S. Onyango Magambo
27 July 2007
column
Nairobi — THE HIGHLY ANTICIPATED arrival of submarine fibre-optic infrastructure through The East African Marine Cable System brings with it a whole new breed of expectations, ventures and experiences.
The infrastructure's global scope is expected to have an impact virtually on all businesspeople, professionals, consumers, entrepreneurs, investors and the Government itself.
Fibre-optic capability will leap beyond Kenya's national boundaries in ways never envisioned before. It will be a vital element of the country's economy.
To adequately set the stage for the paradigm shift, the Government must rethink its regulatory roles, bearing in mind that information is the oxygen of democracy. Competition seems inevitable as it stands out that there are three other cable projects coming up at the same time in the region.
Bandwidth glut has been predicted by business experts as a possible down-side of the fibre-optic proliferation in the region. To remove this danger, Kenya must increase demand for bandwidth driven by the Internet and web-enabled applications.
A radical increase of digital consumption by Kenyans is important. It is the role of the Government to set information technology policies that will invite more global communicators to lease Kenyan fibre bandwidth.
Another factor the Government should consider is the total cost of ownership of the fibre-optic infrastructure. A partnership is safer for a new venture, since any potential risks and unforeseen circumstances would be shared.
Kenya must not only be excited about the glory the fibre-optic cable network will bring, but it must proactively plan for potential vulnerabilities in the network, and the possible ramifications of a widespread network failure brought about by acts of sabotage.
Securing fibre-optic transmission, for instance, can be costly, and the bad guys, as usual, have a head-start.
HACKING FIBRE-OPTIC CABLES (read data theft) is a booming business. The hackers capitalise on the availability and affordability of equipment in the Internet market-places such as eBay.
International corporate hackers and saboteurs usually take advantage of newcomers in the technology block.
Fibre hacks have recently been reported as a major communication threat in Germany, US, France, the Netherlands, Australia, and the United Kingdom.
Protecting undersea cables has proved extremely expensive even for the technologically advanced and economically capable countries. An example of a communication outage is that of Australia a few years back. It was reported that one cut fibre sea cable from Australia to Singapore caused the country's largest Internet provider --Telstra - to lose up to 70 per cent of its capacity, subjecting subscribers to lost transmissions of untold value.
The US government reported a $1.685 billion security budget, much of which was earmarked to secure its more than 93 million miles of fibre cable stretch.
A co-venture would help Kenya to share the cost of deployment of reliable technologies such as quantum encryption, known to be expensive, but one of the best. This would guarantee integrity and confidentiality of information exchanged over the Kenyan fibre-optic communication networks.
Joint policing of the fibre optic cables would distribute security responsibilities between Kenya and the other stakeholder(s).
Another advantage of forging partnership is that intrusions, if detected in the pair, would be automatically shut down while traffic is simultaneously rerouted to an alternative path within the housing using artificial intelligence technology.
Mr Magambo studies at the Johns Hopkins University, USA.
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