<table class="contentpaneopen"><tbody><tr><td class="contentheading" width="100%"><a href="http://www.cio.co.ke/index.php/view-all-main-stories/301-kenya-shifts-attention-to-local-web-content.html">http://www.cio.co.ke/index.php/view-all-main-stories/301-kenya-shifts-attention-to-local-web-content.html</a><br>
<br>Kenya shifts attention to local Web content <br><br></td>
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Written by Rebecca Wanjiku, Computerworld Kenya </span>
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Kenya has shifted attention to local content generation and hosting as
a way of pushing down Internet connectivity costs as the SEACOM and
TEAMS fiber-optic cables have failed to live up to the hype of low
costs.<br><div class="storybody"><p>
The country is hoping to learn from the West Africa region, which has
not enjoyed low Internet costs despite having an SAT-3 fiber-optic
connection since 2002. The government and Internet service providers
are banking on local content to push down the costs.<br> <br> East
Africa has two fiber-optic cables linking with Europe, national
fiber-optic backbones and Internet exchange points, and companies have
expanded their networks to cover the region. The World Bank, Africa
Development Bank and Middle East investors have also put money in fiber
infrastructure as well as launching new satellites.<br> </p>
<p>However, the content being pushed through those networks is largely
international, meaning the cost of connectivity has not significantly
changed. ISPs in Kenya have realized that infrastructure is one part of
connectivity, and without local content, costs of connectivity will
remain high and consumers will keep complaining.<br> <br> "We are
taking leadership in the ICT sector by partnering with content
providers across all sectors of the economy including government, and
offering them high-quality yet cost-effective solutions over our
infrastructure in the East African region and globally," said Joshua
Chepkwony, chairperson and CEO of Jamii Telecom.<br> <br> As one of the
major shareholders of TEAMS fiber-optic cable, Chepkwony says the
company is working with media, government, educational and financial
institutions to deliver content that will allow consumers to leverage
the extensive infrastructure.<br> <br> Content generation has been
cited as a major driver for low connectivity costs because it will
eliminate the cost of international connectivity. The government has
been identified as a central player in encouraging local content
generation.<br> <br> The Kenyan government is leading the call for
local content and hosting after complaints of high Internet costs, with
the government being accused of standing by as ISPs conspired to keep
the costs higher. The government has a US$3 million content generation
fund, which is expected to spur the industry. <br> <br> "The
government registries in the ministries of Lands, Judiciary, Motor
Vehicle registration, Company Registry and Immigration are all in
various stages of the procurement process. Once the shared service
platform is ready, it will change," said Bitange Ndemo, permanent
secretary in the Ministry of Information and Communication. <br> <br>
Ndemo was responding to criticism that the government continued
spending on advertising jobs in newspapers and ignored online
advertising, where it had an opportunity to reach higher numbers.<br> <br>
"How can the government get money to place an advert in the print media
worth 7 million Kenyan shillings, which only reaches 1 million people,
yet you are having a problem digitizing critical information?" asked
Robert Yawe, CEO of KAY System Technologies in Nairobi. <br> In West
Africa, Ghana is a tech leader, but it is still facing challenges
developing and encouraging people to use local content as a way to make
connectivity cheaper.</p><p> Over the past few years there
have been a number of policies on e-government, but implementation has
been slow and all of the government Web sites are still static with
only a few forms available for download, said Kwaswo Ansah, an IT
expert and consultant based in Accra.<br> <br> "Apart from the setting
up of an Internet exchange point, there has been very little done to
encourage local Web hosting and the development of local content for
Ghanaians," Ansah added.<br> <br> Ansah thinks that innovative content
will be needed to educate and speed up the development process in the
continent, which can justify the massive cost of building thousands of
miles of submarine fiber bringing gigabits/second Internet to Africa.<br> <br>
While local content generation and hosting will help lower the costs,
many country top-level domains are poorly managed with unfriendly
pricing structures compared to the economies where they are based.<br> <br>
"Once we get higher numbers for the .ke, the price can be reduced from
the current $40 per domain," said Joe Kiragu, the administrative
manager at KENIC, the .ke TLD registry.<br> <br> Kiragu admitted that
the ICT industry in Kenya has been calling for lower domain costs but
was noncommittal on when KENIC will heed the call and lower costs.<br> <br>
According to Google, it is very important that Web site owners register
on .<a href="http://co.ke">co.ke</a> (or .<a href="http://co.ug">co.ug</a> etcetera) if they target the local population and
not .com or .net because it helps in their ranking on Google for local
users.<br> <br> "Domain registries in some African countries think of
themselves as a business rather than public service. From our
perspective, domain names shouldn't cost any more than $1 or $2 per
year, and pricing them at current levels (tens of dollars and beyond)
is constraining the development of the Internet in Africa," said a
Google source, who requested anonymity.<br> <br> Google is one of the
major sources of content in Africa, and the company says it is
deploying caching devices in various locations where it makes sense,
especially for bandwidth-hungry applications.</p></div></td></tr></tbody></table>