Prepared by: Marcos Simbine
Telecomunicacoes de Mocambique
msimbine@tdm.mz

Basic data about telecommunication infrastructure

Population : 18 million;

Teledensity : 0.4 lines per 100 inhabitants / Rising to 5.5 in Maputo - Capacity;

More than 98% subscribers are connected to digital exchanges;

80 towns and large villages have now access to telecommunication networks;

There are a total of 10 exchanges with a maximum capacity of 100.000 telephone lines;

Mobile Cellular Phone, available since July 1997.

The Internet in Mozambique was introduced in 1993 by the Eduardo Mondlane University through its Informatics Center (CIUEM). At that time the main service was E-mail. The full Internet was reached in 1995.

In Mozambique there are currently 4 main links to Internet, one is a 128Kbps satellite link at the Eduardo Mondlane University, the other is 576 Kbps link located at the Telecommunication of Mozambique the PTO, which was sponsored by USAID, the third is located at the Teledata, giving a total bandwidth of 256 Kbps and the fourth belongs to Virtual Connetion with a total bandwidth of 128 Kbps. It's expected that this bandwidth will expand in the course of the year and coverage is expected to other 2 major cities.

There are 6 operational ISP's with about 6000 users that access via dial-up, except those users who access Internet from their local networks (Intranets). Most of them are located in the provincial capitals. Their main services that are offered are E-mail, Web access, FTP, Netnews. Data communications systems are now finding use in others such as Telemedicine, Ecommerce and Videoconference.

There is also a enhance ISP, that is beyond the allocated capacity by PTO, it introduced early this year, the SYANDA service, which consist of a combination of dial-up access and the capabilities of Dstv. With this option, the user utilizes the dial-up access for search and the satellite for browsing, what makes the access more inexpensive and reduce congestion problems at busy hours.

The average cost of services is $20 USD for E-mail and $35 USD for full Internet monthly.

The quality of services is still poor, mainly due to the increasing number of users versus the bandwidth.

There are now 5 web sites, although only one is full fledged, therefore the problem of content creation is still a major issue.

Gateways to Internet shall assist in the creation of an enabling environment to facilitate electronic network and access to global information infrastructure technologies such as the Internet.

THE EDUCATIONAL AND HEALTH SECTOR

A number of initiatives are progressing in Mozambique in order to make the Internet available outside the major cities. The Eduardo Mondlane University is now carrying a project funded by the World Bank and IDRC, to install networks in 20 high schools. These networks will have access to Internet and will allow the students to experiment the information technology tools.

Another program for the content creation and connectivity to Internet was started in 1996. This successful project is called SDNP and being funded by UNDP, and it has enabled a number of stakeholder to get access the need to share information. The technical implementation of the project is being carried by CIUEM.

In order to take the Internet to remote areas where there's no telephone and power network availability, the CIUEM is implementing Telecenters in 4 districts. The main object of the Internet is not only to show that there are appropriate technologies to provide access through such media, but to make the information accessible to the barefoot villagers. This will be also disseminated through the Institute of Social Communications.

The Internet, is today experiencing a moment of gradual process of implementation and the access is still in its infancy like the Cyber-café, but is firmly taking hold.

Education from the primary to adult life-long learning, is the key to enabling full and active participation in the information society by all citizens.

The Role of Regulator

The Government supported by the regulator, has created a health environment for competition through liberalization of the complementary and value added services such as the Internet. In this initial stage and in order to facilitate the penetration of Internet services in Mozambique, the Government encourage the private sector to develop their own information system without direct interference of Government.

It was defined however, that the systems operators, service providers should be obliged to respect the rule of law.

The objective of the Government is to optimize the development of the information infrastructure and services for supporting the social and economic development of the country.

In order to attain this, specific objectives that guide national development policy and strategy have been defined as follows:

• Universal access, in terms of the right of citizen to information;
• High quality services, in terms of availability, reliability and variety of services.

It's our view that the contents and the quality of information found in Internet is still not relevant to our current socio-cultural, socio-economical and socio-political situation. We still see a flow of information that is probably relevant to other nations to our country. Our values are sometimes different. How to select this information, is still a problem. How to make sure that our basic values are not violated is still a problem.

The security problems in the Internet are still existing. The danger of messages being intercepted, corrupted, or simply disappearing without trace is ever present. Nor there is there any protection for the user of the quality, reliability or good taste of the information being accessed.

The Internet's reputation as a heaven for smutty pornography may be undeserved, but it is difficult to shake off this image in the public perception. Something is clear, we need to build sources of information that are relevant to our society and to our people.

In the other hand the cost of accessing the Internet is still very high. A satellite link to Internet will cost hundreds thousands dollars per year. With the weakness of our economies and the major problems still present in other vital areas such as education, health and agriculture obscure the relevance of this technology.

It is with these considerations in mind that this seminar will enable us to jointly explore the challenges that the sector is facing and determine strategies and mechanisms that will better suit the needs of Voip.

In this regard, we sincerely hope that at the end of seminar, we shall have established the suitable and practical options of measures that can be pursued by the region as a whole and the individual countries.