Benin

West Africa: Consumer Broadband Prices Continue to Tumble As OTI Telecom Lowers Its Retail Offer

(London)

ANALYSIS
18 August 2008
Posted to the web 18 August 2008

Isabelle Gross
London

West African consumer broadband prices continue to tumble as operators try to find the price point that will attract a wider public beyond the relatively small numbers of corporate customers. The most recent company to slash its broadband prices to create a retail offer is Benin’s ISP OTI Telecom. It is the latest francophone country to introduce this kind of offer but undoubtedly others will follow. However, the challenge remains the high cost of international bandwidth on SAT3 for most countries on the cable. Isabelle Gross looks at what’s happening to broadband prices in the sub-region.

Benin’s leading ISP OTI Telecom surprised the market last week by lowering its broadband prices for retail customers to FCFA 25,000 (US$57.95) a month without tax. Equivalent prices for 512 Kbps are FCFA80,000 (US$185.43) and for 1,024 Kbps FCFA200,000 (US$463.58).

But according to Blaise Adetonah-Donhouede, the DG of OTI Telecom, the price that would really crack open the retail market would be more like somewhere between FCFA9,000-12,000 (US$20.86-27.81). At this level, for example parents who are paying for their children to do research in a cyber-café on a per hour basis will begin to see the financial advantage.

The fall in retail prices has been matched by new offers for professional and corporate users: a 512 Kbps connection without tax for FCFA100,000 (US$231.79) and a 1,024 Kbps connection without tax for FCFA220,000 (US$509.93). Cyber-cafes also benefit but with a slightly higher price on the lower capacity connection: 512 Kbps for FCFA130,000 (US$301.25) and 1,024 Kbps for FCFA220,000 (US$509.93). However, the cyber-cafes get a free ADSL modem-router, a maintenance pack, a guaranteed maximum 12-hour call-out, personalised technical support and two IP addresses with 512 Kbps connection and four with the 1,024 Kbps connection.

By comparison with DSL broadband offers in South Africa, what you see is what you get in Benin. An equivalent residential 512 Kbps connection from Telkom South Africa costs US$129.51 a month which at first sight seems cheaper than OTI Telecom’s price. But OTI Telecom imposes no restrictions on download amounts. But in South African there are potentially three additional amounts that will be added to the bill at the end of the month. Firstly, the access charges paid for a 512 Kbps connection add a further US$43.17. Secondly, the connection is “shaped” which means that it’s impossible to use VoIP so you can pay an additional US$22.33 for an unshaped connection. Thirdly, in order to have unlimited downloads you pay an extra US$64.01. All of which gives a whole new meaning to “slice-and-dice” pricing.

But Adetonah-Donhouede of OTI Telecom says that such a pricing structure just wouldn’t work in Benin because his customers would spend a great deal of time contesting their the detail of their bills if they had multiple payment options. It’s already reached the situation where customers ask for money off if the connection is down for more than 24 hours!

A comparison with prices in the West African sub-region put OTI Telecom and Benin in a good position. In Senegal for example Orange offers a 512 Kbps ADSL connection for FCFA19,900 (US$46.12) without tax a month. In Côte d’Ivoire Aviso offers the same connection on a similar basis FCFA40,000 (US$92.71). In price terms, these are both at the low end of the range for Burkina Faso’s Onatel offers a 512 Kbps residential connection for FCFA40,000 (US$138.84).

In Togo and Ghana, residential connections are still limited to 256 Kbps. Togo Telecom’s “Helim” residential connection for this capacity costs FCFA70,000 (US$162.25) and Ghana Telecom’s “Broadband4U” connection costs US$92.30)

The impetus for lower broadband prices is driven by two key factors: the level of competition in the market and the price of international connectivity. The exception to the first driver has been Orange in Senegal which has been the continent’s only de-facto monopoly that acts in a price-progressive way. However, it will face competition this autumn from Sudatel-owned Expresso.

OTI Telecom has 15 POPs and a very high level of access to Benin Telecom’s network which has enabled it to secure 60% of the 2,000 DSL subscribers in the country. But it secured this position when Benin Telecom was cash-strapped and in chaos at the end of the last Government. Its D-G can easily see that Benin Telecom will re-exert control over its delivery of DSL and OTI Telecom will become a “virtual operator”. If a single entity controls the supply chain for DSL broadband and there is no wireless alternative at a low price, then the fall in prices is unlikely to continue.

The second pressure preventing lower broadband prices in West Africa is the continuing high cost of wholesale SAT3 connectivity. This varies between US1,300-15,000 per mbps per month depending on the country involved. The lower the prices, the higher the volumes sold and the greater the pressure on the existing SAT3 cable. And Nigeria, which should be the sub-regions largest market is to some large extent still “choked off” by the continuing chaos (both financial and maintenance) at Nitel.

By Q2, 2009, Seacom and TEAMS will be offering wholesale connectivity on the east coast between US$500-1,000. The Glo One cable may start operating Q3, 2009 and will undoubtedly offer cheaper prices to a number of countries and two other pipeline projects are in the wings. Once they are in place, there can few further excuses for not offering significantly cheaper consumer broadband price at or below the price point Adetonah-Donhouede of OTI Telecom suggests.

West Africa: Ghana, Togo, Benin Parley Over Bird Flu

(Lagos)

14 August 2008
Posted to the web 14 August 2008

Lagos

Ghana’s Veterinary Services Directorate, alarmed at the resurgence of avian influenza (bird flu) in Nigeria, is seeking a meeting with its eastern neighbours, Togo and Benin Republic to discuss common measures to prevent it from spreading to their countries.

Dr Enoch Koney, Acting Director, said a similar cross border meeting had been planned with Cote d’Ivoire to the west and Burkina Faso to the north.

Nigeria is sited to the east of Ghana. Ghana declared itself free from the disease about two years ago after culling and other measures.

Speaking on Tuesday in Kumasi at a day’s simulation exercise on avian influenza, he said all regional directors of agriculture as well as veterinary officers had been informed about the new case in Nigeria.

Koney said this was to strengthen surveillance in all avian influenza risk-prone areas and asked them not to be complacent in their prevention and control measures.

He urged them to have a constant check at all live bird markets and monitor the staging posts of migratory wild birds at wetlands while they strictly enforced import permits for poultry and poultry products.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has warned that a new strain of avian influenza never before reported in Africa has been identified in Nigeria.

It said tests conducted by Nigeria and by the FAO showed that the new virus strain which was similar to strains identified last year in Italy, Afghanistan and Iran was genetically distinct from other forms detected in Nigeria in 2006 and 2007.

It pointed to other avenues the virus could have taken to Nigeria, such as international trade or illegal and unreported movement of poultry. “This increases the risk of an avian influenza spread to other countries in Western Africa,”

Benin: Recurrent Cholera Still Not a Priority

13 August 2008
Posted to the web 13 August 2008

Cotonou

At least 50 cholera cases have been recorded in Benin’s capital Cotonou since 24 July, according to local hospital officials.

These cases have been reported in the capital’s eastern districts of Enagnon, Dedokpo, and Segbeya, neighbourhoods that lack clean drinking water, waste disposal services, and indoor plumbing.

The government has set up a treatment centre next to Ayélawadjè health centre in eastern Cotonou to provide free medical assistance to affected people.

On Wednesday, more than 100 people gathered at the centre. One health worker who spoke with IRIN anonymously because he was not authorised by the Ministry of Health to comment on the outbreak said: “We have been seeing more and more patients in recent days. For the moment, we have things under control. We are the asking the population to help us fight the disease by observing basic sanitation rules.”

Dr. Paul Yada, an epidemic specialist at the African regional office of the World Health Organization (WHO), said while efforts like this camp are helpful to halt the epidemic, cholera is not only the responsibility of health officials.

He says cholera is most quickly spread in run-down urban areas that lack clean water sources or indoor plumbing. Yada says often, faeces in open spaces mixes with heavy rains, trash, dirty riverbeds and a neighbourhood’s castaways, forming a river of waste that infects a community’s drinking water.

“To really solve this problem, you need more people at the table than just health officials, and you need more resources,” says Yada.

The Benin government has renewed an education campaign on sanitation and what to do at the first signs of cholera infection.

Yada says countries’ responses to cholera outbreaks tend to be fast, but that follow up is poor.

“After an epidemic, people stop these education campaigns. The problem is, you cannot change someone’s behaviours in one week. You cannot stop teaching about sanitation just because the rains stop. This needs to go on year round. “

Cholera is a recurring problem in much of sub-Saharan West Africa. Cases spike with the annual rains that generally fall between June and September, but infections happen year round.

The cholera bacteria is spread through contaminated food and water. If not treated, the first symptom of diarrhoea can lead to kidney failure, dehydration and death.

Last year, toward the end of Africa’s rainy season, ministers of health from across the continent signed an agreement to develop comprehensive action plans to fight cholera.

WHO representative Yada says none have been submitted to WHO’s regional office in Congo Brazzaville for funding.

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations ]

West Africa: Communauté Electrique Du Bénin Issues Tender to Operate Fibre Network Over Its Transmission Pylons in Benin And Togo

(London)

5 August 2008
Posted to the web 7 August 2008

Russell Southwood
London

Last week the international power utility CEB issued a tender that will allow an external company to operate a fibre network over its transmission pylons in both Benin and Togo. This will do three key things: extend the amount of fibre network available in both countries, potentially connect both countries to their neighbours by more than one route and may help lower national backbone prices in both countries.

The Electricity Community of Benin (Communauté Electrique du Bénin - CEB) is an international organisation for both Bénin and Togo, in charge of developing electricity infrastructure in both countries. It is planning to install fibre cables and telecommunication switches alongside its high voltage transmission cables in Benin and Togo. The following routes will be upgraded with fibre cables:

- 161 kV power line linking the station of Sakété to the station of Lomé-Aflao via the stations of Cotonou Védoko and Momé-Hagou

- 161 kV power line linking the station of Momé-Hagou to the station of Atakpamé via the station of Nanguébo

- 161 kV power line linking the station of Sakété to the station of Onigbolo

- 161 kV power line linking the station of Nangbéto to the station of Bohicon

Telecommunication switches will be installed in the following places :

- in Bénin at Cotonou, Sakété, Onigbolo, Bohicon, Djougou, Parakou, Bembèrekè et Natitingou.

- in Togo at Lomé, Atakpamé, Nangbèlo, Momé-Hagou, Sokodè, Kara et Alédjo.

Interested companies can find tender details in the Jobs and Opportunities column at the bottom of this newsletter.

Meanwhile Benin Telecom has opened its fibre connection to Niger allowing that country’s incumbent Sonitel to connect to the SAT3 international landing station in Cotonou for the first time. It will also not be long before Burkina Faso also connects by fibre to Benin.

The strange case of the disappearing broadband connection

Apologies to our readers who may have experienced difficulties and delays in communicating with us over the last two weeks: Balancing Act’s UK DSL broadband connection has been off and intermittently operating over the last nine days. African readers may find the tale of what happened interesting and educational.

Over the past year and half our broadband connection has been experiencing minute-long outages. Since these could generally be solved by rebooting the modem, we learned to live with them. But by 21 July, the DSL connection was going up and down every few minutes so we had to act. Ironically this sporadic pattern allowed us to retain an e-mail connection for a while but made Internet use hopeless. So we phoned our provider…

At this point, it’s worth explaining that this saga involves three parties: our network maintenance and hosting company, Nux; our DSL service provider, Nildram; and the actual service provider, BT. Nildram’s service is hosted at the local exchange by BT who operate and control the equipment. Some independent service providers have their own equipment in the local exchange but in this case Nildram does not.

The game starts with the main parties seeking to hand-off the blame for the outages to others. So Nildram’s first questions are whether we can replace the modem and all cables, which we duly do. There is no improvement….So eventually BT Open Reach sends round an engineer. He runs a test on the DSL line and pronounces it sound and proper and that the modem is still at fault. So we replace the modem again…and still no improvement. The service provider Nildram contacts BT who promise to change the card in the port in the DSLAM at the local exchange. Still no improvement…At which point it has been escalated to a BT diagnostic engineer who thinks the line needs a “lift and shift”.

DSL lines are often affected by noise from surrounding equipment in the exchange causing them to operate intermittently. But there’s a catch…whereas the diagnostic engineer used to be able to authorise a “lift and shift” immediately, he now has to send out a second engineer to check before he can do this.

On the Friday five days into the problem, the second engineer arrives and tests the line again and pronounces it completely clear. But he get BT Wholesale to test the noise to signal ratio on the modem and it says that it’s below the level that will hold the signal. We put in place plans to change the modem on Monday but are amazed to discover that we have uninterrupted broadband on Saturday and Sunday. But by Monday it’s completely down again so we go ahead and change the modem. You’ve guessed by now that this made no difference whatsoever.

So BT promises that it will do the “lift and shift”. But when it reports that it’s done it, nothing has improved. So the second engineer returns and again announces after testing that the signal is fine but seeing the emotional pain this is causing phones to check whether the “lift and shift” has been completed. No, it hasn’t, which he blames on the service provider Nildram for not issuing a work order. While he’s with us, the “lift and shift” is completed and normal service comes back up. The engineer is perfectly pleasant and polite but there are no apologies forthcoming and by this stage, we’re so grateful just to be reconnected.

Early in the process we ask whether the repair of DSL faults is covered by a Service Level Agreement. No, it is not because DSL is judged not sufficiently reliable to make this possible. Searching blogs on the net to look at similar cases, it is clear ours is not an isolated occurrence. However, those who write to the regulator Ofcom are told the same thing that we are told by our service provider. So whilst household and commercial phone faults are covered by clear response times and penalties, for DSL services the customer is completely unprotected. Only leased lines are covered by service level agreements but a leased line costs US$400 a month as opposed to US$70 for a DSL line.

In desperation, we explained to our provider that this DSL connection was vital for running our business and we were given a stern lecture about how we should have a back-up line. But how can we have a back-up line with you as it may suffer from the same issues? Well, the provider says, get it from another provider! And here’s the rub…The choices for alternative providers are few and not attractive. Satellite wireless is available but it’s expensive and not wholly reliable. Cable can be had from Virgin Media but the blogs are full of wailing, dissatisfied customers. We could seek to find a provider that had its own DSL equipment in the exchange which may be the route to go. There are no wireless service providers covering our area.

Finally, the process of fixing the fault is excruciatingly slow. I ring the service provider Nildram but to get through to them and conclude a conversation takes 20-30 minutes every time. On some days I’m making 2-4 calls day. Once through, they bring up a screen they use to share information with BT. But more often than not it’s not responding so they ring BT which adds to the time. At one moment of high absurdity, the engineer had two departments of BT on the line while I was juggling our tech support and the person from the service provider Nildram. Of course, once this was achieved a decision took minutes to reach. Each time something was promised it took BT 24 hours to respond. So a fault that was clearly BT’s and could probably have been fixed in 3 days (even allowing for the modem replacement routine) actually took nine days to get done. I have nothing but praise for all the individuals we dealt with but the process sucks.

And the moral is? Get some serious competition from wireless service providers going otherwise - even with local loop unbundling - the dominant player will still be in charge of the high ground.

Nigeria: Again, Five Citizens Manhandled in Benin

(Lagos)

2 August 2008
Posted to the web 4 August 2008

Godfrey Bivbere

HARASSMENT of Nigerians travelling around the West African sub-region by the nation’s neighbours took a turn for the worst recently when five Nigerian citizens returning to the country from Mali through Benin Republic, were subjected to humiliating scrutiny at the Cotonou airport.

The Nigerians isolated from about 50 other passengers, were taken to a room within the airport and their passports taken from them before being subjected to about one hour of scrunity.

One of the passengers, Mrs. Donu Goodman, who spoke with Diplomatic Discuss, explained that they were subjected to single goods search after ignoring them through out the course of the search. Mrs. Goodman who works with an international agency, said "The police made it clear…first of all they said we should wait and we all had Nigerian passports. Later they said they wanted to double check our cargoes, our suitcases our luggages and we were given a single item search individually."

She noted that it was until the end of the humiliating ordeal that they were told that they were acting on information that a Nigerian onboard that flight was bringing in some illegal item. According to her, "it was later that they told us after our complaint about being singled out for such search while other passengers were allowed to go, "they said they heard word that somebody with a Nigerian passport or persons with Nigerian passports maybe travelling with illegal substances."

The Nigerians who were made up of four males and Mrs. Goodman, were belittled that they wondered why they should be subjected to such treatment. She said there was need for the federal government to begin to take matters concerning citizens of the country seriously because the level of maltreatment of Nigerians is becoming worrisome.

On why follow West African neighours continue to maltreatment Nigerian citizen she said, "I don’t know. But the assumption maybe that they seem to feel that we are less virtues citizens, I really don’t know." She said there was need for "government to begin to sensitize our West African colleagues and brothers and sisters that we do feel isolated, abused and exploited when we are separated and singled for such treatment.

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Benin: Prison Conditions Violate Human Rights

30 July 2008
Posted to the web 30 July 2008

Cotonou

Prison conditions in Benin are so deplorable that they were, alongside police brutality, one of two reasons that compelled the international human rights watchdog Amnesty International to list the country in its annual State of the World’s Human Rights report for the first time in 2008.

Prisons suffer from overcrowding, cases of unjustified detention, a lack of trained prison staff and lack of adequate food, according to the report.

Amnesty highlights Abomey prison 150km north of Cotonou in central Benin which it says holds up to six times as many prisoners as it was designed to. The prison in the capital, Cotonou, holds 2,445 prisoners in a facility set up to house 400.

A separate research report published in June 2008 by Beninese non-governmental and human rights organisations including Amnesty International Benin (AI) and the Organisation for the Defence of Prisoners’ Interests (DDP) also highlighted the poor conditions for the approximately 800 children who are held alongside adults in the country’s prisons.

According to AI, "Women and children are particularly vulnerable and live in precarious conditions in prisons. A large number of women are detained with their children and have to give birth without an attendant physician." Youth offenders are not tried in special juvenile courts, flouting international norms.

"Prison overcrowding is a serious human rights problem," said Thierry Alliah, director of human rights at the Beninese ministry of justice. "That is why we will not stop making sure those in power are aware of the gravity of the situation - it could be a fatal blow to our country’s image."

Why

According to Alliah the problems stem from the country’s dysfunctional justice system. "Trials are not always fair… people awaiting trial are not always judged according to the nature of their crime," he said, and as a result prisoners may be given arbitrarily long sentences. Trials can drag on for years and can suffer interruptions of up to four years at a time, according to Alliah.

Many of the prisoners languish for ten years or more without having a trial, he said. "There are more people awaiting trial than those tried in prisons… they haven’t been tried because we don’t have enough judges to try them," he said.

"We need to… distinguish the guilty and innocent so we do not keep innocent people in prison," he said.

There is no formal training available for judges in Benin and the few judges who do operate are often on strike demanding higher salaries and cost of living stipends, according to Alliah. And now clerks are following suit.

Government actions

The government has been aware of the problems for many years but has not prioritised it, according to Olatounde Cambopas, an independent legal adviser.

A bill was passed in 2001 to install 28 civil courts around the country, but no action was ever taken to set them up, and as such "we are still working with the eight courts left over from the previous justice system," which dates back to the French colonial era, he said.

There has been some progress however. In 2007 the Minister of Justice, Legislation and Human Rights conducted a tour of the country’s detention centres to ascertain if conditions had improved since first being highlighted by Amnesty International in 2003. According to a December 2007 statement, "the results of the survey… found a significant improvement in conditions over the course of the year."

Meanwhile in 2003 the government introduced a plan to recruit 30 additional magistrates annually, and to build 10 additional prisons by 2010. Alliah is optimistic that these plans will be realised.

"You can’t say the government hasn’t done anything to address this situation, and hopefully in two years time we will have enough civilian prisons to decongest the current ones, and adequate numbers [of magistrates]," he pointed out.

Not enough

Amnesty International wants deeper and faster reform. Recruitment of judges must be sped up, judges should accelerate investigation and trial proceedings and should clearly outline fair custody periods, and court sessions should meet more regularly, and youth offenders should be give the benefits of special trials and separate detention quarters it says.

But Campos looks to alternative justice mechanisms to settle the problem, and proposes setting up ‘conciliation courts’ where victims and offenders can meet to discuss and confront the crime committed thereby reducing the number of prisoners, particularly minors, who are detained.

Whether or not the government will embrace such proposals remains to be seen but advocates are not giving up. "We must maintain permanent pressure on the authorities to change the situation we are in today," NGOs and human rights organisations announced in their report.

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations ]

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