eBusiness Weekly
Kudzanai Sharara
If there is one thing that has kept me sane during the Covid-19 pandemic, it is the fact that I have largely remained connected to do my work and to interact with both friends and relatives.
I have also not worried much for my school going children as I have managed to get them online tutorials that can help continue broadening their knowledge and skills.
I worry though, for the less fortunate ones in our communities across the country. The social and economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic must have been huge.
For adults, they have not been able to work, or socialise with their kith and kin.
And with the parents struggling to stay connected, one can only imagine what the impact has been like for school going children.
Online education is not even a remote possibility for such kids, in particular those in the rural areas and those from vulnerable families in the high density areas dotted across the country.
One lesson from all this though is that digital connectivity, just like roads and rail should be a public good.
Even if it’s going to continue to be offered largely by private players, Government now has to provide an enabling environment.
The significant role that digital connectivity is now expected to play in education, health and the economy calls for an adjustment to regulations that boost internet capacities.
It is key that going forward, governments must put in place incentives that allow service providers to increase internet speeds and capacity at very little or no cost to the consumer.
In the recent past we have seen Government subsidise fuel and a few other things, but with the future largely depending on digital access, it might well be time to give support to the telecoms sector.
This might not be necessarily through subsidies, but can be done through other incentives.
In the past we have seen Government pushing telecom companies into sharing of infrastructure such as base stations.
In its last report, Potraz said Econet and NetOne are only sharing 4 base stations out of a possible 300 but what could make a huge impact is for Government to invest in base stations itself and let telecommunication companies share.
Or Government could offer tax rebates for telecoms that put up base stations that they are willing to share.
The coronavirus pandemic has demonstrated all too vividly that bridging the digital divide will have to be done with urgency. As much as it will take huge amounts of money, what it really needs are partners who are committed for the long haul and governments needs to play a central role of bringing this to fruition through policies and regulations.
World Bank’s Vice President for Infrastructure, Makhtar Diop recommends that public utilities that have valuable assets, such as ducts and poles, buildings, land rights, and even fibre networks could be leveraged for cost-effective deployment of broadband infrastructure.
In a paper titled “Covid-19 reinforces the need for connectivity”, Diop also pushes the infrastructure sharing agenda.
“For telecom operators, infrastructure sharing is the way to go to expand coverage and reduce costs in network deployment. Second, we must power digital transformation in some of the world’s poorest countries by massively scaling up resources dedicated to building the foundations of a thriving digital economy.”
Diop said the crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic shows that benefits and opportunities of technology are not equally distributed.
He gave the informal sector as an example where there is no such thing as telecommuting. Across the world, while online meetings have become the new normal in lockdown, in poor countries, even established businesses, more often than not, do not have the financial capacity to move to online operations.
One of the biggest barrier is the cost of internet connectivity, a result of high cost of power and infrastructural management. Service providers argue that it’s not economically feasible to roll out a network to cover an entire country, particularly in rural areas where usage is low, but the cost of putting up a base station is equally the same.
According to Clement Prince Addo, PhD researcher, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, one way of reducing the cost of infrastructure is to demarcate, and zone major cities — or the whole country into zones.
Each zone takes only one mast (base station), owned by an infrastructure provider and shared by multiple service providers. A provider like the state regulator, can own and manage the data from the base station. At the middle level, service providers focus on providing tailored and quality of service to their users. The service providers will not have to spend their resources on managing the infrastructure they only have to deal with how to satisfy users. The user on the third level has to only deal with service providers.
This framework would allow for power and bandwidth sharing among multiple service providers and would reduce the need for multiple masts.
“Traffic would be scheduled over limited masts or access points that reduce the system energy consumption and improve efficiency. The general impact on the environment would also be reduced,” said Addo.
The Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI), which was also formed with the aim of bringing the cost of connectivity in developing countries down, says its objective is to focus on policy and regulation reform to facilitate the process of bringing down Internet prices.
A4AI has a reference target of contributing to achieving the UN Broadband Commission’s objective of Internet access costing 5 percent of per capita income.
This will be down from Africa’s average range of between 20-30 percent.
To bring these costs down, A4AI suggests focusing on policy and regulatory reform that can result in a healthy competitive market.
We need to have policy and regulatory frameworks ensuring this and to incentivise players to compete in lowering prices, A4AI executive director Sonia Jorge said in an interview with a regional media house Business Tech.
“The second piece of what we need to do is to lower the cost structures in the industries, allowing them to pass on savings to the consumers. There is a strong link between the cost structure and prices,” according to Jorge.
Again the issue of infrastructure sharing was seen as a way to reduce the investment required. Reducing the cost of spectrum and associated fees and through innovative uses of spectrum was also seen as a way of reducing costs and subsequently prices.
In a blog post on its website, titled “Affordable internet access: The cost challenge”, the Alliance for Affordable Internet went as far as suggesting explicit subsidies on retail internet access, both for infrastructure access and for end-user devices.
“This is a strategy that should be adopted by all developing countries as they seek to improve internet affordability,” argued A4AI. Lower end-user prices provide the best way to stimulate demand. As volumes grow, unit costs will fall and further price cuts will be enabled.”
Another interesting suggestion is that countries should advocate and put in place policies that encourage increased adoption of technology.
Innovation and policy initiatives in areas such e-Government, e-Health and the local caching of popular content, would fuel demand, lower unit costs, and result in prices that become ever more affordable.
