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Open Economies - Do any of our African members have information on the coming undersea fiber link?

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Do any of our African members have information on the coming undersea fiber link?

  • Subject: Do any of our African members have information on the coming undersea fiber link?
  • From: openeconomies(at)cyber.law.harvard.edu (Iqbal Mohomed)
  • Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 09:00:26 -0700 (PDT)
  • In-reply-to: <005601c12b7c$45eb6b80$27d8f78c@dell99>
Hi Jim,

#1
I read your posting with great interest. I wanted to
add something to the second half. My understanding is
that Africa does not currently possess an abundant
labor force trained in Computers. I think investments
in human capital need to be made along with the
requisite investments in IT infrastructure. India is a
prime example. Even with a significant brain drain,
they still had a large pool of technical workers left
over in the country. I think this was critical in
India's development as a software powerhouse.

#2
Consider Pakistan ... facing many of the same issues
as India and following similar policies. Pakistan too
has a brain drain problem. Perhaps the reason why
Pakistan did no develop into a software success story
like India is because there weren't enough people left
over. Was this the case? The problem would feed upon
itself in that local companies would be reluctant to
train employees who they would think would rather move
out of the country. A small number of enterprises with
such an attitude would force the workers to make that
very decision!

Any thoughts?

Iqbal



--- "Jim Moore, Harvard Law School"
<jmoore@cyber.law.harvard.edu> wrote:
> Do our African members have current information
> regarding the coming
> undersea fiber optic links now being completed?  We
> are interested in
> reports of technical progress, as well as
> indications of national policies
> governing how the resulting international
> connectivity may be priced and
> made available in your region.
> 
> Our understanding is the the consortium laying the
> combined SAT-3/WASC/SAFE
> undersea cable is on schedule to offer service by
> February of next year. The
> cable enters from Malaysia, across the Indian Ocean,
> and lands at two points
> in South Africa, in Angola, Nigeria, Ghana, Cote
> D'ivoire, and Senegal
> before heading up to Portugal.  We would be very
> interested in local
> information about how the cable is progressing. 
> More important, what are
> the national policies with regard to making this
> overseas telecom and
> Internet capacity available?  It will be a challenge
> deciding between (a)
> making the capacity available expensively, in order
> to generate maximum
> immediate telecom income for the phone companies,
> and (b) making inexpensive
> international connectivity available and stimulating
> e-businesses and
> "digital trade".
> 
> Special tarrifs could be developed for "digital
> trade" businesses, in order
> to jump-start such businesses, and promote overall
> GNP growth.  For example,
> in India inexpensive, reliable overseas telecom,
> especially between India
> and the US, has been very important in making
> Mumbia/Bombay a center for
> international software development, customer service
> call centers, medical
> transcription, accounting back office support, and
> so on.
> 
> Ghana and other nations in Africa are very
> competitive for these sorts of
> outsourcing contracts, based on wage rates.  But
> reliable and inexpensive
> telecom--both voice and Internet/data--is key.
> 
> Thanks for your help!  Regards, Jim Moore
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Openeconomies mailing list
> Openeconomies@eon.law.harvard.edu
>
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/openeconomies


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