Information Communication Technology Minister - Nelson
USA - SAN JOSE — Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is an umbrella term that includes all technologies for the manipulation and communication of information.
Information Communication Technology Minister - Nelson Chamisa
GENERAL - Lets talk about everything and anything you want to say.
He was speaking to ICT stake holders in Harare recently.
It was an important stance by the Hon Minister in so far as top level awareness that something needs to be done to bridge the digital divide in Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe already has thousands of websites that are either hosted locally in Zimbabwe or outside the country.
So it’s not so much about the need of a national website per se but rather a broader surgical approach to the ICT challenges that we face.
The digital divide or gap is set to widen even further if we don’t take it upon ourselves to come up with specific solutions for our specific challenges.
Problem resolution at this level, calls for a sober, firm and accurate understanding the variance between what is on the ground and what needs to be achieved.
Any half baked attempts to address the digital divide or gap will not only waste resources and opportunities but literally take the nation a few decades backwards in terms of development.
A sound ICT policy impacts all sectors of the country from the economy through health right up to mining and farming.
In this article I will offer a bird’s eye view of key issues that impact and affect digitalization efforts. Hopefully this will help the ICT leadership clarify, categorize and prioritize delivery mechanisms.
Zimbabwe just like most African countries basically faces a number of hurdles in order to roll out effective computing technologies to the general population. Rollout issues and challenges do include but not limited to;
- cost of computers and equipment
-inadequate access technologies (data & voice)
-inadequate electricity
-poor national & international bandwidth
-regulation and licensing
- Censorship and control
-brain drain & lack skilled manpower & I.T. certifications
-poorly designed and optimized websites
-egov
In this article I address some key elements that affect internet penetration and telephone usage. You will note that the main factors that affect telephony also affect data communications.
ICT has challenges in both the data and voice arenas. When we talk about bridging the digital divide we seek to reduce or eliminate entry barriers that the people face in both data and voice. A number of terms will be used loosely in both areas.
It is important however, for the ICT ministry to be able to dissect and separate common issues and independent issues that affect data and voice.
This approach is necessary so that the issues are addressed at a root cause level. We seek to deal with the root problem like inadequate infrastructure manifested symptomatically as congestion or slow connections.
Voice and data networks are fast converging and this calls for a smart unified communications approach whose success hinges on reliable, fast and robust network infrastructure.
Internet Access
In Zimbabwe just like most African countries most people who access the internet do so via Cyber cafes, colleges, varsities, work place an some at home.
The limiting factors are basically cost and unavailability. Most urban dwellers either can’t afford it or the ISPs serving them are out of capacity as discussed further below.
There are people who own farms who could easily afford it, but can not do so from where they are because there is no network coverage of one form or the other in their area.
As a result internet penetration is very low due to a number of issues. One of ICT’s core tasks is to help present operators unclog their stuffed networks and also adopting the concept of cyber cafes for many communities whose chance of using a computer or accessing the internet are next to none.
Donating computers to schools is great.
More could be done in the form of setting up computer centers at libraries, district offices, ALL colleges using the cyber café approach.
This has the advantage of also spinning some business to the struggling ISPs.
Hopes are hinged on the 3G data access. All I can say for now is that we hope Econet will not make it an elite service for the business brass.
Last year when I was in J’oburg I was pretty impressed about how easy it is to connect to the internet MTN’s 3G using a USB dongle with a 3G capable SIM card. Because right now in Zimbabwe before we even have 3G, is it possible to walk to a distribution shop and buy a SIM card?
Telephone Access
Teledensity is a metric that is used to broadly estimate the number telephone lines per 100 individuls. Presently Zimbabwe has a teledensity of about 3 .This means that there are about 3 telephone lines per 100 people. This figure heavily depends on the accuracy of the actual number of telephone lines divided by the total population.
Now this is a very tricky estimation as millions of Zimbabweans have left the country while mobile operators have availed more lines. The teledensity metric has been used as an indicator of economic development or governance.
Current voice providers include Telone , NetOne , Econet , Telecel. Now wireless usage in Zimbabwe has indeed enabled many people a means of communication. Wireless growth rate is highest in Africa because cellular phones offer any one within coverage range an equal opportunity to communicate.
At this stage Zimbabwe has serious complications that basically point to a collapsed economy. Cellular operators have managed just to stay afloat in a very un-business like environment.
This has made it impossible for the operators to increase both capacity and coverage at a time when spares and maintenance were made in hard currency whilst end users were paying in a currency that long lost its value.
Stabilization of the economy should allow cellular companies to increase their coverage to more areas.
Cost of computers, equipment and software
Computer and internet penetration is very low in Zimbabwe due to the cost of owning a PC or MAC and the cost of having an internet connection.
What is needed in this area is for the stake holders to identify equipment manufactures that can supply Zimbabwean market PCs in bulk and at competitive rates.
Secondly in most developed nations people throw away their PCs just to get a new one.
Most of these PCs are recyclable easily and the Ministry can setup collection centers in the US and UK to pick these PCs – clean them up and store them in a container before shipping them to Zimbabwe. This is already being done in Kenya and Ghana.
Thirdly the ministry should encourage local companies to team up with PC manufactures and open up assembly plants in Zimbabwe.
This should be one of ICT’s long term plan and has bankable off shoot benefits like job creation, local availability of PCs , generation of forex through exports and generation of revenue for the state via the taxman.
The more people have access to PCs whether publicly via schools, libraries or internet cafes the better. One way of doing this is availing mobile digital libraries. Take an old ZUPCO bus.
Refurbish it , install like 30 computers in the bus and pull a diesel powered generator at the back. These obile libraries are used in Rwanda to visit remote areas with no PC access.
Windows based software is generally pricy because of licensing fees. The ICT ministry must encourage and even fund open source software initiatives in Zimbabwe.
This literally means that refurbished computers that are shipped into Zimbabwe can run on free BUT extremely loaded Linux based like uBuntu.
Ubuntu is a community developed operating system that is perfect for laptops, desktops and servers. uBuntu comes loaded with thousands of FREE open software applications like word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, databases, web servers, email servers, fax servers , call centers, phone billing , internet café billing, hotel reservation, project management, programming tools, educational and scientific software and many more.
Cost of software as a stumbling block in ICT development can not be used as an excuse.
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