Telecommunications

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Telecommunications

An annotated list of key on-line sources which focus on telecommunications technologies in the developing world.

African Internet Status

http://www3.sn.apc.org/africa/afstat.htm

Author(s): Mike Jensen

Date of publication: May 2001

Summary: The Internet has grown rapidly on the continent over the last few years. At the end of 1996 only 11 countries had Internet access, but by November this year all 54 countries and territories had achieved permanent connectivity and the presence of local full service dialup ISPs.

AISI Connect Online Database

http://paradigm.wn.apc.org/africa/

Summary: Organisations and individuals working to support the use of ICTs in Africa need to have access to up-to-date information on the status of the existing information and communications infrastructure in the continent. With the rapid changes taking place, keeping this information current has made this task impossible for one organisation or individual. To address this situation the people working in this area have been discussing the development of a database accessible via the web which can be updated by the 'owners' of the records themselves. This web site is the result of these discussions to date.

Bridging the Gaps in Internet Development in Africa

http://www.idrc.ca/acacia/studies/ir-gaps.htm

Author(s): Mike Jensen

Date of publication: August 31 1996

Summary: This study seeks to build on the activities of those who have helped chart the events in Africa toward universal access to low cost electronic communications and the associated activities that need to take place to build Africa's Information Society. It aims to identify the most important gaps in this development process, focusing on the countries, regions and sectors in African society that could benefit most from the increased involvement of IDRC.

Bhutan Broadcasting Service

http://www.unesco.org/webworld/public_domain/kothmale_docs/Buthan.ppt

Author(s):Sonam Tobgyal

Date of publication:January 22 2001

Summary:Presentation about the Bhutan Broadcasting Service

Developing National Information and Communications Infrastructure (NICI) Policies, Plans and Strategies: the 'why' and 'how'

http://www.un.org/Depts/eca/adf/codipap2.htm

Date of publication: June 28 1999

Summary: Attempts are made in this paper to assess the ICT situation in African countries, to outline the pressing need to build-up NICI plans and strategies and the various steps to be taken to enable countries to be part of the information society.

Improving Access to Telecommunications in South Africa

http://www.idrc.ca/reports/read_article_english.cfm?article_num=267

Author(s): Alan Martin

Date of publication:August 21 1998

Summary: Yilani's village of Ndevana in Eastern Cape Province, South Africa had no public telephone. To call someone, Yilani would take a 20 minute taxi ride to King William's Town. There, he could use a payphone - and hope the person he wished to reach was available. For Yilani, a student taking correspondence courses at a technical college in Johannesburg, contacting his lecturer to discuss difficulties with an assignment could turn into a day-long outing.

Information and communication infrastructure development in Africa

http://www.itu.int/ITU-D-UniversalAccess/johan/papers/ccdc.htm

Author(s): Johan Ernberg, ITU (http://www.itu.int/ITU-D-UniversalAccess)

Date of publication: October 1996

Summary: The information revolution affects every aspect of society; social, economic and cultural and is changing the way people live and work. The opportunities and challenges, as well as obstacles facing the developing countries, who wish to become part of the Global Information Infrastructure (GII) have been discussed in many recent international and regional fora and are summarized in "Africa's Information Society Initiative" (AISI- see below).

Information communication technologies, poverty and empowerment

http://www.imfundo.org/knowledge/skuse.htm

Author(s): Andrew Skuse, Development Communications, Social Development Department, DFID

Summary: Some commentators have suggested that the social and geographic distance between certain sections of the world's population is being rendered meaningless by new information communication technologies (ICTs), though is simultaneously creating an 'information excluded' underclass comprised of the world's poor. Arguments that centre on the dissolution of old development dichotomies such and North and South in favour of the 'fast' and 'slow' resound to the language of empowerment and disempowerment. Increasingly, the 'wired' world is being brought together as the global network economy emerges, though it is at a clear cost to the unconnected.

Native Networking: Telecommunications and Information Technology in Indian Country

http://www.benton.org/Library/Native/bentonne.pdf

Author(s):James Casey (Cherokee), Randy Ross (Ponca Tribe of Nebraska and Otoe Missouria), and Marcia Warren (Santa Clara Pueblo of New Mexico), Edited by Jean Smith

Date of publication: April 1999

Summary: This is a report on the status and resources on the telecommunications and technology activity in Idian Country today. It was created to serve as a central location where Native Americans, government policy makers, and others could access information about telecommunications and information technology resources. The report is designed as a tool for reference, training, planning, and general educational purposes.

"Partnerships and participation in telecommunications for rural development: exploring what works and why"

http://www.itu.int/ITU-D-UniversalAccess/johan/papers/guelph.doc

Author(s): Johan Ernberg, ITU (http://www.itu.int/ITU-D-UniversalAccess)

Date of publication: October 26 1998

Summary: From a Conference at the University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada:

The overall objective of the Programme is to develop best-practice, sustainable and replicable models of ways to provide access to modern telecommunication facilities and information services, particularly to people in rural and remote areas. To this end pilot projects are implemented in a number of countries in different regions, at different stages of development and with different geographical, social, economic and cultural conditions.

RadioNet: Community Radio, Telecentres and Local Development

http://www.idrc.ca/telecentre/evaluation/nn/23_Rad.html

Author(s):Emmanuelle Lamoureux, for an international working meeting on telecentre evaluation, held at Far Hills, Quebec

Date of publication: September 28 1999

Summary: With the wave of digital conversion and the massive inroads made by the Internet in the early 1990s, the Latin-American community radio movement, like NGOs and other sectors of society, began to take a closer look at new information and communication technologies (NITCs). Unlike other sectors, community radio has a technical and human infrastructure that makes it possible to screen, process, and rebroadcast information found on the Internet. In other words, it can bring the benefits of NITCs to a huge audience that would otherwise not necessarily have access to them, for economic, technological, linguistic, cultural and other reasons.

Strategy for a Distance Learning Network for the Dominican Republic

http://www.sas.cornell.edu/cresp/ecopartners/comp/distnet.htm

Author(s): Jon Katz

Date of publication: November 10 1999

Summary: Few rural Dominican children have the opportunity to continue their education beyond the sixth grade, and there is little likelihood of substantial improvement in the foreseeable future. An extensive distance learning network could bring intermediate and high school level classes to most of these communities. In the near future, the convergence of cellular telephone and internet technologies will make such a network technically and economically practical. This concept paper provides more information, and proposes a pilot project in the region of San Jose de Ocoa

Telecentre Evaluation and Research: a global perspective

http://www.idrc.ca/telecentre/evaluation/nn/06_Tel.html

Author(s): R. Gómez, P. Hunt, E. Lamoureux

Summary: Telecentres are now the focus of much attention in international development discourse. Hailed as the solution to development problems by providing desperately needed access to information and communication technologies (ICTs), telecentres are springing up in Africa, Latin America and Asia. This paper is exploratory in nature, examining the notion of telecentres under a critical light and the diversity of experiences emerging. It calls attention to the need for evaluation of telecentre impact on communities, while examining some of the preliminary assessment efforts underway in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Finally, avenues for new research are suggested in order to foster greater understanding of the role of ICTs in international "development".

The first mile of connectivity

http://www.fao.org/docrep/x0295e/x0295e00.htm

Author(s): Don Richardson and Lynnita Paisley, (ed)

Date of publication: 1998

Summary: This contribution is designed to help bridge the gap between practices of the communication for development practitioners and telecommunication experts who provide services to rural areas. Improvements in technology and reductions in costs have focused new attention on the provision of rural telecommunication services, particularly in developing countries. Until very recently, communication for development practitioners have seldom looked at rural telecommunication services as development tools. Likewise, telecommunication experts have only recently begun to look at the synergy between communication for development practices and the spread of rural telecommunication systems. Working together, these two groups of practitioners can better understand the potentials, limitations and challenges of telecommunication systems for rural development.

The Internet Comes to Rural India

http://www.idrc.ca/reports/read_article_english.cfm?article_num=552

Author(s): Keane Shore

Date of publication: November 5 1999

Summary: A pilot project is bringing the Information Age to rural Indian villagers in the form of communal telephone and Internet access. Based on the experiences to date of a half-dozen local 'information shops' in southern India, another 12 villages have requested their own information shops, if funding can be found.

The Positive Business Case for Rural Telecommunications

http://www.devmedia.org/documents/Barr%2Ehtm

Author(s): David F. Barr, from SR Telecom Inc., Canada

Summary: The greatest challenge for developing countries is to ensure that telecommunication services, and the resulting benefits of economic, social and cultural development which these services promote, are extended effectively and efficiently throughout the rural and remote areas -- those areas which in the past have often been disadvantaged, with few or no telecommunication services.

The Status of African Information Infrastructure

http://www.un.org/Depts/eca/adf/codipap1.htm

Author(s): Mike Jensen

Date of publication: June 28 1999

Summary: Paper from First Meeting of the Committee on Development Information (CODI), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia:

Communications and information infrastructure has improved dramatically in Africa over the past 5 years. The Internet, satellite television, cellular phones and itemised billing are now widespread on the continent. But what might have been unthinkable a decade ago is still a dream for the majority of Africans those who do not live in the capital cities and are not part of the elite.

The Wireless Toolbox: A Guide To Using Low-Cost Radio Communication Systems for Telecommunication in Developing Countries - An African Perspective

http://www.idrc.ca/acacia/03866/wireless/

Author(s): Mike Jensen

Date of publication: January 1999

Summary: With 6 billion people on the planet and only about 800 million telephone lines, access to modern communications services is still a dream for most people. It is now an accepted fact that the telecom infrastructure is one of the key factors that affect economic, social and cultural development in both developing and industrialised countries but as we move into the next millennium, over half the world has yet to make a phone call, let alone surf the web. The growth of the Internet, as well as widespread moves to increased use of electronic information in society, has put even more pressure on the existing telecommunications infrastructure. Even the advanced networks in developed countries are straining to cope with the growth in data communications, which now exceeds voice traffic.