BusyInternet
About seven (7) years ago Mark Davies, an Irish American investor requested our advise on what investment in the ICT area would be more strategic impact. We advised on setting up a service type techpark facility with a large cyber café. We have been involved in the development of BusyInternet from the idea phase till now that it is five (7) years old, providing strategic and technical advice on services and technology. We are an integral part of the community building aspect of BusyInternet (www.busyinternet.com) as a socially oriented business operation.
TIER
We are country partners with the Technology and Infrastructure for Emerging Regions (TIER – http://tier.cs.berkeley.edu) at UC Berkeley’s School of Computer Science and Engineering. We have being developing and rolling out long distance wifi-networks to connect the various Universities. We use cheap existing wifi gear and stretch them over long distances to provide high-speed connection. Our network currently connects the University of Ghana with the University of Cape Coast; plans are advanced to put University of Education on the network as well as Takoradi Technical Institute. We have also worked with TIER by researching with sensor equipments measuring pollution and Global Positioning Systems (GPSs).
InHand
Together with two (2) Kenyan partners we ventured into a pure Internet Protocol (IP) service business in Kenya as investors and strategic developers. The company from scratch developed a critical internal infrastructure to help ISPs leverage their investment in the market. One of our remarkable successes is the integration of two ISPs into one big enterprise, combining their technology, services, market and investment. InHand (www.inhand.co.ke) is involved in various IP service renditions like VoIP based IP PABX, which is currently hot on the Kenyan market.
USAID
With contracting from an intermediary in the company of Computer Frontiers International (CFI – www.cfi.com), we developed the framework for the United States Agency for International Development’s (www.usaid.org) intervention on sub-regional exchange point for West Africa. Our field research paper makes the case for the uptake of countries Internet eXchange Points (IXPs), which would form the nucleus for an organic evolution of a regional structure, based on critical mass. We argue that this would further strengthen regional trade with communication cost coming down due to the regional structure. Cross boarder connectivity would eliminate some of the barriers for regional integration ensuring a seamless integration of platforms and systems.
KNET
We helped develop the strategic focus of this leading ISP in Ghana and prepared it to attract strategic investment. As lead brokers for KNET, we are currently talking to strategic investors in the US and Middle East to take majority stake in the business. KNET (www.knetgh.com) represents a boost strapped, well run, Ghanaian majority owned business in the ICT sector, which from nothing has grown to employ about hundred people nationwide with an annual turnover of about three million dollars.
OSIWA
As consultants to the ICT Program @ the Open Society Initiative for Africa (OSIWA @ www.osiwa.org) we have helped develop the framework and mechanism for engagement in respect of price reduction on the SAT3 undersea cable which runs on the west coast of Africa by a league of incumbent Telecom operators. We have consulted extensively with West African government, regulators and private ISP operator on ways they can influence the price of capacity on the cable through regulatory policy mechanism and market forces.
GISPA
We provide not only secretarial services but also work with the ISPs to ensure their participation in the market place. Much of the ICT engineering and resources of Ghana ISP Association (GISPA @ www.gispa.org.gh) was developed by us and we are involved in further ensuring that the association affects public policy in the ICT sector in the country. We played a critical role in the negotiations that GISPA had with Ghana Telecom to reduce bandwidth cost on SAT3 for members and this was partly due to our ongoing experience with OSIWA. We are still helping provide assistance and consultancy to the Association through a restructuring phase. We have led it through a process to acquire bulk purchases of STM1s to help ISPs remain competitive enough and consequently reduce cost of internet in Ghana.
iBurst Africa
Is a leading IP mobility provider in South Africa and has engaged our services to help them establish a global brand, which would first spread into other Africa countries and then the rest of the world. We helped them get into the Ghanaian market and are currently part of a larger team including financial arranger, Centebale Capital reaching out for investment into the global brand. iBurst is a majority black owned and empowered, first IP mobility providers on the continent with a larger market share in the South Africa ISP market. iBurst (www.iburst.co.za) is set to leverage it’s infrastructure to provide IP phone services in the various markets.
AfrISPA
The Africa ISP Association (www.afrispa.org) primarily helps in infrastructure development on the continent and our CEO who is the founder plays a major role in that. We led AfrISPA’s team to help establish six more ISP Associations in different Anglophone and Francophone countries. From content development to conduct of workshops and advise on the details of how trade associations work, we led an anglo-francophone team with diverse backgrounds working with rich experience on the need to collaborate and fortify a common front.
InfoDev
Our CEO was invited to a join a technical study team with collaborators Sweden and United Kingdom on how the WorldBank can “leverage new technologies and Open Access Models”. The technical paper that was produced seeks to shape the WorldBank’s (through InfoDev @ www.infodev.org) thinking of moving from a “vertical” to a “horizontal” communication system where there is a clear distinction between infrastructure and services. The regulatory policy promulgated seeks to segment the operators accordingly and ensure that there is fair competition within and between the layers. The team also advised that the ICT infrastructure must be built like all other infrastructure with a “public good” consideration in developing regions
Association for Progressive Communications (APC)
In 2007, the APC (www.apc.org) contracted us to research on the competitiveness of the SAT3 undersea fibre cable in Ghana. This study was an assessment of the current status of the implementation and impact of SAT-3/WASC in four member countries. The specific context of the research was to be on the areas that Open Access seeks to impact – namely access and cost; and on the resulting impact SAT-3/WASC has had in this regard on the competitiveness of international and Internet services in each country. This research was undertaken in four different African countries including Cameroun, Angola, Senegal and Ghana.
France Telecom
France Telecom (www.francetelecom.com) contracted us in August, 2007 to do an analysis of the ICT industry in Ghana with a particular interest in Ghana Telecom. This analysis was because France Telecom wanted a stake in the incumbent telecommunications provider. We undertook a thorough assessment of the ICT industry, including other very relevant factors such as the size of the market, size of the workforce and penetration of Information and Communications Technologies, ICTs. Internet Research advised France Telecom on the challenges operators like Ghana Telecom and multinational companies like France Telecom would face doing business in Ghana.
Eurecna International Services on behalf of World Bank
Otherwise known as the International Development Corporation (WorldBank), through Eurecna (www.eurecna.it) contracted Internet Research to produce a write-up on the ICT industry but with a special emphasis on Business Process Outsourcing and Information Technology Enabled Industry in Ghana. This was to help in producing an assessment of international good practices for developing and implementing policy frameworks for business incubation. This will include a business incubation framework and implementation strategy for Ghana. We have become partners to this organisation in terms of follow up on this in developing a technology park in Ghana.
Open Society Foundation
Through Balancing Act, an ICT consulting firm in the UK, the Open Society Foundation engaged our team to research on the impact of Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) in Ghana. The purpose of this research commissioned by OSI is to look at the evidence for three different kinds of impact; they enable cost-savings to be made as a larger proportion of traffic is exchanged using local rather than international bandwidth; they improve access speeds for users and cut down delays in downloading (through reducing latency); they create revenue opportunities because they allow easier hosting of local domains and improved access speeds make certain types of applications possible. In addition, our team looked at a fourth type of impact: whether the cost-savings IXPs may or may not have made helped local ISPs to pass on price changes to the end-user.
Ghana Immigration Service
Our work with the Ghana Immigration Service was to help with the project named the AENEAS Programme, which is to help counter document fraud in Ghana. The Internet Research Team helped to improve the understanding and an assessment of how IT infrastructure will help improve collection and dissemination of information; Propose ways in which the implementation process can be made more efficient and less costly; Help establish a central fraud/data centre in phase 2 of the programme which will be accessible to all partners; and develop a checklist that will assist AENEAS Programme Management in deciding the optimum solution for WAN/LAN to support the achievement of the information and communication objectives of the Programme.
DiscoveryTel Ghana
The team also helped DiscoveryTel Ghana Limited, one of the leading ISPs in Ghana, research on ISP pricing patterns in Ghana in 2008. We basically did face to face interviews and desk research and came out with a comprehensive report for them.
Ocean Specialists, Inc
Ocean Specialists, Inc (www.oceanspecialists.com) is a one of our recent clients. Our work with them was to provide consultancy services on Internet services in Ghana. Among some of the information we gathered and provided Ocean Specialists, Inc were total international bandwidth capacity of Ghana, pricing structure of bandwidth and Internet services provided.
Ghana Cyber City
We are partnering with Gateway Innovations to develop a technology park in Ghana. Our role has been to help Gateway find potentials funders of the project and also play an advisory role in building the internet infrastructure in the enclave.
Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa (FOSSFA)
The team led a number of research teams in five (5) West African countries; Ghana, Cape Verde, Senegal, Nigeria and Cote D’Ivoire to produce a research on Free and Open Source Software versus Proprietary Software Expenditure in West Africa which was commissioned by FOSSFA under their FOSSWAY project.