Why should we worry about the Digital Divide?

[Chief Technology Officer-ISPKenya <cto at nbi.ispkenya.com>]

Colleagues,

As Phillip Engmann very eloquently put forth at the recently concluded Africa Telecomms Summit in Accra, Ghana - we in Africa should not worry about building bridges to cover the digital divide...

In describing the attitude that a majority of incumbent PTTs, regulators and governments have taken in deciding on the step-by-step approach rather than the leapfrog approach, he hit the nail on the head. Rather than go step-by-step through the same 15+ years of narrowband digital architectures, we in Africa can make a DIGITAL LEAP and deploy the latest in today's optical technologies. As Phillip very correctly pointed out, today it costs less to build a gigabit optical network than it costs to build a megabit digital network. Today's (and probably tomorrow's) technologies will be driven by light. Not just across the long haul pipes, but also in the minutest of components.

The part that got me the most about Phillip's hard-hitting presentation was his closing statement:

"Seek ye first the optical kingdom and all the other bridges will be added unto you!"

Looking forward to seeing these networks flashing bright lights across the continent,

Brian Longwe

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