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<H1 class=headline>Africa: ITU Regional Confab Stakeholders Intensify Efforts to Meet 'Connect Africa' Goals</H1>
<P class=reporter>Amadou Jallow</P>
<P class=date>14 July 2010</P>
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The International Telemunication Union (ITU) regional development forum, which is currently underway at the Kairaba Beach Hotel in Kololi, continued yesterday, with presentations and contributions from participants with the aim of meeting the set target goals of "Connect Africa".<BR>
The confab, which began on Monday, is organised by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) at the invitation of the government of The Gambia through the Public Utility Regulatory Authority (PURA), in close collaboration with the African Telecommunications Regulators' Network and the African Regional Working Party on private sector issues.The forum aims at dealing with issues relating to the Optic Fibre broadband and sharing experiences and capacity building in order to achieve 'Connect Africa' Goals.<BR>
This forum precedes the ITU Regional Development Forum which is scheduled to begin on Wednesday, July 14, at the Kairaba Bach Hotel with the theme "Modern Spectrum Management and Transition from Analogue to Digital Broadcasting".Alhagie Cham, the minister of Information, Communication and Information Infrastructure in his opening statement on Monday reiterated the need for the need to standardise Africa's telecommunications industry in order to meet the growing demands of the people.<BR>
During a presentation on the role of African regulators in facilitating market development and ensuring affordable prices, Sonia Jorge, research director of the Pyramid Research said that, the risks of undersea cables will be minimised when accompanied by terrestrial networks which are needed to match the new international bandwidth supply with demand in order to create improved traffic management.According to her, competition for international bandwidth will lead to both price reductions and more flexible pricing strategies.<BR>
In some few countries such as Tanzania, she added, 'end user broadband prices have dropped and African demand for price reductions has been highly receptive in the past three years'. Jorge told the gathering that in their current forecasts, which use "similar to historical" price reductions, it is expected that the broadband usage will increase by 6.8% in 2015 and revenue, expected to grow at a CAGR of 16% which is estimated to cost $20billion.<BR>
Making a presenting on the liberalisation of international gateways, Michael Iyayi from the Main One Cable Company briefing participants explained that a gateway is a facility that provides an interface that sends and receives electronic communication, voice and data / video traffic between a country's domestic network facilities and those in other countries either in the form of a submarine cable system or the earth stations that link domestic network to a satellite system.<BR>
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Source : <A href="http://www.observer.gm/enews/">The Daily Observer</A> (Banjul) <BR>
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