CyberschuulNews 270

Mobile Operators go on appeal against court ruling on compensation to consumers

Two mobile operators which instituted a court case against recent directive of NCC to compensate telephone customers for poor services had the case thrown out by the court recently and they have gone on appeal.

The information was released by Ernest Ndukwe, CEO of Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, while fielding questions on an early morning TV channel recently. According to Ndukwe, his Commission gave a directive to the operators to commence refund of money to consumers for failing to meet prescribed quality in their services. The operators rather than comply went to court to challenge the directive but the court on January 9, 2008 ruled in favour of NCC.

What Ndukwe did not say and his interviewers did not ask is whether there were other operators who were similarly sanctioned, who did not go to court, and whether those ones had either improved their services or complied with the directive.

Ndukwe also responded to questions on the Nigcomsat licensing imbroglio. His long explanation threw up several issues among which are that Nigerians and, surprisingly a few lawmakers, do not know how governments operate. Several commentators on the issue, perhaps understandably, find it easy to forget that the Board of the Nigerian Communications Commission is headed and staffed with people who on their individual merit were experienced civil servants who understand the interpretation of the workings of government through and thorough. Ahmed Joda, one of six ‘Super Permanent Secretaries’ of the Yakubu Gowon days sits atop of the Commission as Chairman and another Olawale Ige, an engineer, former permanent secretary and former Minister of Communications are but only two of those who take decisions of the Board. These are not the kind of people that can be hoodwinked into doing illegality simply because it ruled.

It was one former Head of Service and Secretary to Federal Government and also one of the Super Permanent Secretaries of those days who once said that a good civil servant advises government properly and carries out government directive properly. They key word is 'properly'. If a political master wants to make a fool of himself, a good civil servant should help him to make a big fool of himself.

The Nigcomsat issues seems to be making big fool of several people. It would help the system if the Nigcomsat matter, a very bad case which was ignorantly brought to the public place, is removed from unnecessary and uninformed public debate and media bombardment.
 

Global Initiative for Inclusive ICTs launches website
http://www.g3ict.com

An interactive online resource for everyone concerned with improving ICT access for people with disabilities has been launched by the Global Initiative for Inclusive ICTs (G3ict), a partnership initiative of the United Nations Global Alliance for ICT and Development. The site, which is aimed at private, public, and non-governmental organisations includes news, reports, country and company profiles and case studies.

Just in Case

You want to join the strategic war against theft of Mobile Phones:
Learn to disable a stolen mobile phone.
To do that:
Check your Mobile phone's serial number by keying in * # 0 6 # on your phone.
A 15 digit code will appear on the screen.
This number is unique to your handset.
Write it down and keep it safe.
When your phone gets stolen, you can phone your service provider and give this code. They will then be able to block your handset so even if the thief changes the SIM card, your phone will be useless to them.
You probably won't get your phone back, but at least you know that whoever stole it cannot use or sell it.

If everybody does this, there is a chance theft of mobile phones will reduce.

CyberschuulNews 269

Communication code for emergency services re-emerges

The Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, may have come up with a code and practice regime on standard three-digit code number which shall serve the purpose of emergency services in Nigeria.

The emergency service code is usually an all service number to the extent that it should be called in any situations where state-run emergency services are needed. It is a normal public service matter, appearing simple but could be  complex to administer as the number of telecom operating companies increases and modern technologies may make its administration sometimes challenging. In some economies, they also contend with operational problems especially where the state run services themselves are inefficient. Sometimes the system becomes the issues more talked about than the emergencies that it is created to address.

NCC says it is ready with a directive on the subject and it will, mid-week in Lagos, engage heads of technical departments of telephone operating companies on its technical implications and requirements.


ITU steps up work on standardisation for IPTV

Relaying Television via the internet, IPTV for short, is a topical preoccupation of International Telecommunications Union, ITU, today as the agency begins work on the next phase of its efforts to establish global standards for IPTV. The initiative promises to increase simplification and integration for IPTV manufacturers, service providers and consumers. Such proactive actions help to reduce deployment costs, curb avoidable proprietary and promote international trade.

In the past, it was common to find standardisation coming after technologies have matured and vendors have taken rigid positions on their plug-and-play initiatives. That allowed for costs to run high and consumers to invest in chasing technology while unhelpful competition flooded the market place. These days, vendors are more forthcoming to work together, save cost and tap into the market which is turning rapidly global. With saved costs, developing economies are also able to latch on to the services and that promotes global reach from yet another angle.

It is a challenge which ITU has to push especially as its speed of doing things is bound to be slow in the estimation of the typical technology investor.

Ultimately the world may not be surprised if IPTV shows up in the developing economies where they seem not to have instant prospect at this moment.

Starcomms signs deal with Harris Stratex Networks

Starcomms Ltd. is Nigeria’s largest deployer of CDMA standards in wireless and mobile services while Harris Stratex Networks, HSN, provides digital microwave radios and wireless transmission solutions. Information released into the system from North Carolina, USA by last quarter of 2007 shows that both companies have pitched tent to deploy HSN’s Eclipse in Nigeria. Eclipse is regarded as the most recent in the generation of software-defined wireless backhaul products.

The major strength of Eclipse relates to cost and efficiency since overlaying it on CDMA radically improves the chances of rapid deployment of services at optimum cost. If that translates to lower cost to consumers then the acclaimed strengths of the standard will make a lot of meaning.

Starcomms as at December 2007 was doing strongest among fixed service providers while it did a little over 1% of Nigeria’s mobile network [see Table www.cyberschuulnews.com ] but this is destined to rise sharply as the future opens. Little wonder CyberschuulNews’ analysts said it is one of the two service providers to watch in the emerging year.
 

CyberschuulNews 268

New year tragedies hit ICT industry
The Writers’ Community  of Nigeria’s ICT industry received a rude shock last weekend when announcements came from different sources that 3 young ICT journalists died under different circumstances in the new year.

 Chamberlain Atutonu of Raypower Radio died after a protracted illness while Dominic Osagie of ICTworld West Africa died in an auto accident. Tunmise Adekunle of This Day newspapers died after a brief illness. CyberschuulNews commiserates with the families of these promising journalists. May their souls rest in the Lord.

Report on Microsoft Vista and Office 2007 may stall British schools investment in the software

The British Educational Communications and Technology Agency, Becta, recently published a report which practically puts a caution on further public investment in Microsoft Vitsa and Office 2007 arguing that the ICT industry should be facilitating easier access to 'free-to-use' office productivity software.

The report pointedly counsels that upgrading existing ICT systems to Microsoft Vista or Office 2007 is not recommended and mixed Windows-based operating environments should be avoided but concedes that Vista may be considered where new institution-wide ICT provision is being planned.

The report advises that no widespread deployment of Office 2007 should take place until schools and colleges are sure that they have in place mechanisms to deal with interoperability and potential digital divide issues set out in the report.

Becta leads the national drive to inspire and lead the effective and innovative use of technology throughout learning in Britain.
 

ANALYSIS
Who pulled out of OLPC? Intel or Nigeria, or both?

It is very easy to understand the reported pull out of Intel in the One Laptop per Child, OLPC, affair. What is difficult to understand is why it is being used as big news. Intel had never pretended to be a not-for-profit outfit which OLPC is. Although it pretended it would go along with the aspirations of OLPC, not a few suspected it only wanted to peep into the workings of OLPC by opting to be on its board. If any of the parties of the collaboration had a problem, it is OLPC which believed Intel’s posturing, not Intel. It is a pity the chipmaker eventually did the expected, a pullout, in a manner that could not be regarded as clean and moral because when Isabelle Lama, Intel’s sales person made the initial u-turn bodytalk, it was done as if there was no non-disparagement clause in the agreement. That was what really made news, not the fact that Intel pulled out.

Nigeria’s pull out, although widely reported, is not yet clear. But three reasons justify why a pullout may be real, sooner or later. One, the OLPC investment is in the hands of the Federal Minister of Education who seems to engage only in undoing planned projects of the past regime, good or bad, with no concern for giving Nigerians something that would replace the undone projects. But that is only on the lighter level. The other issue is that the OLPC was one of those decisions which, chances are, former President Obasanjo took on the spur of a moment and merely asked civil servants to work the details out. If that was what happened, then the project is a forgotten issue. A fellow who could cede out Bakassi to Cameroun without going through the whole process of law is capable of doing anything under the sun.

That is the price society pays for installing dictators who cannot live within democracy. Dictators often forget that there is a future and that the future would be without them. That is why they often prefer to stay in office till death do them part with their offices.

But let’s forget about the dictator here and talk about our future after all we eventually eased him out.

When in 2006 Nicholas Negroponte, the MIT initiator of the OLPC project was in Nigeria, he told the story of his stormy meetings with technology vendors and he made particular reference to Intel. He amused his audience when he concluded that Intel after a lot of argument on the project eventually settled for collaboration with his project. A capitalist agreeing to collaborate with a not-for-profit apostle? Come off it, Nick! We merely wished him well since he is an American who cannot claim to be unmindful of the body temperature of capitalists.

No sooner than we heard him out, it became almost clear that Intel was having collaboration deals also with Microsoft which in any case did not for a moment hide its objection to the project. Bill Gates himself understandably pooh-poohed the project describing it as toy computers which had no heart.

The third reason is that Intel’s Classmate was coming via a purely commercial route where side-by-side with OLPC’s OX, the gains to those who would earn ‘commissions’ would make Classmate naturally better evaluated.

It is not intended to put all the history in this analysis but to argue that if that project is cancelled, as it may eventually be, it will be a minus for Nigeria.

Our children need those toys. Here we are talking of toys that are functional which, with restructured internet access, those things can be. Toys that teach real-life. So nobody should find no sleep with the argument that OLPC’s toys are not worth its name. If they say they are not worth the asking fee, that can be debated.



OLPC’s XO and Intel’s Classmate
by
Muyiwa Taiwo

According to a recent story, Intel has pulled out of the board of the OLPC foundation. What might be considered the remote cause was the 'bad-mouthing' of the XO by an Intel saleswoman who was trying to get the government of Peru to buy the Classmate and dump the XO. This was in clear breach of a non-disparagement clause contained in the agreement signed between Intel and OLPC. Unfortunately for the Intel saleswoman, the Peruvian vice minister of education is a long-time acquaintance of OLPC's founder and chairman, Nicholas Negroponte, and alerted him to this 'friendly fire'.

Although Peru is the first country to make a commitment to a significant number of XOs, Nigeria's past president, Olusegun Obasanjo, was among the first countries to publicly express support for OLPC's XO laptop, committing in September 2006 to one million units. One wonders what has happened to that intention, in light of the fact that the government last year chose to buy 17,000 Intel Classmate computers rather than the XO. In fact, according to 'rumours' making the rounds in the period immediately following the purchase of the laptops, the company handling the project on behalf of the Nigerian government was paid some 'marketing expenses' by Microsoft to replace the customised free and open source Linux operating system shipped with those laptops with Microsoft's proprietary Windows operating system.

Apart from the abnormal practice of Microsoft, a commercial and profit-oriented company, paying people to use its software, many industry observers are saying that the Nigerian government is denying its future computer scientists the opportunities for learning that would have come with the open source Linux operating system. In fact many are saying that the government, through its consultant, may be selling the future of its programmers for a couple of hundred thousand US dollars.

One wonders, had the vice minister in the Peruvian case referred to earlier been a Nigerian, whether he would not have collected a pay-off, kept quiet, and mortgaged the future of his country's youth.
 

CyberschuulNews 267

Transcorp gets warning on poor performance of NITEL

Transnational Corporation, Transcorp, which bought into Nigeria’s ailing National Carrier NITEL in 2006 has been threatened with withdrawal of License if by June 2008 there is no remarkable improvement in NITEL’s services. This was an after presentation briefing to the press by Ernest Ndukwe, Executive Vice-Chairman of NCC who made a presentation to President Yar ‘Adua in Abuja on the contending issues of quality of service and telecommunications tariff.

The President expressed satisfaction with NCC’s handling of the issues so far and asked the Commission to initiate a comparative study of other countries with regard to the issue of tariff for telecom services to ensure that Nigeria remains competitive.

Analysts see progress in a stormy 2007
In a review of the Nigerian telecommunications sector for 2007 titled “Progress in the Midst of Storm,” Two Lagos based analysts ‘Gbenga Sesan and Titi Omo-Ettu opened with a question: “Is a reason once used to explain high telecommunication tariff also useable in the explanation of poor quality of service?” The review highlighted the turbulence within the mobile telephony space in 2007 and popular excuses given by operators to explain the trouble with their networks. While discussing the need to move from empty hyped marketing to focused service delivery, the authors of the review also discussed the buy-overs of 2007 – and put the number of possible buy-overs for 2008 at five. They argued that “the market remains good in terms of unmet but suppressed demand,” and that the “two players to watch,” in 2008 “are Starcomms and Visafone”.

The review also addressed the major setbacks that the industry may face in 2008 while questioning the intention of state governments in some of their controversial actions in 2007. Arguably 2007’s most popular controversy, the NIGCOMSAT quest for telecom service provision did not escape the reviewer’s attention. Stating that “unification of ICT as one industry took a step forward, two backwards,” the reviewers found a way of bringing the need for ICT harmonization to the 2008 discussion table. The international scene got some decent mention, thanks to Google and the ENUM protocol. The review drove home it’s point when it said, “No doubt, 2007 drove home the point around the role of ICTs in effecting socio-economic change but that change has to be embraced and led by all stakeholders …. It was a turbulent but certainly remarkable year with good lessons to learn.”

See www.cyberschuulnews.com/2007an_rv.html for the full Review


Transistors are getting smaller, computers more efficient

In the race to make computers faster, chipmakers rely on exotic new materials. In January, Intel announced that the element hafnium and some new metal alloys will allow them to make the millions of switches on their microprocessors far smaller. Gordon Moore, co-founder of the company and father of the law that bears his name, called it the biggest change in transistor technology since the 1960s. The tremendous accomplishment allows Intel to squeeze features on each chip down to 45 nanometers from the current standard of 65 nanometers. But the greatest benefit may be an increase in energy efficiency. That improvement comes along with the hafnium alloys that will prevent electricity from leaking across the tiny switches.

Intel started using the technology, codenamed Penryn, in November in high-end servers. Home users can expect the chips in early 2008.

Probe of Rural Telephony Project is Imminent

A $200million telecommunications loan packaged by a consortium of Chinese investors for provision of telephone service in 96 rural communities in Nigeria appears to have finally stalled and its affairs are to be investigated by the Upper Legislative House, the Senate.

The deal received President Obasanjo’s nod in 2002 to spread CDMA telephone service in form of rural telephony project in several rural areas of Nigeria. Government had plunged into the project against popular opinion and advice of licensed service providers, trade and professional associations, senior industry consultants and informed stakeholders who argued that the project was flawed in several ways. Opponents of the project argued that it was against the letter and spirit of government’s professed regime of a level playing field that allows telecom operation in any other form other than by competitive licensing. It was clear that the promoters were scheming to operate telephone service without due licensing. Although the Chinese had packaged the deal as if Government itself would operate the services, it made no convincing argument to industry eggheads since government had deregulated the market and was already privatizing NITEL, its erstwhile monopoly. It was also not going to be Nigeria’s first experience in repeated rural telephony projects which had consistently failed to produce phone lines. It was clear government was impliedly being maneuvered to resorting to the use of civil servants to engage in telecommunication service provision. Moreover, the lines were coming at close to $1,000 per line at a time when licensed investors were already installing systems at below $500 per line.

The RTP was not alone in the tricks’ bag of the Chinese at the time. Also on the drawing board, were other investments and establishments such as Nigerian Communications Satellite Co. Ltd, Nigcomsat, and Galaxy Backbone Ltd. which were bureaucracies being established to operate different forms of telephone services. Licensed operators were known to be waiting for when a license would be issued to any of these amorphous creations before they headed for the courts to charge government for unfair and discriminatory licensing regime.

It took the failure of the Third Term Agenda, a do-or-die requirement to sustain all ill-conceived so-called reforms, for the Rural Telephony Project to head for its predictable failure. By then, installations had been completed in a few locations but what was on ground could not roll into service for reasons of harsh business environment and lack of a focused business plan. The Nigerian Communications Commission which had all along objected to the creations stood to advise against licensing any of the establishments but it was overruled at each bend of advice against the projects. Government eventually made a futile attempt to sell the installed infrastructure of the RTP as it could not get a buyer.

The remaining is history yet to unfold.

GLO is ready in Republic of Benin

Nigeria’s Globacom is reported to have made test calls on its mobile network for which it is licensed to operate in the Republic of Benin as Glomobile Benin Ltd, Chances are that it goes public in the current quarter.

The company is hoping to cover the entire country in five years.


India’s telco gets license in Uganda

A sixth telecom operator has been licensed in Uganda. It is India's Reliance Communications Ltd. and the company has announced that it is working towards rolling out fixed and mobile services in the third quarter of 2008.

Existing telecom operators in Uganda include Celtel, Hits Telecom, MTN, Uganda Telecom, Warid Telecom.

GlobalTouch lights on Global Mobile Personal services in Nigeria

A new provider of satellite based services Globaltouch West Africa Limited (GWAL) will soon commence to offer Globalstar satellite voice and data services to customers in Nigeria, and parts of West Africa.

Globalstar which currently provides limited satellite services coverage in North Africa, via two European satellite gateways located in Turkey and France, announced recently that it has a commitment to further expand and improve its geographic satellite coverage for roaming customers in the region as well as domestic Nigerian users. Infrastructure installation commenced at the Kaduna Gateway a few months ago and customer services will debut in the second half of 2008.

Engr. Isaiah Mohammed who is the arrowhead of Globaltouch operations in Nigeria says it will offer mobile and fixed satellite telephone services, simplex and duplex data modems and flexible service packages to organizations and people no matter where they are located in the region.

Globaltouch (West Africa) Limited (GWAL) is a Nigerian company licensed by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to offer Global Mobile Personal Communications by Satellite (GMPCS) in partnership with Globalstar Inc. It is owned 30% by Globalstar, Inc. while Nigerian investors retain majority ownership.


Celtel completes take-over of Westel in Ghana

Celtel has finally taken over Westel, Ghanaian 2nd national operator whose take over was initially announced in October 2007 [CyberschuulNews 291007-259].

With this takeover, Zain, the parent company of Celtel now operates under the Celtel brand in 15 sub-Saharan African countries namely: Burkina Faso, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia


CyberschuulNews on-line edition goes daily
The ON-LINE edition of Cyberschuulnews, www.cyberschuulnews.com went daily with effect from January 1, 2008. The site now provides daily updates of news, review and events while the email edition remains a weekly delivery.


CyberschuulNews 266

Starcomms is the provider to watch out for in 2008

A nearly completed table of comparative key performance indicators seems to suggest that Starcomms Ltd may just be the service provider which has the best profile in the Nigerian market in 2007.

The firm’s total customer base rose 47% during the year to more than 900,000. The increase reflects not only the first time contribution from its advanced mobility platform but also on its foray into 3G services especially on EvDO. Its 3G offerings may have continuously attracted a premium base of prepaid and post paid customers going by facts released by its CEO, Maher Qubain at an end of year press briefing in Lagos on Tuesday. No doubt, the firm has taken full advantage of Nigeria’s Universal License regime which went full throttle in 2007. Afew days ago, it launched services in Kaduna.

A senior telecom Consultant who lives in Lagos, works in Abuja, and rests in Ibadan says his laptop is 24/7 on starcomms EVDo for his high speed internet access and that tells volume.

NEWS ANALYSIS
House Report and the tale of incompetence

One of the several laughable components of the recommendations made in the report of House of Representatives’ ad-hoc Committee on poor telephone service in Nigeria is its assertion that the industry regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission, is incompetent. Here we are taking the report on its face value and pretending as if we do not know the script that the authors of the report were acting out.

A CyberschuulNews foreign contact and correspondent who was so truly alarmed by the assertion sent in questions which he wanted us to do an analysis with. He also wanted us to supply the Committee members' names. Of course we knew what he wanted to do with the list. He wanted to ‘google’ the names of the authors so he could profile them and possibly draw his own conclusion. We told him, and very truly, that we did not know the names of the members of the committee and that potential internet hits, if any, from a google search would relate to newspaper reports on the recent political stories emanating from Nigeria and therefore useless to his objective. We however opened him to the facts and figures behind the report’s figures and facts. He must have laughed his head off and held his peace.

But that is not the issue here.

The important lessons of the report is the potential danger of a few persons struggling to erase some of the very few credible stories that ever emerged on Nigeria in the international media. It is easy to dismiss Adedibu’s claim that Mrs. Dora Akunyili, NAFDAC's no-nonsense CEO, was seeking Ministerial appointment through him and because he refused, the woman had told the world that he, Lamidi Adedibu was the thug that made NAFDAC’s job difficult to implement in Oyo state. In that particular case, a google search on both Lamidi Adedibu and Dora Akunyili of course would hit immediately at profile materials and the differences would have been clear. Not so in the case under reference here.

It would have been an uphill task to charge the person of NCC’s CEO for incompetence which really would have met the paymasters' brief. For the several things you can say of that fellow, incompetence is impossible to establish. So the authors of the report on ‘good’ advice went for the jugular of the Commission itself. Predictably, an inefficient craftsman was used.

Here is a Commission whose regulatory intervention strategies is already a model being referenced by the International Telecommunications Union. Not on one issue but on several.

Good a thing information emanating from the House’s deliberation on the report point to the fact that not a few of the members of the wider House are, predictably, seeing through the hollowness of the authors’ motives and inefficiency of the entire game-plan.


Nigeria revokes contract earlier won by Siemens

The federal Government of Nigeria has placed on hold a power sector contract which Siemens won but yet to be awarded. Government spokesman said it is the administration’s way of letting the world know that its zero-tolerance to corruption attitude is real.

Government's anti-graft agencies are still on the trail of a Munich Court findings that Siemens representatives admitted they offered bribes to 13 officials of the federal republic of Nigeria between 2001 and 2004 for unspecified deals.

Siemens found its way into the Nigerian telecommunications sector in the late 70’s when it picked crumbs of the fat telecommunications contracts that ITT had won in 1975. Its first project was the delivery of a few containerized public telephone exchanges. Known for its good technology, it warmed itself into the heart of Nigerian officials and eventually became a bedfellow of those who had top decisions to take on the affairs of P & T, the monopoly telecommunications service provider of the time which later transformed to Nigerian Telecommunications Ltd, NITEL. It was open knowledge that bribes marked its governance but that charge was not formally made until a few years ago when the Government in Germany opened a searchlight on Siemens' overseas activities and it became public information that the company induced officials in Nigeria, Libya and Russia with bribes in exchange for telecom contracts. At the time its representatives offered information on who and who received what, it is illogical to accept the list of the bribe takers without very careful investigation. The list hardly adds up under informed analysis.

Since 1999 when NITEL went on the slab for what eventually became a thoroughly mismanaged privatization, Siemens had no substantial chase of government contracts in telecommunications in Nigeria. It however chased jobs in the power sector and got several. If those were what its officials claimed they had offered bribe to get, it would be misguided information going by details of the list. The one which is being stopped is a mere $1.08million dollars contract to supply transformers and circuit breakers.

Local analysts agree with Government on its decision to stop doing business with Siemens not really on account of its latter-day bribe list but on what it has the potential of becoming in the power sector where, come to think of it, corruption rating is perceived to be worse than in telecommunications.


INTERNATIONAL AWARD
Jon Postel Award goes to Nii Quarnor

Nii Narku Quaynor, Ph.D, Ghanaian, received the prestigious Jonathan B. Postel Service Award symbolized with an engraved crystal globe and $USD20,000 honorarium, during the 70th meeting of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) in Vancouver, Canada on December 5, 2007.

Nii Quaynor is the Executive Chairman and founder of Network Computer Systems (NCS), a Ghanaian technology solution provider.

Between 1972 when he obtained a BA in engineering science and 2007 when he was crowned a Jon Postel Awardee, Nii Quaynor has been through and thorough on network and human capacity building in Ghana and infact across Africa.

After a chain of training as Diaspora Ghanaian, Nii Quaynor returned to Ghana in 1991 in a technology transfer experiment that ultimately transformed him from an activist academic into a high-technology entrepreneur.

Nii is a member of the United Nations Secretary General Advisory Group on ICT, African Director of ICANN, the Chairman of the OAU Internet Task Force, Chairman of the AfriNIC, member of the Worldbank Infodev TAP, member of the ITU Telecom Board, President of the Internet Society of Ghana, member of the Council of the University of Ghana , and had served on the Board of the Ghana News Agency as well as the Ghana Frequency Registration and Control Board.

Taking from his citation:

"Dr. Quaynor has selflessly pioneered Internet development and expansion throughout Africa for nearly two decades, enabling profound advances in information access, education, healthcare and commerce for African countries and their citizens. Today, Dr. Quaynor continues to champion not just technological advances but also African involvement in Internet standards, processes and deployments, discussion on Internet policies and regulations, and ensuring African interests are well-represented globally. He has shaped a community of Africans who share his vision and reflect the dedication shown by Jon Postel."

And Nii responded with yet a further promise:

"I am humbled by the award and what Jon Postel represents to our community in Africa. Jon Postel's efforts and the global view he maintained on the operation of the domain name system and the numbering services assured that Africa would share in the Internet growth and early. I thank the Internet Society for the recognition and am very pleased to be associated with Jon's memorial. We will work to develop more African engineers to meet the fast network growth needs of the region, being a late starter, and to join the technical policy processes. Our overall objective is to strengthen education and research in network technologies in Africa."

Eggheads in the African Internet community are already working on a Quarnor award which they readily admit is both belated and appropriate.

Purpose-built telecom training

On line telecom training