ICT Experts and Quality of Service in Africa

Despite digital divide in Africa, Information and Communication Technologies experts, regulators and policy makers believe that the continent has tested ICT availability and affordability, but consumers are yet to have unique experience due to dwindling quality of service. In this special report, Infoprations x-rays the recent convergence of ICT gurus in Banjul and issues around quality of service. For three days in the smiling coast of Africa, information and communication technologies experts from various countries in the continent and beyond converged in Banjul for 12th Innovation Africa Digital summit and deliberated on the most critical aspect of digital technologies in the continent. The experts, policy makers and government representatives during the summit observed that Africa have tested ICT availability and affordability, but there is need to address quality of service, which remains only snag to total benefits Africans could derive from varied modern communication tools.

Contributing to the discourse, the nation’s regulatory boss, Mr Abdoulie Jobe, Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA), said Africa could boast of the fastest rising telecoms industry, which has contributed significantly to her economic development. Regardless of this, Mr Jobe observed that the growth still faces challenges from quality of service, regulatory independence and net neutrality to the challenges of social media. “Many of our citizens, utility consumers, reference themselves to standards of living and prices in Europe or elsewhere and question why in Africa are utility rates comparatively higher for an apparent lesser quality of service standards.

We must be able to satisfactorily address such questions and where there are opportunities to move the sector towards higher quality of service standards and more affordable rates,” he said. Mr Jobe added that there is need to have corresponding measures to protect the public from sub-standard quality of services from the concerned stakeholders. Speaking on network of quality service during one of the workshops at the summit, Mr Bora Varliyagci, head of Africa, technology and communications, Matt MacDonlad, a South Africa based telecommunication firm said telecoms operators should always respond very well to customers in terms of determining their quality of experience. He noted that operators’ adequate knowledge about their individual customers’ experiences of network services would go in a long way of ensuring quality of service in the continent. Responding from service providers’ perspective, Mrs Louisa Sosu, network quality and reporting manager, MTN Ghana noted that her organisation has mechanism for the monitoring of customers experiences within network services. According to her, the firm has been able to know the specific experiences customers usually have in terms of call droppings and low speech quality. Participants from Africa observed that customers in most nations believe that price of certain services determines their quality. From non-African participants, ICT users look for quality not the price. According to Varliyagci, availability, accessibility, retainability, reliability and affordability are key performance areas that could lead to quality of service. Availability means when there is a network within a geographical location or for a specific population in a country. Public funding, increased shared infrastructure and innovative business models, Varliyagci said these are the factors capable of making a network available to the people. For the accessibility, users should be able to access a network once within coverage. If they were unable to do that, Varliyagci suggested that operators need to provide affordable open access network, end users self-configuration platform and digital literacy in form of community workshops. Retainability and reliability according to the telecommunications expert encompass whether a service is maintained for a user once it has been established and the degree to which a network is available. The affordability aspect of the performance as debated by the participants at the workshop should be measured in terms of a relative price that allows users to access varied ICT services. They however agreed that grid connectivity is still low in some African countries, which remains greatest challenge for network service reliability.

Mrs Gita Sorensen, director communications and media and economic regulation, Berkeley Research Group, who has 27 years experience in telecommunications regulation, said Africa need to listen and receive technological experience for improved quality of service in order to take ICT to the next level. “The Gambia and Africa need to acquire knowledge and experience from European nations and others,” she stressed. She however admitted that Africa issues need Africa solutions. Outdated equipment, low level of network coverage, over-subscription of limited bandwidth, lack of electricity and inability of Internet Service Providers (ISP) to provide promised speeds to customers among others were identified as new trends in the continent. To address the trends, the summit advised concerned stakeholders to work towards improved broadband network performance and network cost, support and compliant handling. In specific terms, policy makers need to address supportive infrastructure, regulators should continue to monitor traditional quality of service on mobile and fixed network, broadband performance should be monitored regularly, broadband strategies should include quality of service targets, while regulators and policy makers need to facilitate private investment in local sever infrastructures and services, to reduce the detrimental effects of factors such as latency on the end users experience. Regulating for growth according to, Mrs Sorensen, is an initiative to harness knowledge and experience in the communications sector, to create a series of analyses and guidelines, to assist practical and ‘fit-for-purpose’ regulation of electronic communications networks and services in emerging economies (EEs) such as Africa, Asia, South East Europe, South America, and the Caribbean. “The assumption that EEs simply ‘lag behind’ developed economies (DEs) in electronic communications infrastructure and services is no longer tenable. Even high-level analysis shows that needs and priorities differ substantially between the two groups, as does the administrative and legislative infrastructure available to implement and operate regulatory frameworks for the sector,” Mrs Sorensen emphasized. She reiterated that simply ‘downsizing’ or even copying frameworks from more DEs such as the EU framework will not likely be a suitable solution. To Mr Abdoulie Jobe, PURA’s boss, utility regulation is a daunting task even for established regulators with decades of established economies, needless to say for young institutions in Africa with limited resources. “We must develop the human resources and other institutional capacities to be able to effectively regulate the utility providers,” he pointed out. Mr Jobe believed that Africa does not need to borrow solutions, but to find African solutions. According to him, the solutions must recognize distinct social, economic and political differences and histories.” For inclusive regulating growth, Mrs Sorensen, noted that regulators need to be transparent and open to operators. According to her, regulation facilitates sustainable competition in the sector. “When regulators are making decisions, they should explain rationale behind the decisions. This gives credibility and encourages investors into the market. It helps them to understand the kind of environment they are working in,” she stressed. On content generation and management, participants are of the view that there is no need for Africa to reinvent the wheel by coming up with new ICT contents. Mr Lamin Camara, permanent secretary, ministry of information and communication infrastructure, observed that there is no need for Africa to reinvent the wheel since the contents have been provided by experts outside the continent. “Contents are there we just need to sustain them by developing software that can help our people to understand those contents. While developing the software, our needs should be considered. Through that, we will think globally but act locally,” said Camara. The three day event also afforded stakeholders the opportunity of discussing cyber security and privacy. According to Mr Camara, as much as the continent promotes ICT adoption and utilization, cyber security will be part of quality of service because it could affect quality of service. “Security is also embedded in quality of service. This is a concern to us as government. It is happening around the world. It can only be solved totally when individuals inculcate good Internet usage.” Speaking on his organisation’s policies, Mr Simeon Milner, facebook policy director for UK, Africa and Middle East, said the social networking site respects and protects the privacy of its users. He stated among others that the site is helping people to resolve problems and having control over their data. According to him, the social networking site through its mission gives people the power to share and make the world more open and connected. Speaking on incessant cyber crime situation in the continent, honourable Nyombi Thembo, Uganda’s deputy minister of information and communications technology pointed out that governments, operators and individuals need to resist the situation through necessary mechanisms. “The more we have ICT, the more we use them, the more we will get expose to cyber safety. We have to be on the look. There is need for a lot of sensitization,” he stated. The need to protect children on the Internet was also addressed during the summit. According to representative of African Child Online Protection Education and Awareness (ACOPEA), Daniel Asfaw, presence of child abuse images, hate speech and violence, sexual abuse and cyber-bullying among others call for the need to protect children online.