<apologies for crossposting> Dear Ugandan Internet Stakeholders,
In the last few weeks we have seen much discussion about the state of the Internet in Uganda. I have started a new project, with several other people and organisations to carry on this discussion, expand it and provide an ongoing, interactive online space for information sharing about the Internet, ICT4D projects, policy and telecom developments, etc. In short, we aim to provide a "soup to nuts" (or perhaps more appropriately "Kitobelo") web 2.0 platform for the participation of all stakeholders Initially, we will build on the work of our partner i-network, to expand and update the "Internet Guide for Rural Uganda". This will address many of the consumer frustrations we have heard in recent days. We aim to provide complete data on ISP and mobile telecom products and services, so that consumers can make more educated choices. In addition, we will have the functionality for users to provide reviews about ISP and telecom products and services. We would like to provide tools for consumers to test their links and share their results over time, so that hard data, not just anecdotal evidence is given in these reviews. In the last week, I have been working with Reiner Battenberg, amongst others to build some of these tools discussed on the i-network list. This is also an opportunity for Providers to share information, not just about services they offer, but about their networks, bandwidth graphs, uptime, contention ratios, etc. We hope to get full cooperation from all providers in UG, and to that end, I have written to them asking for complete information about their services. We aim to promote transparency in the marketplace, which we believe will help providers as well as consumers. CFI has graciously donated a .ug domain name for this project, and other grants have been applied for. IICD has offered to support the initial price and product comparison work as an extension of the "Internet Connectivity Guide". Our aim is to be a public benefit project, which if successful, can be taken to a Pan-African scale. We humbly request your participation in this project in the coming months. Initially, we are surveying stakeholders to determine what kind of content you would most like to see on the site. (Many thanks to Reiner for building this site in a short time frame). Please go to http://stateoftheinternetin.ug and fill in your preferences. This survey will last for the next week or so, during which time we hope to have the data from providers, and build some beta web functionality. Please forward this mail as appropriate, we hope to enlist the participation of all stakeholders as we launch this non-profit initiative in November. Some mails are bouncing back from providers, so if you work for one, please let them know about this effort. Comments and feedback are very welcome, please direct these to [EMAIL PROTECTED] We hope to answer all questions in our FAQs, and on our "about' page. NB: I will be offline for most of the coming week, so please be patient as I will try to reply to all feedback in as timely a manner as is possible. -- Best Regards, McTim http://stateoftheinternetin.ug _______________________________________________ LUG mailing list [email protected] http://kym.net/mailman/listinfo/lug %LUG is generously hosted by INFOCOM http://www.infocom.co.ug/ The above comments and data are owned by whoever posted them (including attachments if any). The List's Host is not responsible for them in any way. ---------------------------------------
