Internet connectivity & Landlocked Countries: Counting on Marine Cables

Saturday morning, I am all in my working mood, I plug my 3G modem into my computer and booom – internet is NOT working!! Usually when my internet fails I trying to fix it. I try to fix my own internet because I don’t like wasting my time calling customer support – who often doesn’t even know how to help! After over 14hours of trying my service provider sends me a text message:

Over 36 hours of limited internet connectivity and I must say that these have been some of the longest hours of my life. You know one of those days when you badly need to read your email but you can’t because the internet is down – Why is the internet down? You basically do not know. And just when you are about to go to the internet café you learn that the internet is down because apparently the marine cables which are supposed to be delivering a link of fast internet connectivity to your country are broken. The Marine cables are undersea optic fibre cables which were installed to deliver a link of fast internet connectivity to different corners of the world.

3G Vs Broadband Vs Dialup

At times like this I am very pissed at MTN (my internet service provider) and at the same time thinking, life was so much easier when we used to have broadband or that little dial-up connection. It is for that reason why I keep Orange as my other internet service provider on standby – this time Orange didn’t do any better. Back in the days dial-up and broadband internet was much slower than the 3G but much more reliable in terms of uptime.

The completion of the installation of the marine cables is the best thing that has happened to the internet speeds in Uganda as this was very much anticipated. Hoping that the fibre optic cables would bring fast internet to Uganda – I couldnt wait! Yes, to a certain extent the long wait was worth it; with 3G+ internet speeds in Uganda have greatly improved. But people like me are already seeing the cost that the failure of these marine cables will impose on our work/ businesses and economy at large.

Uganda like many other landlocked countries in East Africa are currently investing huge amounts of money to ensure that 3G internet connectivity is widely distributed but I must remind you all that we need to have backup plans for times like this when the marine cables are broken or malfunctioning. Many districts in Uganda don’t have access to broadband which means that when 3G is down, they are (almost) completely unplugged.

Recommendations to service providers about Customer Care

Oh and I probably forgot to remind MTN – I know that your services suck so much but can please send the SMS much earlier next time so I don’t waste a lot of my time “trying to chase the wind”? Thank You!

And to Orange Uganda – my other service provider, what happened to those timely SMS notifications? I used to be so proud of you but I now I am thinking that you have been in Uganda too long that you are already forgetting that Customer Care is key!

And again, broadband and dialup internet connections should still be considered as very strong substitutes to our “beloved” 3G!

Its Fast, Its FREE: Its 0.facebook.com!

Good bye m.facebook.com. WELCOME 0.facebook.com – its free, its fast!

On Tuesday, May 18th, 2010, Facebook launched a new way of accessing Facebook anytime, anywhere: 0.facebook.com is a new mobile site. On this Mobile Site, you will not be able to view pictures [but who cares about photos on phone?]. However, you will be able to access all the key features of facebook. 0.facebook.com has been fully optimized for your phone for speed. For now it is available to 50 mobile operators in 45 countries. MTN Uganda is one of 50 mobile operators. I am so proud of MTN right now because, many youth will now get a chance to access mobile facebook with out having to worry about using up their airtime on data.

Mobile internet remains very slow in many countries including Uganda. This makes surfing sites like facebook on phone quite boring because of the slow connection. However, because there are not many choices, many facebook users still prefer to use their cell phones to update their facebook statuses.

Soon as I heard about the New *FREE Mobile Facebook, I couldnt believe, so I rushed to my phone, patched in 0.facebook.com – wow! Amazing. I was so out of words.

Thank you MTN Uganda – Thank you Facebook.

introducing GTUG – Google Technology User Group Kampala

Now Google Apps Users and Developers have a chance to appreciate or critic the various google apps we interact with on the web today!
Apparently GTUGs has been active in many parts around the world but Kampala.

The over 15 or so google apps users and developers who have turned out for the first GTUG meeting in Kampala are sharing their experiences with Google Apps.

Very interesting!!

Thank you Google.

Next Meeting to take place – April 24th, 2010 – Kampala.

Also visit http://kampala.gtugs.org and http://gtugs.org

Provide skills NOT just finished technologies.

Most of the current problems in Africa are being solve by the few “experts”. On top of being expensive, it takes them a bit of time to do the necessary research and studies before they come to a conclusion. In my opinion, it would be a lot easy if the local people are given the skills to investigate solutions to the problems affecting them. This makes them feel more involved hence taking up the obligation to find solutions to their own problems and “make it happen”/ innovate. Its the same with the technologies. Once people get the technologies, they don’t feel the urge to work hard or improve on the current technologies or even look for cheaper solutions. But when the solution to a problems affecting a wider community comes as a result of skill the locals have earned. They get more involved in applying the required skills – more innovative too!! Give skills not technology.

the tech “unrest”

The information age possess a big challenge today; technology is more or less becoming the driving force of our economies.

When I say “technology”, I literally mean the web technologies, mobile technologies, and different gadgets/ hardware platforms.

Today I am subscribing to over 10 social networking websites. Now its in my habit to log in for updates and news. While the information I get is important, I must say that “technology is killing me”.

Back in the days, all I could do with the internet was read my mail and read just about a few things on the web. Things used to be so simple. With the introduction of social media, web 2.0 (and now web 3.0) the web is becoming rich and richer, more demanding and most importantly, more informative.

Now here I am signing in and out of twitter, facebook, ning, skype, yahoo, gmail, wordpress extra. I am not saying that I don’t appreciate the innovations on the web or social media, I do.

Looking at hardware, you walk into a store looking for the best gadget on market and just before you walk out a new product/ gadget is being introduced on the market!

Of course you will never be up to date at all times in this “tech-revolution”.

On the positive side of things however, I must acknowledge the fact that as more and more technologies come up, the quality of products on the market gets better and better, the technology becomes cheaper as it gets replaced so fast. For example Pentium 4 computers are now fairly cheap in Uganda today because of the recently introduced Quads and Core 2 Duo processors.

Countries are moving from the industrial economies to information economies and I believe that technology has a great role to play.

Introducing Nika a new Content Management System.

We have seen many open source content management systems like Joomla, Mambo and Drupal. Well, I will say Nika is one of those.

Yesterday I took the pleasure to attend the demonstration and training workshop on Nika. The application has been developed by a team of Developers in South Africa with support from knight Foundation a US organisation.

Simon demonstrates Nika to the delegates

Simon one of the volunteers of the project say he got involved a month ago to help and document the user manuals. “This is not a beta version but the application is solid though there are still more things to do” says Simon.

From my personal experience the most powerful component in Nika is the ability for it to send and receive text messages. No I am not saying that the earlier content management systems cant do this. I must there fore appreciate the fact that Nika comes in one suite and once installed you get the full functionality.

“This is a great day for community newspapers in Africa, the launch of a fully fledged open source CMS, available to any independent paper in Africa and else where that wants something robust for work flow and content management.”

Nika CMS at a glance!

Nika is yet to be made available for the general public to use. Please  Read More about Nika here: http://nml.ru.ac.za/projects/nika-digital-newsroom

If you have any ideas please feel free to email me and share.

on the negative side of the internet

facebook; a famous meeting joint in Uganda today.

More and more Ugandans especially the working class and students in secondary school and tertiary institutions continue to sign up for social networking sites like facebook, myspace and twitter. As it is today, facebook has become a famous meeting joint. Through wall post, “what’s on your mind” – status updates and photo albums, people are able to keep in touch online. And in any case they dont feel isolated even when they dont meet physically as long as they can talk online.

A friend recently mentioned to me that she was quite intimidated by the rate at which the internet community was growing not only in Uganda but also around the globe. “The internet is threatening to take over our traditional ways of social networking as we know it”, she said.

Not long before these applications, people would meet occasionally for get-together parties and the like, but now things are changing. People no longer visit friends or use their mobile phones to call or SMS that much unless of course if its very urgent, but they find it easy to comment on facebook posts and to email for example.

Computers and the internet were designed to automate human activities and behavior. This new form of social networking (online) is a clone of the traditional ones. The only problem is that it creates a gap between the connected people and those who dont have access to the internet considering the digital divide gap as it is in Uganda today.

Should the rest of the facebook, myspace and twitter communities be scared too?

Citizen Journalism in Uganda!

The title “Journalist” here in Uganda has always been for those few people who go to a higher institution of learning and pursue a Bachelor’s Degree and perhaps a Master’s and for that reason it has always been a profession.

Today looks like it is not a profession no more. But rather a talent! Many people in civil societies in Uganda have learnt not to trust the professional journalist because most of them are money minded. And those who are not cannot reflect the public opinions in the media because the media is regulated by the policy makers and stake holders in their own opinions.

With the growth of information societies, communities are seeking to have their voices heard and their opinions attended to. This has lead to the creation of Citizen Journalists. With support from local organizations like Women of Uganda Network and international organization like European Union, Hivos, SangoNet

Citizen Journalism in Uganda by Javie Ssozi.

, e.t.c, many Ugandans and people from other African countries have been introduced to citizen journalism, taught how to use the different tool and web applications to gather, write and publish articles both on the web and in other media.

Their voices have not yet been heard by the wider communities in Uganda or even in Africa because of the issues of connectivity and the digital divide. However, as ICTs continue to find their way in to country, people picking more interest in the independent citizen journalism media.

Other people are participating on discussion groups for example the D-Groups, mailing lists and forum and all these are aimed at raising people’s voices to the wider community. Many policy makers and stakeholders have subscribed themselves to some of these discussion forums/ groups. However most of the participants on these platforms are focusing on issues to do with internet governance and ICTs in particular.

I have also noticed that some of the writers in the local papers are adding links to their blogs at the bottom of their articles.

For details about Citizen Journalism in Africa and articles by citizen journalism from Uganda, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, South Africa and Zambia see the following portal.

Twitter infected by Rival site!

Over the Easter weekend a computer worm infected people’s profiles on the Twitter social Network.

Apparently it has been said that the worm was aimed at promoting “STALKDAILY” a Twitter rival site.

“No passwords, phone numbers, or other sensitive information was compromised as part of these attacks”, stated the Twitter Blog.

Twitter administrators are

Twitter

currently working in the back-end to improve on the site security and still battling off attacks. Despite the attack, Twitter is now up and running.

See full story on the Twitter Blog.

Mobile Technology for Community Development!

Mobile Phones

In the recent 16 Days of Activism campaign Against Gender Based Violence (GBV) Raising Voices and EASSI in partnership with WOUGNET ran a campaign to create awareness of GBV through the use of Bulk SMS.
Throughout the 16 days, we (WOUGNET technical support) used the Bulk SMS tool to send messages to over 500 People around the world. Most of the people who participated in this campaign were from within Uganda however others were from countries outside Uganda.
This SMS tool is a Mobile Technology. Apparently many people in Uganda and around the world own cell (mobile) phones. In Uganda the distribution of telephone services is a phone for every 4 people. That implies that approximately 8 Million Ugandans owns mobile phones today.
This has been as a result of mobile phone prices becoming very cheap and also more service providers being licensed in the country. The tariffs (call rates) are also becoming affordable with offers to make cheap calls across the different networks.
In Uganda today people are using their phones for different purposes. And some of these purposes are not limited to special phones with a number of functionalities. For example last year I visited a local organization Kubere Information Center in Apac district (Northern Uganda) and here rural women farmers use their mobile phones to get updates on Market prices! Today I can get news headlines, forex rates and soccer updates on my cell from my service provider. Many people use their mobile phones to communicate and keep in touch with their friends and family most of these are youth. More advance users of mobile phones are demanding for more sophisticated mobile phones. To get one with all the functionality you need you will have to pay a good price for it as the prices vary from one distributer to another. Uganda Telecom one of the Telecom Service Providers has introduced 3G technology. This service provides a fast internet connection for mobile phones that are compatible with the technology. Other service providers are still using GPRS and EDGE technologies to provide mobile internet services. MTN (another Telecom Service Provider) had introduced mobile money. To use the service one has to subscribe on the MTN network and then register with mobile money dealers and then they can use their mobile phones to send and receive money.

Text To Change a Dutch organisation working here in Uganda is using mobile technology (SMS) to improve health and education facilities/ services through quizzes and SMS campaigns.
However all mobile phones support SMS. This is a basic function. And one of the most widely used technologies around the world.

Mobile technologies have been known to be “boring”, but with the new innovations they happen to be more cost effective and easy to use as compared to the web. Most of the web applications have been made available for mobile! Websites, social networking site like facebook, myspace etc.

Recently I was discussing with a friend about the innovative use of SMS and mobile technology and she told me that in Serbia people use their mobile phones to pay for parking space on the streets!