ICT
In Ethiopia’s Sustainable Development Context: Policy
Challenges
Jalal Abdel-Latif World Bank, Ethiopia
jabdellatif@worldbank.org
The Government of Ethiopia is in the
midst of implementing an ambitious policy reform, if successful,
will usher in considerable devolution of political, programmatic
and budgetary authority from the federal to woreda (district)
level of government. Ethiopia has embarked on a major political
and economic reform to fix its public sector, decentralized
development, enhance good governance to accelerate rural
development, reduce poverty and spark economic growth as
well as to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDG).
In the midst of this, it took a bold
decision to address the access gap of rural connectivity
by sharply increasing its investment in telecom backbone
infrastructure. The Ethiopian Telecommunication Corporation
is leading this effort by installing and deploying the necessary
equipment in almost all of the Woeredas. The expansion of
telecom infrastructure country wide, will have a transformative
effect by supporting Ethiopia's developmental and democratization
agenda if also effectively implemented and used, the rural
connections could have the potential to bring radical institutional
change and also help move Ethiopia towards the creation
of a virtual state.
In this context, this paper attempts
to offer a modest contribution towards illustrating how
to make ICT into a good vehicle for responsive rural service
delivery, improve public sector performance . It suggests
that IT is a crucial and critical infrastructure that needs
to be made available to advance the interests of the poor
in agrarian Ethiopia. The possible applications of ICT in
rural Ethiopia range from basic automation of office management
to setting up Internet-based interactive information systems.
The focus of this paper is on developing Woreda-centeric
information system that could equip local development actors
to plan and share local knowledge.
Such a system would make it possible
to decentralize research and data and make information readily
available to those who most need it. Policy-makers could
use an IT-based information management system for decision-making
as well as for monitoring and tracking progress in rural
development. It could provide important support to stakeholders
who suffer from knowledge gaps and information deficiency.
ICT
Parks for Sustainable Development Experiences from India
and Sweden
Fisseha
Mekuria Graduate School of Telecommunications
& IT, ETC
e-mail: fisseha.mekuria@gstit.edu.et
In this paper
the concept of ICT parks is discussed as a tool for sustainable
technology deployment and economic development of countries
with developing economies. The paper will be presented based
on ICT park experiences gained by the author from India
and Sweden. The ICT park in Bangalore, India and the ICT
parks at IDEON-Lund, in Sweden will be used as case examples.
The basic motivation for ICT Parks in these aforementioned
countries is that, the parks are used as incubators of potential
ideas emanating from higher educational institutions. ICT
parks provide the organization and tools used to incubate
these ideas and develop them into a prototype or a product,
and based on that the building of an industry that will
generate employment and economic development for a society.
The concept and organization of ICT parks for development
(IDPs) in developing countries will be discussed.
In downstream hardware
production: (i) the knowledge base for innovation is in
the public domain and can be easily transmitted across countries;
(ii) barring core areas like semi-conductors, levels of
investment are lower and less "lumpy" than in
non-IT manufacturing sectors; and (iii) products are more
"heterogeneous", consisting of varying combinations
of sub-systems, components and peripherals.
In software production:
(i) knowledge is easily acquired; (ii) innovations are easily
replicated; and (iii) capital requirements are small.
Service Unit: provision of basic IT services for sectors
such as music and entertainment, information (e.g. graphics
designs and animations etc), production etc.
Expander:
Cost Efficient Deployment of Mobile Networks to Address
New
Geographical Areas
Bodil
Josefsson,
Ericsson, Sweden
Communication is a basic human need.
Today only 20% of the world’s population uses mobile
phones, so the potential for growth is massive. Over half
a million new mobile subscribers sign up each day, and people
are using their phones more and more.
In industry forecasts, we see that
80% of new subscriber growth over the next 5 years will
be in emerging markets, with forecasts indicating penetration
among another billion subscribers. This growth will largely
be within a growing segment of the population that previously
has not been able to afford mobile telephony services, or
has lived outside of areas with mobile coverage. Offerings
for these markets can be summarized as efficient, scalable,
entry-level solutions focusing on cost-optimization for
the operator. With the ambition to reach out to this growing
segment, operators have requested more cost efficient coverage
and capacity solutions from vendors.
This presentation provides examples
of how to build a profitable radio network with focus on
low total cost of ownership, while targeting new segments
of the population that have not had access to mobile services.
Different challenges related to reaching these new segments
are also addressed. Focus is on GSM solutions but also CDMA2000
will be mentioned.
Ethiopic
Keyboard Mapping and Predictive Text Inputting Algorithm
in a Wireless Environment
Shiferaw Abebe, Department of Computer Science,
Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Solomon
Atnafu Department of Computer Science,
Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Tewodros
Seyum Department of Information Science,
Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Samuel
Kinde Kassegne Henri Samueli School of Engineering,
University of California at Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697.
External Faculty, Addis Ababa University
E-mail: samk@digitaladdis.com
As the wireless revolution continues
to make fast in-roads in telecommunication in developing
countries such as Ethiopia, the availability of wireless
local content and application programs in local writing
systems becomes a necessity. However, a few fundamental
technical barriers have to be removed before wireless content
in such writing systems such as Ethiopic writing system
becomes a possibility. In this paper, we address the issues
of keyboard mapping and predictive text inputting - two
such issues of significant challenge - for Ethiopic applications
in wireless environments.
Converged
Network: A Means to Accelerate Network Service Penetration
Dawit
Birhanu and Woldeloul Kassa, Cisco Systems Inc.
170 West Tasman Drive
San Jose CA. 95134, USA
Convergence consolidates many
disparate networks into a single network while supporting
existing services and enabling new ones. The major benefits
of a converged network to a service provider are lower capital
cost, lower operational expense, enabling new services,
increased revenue, and speedy provisioning. To reap the
benefits brought about by converged network major service
providers, inter-exchange carries, local exchange carriers
and PTTs around the world have started converging their
disparate networks into a single MPLS/IP packet based network.
This paper shows the importance of
converged network to Ethiopia as a means to accelerate network
service penetration across the country at a much lower cost
than is possible otherwise. While the low telecommunications
penetration rate poses a steep challenge for Ethiopia to
catch up with the rest of the world, it also presents a
great opportunity to leapfrog to a converged infrastructure,
which enables service expansion at an expedited rate and
at lower cost. Convergence is much more important to a country
like Ethiopia, where the telecom penetration rate is very
low, than to countries where telecom penetration is much
higher.
This paper discusses what a converged
network is and why it is important to Ethiopia. It also
addresses IP/MPLS as the underlying technology that enables
convergence, different wired and wireless access technologies,
and migration issues – how the current services on
disparate networks are transitioned to a converged network
and how the current disparate network infrastructure can
be reused in a converged network.
Multi Service Broadband
Wireless Network: A Solution to the Quick Deployment Drive
for Telecommunications Networks
Kelemework
Belai GDSS, 300 North Continental Blvd,
Suite 300
El Segundo, CA 90245, USA
Email: kelembelai@gdssglobal.com
If you cannot communicate with
the rest of the world, you cannot participate in the expanding
role of the national and global information infrastructure.
Many planners have observed that telecommunications constitute
the main infrastructure for the leading the developing countries
into the global economy. Where there is a potential for
revenue, wireless technology could offer a bootstrap to
participation in that market for many regions of the world
that might otherwise be excluded.
In response to the needs of the emerging nations, a number
of their governments have developed an attractive environment
for rapid growth of their telecommunication capabilities
for various market segments using the latest wireless full-fledged
ones, like the Global Digital Satellite Systems (GDSS) Wireless
Multi Services Broadband Network (MSBN).
GDSS has developed the wireless MSBN
as a unique combination of modern technologies to create
an affordable and flexible 21st century distributed computer-based
telecommunications network that is forever young. The MSBN
provides national broadband wireless coverage seamlessly
integrating standard telephony services (voice, fax &
modem), plus Broadband Internet, Video Conferencing and
streaming video all within a single broadband converged
network. The MSBN broadband “building blocks”
provide flexible network architecture solutions that can
be applied to each country’s unique requirements.
MSBN solutions for high density urban, medium density sub-urban
and low density rural areas can all be easily interconnected
providing a complete seamless national coverage plan. The
ability to easily interconnect all regions of a country
into a “turnkey” single seamless network and
other similar factors separate the MSBN from any other technologies
available today.
The GDSS MSBN provides wireless broadband
capabilities of up to 1600 Mbps providing limitless applications.
Due to this high bandwidth capacity as well as its complete
national coverage capabilities, the MSBN can easily be applied
to solve numerous national Services requirements such as;
Urban & Rural telephony, broadband Internet, Video Conferencing,
Built-in MPEG-4 advanced compression. These Services can
be the basis for Telemedicine, National School net (Virtual
classroom conferencing), National TV & Movie broadcasting,
and private networks for Government, Military, Bank/Financial
institutions or private corporations. MSBN has full security
and fraud control capabilities to support these applications.
Economics also played an important
role in the development of its MSBN product. The MSBN features
of VoIP, quick deployment-ability and the sharp reduction
of cost are attracting many Governments, of the developing
countries to consider as their strategic partner. A number
of developing countries are also coming to the forefront.
For example, the largest telephone operator, NTT of Japan,
with over 30 million subscribers needs worth mentioning.
NTT is making a further shift in call traffic from public
switch telephone networks (PSTN) to IP network systems,
in preparation of the advent of IP-age, halting all new
investments in PSTN.
Dula Shanko Head: Data Management and
Dissemination Department
P. O. box 1090
National Meteorological services Agency
(NMSA) collects data, using telephone, Single Sided Band
(SSB) radio, postal service and satellite communication
systems. The Agency also uses Global telecommunication system
(GTS) to exchange Meteorological data with World meteorological
Organization (WMO) members’ countries. As the communication
technology is rapidly changing, to meet world standard,
NMSA has tried to computerize meteorological data using
different databases The Agency attempt, have been made to
implement climate database management system (CDBMS) using
a VAX, computer, with about ten terminals for data entry
in 1980’s, Magnetic tape had been used to store the
data. However, due to outdated of this machine all the data
collected and organized had been lost. After the failure
of this, NMSA has implemented another software, which is
called CLICOM (climate computing) software that developed
by WMO member countries. This software has been used but
failed due to lack ownership, as there was no ownerships
or responsible agency for its sustainable development and
updating with current technology ...At present until we
get sustainable, effective and efficient system. NMSA is
forced to use Microsoft excel software for data entry and
processing and organizing, however, to alleviate the problems
the agency has taken different measures, among them preparing
the following different projects to request finding agencies:
· Climate database management
system project proposal
· ICT policy formulation
· ICT capacity building
· Web site Development
· LAN/WAN implementation to connect its Regional
office Bureau’s
The Agency has also faced problems
due to turnover of trained manpower, this also creates problem
in services delivery. I think this is not only specific
to our agency, so it needs Comprehensive solution at all
level of the country.
