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Uganda: ICT Revolution
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New Vision (Kampala)
ANALYSIS
5 July 2008
Posted to the web 7 July 2008
Dr. Frederick Wamala
Kampala
Information and communication technology has grown dramatically in Uganda. However, its users must put in place good information security systems to achieve their objectives
Uganda has experienced a remarkable Information Technology (IT) revolution over the last 11 years. Nothing demonstrates the revolution than the introduction of Blackberry devices. A Blackberry combines mobile phone, email and internet browsing features.
Blackberry adoption is big deal. How so? North America was thrown into panic following a recent patent infringement row between Blackberry makers (Research in Motion) and NTP, a US company. NTP sought to halt US sales of the Blackberry and shut down the service. However, the US Government intervened to prevent the closure due to the centrality of Blackberry to its own operations. Research in Motion eventually paid NTP $612.5m in settlement.
Having a BlackBerry infrastructure is remarkable if one worked in the Uganda IT sector in the 1990s. Bitter complaints about limited telephony and excessively high internet access tariffs dominated IT practitioner and policy forums. In 1997 Uganda had three full Internet Service Providers (ISPs), namely Starcom, Infomail and Swift Global.
Infomail merged with Starcom to form Infocom. Other providers offered email-only facilities on a store and forward principle. These included Mukla (Uganda's pioneer), HealthNet, Informa, Bushnet, Mission Aviation Fellowship and FidoNet.
Internet World Statistics claims Uganda currently has 2,000,000 internet users. In 1997 it was estimated that Uganda had just over 2,500 full internet users and 500 email-only users. Gaining access to the internet then was slow, expensive and unpredictable. The main cause of the slow connections was the location of internet backbones in North America and Europe. Hence, despite ISP claims of offering 256Kbps connections, internet speeds rarely exceeded 64Kbps.
Internet access costs were high because the connection routes led to longer time being spent on the satellite. The service was unreliable because faults were not fixed quickly since the internet backbones were managed in different time zones. For example, Infomail had its internet backbone in Colorado, US. This is about nine hours behind Uganda.
The biggest problem though was the local telephone infrastructure which was noisy, non-standardised and largely non-existent in many parts of the country. Improvements started with the licensing of the Second National Operator (MTN). Uganda currently has a vibrant telecoms sector with many players and room for more entrants. The creation of the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology further elevated the status of IT in the wider economic development discourse.
Indeed, a range of regional IT infrastructure initiatives might make the lengthy connectivity cycles something of the past. For example, the National Transmission Backbone Infrastructure is making it possible to connect government agencies around Uganda. In addition, Uganda Telecom is constructing a fibre-optic link from Mbarara to Rwanda. The link, scheduled for completion in November, will form part of the East African Backhaul System (EABS). EABS involves telecoms operators from Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya. EABS will connect to the East African Submarine Cable System (EASSY) currently under construction from Port Sudan (Sudan) to Durban (South Africa). MTN is a partner in the EABS project.
However, discussions with business and IT decision makers in Uganda indicate a limited consideration of the consequences of linking internal IT systems to the internet. Until recently, computers were rare in offices and often acted as a convenient scapegoat whenever a company failed to pay employees on time. Today, most offices have desktop computers, laptops and personal digital assistants (PDAs). The numbers will only increase as connections become more affordable and stable.
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The writer is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional
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