Zambia joins Indian project

Zambia has joined more than 30 African countries that will benefit from the information and communication technologies (ICT) under the pan-African e-network being promoted by the Indian government and designed to provide telemedicine, videoconferencing and tele-education.

The project aims to develop Africa's ICTs by eventually connecting all 53 African countries to satellite and optic fiber. The program is a joint initiative with the Africa Union.

The Indian high commissioner to Zambia, Ashok Kumar, said in Lusaka last month that telecommunications technicians from India are already in Zambia working on the installation of hardware and software for the project. The project -- first launched in South Africa, Ethiopia, Ghana and Mauritius -- will cost the Indian government more than US$125 million although the project will likely demand $1 billion in total.

The project is seen by some as Africa's biggest ICT project ever with online education and telemedicine expected to extend to rural areas. India hopes the investment will help it sell telecom gear to Africa including VSAT (very small aperture terminals) technology as well as IT services for telemedicine and other social applications.

The telemedicine network will be used to share knowledge from Indian doctors with their African counterparts through an online training program. Several African countries face challenges to building out ICT infrastructure, including nonexistent or low-capacity national and international communication backbones. After five years, the Indian government will withdraw from the project to allow African countries to run it on their own using their own financial and human resources

The Indian government first wants to establish a regional ICT hub in Africa to act as the main contact point between Africa and India and oversee the delivery of services.

So far, more than 30 countries have already signed up for the pan African e-network project. India wants to make inroads into Africa's ICT market before China solidifies its investments there. The Indian government will fully finance the establishment of centers for all African Union states including a private communication network for all Africa Union heads of State.