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Kenyan Post Office, Citizens Cut Off from Satellite-based Internet

Spektor – Thu, 2006 – 09 – 07 10:26

In his best-selling memoir Dreams from My Father, U.S. Senator Barack Obama wrote extensively about how corruption in his father's native Kenya constantly thwarted his father's ambitions and drive toward personal and economic betterment.

Obama recently returned to Kenya; now it appears that such corruption continues to this day. According to BusinessDay, the Kenyan Post Office and the citizens who used the cheap, high speed Internet access available at their local post offices had their satellite-based access to the world-wide web cut off due to lack of payment. Universal Satspace, a satellite communications company-based in Israel (or Delaware, depending on who you ask) had to cut off the service after the African country failed to pay its bills for over five quarters and owed more than $12.3 million dollars to the company.

First reported last month in All Africa, the Kenyan government is supposedly holding back its payment to Universal Satspace because it suspects that the contracted is connected to government contract-leasing scandal that has emerged in the country over the past year and a half. Universal Satspace is, understandably, fervently denying any allegations of wrong doing, claiming that the Kenyan government is using the claims of corruption as a way of getting out of making the necessary payments.

The real tragedy, of course, is that the country's refusal to pay and Universal Satspace's response has resulted in the Kenyan people's disconnection from the Internet. According to the Business Day report, while the agreement's main goal was to modernize the state's postal system (which, in turn, has made it a model for the rest of Africa) the introduction of Internet service to even the most rural of post offices enabled the government to provide its people access to fax and Internet service at prices far lower than what was offered by Internet cafes.

As we can see in the video above, the service really worked and was doing a great deal to connect Kenyans to growing online communities. Hopefully, an agreement between Universal Satspace and the government can be worked out soon.

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First Kenya, Now Zimbabwe!

Via Reuters [http://today.reuters.com/news/home.aspx]

Zimbabwe internet slows to crawl as debts unpaid
Wed Sep 20, 2006 6:17 AM ET

HARARE (Reuters) - Internet traffic in Zimbabwe has come close to a standstill after an international satellite firm slashed its bandwidth because the cash-starved government failed to pay the bill.

Government-owned TelOne, which owns the country's main satellite Internet link, said satellite firm Intelsat had cut its international bandwidth because it failed to pay the $700,000 fee.

"The link is slow because they reduced the megabits on our satellite link until the payment is made," TelOne spokesman Phill Chingwaru told Reuters on Wednesday.

"We have approached the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe for foreign currency and they are working on that, but meanwhile there would be delays in browsing because of the partial cut-off."

President Robert Mugabe's government is grappling with an eight-year recession, the world's highest inflation rate of 1,200 percent, shortages of foreign currency, food, fuel, and unemployment above 70 percent.

Zimbabwe's foreign currency shortages have worsened after a fall-out with international donors over policy differences, such as Harare's seizure of white-owned farms for blacks.

"It is a nightmare because of the congestion and we are getting calls from desperate clients, some of them who can't even access the Internet," said an official from a private ISP, which uses TelOne's satellite link.

The Zimbabwe Internet Service Providers Association (ZISPA) said on its website TelOne's connection had been severed, causing an "almost collapse" of the Internet in the country. It said ZISPA would lobby the government to help it pay the debt.

Chingwaru said TelOne had asked the government for permission to charge big firms in foreign currency to avoid being cut off in the future.

He said TelOne had meanwhile ventured into farming by contracting tobacco and cotton farmers to produce crops for export, in a bid to generate foreign currency. Chingwaru said TelOne would get $12 million from the recent tobacco selling season.

Mugabe accuses former colonial power Britain of leading a Western campaign of economic sabotage.

Rocco Fanucci – Wed, 2006 – 09 – 20 19:02
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Zimbabwe Update

The BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/5382518.stm) tells us...

Zimbabwe internet link restored

Zimbabwe's internet services have been fully restored after a $700,000 debt was paid to restore the satellite link.

Zimbabwe's Reserve Bank bailed out telephone operator TelOne, which owed the sum to Intelsat.

The disconnection earlier this month cut surfing and e-mail activities by 90%, Zimbabwe's ISP association said.

But TelOne is warning that they remain saddled with other debts and face severe shortages of foreign currency so problems could reoccur.

The firm wants diplomatic missions and internet service providers to pay their monthly subscriptions in foreign currency.

Zimbabwe is in the midst of an economic crisis, with 1,200% inflation, 80% unemployment rates and shortages of basic goods like fuel and maize.

Earlier this year, Zimbabwe knocked three zeros off the denomination of its banknotes in an effort to contain inflation.

The opposition says President Robert Mugabe has destroyed one of Africa's most developed economies through his policies.

He blames the problems on a western plot to remove him from power.

Rocco Fanucci – Wed, 2006 – 09 – 27 18:23
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