ICT Infrastructure in Africa, Mr Branislav Cika, ICT Africa PLC

Abstract:

The most important factor dictating development of ICT infrastructure today is business. Just a few years back Local Area Networks (LANs) were working at 10Mbps and the only available services were file and print sharing while today those speeds are quite normal for Wide Area Networks (WANs) utilizing wireless and satellite communications while a wide range of services support any imaginable business in the world - in fact, if a business is not e-ready it is not considered competitive.

While a few years back, Internet was just a playground for a few 'techies', today it represents the most important business infrastructure and the fact that it is available everywhere gives it a special place in the worldwide economy. The fact that it is cheap and readily available gives small businesses opportunities they never had - participation in an online global village where distances don't exist and differences are no more.

Unfortunately, ICT infrastructure in Africa is still in its infancy and factors dictating such status range from governmental policy issues, monopoly on telecommunication markets, lack of business supported by ICT infrastructure to lack of skilled personnel.

Users depend on availability of ICT infrastructure and availability of content offered thru infrastructure. Content offered by businesses and infrastructure itself depends on governmental policies and liberalization of business and telecommunication markets.
Therefore, in the majority of cases this process starts within government itself, which believes liberalization will cut its income - it seems like a damned circle but it doesn't need to be so.

ICT infrastructure today demands business oriented planning to be profitable, therefore successful - while in Africa today, telecommunications are considered a rarity and we all know what rarities cost!

This paper presents current ICT infrastructure worldwide from access (user) and provider (backbone) perspective, technologies used as well as their benefits and limitations. It also defines resources behind implementations and strategies for democratizing access to ICT resources in both urban and rural areas of Ethiopia and Africa.

At the end it presents a small case study for ICT infrastructure implementation in Ethiopia.

Biography:

Branislav Cika is a network analyst and has spent 10 years of his life in the Information and Communication Technology field. Most of those years have been spent in several international organizations worldwide. He has been in several peacekeeping missions offering stable solutions behind firing lines. Once head of section, networks, Cika has forged ahead to bring to par with the rest of the world the never existing technology in his organization. On the path to his Cisco CCIE certification (with 90% of its product in networks around the world), he is a force to be reckoned with in today's highly demanding Information and Communication Technology space.

Branislav is currently one of the directors of ictAfrica, an Information and Communication Technology company based in Ethiopia and is charged with the overall task of managing network projects and pointing the way forward in strategically aligning the company in terms of its business focus.