Re: .africa gTLD

[Mark J Elkins <mje@mje99.posix.co.za>]

On Jan 19, 10:53am, "Tierno S. Bah" wrote:
} For all its good intention, this suggestion points to pitfalls that
} African entrepreneurs should carefully avoid or risk paying a higher
} price than expected.
} 
} "... buying 8086 PCs and 2400 bps modems" is the equivalent of trying to
} reinvent the wheel. As a result, the gap between Africa and the
} industrial world can only widen. The only potential use of the above
} equipment would be for demonstration and basic training. Other than
} that, even a text browser requires a higher rate, at least 9.6 kbps.
} Even with  ZIP drives attached an 8086 machine cannot run freeware
} versions of UNIX (BSDI, Linux, etc.) and their built-in UUCP, link to an
} Ethernet LAN, etc. to give African universities campuses, for exemple,
} access to the Internet. Worse, where would one find spare parts to
} maintain such obsolete equipment?
} African countries cannot afford to repeat the history of technological
} evolution that has occurred since the end of WWII. They need to leapfrog
} the early and subsequent phases of computing and networking
} technologies. 
} - Tierno S. Bah

Well said.

I was in Kigali, Rwanda last week.  Interesting place - for a white
englishman living in South Africa... :-)

Rwandatel expect to have a 128K Satelite link to the USA real soon
now.  I've been helping local business men with concepts such as Cisco
routers, 64K Diginet, 28K8 Dialup, Linux servers and Window-95 work
stations.  Sure - we've been talking to UN and NGO's - but also the
local business too...  in the near future, you be able to see which
hotels to stay in, which places to eat - all done by the locals (the
Cactus does the best Pizza's).

Much of the equipment will be state of the art - please don't send
over all your old 286's... only 486 and better!

Now the person who has aquired the 'rw' TLD should perhaps return it to
Rwanda?

I expect to be in Burunda and Zaire soon too...

Unfortunately, traffic between these countries will be via the USA -
politics (and trust) between them is interesting!  Hence - an
'.africa' TLD is probably not such a hot idea..

}-- End of excerpt from "Tierno S. Bah"



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