Kenya IGF Mailing List discussions Day 1 of 10: Impact of Mobile Internet in Kenya
Listers, · What role has mobile networks played in providing Internet access to Kenyan citizens and what needs to be put in place to promote mobile Internet and enhance local content development? · What initiatives are needed to ensure that sufficient spectrum is available for mobile networks to provide effective Internet access for various services? The floor is open, on Monday, which is officially day 2, we will discuss the role and impact of Mobile Payment platforms. -- Barrack O. Otieno +254-20-2498789 Skype: barrack.otieno
To spice up the debate and get us going i found the following information from the White African ( http://whiteafrican.com/2011/02/18/kenyas-mobile-internet-by-the-numbers-q4-...) which are statistics drawn from the CCK Sector Statistics Report ( http://www.cck.go.ke/resc/statcs.html) for quarter 4 2010 Highlights of Q4 2010: - There are 22 million mobile subscribers in Kenya - 9.5% mobile subscriptions growth, which is increasing over the previous quarters - 6.63 billion minutes of local calls were made on the mobile networks - 740 million text messages were sent - Prepaid accounts for 99% of the total mobile subscriptions - The number of internet *users* was estimated at 8.69 million - The number of internet/data *subscriptions* is 3.2 million - Broadband subscriptions increased from 18,626 subscribers in the previous quarter to 84,726 On Fri, Jul 1, 2011 at 1:07 PM, Barrack Otieno <otieno.barrack@gmail.com>wrote:
Listers,
· What role has mobile networks played in providing Internet access to Kenyan citizens and what needs to be put in place to promote mobile Internet and enhance local content development?
· What initiatives are needed to ensure that sufficient spectrum is available for mobile networks to provide effective Internet access for various services?
The floor is open, on Monday, which is officially day 2, we will discuss the role and impact of Mobile Payment platforms.
-- Barrack O. Otieno +254-20-2498789 Skype: barrack.otieno
-- Barrack O. Otieno Afriregister Ltd (Kenya) www.afrire <http://www.afriregister.com>gister.bi, www.afriregister.com<http://www.afriergister.com> <http://www.afriregister.com>ICANN accredited registrar +254721325277 +254-20-2498789 Skype: barrack.otieno
@Barrack, please find some comments inline. On Fri, Jul 1, 2011 at 1:07 PM, Barrack Otieno <otieno.barrack@gmail.com>wrote:
Listers,
· What role has mobile networks played in providing Internet access to Kenyan citizens and what needs to be put in place to promote mobile Internet and enhance local content development?
What is currently happening is that major mobile events seem to be producing a very narrow end of results i.e mobile applications that work for NGO or health worker type of operations. We can save lives through reminding people when to take their medications, but we also need many other mobile programs that have a broader impact. We need to identify what sectors are in fundamental need of attention and develop these as a baseline. For example, why aren't we using 3g dvb-mobile technology to stream content between medical personnel, rapid response units and even critical areas. The technology exists but who will do it? That is why we need funds allocations to put such core ideas from testing, developing and into production. Let us match the mobile sector growth with developing funds to research, create and match the growth. Will we wait for Telcos who have different plans or external loans to create such systems? Then we have a very long wait. Secondly, the National Mobile Payments gateways data is not publicly available ( I've not seen any site publish such data ) which could provides statistics to mobile and other developers to either improve or create newer ways to compliment payments data. How much growth is taking place, and what sectors that are in immediate need of such facilities is unknown so rather than have market intelligence based on payment gateways, you may find mostly everyone doing their own thing and not having any significant growth impact of mobile payment platforms usage.
@ Aki, thanks for your comments , quite insightfull more so the need for National Mobile Payments data, do you think we need an entity similar to the one that was created to handle porting services for this purpose, or should we task the regulator to provide this data? On Fri, Jul 1, 2011 at 1:59 PM, aki <aki275@gmail.com> wrote:
@Barrack, please find some comments inline.
On Fri, Jul 1, 2011 at 1:07 PM, Barrack Otieno <otieno.barrack@gmail.com>wrote:
Listers,
· What role has mobile networks played in providing Internet access to Kenyan citizens and what needs to be put in place to promote mobile Internet and enhance local content development?
What is currently happening is that major mobile events seem to be producing a very narrow end of results i.e mobile applications that work for NGO or health worker type of operations. We can save lives through reminding people when to take their medications, but we also need many other mobile programs that have a broader impact. We need to identify what sectors are in fundamental need of attention and develop these as a baseline. For example, why aren't we using 3g dvb-mobile technology to stream content between medical personnel, rapid response units and even critical areas. The technology exists but who will do it? That is why we need funds allocations to put such core ideas from testing, developing and into production. Let us match the mobile sector growth with developing funds to research, create and match the growth. Will we wait for Telcos who have different plans or external loans to create such systems? Then we have a very long wait.
Secondly, the National Mobile Payments gateways data is not publicly available ( I've not seen any site publish such data ) which could provides statistics to mobile and other developers to either improve or create newer ways to compliment payments data. How much growth is taking place, and what sectors that are in immediate need of such facilities is unknown so rather than have market intelligence based on payment gateways, you may find mostly everyone doing their own thing and not having any significant growth impact of mobile payment platforms usage.
_______________________________________________ Skunkworks mailing list Skunkworks@lists.my.co.ke http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/skunkworks ------------ Skunkworks Rules http://my.co.ke/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=94 ------------ Other services @ http://my.co.ke
-- Barrack O. Otieno Afriregister Ltd (Kenya) www.afrire <http://www.afriregister.com>gister.bi, www.afriregister.com<http://www.afriergister.com> <http://www.afriregister.com>ICANN accredited registrar +254721325277 +254-20-2498789 Skype: barrack.otieno
@Barrack, it would be ideal that Mobile Payment gateways to freely provide say a quarterly analysis of the data, possibly by sectors. The only hurdle I see with such data would be its accuracy, thus there maybe some need to verify through some legal function before release. Rgds. On Fri, Jul 1, 2011 at 2:22 PM, Barrack Otieno <otieno.barrack@gmail.com>wrote:
@ Aki, thanks for your comments , quite insightfull more so the need for National Mobile Payments data, do you think we need an entity similar to the one that was created to handle porting services for this purpose, or should we task the regulator to provide this data?
@ Aki, you have a point another possible hurdle would be the infighting that we have noticed among the Telcos that almost sabotaged MNP, in retrospect , i think it would be ideal for the regulator to provide this statistics to the industry. On Fri, Jul 1, 2011 at 2:31 PM, aki <aki275@gmail.com> wrote:
@Barrack, it would be ideal that Mobile Payment gateways to freely provide say a quarterly analysis of the data, possibly by sectors. The only hurdle I see with such data would be its accuracy, thus there maybe some need to verify through some legal function before release.
Rgds.
On Fri, Jul 1, 2011 at 2:22 PM, Barrack Otieno <otieno.barrack@gmail.com>wrote:
@ Aki, thanks for your comments , quite insightfull more so the need for National Mobile Payments data, do you think we need an entity similar to the one that was created to handle porting services for this purpose, or should we task the regulator to provide this data?
_______________________________________________ Skunkworks mailing list Skunkworks@lists.my.co.ke http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/skunkworks ------------ Skunkworks Rules http://my.co.ke/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=94 ------------ Other services @ http://my.co.ke
-- Barrack O. Otieno Afriregister Ltd (Kenya) www.afrire <http://www.afriregister.com>gister.bi, www.afriregister.com<http://www.afriergister.com> <http://www.afriregister.com>ICANN accredited registrar +254721325277 +254-20-2498789 Skype: barrack.otieno
@Barrack, that target of 50,000 domains that has been set is going to need serious marketing and awareness drive. And this evening I briefly looked at the system which KENIC offers registrars, it looks like a bottleneck that maybe causing some issues. If I understood correctly, any registrar needs a developer to create the communications between the registrar website and kenic system possible. That is why I believe Kenic need to implement a system as follows, removing all un-necessary hurdles for growth. *KENIC UNIVERSAL ACCESS SYSTEM FOR REGISTRARS:* a) When a registrar signs up, he/she will receive a registration code. b) When the registrar setups up a website, they connect to the Kenic system and put in the registration code. This code will allow them access to a page which contains a unique web code which they must copy. This webcode contains a unique secret number to indentify the registrar. c) Then the registrar will .e.g. create a box on their own wesbite, and paste the web code into the box. This code basically is the service running on the kenic server. When completed, the webpage will appear to have a domain search and purchase options. d) Now a propective client arrives at the registrar website, sees the domain search and purchase box and proceeds. Remember that the box is actually a service running on the kenic system and not on the registrar website, however to the user there is no way to tell the difference. e) On the kenic system, when the end user wants to purchase the domain and that they came from the registrar website, it contains the secret unique number of the registrar. This unique number will cross check if the funds exist and authorize a debit purchase amount set by the registrar. f) The end user is able to complete an online/mpesa transaction while the registrar has used the kenic system for transaction g) Kenic can go a step further and make a deal with say Visa Card payment gateway, and allow credit card transactions. Since volumes will be much higher here than if individual registrars used the same gateway, it makes sense to offer it at the core system. I think this is what kenic should be looking at to match its drive for automation and online transactions. Rgds.
participants (2)
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aki -
Barrack Otieno