Before the 'summit of solutions'

Features of the week:

Plans to make the second phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS-05), also christened the ‘summit of solutions’ for the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Development, a success have been advanced, reports REMMY NWEKE.

As the dates for the second phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS 2005) draw nearer and precisely just days away, it is pertinent to recall certain issues that would dominate the meeting.

These include the issues on the Internet Governance, Financing Mechanisms and WSIS follow-up and implementation, which form the top-three agenda for the summit’s Preparatory Committee meeting (PrepCom-3) due to resume Sunday, November 13 through 15, prior to the official opening ceremony to be performed by world leaders led by the Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN), Mr. Kofi Annan, on Wednesday, November 16.

Therefore, the aforementioned top-three agenda are expected to take centre stage, whereas the last on the list – WSIS follow-up and implementation becomes a module for continuity and sustaining the Plan of Action, which evaluation after two years of experimentation by member nations bugged by the need to reduce the gap of digital divide would also be examined.

The evaluation is crucial to ascertain the actual efforts being put in place to determine the gap between the rich and poor as concerns the access to information and in achieving the goals stipulated for making Information Society a relative realty, since the first phase in 2003.

ITU resolve

Interesting thing, however, is that the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) as lead agency of other arms of UN and in alliance with the UN Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and possibly the UN Development Programme; have resolved not to set up any new body to manage the follow-up, as they have to contribute resources for the follow-up to be kept alive via coordinated meetings of coordinators and reporting of implementation on country levels.

According to ITU’s position paper on implementation and follow-up, (WSIS-11/PC3/contro/97-E), there is a widespread agreement that the multi-stakeholder nature of WSIS should be maintained through the overall implementation and follow-up process after Tunis.

CCBI too …

In the same vein, the Coordinating Committee of Business Interlocutors (CCBI) for the summit has also indicated in a position paper made available to Champion Infotel that key focus should be on people-centric Information Society thereby bringing to the people the benefits of ICTs through development, capacity building, education and training are all welcome concept.

CCBI further said that clear commitment to create the necessary enabling environment to attract investment, promote innovation, stimulate infrastructure development, and foster entrepreneurship must not be over looked.

International level follow-up and implementation, CCBI stated, must not be left to be led, coordinated, moderated or even facilitated by one single UN agency, and must involve all stakeholders on an equal footing, thus ICT and development should be mainstreamed and integrated into the agenda of UN bodies.

The $100 laptops

Chief, Media Relations at ITU, Ms Sarah Parkes and the Communication Officer at the WSIS Executive Secretariat, Mr. Sanjay Acharya, disclosed in a joint statement that highlights of WSIS phase two, alongside the three days of plenary sessions, include the launch of the $100 laptop system developed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT's) Media Lab, which will serve as the cornerstone of the One Laptop Per Child global development initiative.

The new system would be unveiled at the occasion to be hosted by the Media Lab's Professor Nicholas Negroponte, UN scribe, Mr. Annan and Mrs. Nane Maria Annan.

The ITU’s ‘Connect the World Roundtable’ featuring around 20 top-level representatives from government, the private sector and civil society, comprising European Union (EU) Information Society Commissioner, Vivianne Reding, Chief Executive officers (CEOs) and chairmen of leading global Information Technology (IT) players namely Mr. Narayana R. Murthy of Infosys, ICT development pioneer Professor M. S. Swaminathan, and Mr Noah Samara of WorldSpace, along with heads of UN agencies and leaders of ICT-oriented civil society organizations.

The launch of a ground-breaking new ITU report, ‘The Internet of Things’, at a media panel debate featuring senior technical gurus from Alcatel, KDDI, Microsoft, Nokia and Sun Microsystems, would also make the event.

ITU’s high-level panel featuring ICT ministers from India, Mexico and the Republic of Congo, top level representatives from the European Commission (EC), the Grameen Foundation and the Korea Agency for Digital Opportunity and Promotion, as well as senior executives from Nokia, Sentech and Skype, is expected to be exciting.

A programme of about 300 parallel events featuring presentations and debates by WSIS participants on topics central to the development of tomorrow's Information Society equally would take place.

ICT4All

Five-day Information and Communications Technology (ICT) trade fair located at 10'000 meter exhibition center, would enable showcasing of activities from over 100 Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and private sector enterprises, focusing on developing and Least Developed Countries (LDCs) is billed to attract over 40,000 participants including chief executive officers of private organizations, according to Mr. Edoardo Bellando of the United Nations Department of Public Information.

ICT4All, organized along with the main WSIS would this year start on November 15, a day earlier before the official opening of the summit at Kram Pla Expo and to end on Saturday, November 19.

Mr. Bellando also said that companies from developed and developing countries would use the chance to showcase innovative ideas and practical solutions, meet and forge new partnerships, noting that corporate partners of the Tunisian Organising Committee for WSIS-05 include Alcatel, Ericsson, Huawei, Microsoft, Nokia, Samsung and ZTE.

Champion Infotel recalls that in 2003 at the first phase of WSIS held in Geneva, 175 countries reportedly adopted a Declaration of Principles, outlining a common vision of the Information Society and a Plan of Action, which sets targets on how to improve connectivity and access in using ICT.

Task before stakeholders

As stakeholders assemble in Tunis, they must not forget individual national agenda or so soon the ITU’s recent report that estimated 942 million people living in the world's developed economies enjoy five times better access to fixed and mobile phone services; nine times better access to Internet services, and own 13 times more personal computers than the 85 per cent of the world's population living in low and lower-middle income countries.

ITU also estimates that 800,000 villages still lack connection by telephone line, the Internet or any other modern ICT tools.

Therefore, it is very important that the outcome of this second phase of WSIS must be worthy of aiding efforts to really bridge the Information Society gap already existing, mostly as demanded in the Plan of Action and we all will be better for it.

NISSCOM deadline shifted

AWARD winning Nigerian software house, and the organizers of the Nigerian Students Software Competition (NISSCOM 2005), SystemSpecs Limited, has announced a postponement of the deadline for submission of entries for this year by 30 days.

The deadline previously fixed on October 30, was shifted to give room for more participants.

This follows reports that when the competition was announced late September, most institutions in the country claimed to have received the information late, according to the Senior Manager, Marketing at SystemSpecs, Mr. Moses Braimah.

“The registration deadline for the NISSCOM has been extended to November 30, 2005 and this is due to huge interests shown by students of different tertiary institutions spread across the country who claim to have received detailed information about the competition late,” he said.

Responding to inquiry, he also said that so far, close to 200 student competitors have registered at the competition website, www.nisscom.net.

A review of the entries made so far, he said, showed that talents abound in the country and also gives the feel that the 2005 edition would be very competitive than the 2004 edition.

He quoted the Assistant General Manager (AGM), at SystemSpecs, Dr. Hakeem Bakare of SystemSpecs, saying “Students are advised to make one entry at a time, whether as an individual or group,” in order to ensure that a competitor is properly focused and energy well directed to develop a good entry.

Earlier, while unveiling the curtain of this year’s edition, the managing director of SystemSpecs, Mr. John Obaro, said that the first place winner would receive a trophy, N100,000, and certificate.

The second place finalist would get N75,000, and a certificate while the third place finisher is to receive N50,000, a certificate whereas all the three would be offered internship placement at SystemSpecs.

The winners of the competition, he further said, would be selected and presented with prizes at the forthcoming national convention of the Nigerian Association of Computer Science Students, NACOSS.

NISSCOM is organized in collaboration with NACOSS in fulfillment of SystemSpecs’ management promise when NACOSS’ executive members visited the office recently.

InfraStruXure @ ICEPT 2005

Rhode Island-based end-to-end leading power solution provider, American Power Conversion (APC) showcased its InfraStruXure at this year’s International Conference and Exhibition on Power and Telecommunications (ICEPT 2005) held in Lagos.

ICEPT is organised by the Electrical Division of the Nigeria Society of Engineers (NSE), and centered on building sustainable capacities, standards and regulations within the power and telecom industry. It was held at the Sheraton Hotel and Towers, Lagos.

District Manager at APC for Nigeria and Ghana, Mr. Charles Iyo, said that by offering InfraStruXure, especially in the West African region, APC is enabling organisations to increase the availability of Information Technology equipment.

This was in view of NSE believe that clear foresights based on cutting edge technological innovations, must be brought to bear in the proper planning of the power and telecom systems in the country as well as to meet the challenges of tomorrow.

Mr. Iyo also said that InfraStruXure solution improves adaptability and speed of deployment in addition to lower total cost of ownership (TCO) within the IT environments.

“InfraStruXure is an on-demand architecture for Network-Critical Physical Infrastructure (NCPI)” he said, stressing that the design integrates power, cooling, rack, management and services, which allow for selection of standardised, modular components by creating a customised solution.

According to him, "businesses across Africa are adopting APC’s InfraStruXure offering to flexibly add capacity as the company grows, permitting organisations to purchase only what is needed at present while still permitting future growth.”

He emphasised that InfraStruXure facilitates IT managers’ choice from a number of standardised components is to create a customised solution.

"This approach provides the reliability, affordability and predictability of standardised solutions, yet is completely customised to meet their specific needs,” he declared.

Jensen proposes strategies for reduced interconnection rates

Independent consultant based in South Africa, Mr. Mike Jensen has proposed strategies for minimising current disparities in interconnection rates, mostly in the developing countries.

Mr. Jensen in a recent paper prepared for the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) on ‘Interconnection Costs’ said that much needed to be done by developing countries and their partners, which could have greater effect on the cost of bandwidth.

He noted that there are two types of interconnection, especially nowadays that most interconnections are viable through the Internet rather than the traditional circuit switches system, namely, peering and transit.

He also said that internet backbones interconnect under this two different arrangements, avail peering plans to agree to exchange traffic with each other at no cost, but not for a third party.

While on other hand, transit arrangement, he said, means one backbone has to pay another for interconnection.

According to him, the interlinked strategies consist of accelerating the restructuring of the communications sector, supporting the establishment of a national and international internet exchange ports, as well as building local demand for both national and international backbones.

Mr. Jensen said, that increased competition above all strategies stand better chance in telecom and Internet sectors for minimising the costs of connectivity.

Pointing out that the biggest cost of circuit is not the Internet Protocol (IP) transit fees or foreign end of the link, but the local and international charges by the monopoly telecom service providers.

“Elimination of monopolies or duopolies and generally increasing national and international competition in communication services would have the biggest impact in reducing the largest cost component of bandwidth charges,” he said.

Mr. Jensen further said that additionally, this would fuel investment in the much needed national and international backbones.

“… Only once competition has reduced infrastructure access charges to cost-related tariffs could peering and transit issues be addressed,” he asserted.

He suggested that government involvement in fostering the development of competitive backbone provision, especially by providing ducting for cable along all routes of transportation such as roads, railways and electricity networks is essential.

“Participation by government in using open access models (non-discriminatory) is seen as a particularly viable approach to building infrastructure,” he said.

Mr. Jensen also warned that by ensuring that public monopolies are not simply replaced with private monopolies is additional vital step required.

On sector reform, he said, would enable competitive local market for bandwidth to guarantee that benefits of increased competition in the international market are passed on to the end-users.

Adding, however, that effective competition and anti-trust laws would usually be needed for this, which would not only prevent anti-competitive consolidation among Internet backbone providers, but to ensure incumbent operators including mobile operators do not abuse their dominant positions.

HANA @ Tunis for WSIS-05

Highway Africa News Agency (HANA) has concluded plans to send a strong made up of multi-lingual and renowned team of journalists to cover the second phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) holding in Tunis, from next week.

Director, HANA, Mr. Chris Kabwato disclosed this and said that the second phase of WSIS commencing November 15 through 18, would witness a HANA team, comprising journalists and students from various African countries, who would supply multi-media coverage of the summit through its web site http://www.highwayafrica.ru.ac.za/hana/, blog http://www.newsagency.blogspot.com/ and via e-mails (listservs) to any African news organisation that wishes to make use of this service.

He also said that while in Tunis, the team would produce a daily newspaper, sponsored by the United Nations (UN) Economic Commission for Africa, thus providing delegates with an African perspective of the Summit.

“The English and French pages of the newspaper will be made available online,” he asserted.

Champion Infotel recalls that HANA was conceptualised in September of 2003 ahead of the first phase of the WSIS meeting in Geneva.

According to Mr. Kabwato, also director of the annual Highway Africa conference co-hosted by the Rhodes University School of Journalism and the South African Broadcasting Corporation, and a number of other visionaries participating in the conference, was the realisation that the debates and resolutions at the summit should not only be conveyed to African audiences through the eyes and ears of Western news agencies.

“Unless something is done about it, Africans would have to follow the moves to transfer control of the internet from a single nation to a UN agency through first world eyes. As very few African news organisations could afford to send reporters to Geneva, their readers and viewers would only learn about efforts to bridge the digital divide from foreign news agencies,” he explained.

With this need identified, he pointed out that Rhodes School of Journalism kick-started HANA initiative and the SABC seconded Executive Producer Steven Lang to work as editor of the news agency.

He further said that the mandate formulated by the 2003 Highway Africa conference, to report on and explain the relevance of the WSIS for African readers, was successfully carried out in Geneva and in other ICT related conferences in the run up to the second phase of the summit in Tunis.

HANA has in the meantime broadened its scope and plans to develop it into an agency delivering continuous coverage of the information society and ICTs in Africa.