresay my European and Western counterparts might have also suffered from conference-fatigue, hence their departure even before the closing of the conference—but still they stayed to write reports, send emails, and blog.

It seems to me that there remains a lot of work that needs to be done insofar as blogging about conferences are concerned. In 2001, when I also had the privilege of attending the UN Conference on Least Developed Countries in Brussels, Belgium, I knew nothing about blogging—even if it was not so hot in Europe at the time – but I regret not having captured much of the conference electronically. In 2005 at the World Summit on Information Society, I produced almost a tome of sometimes-useless banter about Tunis and its people, as well as on the conference itself on my blog about Ghana.

It has almost been three years, and the information society has progressed and advanced to degrees we never thought possible. With wireless, people can even send emails and write quick reports from the washroom! That is how ridiculously advantageous the society has become.

All that said, there remain serious challenges, which include the extent to which apathy of bloggers contribute—or not—to the development of a more pluralistic information society. The West can afford to be apathetic, because of the many advances they have undergone; we in the developing world have less to be complacent about. To date, blogging remains one of the most democratising practices around for the Global South. If we as developing countries fail to maximise how it can help us foster a better society, then we might have gone wireless alright, but forever-sleepless in the search to make not just the information society, but society in general better for us all.

Mobile Madness, and Pie-in-Who’s-Sky?

With the New Year upon us, our first technological port of call is ineluctably going to be our mobile phones—be it for contacting family, friends and acquaintances, or avoiding calls from colleagues (!). It is important to remember that gone are the days when the mobile phone was a simple communications tool for receiving and/or making calls, as well as a conduit for text messaging.

Off late, it has in effect been transformed into a veritable mini-computer, what with GPRS capabilities; integrated camera and/or video; Bluetooth and even MP3 tunes—sometimes all bundled into one phone.

While it is evident that dedicated cameras, videos, and MP3 players are no real substitute for integrated ones, these developments have only gone to underscore the increasing convergence beckoning us at the cusp of the information society. As I have indicated earlier, whether we like it or not, that society is here to stay, and as we go through 2008 into the next decade, these latter developments will become commonplace.

Even so, while these are the dominant technologies, I would like to offer a few ways of optimizing the usage of functions on your phone to make your time and your device more effective and efficient.

You’ve Got Mail

Let us start with the text messaging area, which some NOKIA phones call “messaging.” Whether this or not, I recommend taking a closer look at where you create, edit and send text messages. Phones have evolved from simply creating, sending and archiving messages to even moving them into dedicated folders so it’s easier to locate where your messages are.

Look to see whether you can create folders. Even the NOKIA 6610, launched in 2003/2004 had begun to offer folder creation for one’s text messages. In 2007, there are phones like those of the NOKIA N-series and MOTOROLA Z-series, which enable you move files into customized folders, thereby easily filtering your messages. It goes without saying that for those of us who like to keep messages at “maximum validity” (permanent), your text messages become as important to keep as your important email messages.

The other day, a neighbour lamented how, though satisfied with what looked like a second newer phone, disliked the fact that he was unable to send messages to many people simultaneously. For the person, a phone had to have that core function, lest it lose its utility. A good friend of mine has equally lamented the limited space that comes with their MOTOROLA L6i that would enable them enjoy greater storage of downloads from no less than their GPRS! Implicit in these short anecdotes is the point that to each mobile phone user and their own (preference), and as the information society becomes that much more converging and the user becomes that much more sophisticated, so will the trend of users becoming more function-specific increase accordingly.

Since we are still on the important item of sending data, let us quickly shift to Bluetooth.

Get your Mobile Spirits up by going Blue

In my last article, I indicated that Bluetooth technology had pretty much killed the infra-red one; this is not wholly true: let us just say that infra-red is comatose, on the grounds that some phones—notably newer NOKIA ones, like the 5300, offer both infra-red and Bluetooth.

If the eponymous infrared was about sending data via what looked like a red light, Bluetooth is about sending wireless data at a greater radius. On most mobile phones, it is indicated as — not surprisingly – a blue logo or, depending on the sophistication of the phone, a blue light. The greater radius that it spans enables users enjoy a more efficient data transfer of music—be it MP3 or ring tones—and contacts; files; and pictures to other mobile phone users.

Most interesting about Bluetooth is the fact that it rarely discriminates against other mobile phone brands, in the sense that whether it’s a small Bluetooth-enabled 2006 MOTOROLA model or the latest SAMSUNG, NOKIA, or LG phone, you can bet your bottom dollar that you can connect two or more of these phones together by locating the device, and sending data to it. If you are privileged to be working with a laptop, which these days comes equipped with the technology, life is made all the more easier, as activating your Bluetooth laptop with your phone allows for a more efficient communication of the two devices.

No Merry Mail Migration

In what one might consider a reinforcement of Google’s increasing influence online, subscribers of the UK-based Sky broadband service found them, according to a BBC news report in November, scratching their heads in wonderment at the marriage of convenience initiated by Sky, wherein it started using G-Mail – instead of its own mail servers for its broadband service.

Migrating – or moving – from one domain to another is rarely a technological walk in the park, but even more challenging for these subscribers has been the step-by-step guide allegedly provided them to make necessary changes. One huge spanner in the whole setup has been the users own understanding of how to change the configuration of their mail program to use the right servers for POP and SMTP, which are internet protocols used to receive and send mail respectively.

At the time of writing, the BBC news website suggests the changes have been made with the facilitation of a Forum provided subscribers by Sky. However, what might elude observers of this development if we are not careful is why this mini-crisis at all. Furthermore, it raises the real and important question of how goes about improving a service like broadband, which almost ninety percent of UK users use, without disrupting the subscriber’s technological comfort zones of understanding.

Another challenge this has spawned is the taking for granted of technological literacy that subscribers may or may not have. If what was supposed to be a simple guide could not be understood by these-same subscribers, what does that say about reconciling the future of the information society and its many terminologies with the increasing reliance by citizens of this high-tech society?

Happy New Year!

Techno-Activism 101

By E.K.Bensah II 

Technology as both you and I know it has changed our lives in unprecedented ways. Look at the fact that in the EU, the 27-member states are trying to use technology of “talking cars” to reduce traffic. Back here in the sub-region in particular, significant trends in mobile telephony are leaving most of us over-awed by the rapid pace. Specifically in Ghana, all the networks--bar one--employ 2.5 G services that enable customers to enjoy GPRS, or Internet browsing. Incoming Nigerian telco Globacom has talked about offering 3G. In UN circles, the International Telecommunications Union is even talking about the next generation that will be known as 4G. 

After all these, you might think, how far can technology go? Indeed, even further, as far as activism is concerned. 

Blogging-activism

Today, having a blog--or an online weblog that enables one to chronicle their entries in reverse chronological order - might be de rigueur for the information society cognoscenti. Even those that would consider themselves Luddite have tried their hands at writing and maintaining one. Nowhere is this more used than in the States, where hundreds of thousands of bloggers are born every day into a blogosphere replete with all types of blogging. Gradually, it has become an instrument of communication that comes as part and parcel of any website. Most domain names these days come automatically with a blog. Irrespective of how basic it might be, it provides the space for one to try their hands at expressing themselves. While many use blogs as conduits for expressing their creativity, or chronicling their lives, it is possible to use it as a tool of activism. 

If you consider the fact that your personal blog provides fertile ground for your creativity to blossom, it stands to reason that it remains a prime space to produce focused entries that flow from a main idea you want to agitate about. Say you are concerned about sanitation in Accra. You might want to use the blog to produce entries on the state of play of sanitation in Accra, and slowly evolve logically towards parts of the metropolis that are making an attempt to clean the capital, and possibly include interviews of authorities that are involved in maintaining the sanitation of the capital.  

Once you start, it's important to look out for blogs that are similar to yours. A blog is no use without readers. Some place premium on comments rather than the latter, but it does stand to reason that readers will bring the comments. You can start of by going to http://search.blogger.com, which is not just owned by Google, but is the main search engine for the free blogger.com platform. There, you will find entries that might be similar to yours. Even if you do not, and you find yourself blazing the trail by writing about a subject that no-one has dared write about, visit others from different countries. You are likely to find that someone outside this country might be blogging about a similar subject.   

Who's Facebook?

The next, visceral, step is to gravitate towards Facebook. Even if you might not have an account with the ever-popular social networking site, it is hard to escape the appeal that it has. For so-called techno-activists, Facebook is a magnet for generating a certain kind of momentum you would not get with a blog. First of all, Facebook enables any account-holder to create groups for specific purposes. Back in 2006 when some of us were campaigning in the sidelines to expose the actors and processes around the attempted sale of the Agricultural Development Bank by Stanbic Bank, Facebook proved to be a useful tool in aligning, as it were, Ghanaian facebookers interested in stopping the sale. Secondly, the social networking site automatically creates links of people's interests. This is paramount in identifying allies and possible constituents that can carry the cause for which you are agitating for -or against. 

Next week, we'll be looking more closely at how the many social networking-related sites out there--from African Loft to Global Voices online - have created significant avenues for personal expression. 

What a Difference a week away from Technology makes

By E.K.Bensah  

If a week is a long time in politics, in technology, it must be a terribly long one. I had barely blinked away from this column, when the technology news in free-fall. From, the celebration of Google's ten years, the launching of Google's Chrome browser to the launch of the call centre by the National Road Safety Commission, there was no escape from the juggernaut-like pace of the news. 

Truth be told, this trend excites me, because it further underscores the importance that technology has obtained, running almost at par with international business news. As I explained a couple of issues ago, news of Microsoft and Google these days is not only confined to technology news, for the global capital that technology brings these days makes them big players in the business world. 

But back to last week. 

I had the privilege of working behind the scenes at the CSO Forum of Aid Effectiveness, held at the Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons at Ridge. I was with an ICT team comprising three other people consummate IT professionals, who all ensured that the wireless at the venue was working top-notch. The day before the conference, they delivered the computers and some four laptops, which would serve the media throughout the conference. A few glitches notwithstanding, the three days proved to be a success mostly on account of my other three colleagues who spent some sleepless nights ensuring that everyone could access the Internet once the ball started rolling on the big issues. I heard later that the team obtained special commendation for a good job-done. Kudos to Stephen, Andy and Kwami, who came all the way down from Kumasi! 

That the guys did great is important, but even more telling is the technology behind the success: routers and bandwidth. It was not just thanks to the wireless routers that everything went smoothly, but also bandwidth. The online encyclopedia Wikipedia describes bandwidth as “the amount of data transferred to or from the website or server within a prescribed period of time.” The truth is that it is more than that: the data is all well-and-good, but the *amount* of data is primordial, because less bandwidth means an insufficient transfer of data, and slower connections. I learnt from my colleagues that the bandwidth for the venue, which was some four-storey's high, with a 500-odd-seater auditorium was a considerable 1GB! This meant that not only those who were staying in the accommodation on the fourth floor were able to access their internet seamlessly, but everyone who entered the auditorium to listen to the plenary meetings. 

Seamless internet as a distraction

As one might expect, a good number of the Western participants brought their laptops. As some of the assistants went round trying to pass microphones for people to make interventions, one could have sworn that if the location were a bit darker, a good part of the room would be lit with the light of laptops--which is not such a bad thing, just in case there were a blackout (which there was on one rather embarrassing moment when people were trying to print their statements at the Secretariat). What was not as good was the extent to which they were potential distractions.  

Far be it for me to judge what people use their laptops for--and no-one can dispute their utility--but compounded with uninterrupted and free internet, it struck as odd to the discerning observer that quite a number of those behind their laptops were checking their email, and webpages that really had nothing to do with the Aid effectiveness forum. At a plenary like that, it struck me as only going to reinforce the idea that expensive international conferences need to do a bit more in bringing participant's attention to bear on the issues at hand. That goes beyond a technology issue; it's simply about participants being disciplined about what they can do with the technology they have for the benefit of their time at the conference!

Google puts a shine on the browsing experience

That said, the news was not all doom and gloom for the week. As we all now know, Google launched its new browser, Chrome, at the very beginning of the month to a curious world still mostly using Microsoft's Internet Explorer, or Mozilla Firefox. A quick visit to Google.com.gh and I was downloading Chrome. I don't want to spoil the experience for anyone, but it is important to add that the interface is a sleek and simple design that belies the speed of the searches. Once you download the programme, it will readily ask you to close the browser you are using so that it can import bookmarks. That is a standard, but what is not is the speed with which it conducts searches in the navigation toolbar. You can change the default search from Google to any other search engine.

A curiously interesting element of the Chrome browser is that whenever you visit a website, it automatically creates a screen capture of the site, aligning as many of the sites you visit similarly on the main home page. This has to be straight from the Norway-based Opera 9.51, where it has a home page, which it calls “Speed Dial”, where, in this instance, the user actually customizes what page he wants a screen capture of on his home page. Chrome just does it automatically, but limits it, as far as I can see, to six boxes, whereas Opera gives you nine.

What a difference the browser makes

I did a search of neutral words like “European Commission” and “African Union” in Opera; Internet Explorer 8.0 and Mozilla Firefox in the navigation bar. In Opera, it takes you to a Google listing of the search words. Internet Explorer also does the same, albeit a fraction of a second more slowly. Meanwhile, Mozilla Firefox actually takes you to the *homepage* of the EU and the AU. Will get back to you on how Google Chrome treats it. Firefox even took me to the homepage of the UN and ECOWAS when I typed it in the navigation bar, when none of the other browsers had a clue, taking me mostly to a Google listing of my search!

Is this a sign that this is the generation that veritable belongs to Google? Given that even Microsoft's Explorer chooses to list findings in Google in the navigation bar, you have got to wonder!

On a more serious note, Google's celebration of its ten-year anniversary last week and the low-key event of it probably signals the quiet confidence that the corporation has about where it's going.

Vivian Reding Corner

Back in the EU, the EU Commissioner for Information Society is working hard as ever to ensure that the consumer wins. Her latest move, coming at the heels of the European Parliament failing to back proposals for the EU to fully regulate the telecoms sector, is that of putting together plans that will enable consumer and business telecoms customers find cheaper deals.

Although there is nothing definite yet, it is clear from the proposals that the commissioner is keen for the law-making body to have a say in the regulation of telecoms market of EU countries.

It looks like it's going to be a while for the Pan-African Parliament--the putative law-making body--of the African Union, which power is limited to making recommendations, to start voting in favour of, or against regulations of any of the formidable 53-member AU countries!

Road Safety goes hi-tech

Efforts to ensure some degree of road safety was given a boost last week when the National Road Safety Commission launched its call centre to “to promote compliance with road safety regulations, reduce traffic contraventions, identify regular traffic offenders and increase the quality of traffic information.” Too often and for far too long, Ghanaians have been dying needlessly on the road. Even if TV stations have not thought about the idea of an MMS server to capitalize on the exponential growth of camera phones in the system helping promote road safety, at least this centre is a commendable start in the fight against unnecessary deaths.

Speaking at the launch, Deputy Minister of Transport Magnus Opare-Asamoah explained that “This facility has the full compliment of key agencies such as the Ghana Police Service, Fire Service, Regional Road Safety Coordinators, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority and all the other road agencies.” So far, it operates on ONETOUCH and KASAPA numbers, which can be contacted toll-free on 0800.10.800 and 10.800 respectively.

Listless & Unwired @ the ACP Summit in Accra

By E.K.Bensah  

I had yet-another priviledge of participating in an international conference -- the just-ended Sixth Summit of the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States, which was held here in Accra last week. The relative positive outcome of the meeting notwithstanding, as far as technology was concerned, the meeting could have done a great deal better. 

Loving your laptop without wireless

If the laptops have become de rigeur at international gatherings, at this one, it was virtually non-existent on account of the simple fact that there was no wireless connection at the whole Accra International Conference Centre (AICC). It struck me as odd given the importance of a meeting like this, so I spoke with the IT handler, who very frankly told me that only the registration tent had wireless. He continued that the Ministries organizing the event did not deem it necessary to offer wireless throughout the three-day summit of Heads of State.  

The first time the absence of wireless was brought into sharp relief was thanks to the noticeable number of laptops present during the ACP Council of Ministers and Joint Council of Ministers and ACP Foreign Affairs - you could count them on your fingers! Equally noticeable, and very encouragingly so, was the fact that those working on the laptops were, unlike at the CSO forum on aid effectiveness in August, working on the document they were deliberating on. The second time was at the Press Centre tent. About this one, one could not hide the frustration.  

Somehow, the organizers forgot that it was not only going to be Ghanaian press that would come to cover the meeting, but internationally-renowned ones from the BBC, Reuters, and outside Ghana. They would be the loudest to vent their frustration at the faceless organizers. To be fair, there was internet--but certainly not of a wireless kind. Although it was broadband, and not all of the cables had broadband allocated to them, it was a regular sight of press men waiting anxiously to get a connection to file a report to their respective wire agencies.  

Then there was the miniscule (if you could put it that way) internet café that was set up at the AICC: a miserly five computers, which meant that whether you were a delegate or a press person in need of quick access to a computer, you would have to wait interminably before someone had finished sending a lengthy email or downloading a YouTube video (can you imagine!).  

Viruses galore

As if that were not bad enough, only one computer out of those available had an anti-virus! I had the unhappy experience of having a strange folder called “My Gurls” created on my pen drive the very moment I inserted it into the USB space, and having all the folders transform into “.exe” files. When I pointed it out to the IT handler, he was initially in denial that there was a virus, instead accusing me of having had them on. In any event, I pointed out to him that I had used it on my laptop, and it was clean. When he got round to cleaning the pen-drive, the anti-virus programme found over hundred viruses! He didn't bother asking me which folders I wanted deleted or quarantined, promptly having all my files deleted--very much to my chagrin! 

Peace with the phones

Apart from a delegate's strident ring-tone at the opening, most of the time, the phones were used I would suppose for lobbying, or contacting key people within the conference grounds for assistance. Surprisingly, I saw less texting here then at the last conference I attended, and am unsure whether it had anything to do with the wireless connection--or lack thereof! 

In conclusion, it is shameful to think that a conference of this magnitude would have slipped up quite a bit insofar as technology was concerned. It pales into comparison with April's UNCTAD XII conference. I am unsure whether to draw the conclusion, therefore, that, somehow, conferences organized by mostly African international organizations place less premium on some of the points I raised on wireless and having virus-free computers, or simply that the UN is more cognizant of the information society. 

The Conundrum of the Ghanaian Blogger

By E.K.Bensah II 

It is said that blogging is not for the faint-hearted, and that it requires considerable stamina to maintain. Like creative writing, when the block hits, it can be hard. Given that blogging is no exception to writer's block, it behooves all bloggers--both neophyte and otherwise--to brainstorm for ideas regularly. This means finding a central theme for your blog--either life in Accra, or aspects of life in Accra. Once that has been established, it makes it easier to focus on what to write about. Do note that the operative word here is “easier”, for as sure as day turns to night, you are going to encounter what I call “blogger's block”. Truth be told, there is salvation, for the astronomical emergence of Web 2.0 and soon, Web 3.0 technologies has spawned a number of indigenous African sites, such as Africanloft.com and Africanpath.com.

Existing Platforms

African Loft is a social networking site that behaves less like the proverbial Facebook, where you can interminably add friends and behave as a digital voyeur by giving in to the need to  #view the photos and life experiences of friends you have added (or have added you). Rather, though it provides a platform of expression for Afro-centric writers, it is a conceivable space for anyone with an interest in Africa and the Diaspora, or anyone interested in writing about Africa. Although there are currently 24 “authors” (who get priviledged access to write and submit posts on any topic for final review and posting by the site editor), the beauty of Africanloft.com is that anyone can be an author--as long as you have ideas on the above-mentioned themes. The “Africanness” of the site, at the end of the day, could be what is most appealing to those who choose to be authors. 

The “Africanpath.com” site is a different kettle of fish in the sense that its features are more limited. It still enables those seeking to project a positive view of Africa and its attendant Diaspora to blog, follow latest news that have been culled from sites, such as ghanaweb.com. Perhaps the most exciting aspect of the site is Africanpath villages, which can be accessed at http://village.africanpath.com. 

The African Facebook?

Until Africans begin creating social networks and communities themselves, they will be consigned to using Western ones as standards. Even the thought of calling Africanpath villages as an “Facebook” says something about the standard Facebook has registered in the rapidly-transforming information society. Created by Joshua Wanyama--also of Africanpath.com--it currently has a vertiginous 2,615 members, enabling, like Facebook, for users to create or join groups; exploit multimedia (video,  photo, podcasts); list events and blog. The layout is certainly very different for those who want to blog from the usual blogger.com, typepad.com or wordpress.com, but there still exists the possibility.

For Blogger.com, New Entrants Arise

Offlate, the Google-hosted blogging site has welcomed a wide array of bloggers who mostly are returnees filtering their life in Ghana through their experiences abroad. To get a sense of who some of these bloggers are, go to http://blogsearch.google.com and type “Ghana blogs” in the search field. This trends contrasts sharply with two years ago when it was almost-only foreigners that were blogging about Ghana. Some of the new entries include Abby, who's blog “Ramblings of a Procrastinator in Accra” chronicles a young Ghanaian lady who has returned home to find many distractions that make her procrastinate from her work, including Facebook, Google, and the plethora of Ghanaian food that exists to make one soporific after lunch! Then, there is “Que?”, who owns “Wherever I Lay My Hat”. He is a very well-educated young man who spent seventeen years of his life in London before returning to Ghana. He has been maintaining his blog since June 2008, writing about life in Ghana, the US elections, and a number of entries about music he is really into--and he's into quite a number, as he describes himself as a “Researcher by Day  
Writer/DJ by Night.”. 

The conundrum, then, lies where, exactly? It's all to do with commitment, and sustaining it. Bloggers generally are no stranger to running out of ideas to blog about, but Ghanaian ones even more so! 

Digitally-exuberant Presidential Flagbearers?

By E.K.Bensah  

Even the self-confessed apolitical animal cannot deny the extent to which we have all embraced what has universally come to be known as the information society, where rapidly-developing broadband internet (even in a small developing country like Ghana) can mean 24/7 internet - all at a relatively affordable rate for the increasing middle class. 

In this high-febrile election season, the presidential aspirants of the eight political parties vying for the Flagstaff House have been no strangers to the exploitation of the information society, where - increasingly - blogs, and websites dominate. A quick google search reveals that out of the eight presidential aspirants, only four have websites; and out of the latter, only three have fully-working sites. These are Convention People's Party (CPP); NPP; and NDC. The website of the DFP has not been updated with news for a while, and there is, in fact, none for the flagbearer Mr.Emmanuel Ansah Antwi. This contrasts sharply with the latter three parties that have made every effort to update the world on what their presidential aspirants are doing.  

NPP, NDC and CPP are Eager Beavers

Out of the three parties listed here, it is the both the NDC and NPP that make an attempt to inform visitors to their site more regularly. Hardly a day goes by without an entry going up on where the flagbearers have been. The NDC's site is in-your-face in the manner in which it uses a number of photos (sometimes “Photo of the Day”) to emphasize the importance of a visit by its flagbearer. It is crystal-clear that the webmaster must be behind the computer a lot of the time, ready to accept pictures for propaganda purposes. Curiously, the NPP's flagbearer is understated in showing pictures--there is a photo gallery--but makes up for that by using in-your-face fonts to draw attention to stories of how well its flagbearer is doing. 

Interestingly, the CPP's flagbearer, like the NPP's, has a main page of the flagbearer's name ending in either 2008 or 08.com. This is the main page, where you can donate or check out the MySpace/Facebook profiles of the flagbearers; but you can also skip this main page and enter the main site. Both campaign teams have done well to set up two domain names to maximize visitor attendance to their site. Though the Facebook profile of the NPP flagbearer is working, with some 4000 members as “friends”, the CPP's goes to a Facebook group with some 528 members following the flagbearer's campaign. My perusing of the NDC flagbearer's site revealed no Facebook/MySpace profile (unless it was hidden somewhere). 

Who's Blogging Better?

Blog-wise, the NDC campaign is doing slightly better by deploying an interesting tactic of updating its site as one would update his or her blog. In other words, news on the aspirant is tantamount to a blog--unlike the NPP, which has a blog, but was last updated in August! Searches indicated that the CPP's blog has not been updated for a while. I highly suspect that the campaign strategists have unwittingly substituted news for the presidential aspirant's site to that of its sister-site on http://www.theghanaianjournal.com, which describes itself, incidentally, as “Ghana's only electronic newspaper”, covering a wide array of Ghanaian news also that is apolitical. As expected, the Statesman newspaper's online edition continues to showcase the incumbent administration's presidential aspirant's policies-in-waiting using headlines that purport to show the flagbearer is ahead of his competitors. Many of the stories on the aspirant's website are almost identical to that of the Statesman's site. It is conceivable that perhaps the relative consistency of the NDC has been in maintaining only ONE site that has helped them focus on doing effective propaganda about their flagbearer. 

In the long run, it is difficult to tell whether these latest technologies will make or mar the presidential aspirants in their quest to head the country come 7 December. What is real is the manner in which all of the three maximized the opportunity of showcasing their flagbearers to the extent of providing visitors with mostly-fresh and brief news on the progress of the campaigns. It is unclear whether these will change the swing-voter. If you are one, do a google search now, and find out for yourself! 

How Metro TV & TV3 Fared in Ghana Election'08

By E.K.Bensah  

With the exception of the radio, I believe it is safe to say that the telecommunications medium that most Ghanaians used to tune into the coverage of the elections of last year was the humble-but-trusted television. Given that I was unable to cover what all the stations (TV Africa / TV3 / GTV/ NET2 / Metro TV) were up to, I will offer an analysis of the “big two”--that is to say TV3 and Metro TV. 

A Tale of Two TV Stations: TV3 Vs Metro TV

Some months before the elections on 7 December, TV3 had been offering a relatively good coverage of the news. With its penchant for dramatic music for both its TV news and specifically for the election, the station's reporters did well in bringing us up to speed with what was happening on the ground. I do not re-call there being any specialist segments--unlike with Metro TV--that went behind the scenes and gave us an insight into what was happening, but I think it is fair to say that as far as the elections go, it was outshone and outclassed by Metro TV. That I am already struggling to find anything distinctive beyond its regular news reporting suggests something might have gone awry. In my view, setting up coverage of the elections as “Election House '08”, was this side short of uninspiring. The tagline was, I felt, unnecessary; the station could have come out with something like “Election Watch”. While others had hung onto “Election centre”, “Election house” was, frankly, a bit drab. 

Metro pulled all stops

There we were sitting in front of the TV, watching Metro TV on Saturday 3 January when a bolt of lightning against the backdrop of Ghana's “Freedom and Justice” monument on the station struck our attention. It was Metro TV's usual dramatic graphics, coupled with music, giving us an overview of presidents-past. Before the historic Tain-decider that secured the presidency for President John Evans Attah-Mills, whenever that “segment” came up, it showed both “Nana/John”. That showed they were updating us, so it was a joy to see that the station had kept its bargain to inform us of the next president when on that Saturday, after the picture of outgoing John Kufuor, it showed the picture of Professor Mills, with the most dramatic (African) music I've heard. It gave me goose bumps, and it was hard for anyone else not to have been touched by the presentation that Metro TV had offered. 

If I have dwelled thus far on the graphics, it is not without reason: consistently, Metro TV did its best to engage viewers about the election--whether it was by way of “Memorable sound bites”, or a vox pop, it outclassed TV3. What the graphics did was to capture the viewer's attention and ensure that they stayed glued--and given the tension of the elections, both the incidental music and graphics used by Metro got us glued every day. Even the very day the provisional results were being announced, Metro TV had an already-tabulated format for easy viewing and digestion, whilst TV3 were just reading the results out. It took them a few days before they caught on, and started tabulating it for us.    

What I would say for TV3 was that when it came to delivering news at the normal time, it gave us the news when Metro would still be focusing on election coverage. To the both of them, though, I would say “job well, done”, but I will not hide it when I say that these days, I cannot wait to catch Metro TV news. I think TV3 needs to buckle up. It would be interesting to see the ratings of the TV stations during the election coverage; I am very confident of which station might have topped it! 

Telecoms Chamber is born

The Monday 29 December edition of the Daily Graphic reported a “statement of Intent” for the creation of a Telecoms Chamber. The objective is “to bring the [communications] industry together periodically to discuss matters of common interest to stakeholders.” It further maintains that it will “also deliver inputs for policies being developed for the sector”, with the bonus of offering papers and quarterly journals “on various mobile telecommunication related issues.” Curiously enough, only MTN; Zain; Tigo and Kasapa are represented in the Chamber; there is no ONETOUCH. One wonders whether when Globacom enters the market soon, they will be part of the chamber as well.

National Communications Authority Approves New Numbers

Given the rapidly-expanding telephony market, Ghana's telecommunications regulator has sought to act by publishing in the Monday 5 January edition of the Daily Graphic a media release regarding approved “additional numbering for telephony operators use in the country.” If it has not yet escaped your attention that Zain is now veritably established in the country, neither will it come as a surprise to you that its entry has prompted a necessary review of the phone numbering system. It is important to note that even if the mobile telephony aspect of Zain has been emphasized these past few weeks, it remains Ghana's second landline operator after Vodafone Ghana (formerly Ghana Telecom).

In that respect, the NCA has sought to review the numbers and approved new ones to accommodate the new entrants of Globacom, for example, that will use the “023” prefix. MTN will no longer start with “024”, but “054”, followed by the usual seven numbers. This means that if your current MTN number is, say, 0246.295.779, it will now be 0546.295.779.

As for the former Westel numbers that started with 021.70XXXXX, the new numbers will now be 030.70XXXXX and 022.70XXXXX, where X represents numbers after the main prefix. Seven other regions (Western; Ashanti; Central; Eastern; Brong Ahafo; Volta; and Northern) will start with 031 70xxxxx all the way to 037 70xxxxx. According to the release, the above assignments were supposed to commence on 1 December, 2008. We are a month now, yet there is no indication of it working. A quick try on at least the MTN ought to work; any number I have tried to call with new designation of 054 has so far proved futile. It might be a good idea for NCA to come again, and inform the public when they can begin using the new assignments!

Still on Ghana Telecom…Vodafone Ghana?

It was a report in the nation's biggest selling newspaper that I saw that Ghana Telecom was being referred to as “Vodafone Ghana.” Is there a timeline for Vodafone Ghana to officially launch itself as part of the Vodafone family? If not, why not? Will ONETOUCH remain retain the name (the website can still be accessed at the old address, with new promotions reflected there) or will it also change? These are some of the questions Ghanaians need serious answers to.

Accra Mall's Bluetooth Campaign

I have seen some billboards at selected shops within Accra Mall encouraging the public to switch on their Bluetooth, with the purpose of receiving discounts from (selected) shops on them. It's unclear how this service will work, but I suspect anything with the word “discount” is likely to prompt the average Kojo to give it a try. I'm unsure how it will affect the health of one's mobile phone, though, given how much it can drain a battery--not to mention the health implications on parts of the body for keeping such technology on. This can only prompt some questions about its validity, and why ever the humble text message, or SMS, was not considered instead? Privacy laws notwithstanding, there are ways of collecting consumer's phone numbers without breaching important laws; after all do we not get messages from some of the mobile providers when they want us to consume more of our units with a n SMS to enjoy x and y promotion?

I'll give it a go some day, and get back to you, but I would take my SMS anyday!

Technology 2008 in Review (1)

By E.K.Bensah  

The New Year of 2008 started with tremendous excitement for Ghanaians as they prepared for the upcoming Cup of Africa Nations. The news that Ghana was going to play host to thousands of tourists was a boon to the average hawker who made sure memorabilia and whatnot was polished to the max. Meanwhile, in the online world, the Western media had gone way ahead in terms of coverage, what with the BBC with a reporter in all of the regions that saw teams playing. It would not have been the BBC without the systematic reporting of it on BBC Focus on Africa and Network Africa, as well as updating of news on its bbc.co.uk/africanfootball website.  

The venerable BBC's Sportsworld programme that can be found on the 101.3FM dial here in Accra had a number of hours dedicated to reporting what was called the “football fiesta.” On this side of the paper, attempts were made to find out, first, which of the Western media outlets were covering CAN2008; the next step was then to see which of them was covering it online and in the mobile world. BBC stopped yet-again, but London's Guardian newspaper was not far behind. Over all, the month of January was spent reminding Ghanaians about the joys and beauty of blogging by using the occasion of CAN2008 to start. 

February brought blues for Microsoft

February and March was a different ballgame altogether, with news breaking that the online giant Microsoft, based in Redmond, Virginia, wanted to buy Yahoo for $44.6bn. Column inches were produced on no less than a good three editions, which meant that the story run for some three weeks-plus. The whole affair had been a mess, what with Microsoft wanting to buy, and Yahoo saying “I'll think about it”, then coming back later to say that “no, the amount is too little.” For the first time in a long while, Microsoft and Yahoo--dedicated, along with Google--to bringing us good searches were in the spotlight, with an eager-beaver Google ready to pounce on Microsoft, should it set any foot wrong.  

Still on the Microsoft-Yahoo saga, the article in March “No Country for Microsoft's Men” was perhaps this writer's most incisive and biting article yet, portraying Microsoft as a greedy giant: “Microsoft may be unpopular, but it's got a certain hold over us. None of us is deluded into thinking that the ability to use Microsoft packages does not make life easier for us. Or is it merely because we have been so used to it? The Free and Open Source Foundation would beg to differ. It, along with many in the open source software community, already have a bone to pick with Microsoft on account of the manner in which it is less than forthcoming on disclosing the codes it uses for its software.”

The reference to the Google-backed open source software community pointed to an emerging set of actors who have made it crystal-clear that they not only disliked Microsoft's expansionism but its policies on the provision of codes. Not to mention the fact that Microsoft had been involved in what can only be described as vote-rigging in Geneva, when it paid supporters to go and vote in an international meeting in Geneva to support the ratification of Microsoft's Open OXML for Microsoft Word 2007. 

High Noon with the European Commission

As if things could not get any worse for the online giant, the Brussels-based European Commission stepped into the fray all guns-a-blazing, ready to shoot down Microsoft by fining it a vertiginous 899 million euros ($1.35billion). Microsoft was left significantly disturbed, but this did not leave it any less the wear in its quest to buy Yahoo. All the time, Opera and Google were obtaining rave reviews, with Microsoft's popularity plummeting faster than the mythical Icarus flying against the sun. 

Meanwhile, this writer offered an overview of some of Yahoo's services, which included Yahoogroups and Yahoo Answers--two of the more patronised Yahoo services. 
 

YouTube versus Power

The tail-end of March saw Pakistan in the news--not over any conflict--but over what I described as the “mass-democratising medium” of YouTube. The Asian country had gone and successfully blocked the ever-popular online video site because a right-wing Dutch politician had decided to post a video of a film he intends releasing that decries Muslims. The significance of this was that it underscored the fear that governments have begun to have over these mediums, as well as the challenges that remain for its regulation under an international framework. The thriller in Pakistan went beyond the borders, stretching to the East European country of Armenia, where the president had declared a state of emergency in the capital since 2 March. 

On the plus side, a UK poll had revealed that “the online free encyclopaedia Wikipedia has been unseated by YouTube as the most popular social-media websites in the UK, “increasing traffic 56 percent from January 2007” to reach a whopping 10.426 million unique visitors in January 2008.”, meaning that despite these restraints, the juggernaut manner in which YouTube was advancing into the information society means that it cannot be stopped--at least for now. 

That said, the writer also looked at some of the negatives of worker's attitudes to YouTube: “According to the Wall Street Journal, online video watching - especially through YouTube - has slowed productivity to the point that bandwidths of offices are being affected.”

I went on that: “the story maintains that companies across the US are preventing their employees from using and accessing Internet-video services at work, believing that they strain the bandwidth - necessary for work-related elements to pass through - to the extent that they almost slow the whole network of an area down.” These developments can only spawn the need for a targetted and dedicated regulation not just of an international kind, but first, by office managers! 

In late March, Belgium's La Libre Belgique reported that 2008 was the year of the mobile phone--and that Yahoo was going to feature very heavily in that area. There was a suggestion that at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona held in February 2008, “these were some of the rising stars of the online world, and all the movements indicate that they are keen to make their mark on the mobile phone software world”. With all this said, there was a delicious irony in the paper's claim when pitted against the developments in February when Microsoft made its abortive attempt to buy Yahoo: here was Yahoo--second after Google in terms of search capability--outshining Microsoft--and having already ensconced its position as one of the leading mobile platforms, with its Yahoo Go! 

Accra Mall's Bluetooth Campaign

I have seen some billboards at selected shops within Accra Mall encouraging the public to switch on their Bluetooth, with the purpose of receiving discounts from (selected) shops on them. It's unclear how this service will work, but I suspect anything with the word “discount” is likely to prompt the average Kojo to give it a try. I'm unsure how it will affect the health of one's mobile phone, though, given how much it can drain a battery--not to mention the health implications on parts of the body for keeping such technology on. This can only prompt some questions about its validity, and why ever the humble text message, or SMS, was not considered instead? Privacy laws notwithstanding, there are ways of collecting consumer's phone numbers without breaching important laws; after all do we not get messages from some of the mobile providers when they want us to consume more of our units with a n SMS to enjoy x and y promotion?

I'll give it a go some day, and get back to you, but I would take my SMS any day!

Technology 2008 in Review (2)

By E.K.Bensah  

The month of May saw this writer touching on the UN-designated World Telecommunication Information Society Day (WTIS). That the Ghanaian media had advertised in some of the dailies that there would be  IT awards prompted suspicion that this same media would recognize the importance of celebrating such a day; instead, there was absolutely no coverage of it, raising concerns by this writer who wrote: “I presume there will be another Ghana ICT Awards next year and possibly other ICT-related events in 2009. I would like to take this opportunity to appeal to policy-makers, industry-watchers, and any emerging bloggers out there to make some big noise about WTIS day next year.” 

I went on to raise two major points: “First of all, It could be used as an opportunity to bring pressure to bear on our regulators, such as the National Communication Authority, to exercise greater vigilance on the mobile service providers in the country. Issuing threats without implementing them has never been a good way of regulating. Secondly, it could be a moment to evaluate the communication services tax  (CST) or talk-time tax and establish whether it is yielding the desired outcomes it sought to do, and/or whether there needs to be a call for it repeal or not.”  

I summed it all up by writing: “there are many opportunities that a developing country like ours can maxi