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VoIP Booming in Africa
securitas writes "The NY Times reports on the rapid growth of voice-over-IP telephony (VoIP) in sub-Saharan Africa and the battles it is waging with the government monopolies/ILECs. VoIP upstarts are taking market share from the government telcos, making it vastly more affordable to make a phone call since they don't charge the usual exorbitant tariffs and excessive user fees. Governments have responded by shutting down these operations, seizing equipment and cutting off service to lines they suspect of using Internet telephony. Part of the boom is related to the wait times for getting a phone line (Ghana Telecom has a backlog of 300,000 line requests), poor quality of service (50% of time you get a busy signal instead of a dial-tone) plus the willingness to trade voice quality for basic service. Foreign companies are now setting up VoIP call centers and multinationals like gold giant Newmont Mining plan to use VoIP for communications in and out of Africa. Some observers call Accra the next Bangalore, predicting a boom for the region that may make sub-Saharan Africa a major technology hub. This fits nicely with Kofi Annan's drive to use the Internet and wireless networks to change the lives of the poor."
Our offshore call center uses VoIP. Quality is shakey, it is difficult to hear, and calls get dropped or crossed with other service providers out of that facility. If Ghana has no other option (the 300,000 waiting list makes it sound like they don't) then I guess anything is beter than nothing, but as a professional business tool I don't think VoIP is there yet for rock solid stability and clear communciation.
Eat recycled food - it's good for the environment, and OK for you.
...this will be the start of the demise of telephone networks - at least over in Africa, anyway. VoIP is getting more and more refined, along with more and more applications, such as the GPL'd Asterisk software PABX system. Most of the larger PABX systems I've seen around give the capability for VoIP links to other offices and if suitable gateways become more widely available, the move to VoIP will slowly but surely become more widespread as the larger companies that deal with the countries that have widespread VoIP penetration start to use those links to reduce the cost of making phone calls.
Can't come soon enough for my liking.I am Neal, Boy of Cow, and I please to have your assistance! My father was the operator of a VoIP service until the government of Ghana have responded by shutting down the VoIP operation, seizing his equipment and cutting off service to lines it suspect of using Internet telephony. I have an OC-48 of bandwidth available for all ur spamming need, but 1st u must deposit me the IP addresses of 256 open proxies of stupid lusers with open proxies on verizon.net, attbi.com, rr.com, charter.com, or cogentco.com! PLS HELP, U HELP ME, I CAN HELP U! GOD BLESS U!!!1!
How ironic is it that third world nations could end up leading the way in voip adoption?
Not at all; that's exactly where you'd expect it to happen first. In more advanced countries, you'd expect the established phone companies to have the clout to block it.
But it's not even true that third-world nations were first. There have already been a lot of stories about how most of the new phone service in Japan is now VoIP. And Japan isn't exactly a third-world nation.
The real puzzle is why Nippon Tel didn't manage to block it.
Here in the US, we've been reading about how the phone system has gone to IP for essentially all long-distance traffic. But the phone companies have done a good job of blocking VoIP at the retail level, because this would destroy their main source of income.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
> How ironic is it that third world nations could end up leading the way in voip adoption?
It's not ironic at all. And I think, it's also not too much related to
competition, but rather to the history of the market.
Let me explain my view: I'm german, but live in Spain since a few years.
Germans perceive Spain as "10 years" behind, when it comes to technology.
This is definately not true. There's only little technological research
and development going on in Spain (a lot less than in Germany). But on the
other hand, Spain doesn't have the same legacy!
While Germany, as a first minute adopter, employs less-than-state-of-the-art
system and keeps them running (because it was a huge financial investment),
"2nd category" countries like Spain can directly head towards the refined
essence of the technology. Until no more than 3 years ago, Germany still had
a considerable market share of analog cellular phones, while Spain was
practically 100% digital.
There are hundreds of similar examples. Because Spain doesn't invent all
the stuff, they don't hurry to get stuck with expensive first generation
prototypes. They just relax, lets stuff grow and madurate, and ignore
comments about being "behind". As soon as the technology is ready and
cheap, they employ it en gros within very little time. They overtake
the leader, and with only a fraction of the financial investment.
Of course, without 1st generation adopters there wouldn't be and 2nd
generation. So the germans aren't as stupid as it appears here. But in
my opinion, this mechanism is definately involved when African countries
use better technology than the USA or Europe...
Marc
I was in Ghana a few months ago for twelve weeks.
VOIP is illegal, aside from strictly personal use as it represents potential for competition with the phone company. Ghana Telecom only wants to implement VOIP such that it may save them more money to increase their bottom line.
In fact, as I understand it, they have implemented it to a rather large degree, and have yet to pass any savings to their extremely poor customer base. Internet cafes outside of the capital, Accra, often pay somewhere in the vacinity of $1000 per month[1] simply in long distance charges, as no ISPs exist outside of the two major cities. Despite the fact that the infrastructure exists to extend leased lines and add pops in many locations throughout the country, Ghana Telecom has no interest.
USAID, in an ill-advised attempt to help has set up and fully funded telco charges for some remote internet cafes but left behind no administration, allowing the established companies to severely undercut their competition.
[1]: 8,400 Ghanaian cedis equal one US dollar. Many people outside of the two major cities (Accra, Kumasi) often make under 100,000 per month. While this is often sufficient for housing and food, twenty cents per minute long distance charges are simply outrageous.
Its amazing how open source voip is unknown. Unfortunately not many people know this even exists. What a shame !
Considering what I've heard about African phone service from a professor I had who lived in Africa for a number of years, I would venture to say that VoIP would be an improvement on what they have now. In many parts of Africa, the phone lines are in such bad condition (poorly spliced together, full of dirt and the like), that you're lucky if you can have a conversation through all the static. If they were able to implement Wi-Fi so that it was available to a broad enough segment of the country that people in remote villages could have internet access, VoIP could revolutionize the lives of the average African villager.
Remember, we aren't talking just about business, we are talking about empowering the little guy to have access to the outside world. The more access to means of communication, the less they can be controlled and oppressed by others.
Eagles may soar, but weasles don't get sucked into jet engines...
Now it should be easier for me to contact the Nigerian Prince who needs me to transfer his money.
[alk]
Disclaimer: The tech scene in Ghana was and is probably changing at a phenomonal pace. Anything I say below could be wrong not only because it might be completely outdated, but also because it's a complicated place both politically and technologically. But to the best of my knowledge, the information below is accurate.
I was in Ghana as a volunteer last August, and I actually worked for a Ghanaian ISP that terminated VOIP calls, in addition to consulting and helping other "ISP's" set up VOIP gateways.
The legality was murky at best. Everyone gave me conflicting answers about whether it was legal or not. From the prevalence (I'll explain later), I would say that it's certainly tolerated. Few people (if any) ever got busted for doing VOIP. Part of the reason is that corruption is so rampant, you can easily dash (bribe) your way out of any trouble if you're willing to pay up.
Most "Internet Cafe's" or ISP there (most) with their own satellite were doing VOIP. The math was easy. A 512 down/384 up connection were costing about $8,000 U.S. per month (this is before fiber became available). You can't sign up any decent amount of dialup customers because most people didn't have phonelines and GT (Ghana Telecom) would take its sweet time pulling lines.
In fact, it took something like 18 months I believe for the NGO that I was volunteering for to get two lines (and I believe they had to totally work their connections). Almost all businesses and expats resorted to cellphones (the dominate player was Spacefon, I believe it's actually a scandinavian company that worked out some sort of a sweet deal that can't be revoked). But it's almost impossible to call a cellphone from a landline or vice versa (another long story, also has to do with the fact that GT is a government owned monopoly).
Internet Cafe's were a joke. They typical charge was something like 4,000 cedis to 10,000 cedis per hour. That translates to about 40 cents to just over a dollar. Nevermind whether the typical Ghanaian can afford those prices, if you have to pay out something like $8,000 per month just for the bandwidth, you simply can't make your money back.
So instead, what you do is to set up an "ISP/Internet Cafe" and you really do sign up customers and such. But what you really do is to get GT to pull a bunch of phonelines to your premises. Then you install a VOIP gateway and negotiate with western telecomms to terminate calls to those phonelines. That was the only way that they can pay for the bandwidth. Even in the U.S., voice services are much more lucrative than data services.
The "ISP" that I worked for not only terminated calls of their own, they also helped other places set them up as well (they charged a consult fee in addition to getting some sort of kick back from the bandwidth provider). I personally help with a couple of those and helped setting up a traffic shaper/bandwidth limiter.
They were actually in negotiations with GT to help them set up a prepaid card system that used VOIP. But I don't believe it ever got anywhere. The trouble with GT is that they had a monopoly and didn't have any incentive to be competitive. And because long distance voice services profits are very high, they have almost no reason why they want to change things.
So while private companies are definitely adopting VOIP, I don't believe GT is actually taking advantage of the technology. I actually sat in on a meeting with some higher-ups at GT. They didn't seem to care that it's a good technology or it would be the right thing to do. The primary interest definitely seemed to focus on how they (personally) would benefit. It's not out in the open of course. And they would never mention it. Only how there are little things that are wrong on your applications and paperwork, and how they just haven't had to chance to pass it on to the right person yet.
Either way, it was certainly flourishing. Just about every client visit where the "ISP/Internet Cafe" that had a satellite, there were VOIP gateways terminating calls.