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Seventh
World Conference of Community Radio Broadcasters
Milan, 23-29 August 1998 Main | Activities | Local information | Register now! | Virtual Forum | Other links Septième
Assemblée mondiale des radiodiffuseurs communautaires
Séptima
Asamblea Mundial de Radios Comunitarias
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amarc-4
Lynne, This news release (below) might hold a bit of hope for the extension of phone networks in Kenya to rural areas and perhaps to the locations of the community radio stations you mention... I do not know the details of where these systems will be installed, but perhaps you could follow up in Kenya to find out. The company involved, SR Telecom has a very good track record for incorporating value-added development spin-offs within its infrastructure projects. I am working with them on a project in Haiti where they are assisting Teleco Haiti to install similar solar-powered wireless TDMA microwave phone systems in rural areas and we have made good initial links to the rural radio sector, with hope of helping some radio stations get phone lines and get connected to the net. A recent workshop that included reps from the rural radio sector indicated significant interest in establishing email links to create something like a Haitian news network to help the radio stations share stories and communicate - we are now seeing how we might move forward to help make this happen, perhaps with further assistance from CIDA. Funding for this initial contact work with rural stakeholders is coming from CIDA Inc. and SR Telecom, and the stakeholder engagement processes are facilitated by the TeleCommons Development Group - http://www.telecommons.com The SR Telecom web site is at http://www.srtelecom.com Cheers, Don Richardson Director Don Snowden Program for Development Communication School of Rural Extension Studies University of Guelph Guelph, Ontario, Canada N1G 2W1 Tel: 519-824-4120 ext. 3811 Fax: 519-836-9941 Email: [email protected] Web: http://www.oac.uoguelph.ca/res -or- http://www.snowden.org News release: SR Telecom awarded contracts from Kenya worth over $42 million Montreal, July 16th, 1998 Montreal based SR Telecom Inc. (SRT) announced today that it has signed contracts with KPTC (Kenya Posts and Telecommunications Corporation) worth over $42 Million. This represents a further major expansion of the Kenyan rural telephone network. SRT previously received orders from KPTC worth some $47 million bringing the total value of Kenyan orders to over $89 million to date. Under the terms of the new contracts SRT will supply nine new SR500-s wireless TDMA microwave systems and will make major expansions to five systems installed on previous projects with KPTC. The systems will be supplied on a turnkey basis and the contract includes all necessary ancillary items (solar power units, towers etc.) . Local works and services, included at about $8 Million, will be subcontracted by SRT to Subscriber Radiocommunication (Kenya) Limited - SRK - a Kenyan company, 25% owned by SR Telecom Inc. -----Original Message----- From: L. Muthoni Wanyeki [SMTP:[email protected]] Sent: July 28, 1998 4:00 AM To: (amarc-4) Subject: <amarc-4> Community Radio and NICTs Dear Colleagues. My first contribution to the list...I'll write in English. I work with a regional development communications and information NGO called EcoNews Africa, which is based in Nairobi, on the community media programme. My work includes the facilitation/coordination of an east African project which is establishing three community radio stations in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. The project also has a connectivity component and I've therefore followed the discussion by Ndiaye and Delorme with some interest. We are also part of an African NGO consortium which includes the AMARC-Africa office, the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), the National Community Radio Forum (NCRF) of South Africa, Inter Press Service (IPS) and the Panos Institute-Lusaka. The consortium is in the process of concluding a study on the actual and potential use of NICTs by community radio stations in east and southern Africa. I think some of the research findings would be useful to this discussion. I've copied this message to two other consortium members in case they're not already on the list, one of whom, John Barker, will be in Milan with us. The person concluding the research, David Lush, can probably talk more about this, but I think at this point, the question for us really is not the potential application of NICTs by community radio in Africa, but rather, why that potential is not being reached. With the east African project, a key question has been what to do to get connected in the absence of phone lines and power. Solar is an obvious power alternative. But the lack of corporate investment in (or even simple consideration of) what we consider a medium term solution, HF and VHF radio connectivity is a real barrier. Information on successsful applications is hard to access, as is information on how it technologically works. The number of ISPs offering this option is extremely low and their costs are extremely high. Plus, so far, the technology works best for data transfer. Satellite is another solution, but given the slow and manipulated pace of regulatory change in telecommunications, it is a long term solution. Apart from regulatory and technological barriers, there's also the barrier posed by the real information needs of (especially) rural communities. The three groups we work with see connectivity (through HF radio) firstly as a means to better communicate (through email) with each other and others (ie. as an alternative to phones) and secondly, as a means to finally access information from a diverse range of sources outside of their communities. This is good of course. But the other side of the story is how important their information/analysis/interpretations of their lives is to those outside of those communities. This is the real challenge for us at this point. Using NICTs consistently as part of local organizing/advocacy work. In light of this, I hope this discussion will bring us to 1) concrete ideas about collectively addressing the regulatory and appropriate technologies 2) concrete ideas about training to ensure NICTs aren't just seen as a means of accessing information, but also of disseminating and mainstreaming marginalized (even within Africa) perspectives. Regards to all. Lynne Muthoni Wanyeki Programme Officer, Community Radio EcoNews Africa P O Box 76406 Nairobi Kenya Tel: (254) 2-7210767/99 Fax: (254) 2-725171 Email: [email protected] ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ AMARC 7 Foro Virtual Forum Virtuel http://www.amarc.org/amarc7 to unsubscribe / pour se desabonner / para abandonar : e-mail "unsubscribe amarc-4 " to: [email protected] ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ AMARC 7 Foro Virtual Forum Virtuel http://www.amarc.org/amarc7 to unsubscribe / pour se desabonner / para abandonar : e-mail "unsubscribe amarc-4 " to: [email protected]