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Kenya: Poor Counries Must Not Be Left Behind in Technological Growth
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The Nation (Nairobi)
OPINION
15 December 2007
Posted to the web 15 December 2007
Andrew Limo
Nairobi
It is ironical that the telephone, the internet and other communication technologies we think help to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor, could widen it. This is because issues of cost and access will continue to create groups of info-rich and info-poor people. Considering that better prospects for economic activity take place in the realms of information, knowledge and communication in general, people who cannot afford them certainly lose out.
There is a disparity in access between the developed and the developing worlds, and even within these countries themselves. In the US, for instance, the land of opportunity, only 57 per cent of African-Americans get to go online, compared to 70 per cent access in the case of whites ( www.pewinternet.org ).
But while your race or income determines whether or not you will use communication technologies in the West, in the poor countries, it is largely where you live that dictates if you will log on or continue to stay offline.
It is evident that there is some concentration of service providers in the urban areas than in the rural, although even in the well served towns, there is some disparity in access by people in upmarket neighbourhoods and those in slums.
This means that in parts of Kenya, even the user with the know-how and resources simply cannot get these services because there are no digital infrastructure to support leased lines and ADSL (asymmetric digital subscriber line) connections, which are a high-speed internet service over ordinary copper wire. Even where there is a wireless alternative, the signal is likely to be too weak to support reliable connections. The only option would, therefore, be expensive satellite solutions.
So how does everyone get to the digital world?
In the developed world, a large number of educated and affluent people provided a large-scale production of computers and telephone facilities for the market. Moreover, these technologies were invented in those countries, so naturally, they had no problem using them. In our case, things are different. Even if the technologies were available and affordable, there still would be the need to develop a capacity of users.
Luckily, low-cost digital telecommunication technologies, computer hardware and software as well as other related innovations, are making it possible for more and more people to enter the cyberspace.
Some of these new innovations come from countries such as India and Brazil which, for a long time, have been on the receiving end of technology themselves.
Telephone exchanges imported to India tend to have high-capacity lines and therefore are not viable in the rural areas.
When they realised that small-capacity telephone exchanges were hard to come by, Indians made digital ones that would carry as low as 100 lines.
The modified digital equipment would also be resistant to the country's heat and humidity, unlike the electromechanical analog switches.
The Indian innovators have lately adapted the wireless local loop (WLL) technology (using CDMA like those of Telkom, Flashcom and Popote Wireless) and came up with a product called corDect, which is expected to be affordable for rural India ( www.tenet.res .in/cordect.html).
Such technologies can also be adapted further by Kenyan telecoms engineers so as to give low-cost telephony and internet to rural and other low-income communities. Isn't everything now in the technology world about leapfrogging and piggy-riding?
For as little as Sh20,000, one can now buy a computer in Nairobi that used to cost four times as much a few years back. Or for the same amount one can get the simple computer, "simputer" from the Indian Institute of Technology.
The simputer allows people with low literacy to browse the internet using pictures and also translate website content into local languages ( www.simputer.org ).
When it comes to software, Linux and other free open-source products like Ubuntu give users who cannot afford licensed software the chance to use technology.
Going by the developments seen everyday in government and the private sector in the growth of the internet and telecommunications, Kenyans can rest assured prices will keep falling.
There is a lot of digging in of fibre optic cables around the country, while work on the laying of undersea international fibre optic backbone is expected to be completed by the end of next year. This should make internet cheaper and faster locally.
The digital villages project, though it will not serve all corners of the country, will be critical in the diffusion of the internet because local entrepreneurs will be able to replicate the business model and set up computing centres of their own elsewhere.
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But this will happen only when people see the viability of the government-supported digital villages.
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