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[NUA Internet Survey, 20 February 1998]

Network Wizard's Internet Domain Survey - A Global Perspective - South

Africa is still one of the largest markets on the Internet, but it's losing

ground to countries who are fast catching on to the digital wave. According

to the latest biannual domain name survey conducted by Network Wizards, the

South African domain of the Internet (all addresses ending with .za) has

122

025 computers connected, and has grown by less than four percent over the

last six months. While the slowdown may not be as dramatic as the figures

indicate, there is no doubt that the South African Internet market is

falling behind some of the movers on the word's "wired" Top Twenty. Taiwan

has been the big mover over the last six months, more than trebling the

number of Internet hosts from 40,000 in July last year to nearly 180,000

today, and leapfrogging from 30th to 13th on the list. New Zealand has been

the other big mover. A year ago New Zealand had fewer Internet connections

than South Africa, but they have doubled in size so that today - with 169

264 internet hosts - the .nz domain has 40% more Internet connections than

.za. Korea and Brazil are also closing fast on South Africa. With 84

percent

growth over the last year, Korea have moved up 4 places to number 17 from

21, while Brazil's 52 percent growth has seen them move up from 26 to 19

with 117 200 hosts.

Use of the Internet is Growing in Africa by Tom Butterly -

Internet connectivity levels within Africa have improved significantly in

the last couple of years. A recent report by Mike Jensen (January 1998)

indicates that the capital cities in 42 of the 54 nations on the continent

currently have live public access Internet services, and 8 countries

(including Zimbabwe) have local dial-up access throughout the whole

country.

The total number of Internet users in Africa is estimated at between

800.000

and 1 million, 700,000 of which are in South Africa. Zimbabwe has the third

highest number of Internet users (10,000) in Africa and the 5th highest

number of Internet users per capita. However, despite recent progress,

Africa remains far behind the developed world in terms of Internet

connectivity and usage. For example, it is estimated that 1 in 6 people use

the Internet in North America and Europe whereas the comparable figure for

Africa, excluding South Africa, is 1 Internet user for every 5,000 people

(the figure for Zimbabwe is 1 in 1,100). Even South Africa, with an

Internet

utilisation rate of 1 in 65, is below the world average of one in forty

five. This information was provided by Tom Butterly, Director of

Information

Management Consultants in Zimbabwe. For more of this report, please see the

following Constraints to the Development of the "Wired' Economy in Africa.

[NET-HAPPENINGS Digest - 17 Mar 1998 to 18 Mar 1998 - Special issue]

Internet Demand Is Moving Faster Than Technology, Panel Says by Jeff Sweat,

InformationWeek - Internet bandwidth demands, fueled by technology such as

video and IP telephony, are rising so rapidly that backbone providers may

not be able to keep up, a panel of ISPs and equipment vendors said Friday

keynote session, said Internet use is shooting up more rapidly than

expected. According to Alan Taffel, vice president of marketing and

to double in size once a year, but now it's doubling every three to six

months -- a tenfold increase per year. "We have to radically alter our

backbone very, very regularly," he said. "We and everybody else are going

concurred, saying building up a backbone is made more difficult because

Internet. "We're being asked to build bandwidth for the future without

really knowing what the traffic will be," said David Garrison, chairman of

ISP Netcom On-Line Communications Services, in San Jose, CA.

Edupage, 10 March 1998]

Third World Protests Tax-free Internet - A coalition of developing nations,

led by Egypt, India and Pakistan, are protesting a World Trade Organization

proposal for an Internet "free trade zone," saying hat such a development

would reinforce the dominance of North America and European countries in

creation of a tax-free Internet trading zone be made until the problem of

Western dominance of the Internet is resolved. Trade officials predict that

negotiations on creating the free-trade zone will begin next year at the

earliest. (TechWeb 9 Mar 98)

The "Institutions and Courses Database" of the "International Centre for

Distance Learning On-line Information Service" (which is part of the Open

Constraints to the use of ICTs in Africa and other developing countries.

(This information was originally circulated by Mike Jensen)

1.) The poor general level of telecommunication facilities (largely caused

by policy factors) is clearly the most critical inhibiting factor, but

achieve a more conducive environment for information sharing:

2.) In particular, the low level of computerisation in many organisations

high price of equipment relative to the available resources means that many

organisations and departments involved in information gathering and

dissemination remain critically under developed in their use of computers

and networks. Many machines are older 286 DOS based machines for which

wide-area basis.

Modem donations and initial communications subsidies continue to be an

important method for development organisations to assist in building

electronic links, but many require more extensive assistance with obtaining

low cost computers and LAN facilities. Many local suppliers are

support often then remains an outstanding issue, especially as there is

3.) The scarcity of computers and small base of skills also contributes to

the low level of institutionalisation of much of the networking activity.

Email and Internet access is usually limited to those with the most

resources, very often to people with international projects and contacts.

There may be no provisions for making the facility available to the rest of

the organisation, or to maintain the link, when the operator leaves the

institution or even goes on holiday.

4.) This is exarcerbated by the lack of guidelines in making services more

publically available and allocating the appropriate resources for their

effective use. Often, when providing wider access is attempted, machines

lengths of time hunting for keys while typing. Typing and computer literacy

courses have not received sufficient attention as a requirement for those

using these facilities, and in many cases it may simply be more cost

effective to employ additional staff specifically for the task of

keyboarding and printing or saving messages to disk.

5.) In general, the limited technical skills for the establishment of

electronic network services and the lack of literacy in the effective

exploitation of network applications by users are clearly major impediments

to the spread of these technologies. While there have been a few workshops

and training courses organised in developing countries, and a number of

worldwide events attended by developing countries (such as the ISOC

Developing Countries Workshops), the numbers who have received training is

still very limited.

6.) Also, there have been no attempts to 'train the trainers in training

techniques'. Most trainers are simply co-opted from their normal roles as

networking technicians and very few have any background in apropriate

training methods. In addition, relevant training guides, documentation and

online tutorial software to support trainers has been insufficiently

developed.

7.) With so many independent networking development projects each pursuing

their own connectivity goals, it could be said that one of the major

constraints to efficient improvement of the environment for sharing

information is the lack of mechanisms to improve collaboration and

co-ordination between different projects. The overlap in the multiplicity

available resources spread more equitably.

8.) Because many developing countries are part of a variety of regional

groupings and designations (for example Southern African countries are

members of SADC, COMESA, East African Co-operation, the Customs Union and

the BLS States), many regional network development initiatives tend to

overlap and/or lack a unified approach.

9.) Being of high-resale value, vandalism of the copper network

infrastructure is a general problem, but is being met with concerted

response by the PTTs to replace links at risk with optic fibre and wireless

connections. Because copper also requires more maintenance and is also

susceptible to lightning damage, growing attention is being directed to the

possibilities of wireless local loop systems. Some PTTs are also

experimenting with a real-time monitoring system to reduce the incentives

10.) While import duties are a significant disincentive through their

contribution to increased prices, the growing trend toward taxation of

services may become a larger impediment to the effective use of computer

networks.

11). As mentioned earlier, the high price of Internet services in some

countries, and absence of local dial access outside almost all of the

capital cities severely limits access for the bulk of those with computers.

And as far as the rest of the population is concerned, so far there have

been few attempts to provide low-cost public access facilities at drop-in

centres for those without computers.

12.) Lack of Internet bandwidth linking ISPs and the countries is an

increasingly severe constraint to efficient information flows. This is

largely a result of the high cost of international leased lines which

results in ISPs crowding too many users into channels of limited bandwidth.

This is also greatly exacerbated by the very limited peering between ISPs

within the same country and also between countries. As a result it can take

many minutes to download a single web page (speeds of 20 characters per

second are not uncommon), even from another ISP's site across town -

peering point is in another country.

13.) In some cases, because of saturated public telephone exchanges, the

difficulty in obtaining large numbers of local telephone lines to maintain

the desired ratio of 10-15 users per modem has limited the accessibility of

ISPs during periods of peak demand as all the available dialin lines

access the Internet have faced problems in obtaining new telephone lines.

use of wireless options by end users is constrained by a number of factors:

While cellular telephone services have been opened to the public in most of

the larger developing countries, much of the rest of the spectrum, aside

from radio and television broadcast frequencies, is usually allocated to

are suspected of opposing the government, wireless communications are

Nevertheless, unregulated use of the spectrum is quite common - because of

the lack of radio spectrum monitoring facilities and skills in most

developing countries (in some cases the regulatory agencies may exist only

on paper, with virtually no resources to enforce a country's decisions

ahead and installed wireless technologies without seeking permission.

Also, limited resources for spectrum allocation planning in many countries

means that some of the rules are not yet clearly defined because many

wireless technologies are so new. So national policy is often only set when

the technology is introduced by an influential company, creating ad-hoc

decisions which can cause problems later.

Of course it is possible to apply for a license to operate communications

equipment on the wavelengths designated for their use, but since most of

types, it is almost essential to involve them in some way if the license

application is to be successful. The PTT would probably need to be

infrastructure, it will not be used by third parties or cause interference,

and it may also be necessary to give the PTT ownership over equipment and

Nevertheless, probably the biggest barrier to widespread use of wireless

technologies for accessing the Internet are the entrenched models used by

the PTTs in providing service. They generally plan for the provision of the

full range of telecom related services over all of their infrastructure

using sophisticated equipment that will carry multiple voice/data/ISDN/TV

channels etc. As a result they are generally unwilling to consider

small-scale approaches which only involve the transport of data/Internet

traffic, although if a social improvement dimension is present in a project

involving wireless technologies it may be easier to obtain approval.

14.) The absence of a regional Network Information Centre (NIC) in Africa

and Latin America to provide Internet address space and guidance for

emerging ISPs (like the InterNic, RIPE and AsiaNIC) has reduced the growth

of new service providers who must spend considerable time negotiating on a

case-by-case basis with the InterNic and RIPE for Internet addresses. In

addition there are few unbiased sources of the information new ISPs need to

establish their local services and make their international connections.

Priority unfulfilled needs and opportunities for improved Internet

development in developing countries.

Among the most important needs identified in many of the countries were to:

--- Develop access points and demand in secondary cities and rural areas.

a)by training users in these areas and supporting them with equipment and

installation subsidies. b) by addressing the needs of those without

computers through the establishment of shared community telecentres and

promotion or support for wireless link alternatives where necessary, c)

promotion of improved interfaces for the non-literate and less educated

improved machine translation facilities for major languages, d) support for

the use of special equipment for the disabled, such as braille keyboards

--- Support increased collaboration and co-ordination of international

agencies. Aside from the obvious advantages in improving the effectiveness

of Internet related projects and in helping to identify sources of support

for local initiatives from existing regional and global projects, this

should also build strong local hosts by encouraging international agencies

systems for all communications.

--- Support for technical training to induct new host system operators and

to upgrade the skills of the existing ones. Aside from financial assistance

for holding individidual training sessions and national training workshops,

identification and promotion of low cost training centres in more advanced

countries should also take place. Due to the high travel and subsistence

costs, regional training workshops are perhaps a less appropriate option

unless they are combined with an International conference. A related need

--- Support the establishment of local cross-sectoral national information

infrastructure (NII) working groups. This will require: synthesis and

circulation of the existing country studies and research in the countries

mechanisms for countries to share experiences. There will be a particular

need to provide NII working groups with technical assistance for them to

develop national Network Information Centres (NICs), information

infrastructure plans and inventories of local resources. These groups could

be related to any existing IT or ICT working groups, but not be subsumed by

them, unless there is some clear committee structure that focuses on

national network planning and information exchange between all sectors.

--- Support the establishment of an African and Latin American centre for

administration of IP addresses, autonomous system numbers and continent

--- Promote information on low cost alternatives for setting up

Internet/Intranet hosts to all sectors, but especially to SMME's interested

in setting up public access Internet drop-in centres and to computer

perception of high costs, and include information on development of basic

business plans or cost recovery methods for different scales of service.

--- Provide technical assistance to the telecom operators for improvement

(such as ADSL) and using wireless links where necessary.

--- Identify and promote sources of low cost and second hand computer

hardware and software. Also to provide training to maintain the equipment

and encourage national governments to reduce import duties on ICT

equipment.

--- Identify sources of soft finance for local Internet based business

startups and international partners willing to invest in joint ventures.

--- Provide technical assistance to ISPs to improve their reliability and

quality of service by: a) implementing redundant links and dialup backup

systems, b) by encouraging the use of methods to reduce congestion of

international links through installation of local peering points, caching

servers and mirror sites (peering points carry traffic between ISPs,

originating in North America or Europe) c) promoting the use of digital

satellite data-broadcasting to reduce congestion on leased line circuits

footprint areas, d) promoting the new developments in web/http server

protocols to deal with email-only access, low bandwidth and/or wireless

connections - e.g. HTTP-NG, Agora email to web gateways etc. In addition,

support could be provided for analysis of traffic patterns to assist in

network topology planning, bandwidth provisioning and pricing mechanisms to

spread usage more evenly over the day, and also for administrative and

business skills upgrading for small service providers.

--- Assist with the evaluation of the alternative proposals for Internet

services provided by the private sector in the tenders of public bodies and

with obtaining preferential treatment for public sector users from ISPs,

--- Provide technical assistance to national, provincial and municipal

governments to implement Intranets and to move their existing data from

standalone systems to open networked systems.

--- Encourage the development of sub-regional links in general, and

particularly between culturally or economically connected neighbouring

countries.

--- Encouragement for the establishment of content building service centres

(possibly attached to ISPs) which can provide web site development and

training, advice with establishing organisational web servers for small and

medium sized organisations and other related content development areas such

as audio/video servers and CD ROM mastering facilities and low cost systems

for the rendering of cultural artifacts for placement in web museums.

--- Support for developing country participation in the ongoing process of

development of international intellectual property protection policies,

information law, policing and the technical mechanisms for ensuring their

adherence.

--- Sensitisation of more 'conservative' decision makers to the

possibilities for using the Internet.

--- Assistance to organisations with legacy LAN systems (eg Lantastic and

IPX), and legacy WAN systems (eg Zoomit, Compuserve, Lotus Notes) to move

simple means of transmitting binary file attachments, do not reply

promotion of modem brands which operate best on low quality telephone lines

susceptible to lightning.

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