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IN CONVERSATION
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THE CHANNEL
the goals says that by 2015 most
populations should be spending no
more than 5% on broadband
connectivity. I can’t think of a
single country in Africa that’s going
to achieve that goal. But I think it’s
an important goal to have, because
it speaks to my point of without
affordability, connectivity is totally
futile and affordability without
reach is equally useless.
Is it an advantage building digital
infrastructure from scratch, rather
than having to deal with legacy
systems?
Absolutely. I think it’s important
that we skip a generation in quite a
lot of stuff. If you go to countries
like Rwanda, which is a textbook
case, in my view, of good
technology leadership by president
Paul Kagame, they are definitely
skipping a generation. Kagame’s
goal is by the end of 2014 to have
LTE connectivity for 90% of the
Rwandan population. He’s rolling
out 3,000 kilometres of fibre optic
cable, across a very small country,
and he’s trying to improve
affordability and get the right
spectrum policy. He doesn’t have to
worry about ADSL or cable, he can
skip straight to those new
technologies. And if any other
countries have an opportunity to
do the same, I would urge them to
take it.
What’s the key message for policy
makers about DSO?
The one clear message is, as I say in
my book: “The analogue to digital
switchover of TV should not just be
an exercise in technocracy. It
should and must be exploited as an
opportunity to light the burners of
a new multi-channel, multi-media,
interactive and more social media
sector in most of these economies.”
A lot of the African countries and a
lot of the emerging markets are
going through the digital
switchover as a purely technocratic
exercise. That is such a big mistake
– and is missing the point. The
whole point of doing this is to
release those frequencies to drive a
new, much more emergent
telecommunications, media and
technology sector. The reason to do
it is to create jobs. If you have 20
channels, rather than one channel –
you need 20 illustrators, you need
20 editors, you need 20
newsreaders, you need 20 websites,
you need 20 MDs, the list goes on.
This is what this is really all about.
It is about creating the soul of the
new economy.
H Nwana, thank you.
Left Aerials
about to be
installed as part
of the White
Spaces project at
the University of
Malawi
Right Mobile
banking is
important in
Rwanda
Far left
President Kagame
of Rwanda
