Africa/Middle East

Sierra Leone's telecom regulatory body, NATCOM, has slammed a US$50,000 fine on each of the country's two leading telcos, Zain (SL) and Africell.  read more »

A new sales tax has led to confusion about pricing and subsequent shortages of calling cards in Sierra Leone, which has been plagued in the past by uncoordinated increases in rates for mobile phone usage.  read more »

In January 2009, the Kenyan government enacted the Communications Amendment Act, which identified the Kenya Network Information Center (Kenic) as the registry for the .ke top level domain. It also, however, introduced a new licensing regime for second level domains like .co.ke, which threatens the revenue streams of Kenic. The registry has also been facing criticism from the IT industry for failing to lower the cost of domains and for proceeding slowly in efforts to automate.  read more »

After failing to get a regional broadband project off the ground due to lack of support by member countries, the New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad) and the African Union are now focusing their attention on speeding up the implementation of ICT policy harmonization in order to enhance telecom development.  read more »

Little known by the outside world until genocide tore the country apart 15 years ago, Rwanda has become the first nation to launch a wireless broadbandI Internet facility in Africa.  read more »

Telkom Kenya has blamed corporate sabotage for the persistent cases of fiber optic cable vandalism that has led to lost clients and replacement costs.  read more »

For Africa, the arrival fiber optic cables connecting eastern and southern Africa, expansion of Internet services and the growth of local software development were the defining tech developments in 2009.  read more »

Uganda's largest mobile telephone operator, Mobile Telephone Networks (MTN) has taken the industry regulator, Uganda Communications Commission (UCC), to court over plans to fix interconnection rates.  read more »

The decision by Zambia and Uganda to regulate interconnection fees shows that Africa is adopting an international practice of fixed rates in order to protect consumers from exploitation by mobile service providers.  read more »

A new data center being built by the Kenyan government to serve East and Central Africa is expected to ease the region's reliance on Europe and America for data backup services.  read more »