The Structures of Process Control Blocks (PCB)

By Kato Mivule

To understand what a Process Control Block (PCB), we first take a look at what a Process is. A Process is a computer program in execution.[1] A computer program therefore must be active to be considered a process. Whenever a Process gets to runs in the operating system, it alters its state. The State of a Process is current status in activity of that program. [2]

Every Process that is executed is in one of the following States: [1] [2]
New: In this status, the Process is just made or created.
Running: In the Running status, the Process is being executed.
Waiting: The process waits for an event to happen for example an input from the keyboard.
Ready: In this status the Process is waiting for execution in the CPU.
Terminated: In this status the Process has finished its job and is ended. However, if the Process is terminated before if finishes executed, it is said to be killed.

According to Silberschatz et al, processes in operating systems are delineated by a process control block (PCB) also known as the task controlling block or the task struc.[1] [3] The PCB is the data structure that stores data about a Process in the operating system. [4]

Silberschatz et al notes that a process control block in an operating system will at least have the following information: [1]
Process State: information about the current state of the process, from new, ready, running, to terminated.
Program Counter: states the location for the next command to be run for the same process.
CPU Register: state information on various types of registers is stored during interrupts for continuity to occur correctly when process resumes.
Memory Management Information: state data on memory is stored such as page tables, limit registers, or segment tables.
Accounting Information: stores state data on values of CPU and real time utilized, time limits, account numbers, job or process numbers.
I/O Status Information: Data on list of I/O devices apportioned to the process, a list of open files etc.

Therefore all major operating systems should at least have the above structure tailored to their unique process control block architectures.

According to Francesc Solsona et al, in the Linux operating system, the process control block is an implementation of a double linked list data structures. Francesc Solsona et al further state the fields associated with the Linux PCB as follows: [6]
policy: scheduling policy which include normal task policy and real-time policies.
rt_priority: responsible for planning between real time processes.
priority – ”static” priority: responsible for planning for normal processes.
counter, “dynamic” normal tasks priority.
files: open files structure, saves data about the job open files.
freq: sending and receiving message frequency.

A look at the Ubuntu Linux Process Manager, the System Monitor keeps track of the following data on processes running in the operating system:
Process Name: name of the process running
Status: current state of process, from sleeping to active.
Percentage of CPU: how much CPU resources are being used by process.
Nice:
Process ID:
Memory: memory usage.
Waiting Channel:

Fig 2: Ubuntu’s System Monitor

In the Windows operating system, Shibu gives a good description of the Task /Process Manager obligated for mounting the Process Control Block (PCB)or the Task Control Block (TCB) as referred to by Shibu. [6] Shibu further explains that the TCB or the PCB is used to store data associated with a particular process with the undermentioned content:[6]
ID: stores ID data of any particular process.
State: stores data on the actual status of the process, from ready, waiting, to terminated.
Type: keeps track if a process is real-time or normal.
Priority: keeps track on the priority of the process.
Context Pointer: context pointer
Memory Pointer: pointer to code memory, data memory, stack memory for the process.
System Resource Pointers: pointers to system assets.
Process Pointers: pointers to other PCBs

In Windows operating system, the Windows Task Manager is responsible for managing processes in the operating system. Windows Task Manager keeps the following data on Processes and Services:
Under processes:
Image Name: Name of Process.
User Name: User using the Process.
CPU: keeps track of CPU resources used by the process.
Memory: keeps track of memory usage by process.
Description: keeps a brief description of the process being used.

Fig 3: Windows Task Manager for Processes

Under services:
Name: name of services being used.
PID: Process ID.
Description: brief description of service in use.
State: current status of services, either running or stopped.
Group:

Fig 3: Windows Task Manager for Services

References
[1] Abraham Silberschatz, Greg Gagne, Peter Baer Galvin, “Operating System Concepts 8th Edition Binder Ready Version”. John Wiley & Sons, 2008, ISBN 978 0470 128725, Page 101-102.

[2] “Process states – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.” [Online]. Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_states. [Accessed: 11-Sep-2010].

[3] “Process control block – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.” [Online]. Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_control_block. [Accessed: 12-Sep-2010].

[4] Nell Dale, John Lewis. “Computer Science Illuminated, Edition 4″. Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2009, ISBN 0763776467, 9780763776466, Page 601.

[5] Cameron Hughes, Tracey Hughes. “Parallel and distributed programming using C++,Edition illustrated”. Addison-Wesley, 2004, ISBN 0131013769, 9780131013766, Page 39.

[6] José M. L. M. Palma. “High performance computing for computational science – VECPAR 2002: 5th international conference, Porto, Portugal, June 26-28, 2002 : selected papers and invited talks Volume 2565 of Lecture notes in computer science”. Springer, 2003, ISBN 3540008527, 9783540008521, Page 598-599.

[7] Shibu KV. “Intro To Embedded Systems 1E”. Tata McGraw-Hill, ISBN 007014589X, 9780070145894, Page 387.

New Cyber Law to Fight “Information Misuse” In Uganda

Ugandan Cyber Laws on Personal Privacy and Data Security are still too weak that the concept of Personal Data Privacy does not currently exist in Uganda’s ICT vocabulary… Kato Mivule

Cyber law to fight information misuse
Tuesday, 3rd August, 2010
By Winnie Nanteza and Racheal Ninsiima

THE Government is soon ratifying the law against the misuse of information and communication technology to combat terror, political and criminal mischief.

The Cyber Law Bill, according to the Minister of Information and Communication Technology, Aggrey Awori, is currently being discussed in Parliament.

“The Bill is already on the floor of Parliament. It will cover data and network security, cyber crime, information systems and electronic transactions,” he said.

The move, Awori said, followed the July 11 bomb blasts in Kampala.

He said the attacks had necessitated the Government to set up intelligence cameras at strategic points.

Awori was opening the sixth annual international conference on computing and ICT research at Protea Hotel in Kampala on Monday. It focussed on strengthening the role of ICT in development.

Dr. Josephine Nabukenya, the dean of Makerere University’s Faculty of Computing and IT, said the faculty is building a crimes record system, which would enable the Police to record cases and follow them up to the courts of law.

Uganda Gets Tough On Cybercrime

Uganda get tough on Cybercrime with more Cyber Laws but is Big Brother getting too big? Where are the Privacy Activists? Won’t the new tools be used to witch-hunt dissent?

Cyber law to fight information misuse
Tuesday, 3rd August, 2010
By Winnie Nanteza and Racheal Ninsiima

THE Government is soon ratifying the law against the misuse of information and communication technology to combat terror, political and criminal mischief.

The Cyber Law Bill, according to the Minister of Information and Communication Technology, Aggrey Awori, is currently being discussed in Parliament.

“The Bill is already on the floor of Parliament. It will cover data and network security, cyber crime, information systems and electronic transactions,” he said.

The move, Awori said, followed the July 11 bomb blasts in Kampala.

He said the attacks had necessitated the Government to set up intelligence cameras at strategic points.

Awori was opening the sixth annual international conference on computing and ICT research at Protea Hotel in Kampala on Monday. It focussed on strengthening the role of ICT in development.

Dr. Josephine Nabukenya, the dean of Makerere University’s Faculty of Computing and IT, said the faculty is building a crimes record system, which would enable the Police to record cases and follow them up to the courts of law.

When Privacy Matters Not?

The war on privacy and data security took on the worst turn as millions of Facebook Records were leaked. Facebook’s CEO seems delighted and trigger happy when it comes to doing away with privacy… Well, one solution is since major corporations and individuals are hungry for data, then feed them with ‘data’, there are lots of weaknesses, and as I searched through the data list leaked from Facebook, I could not help but notice thousands of fake and bogus records. Facebook claims 500 Million users but alas! millions must be bogus and fake names – let them have the “data”…

First Wikileaks, now Facebook. Is this the death of privacy?
The parallels between the Wikileaks saga and the openness of Facebook’s user data are striking.

I wrote a few days ago about an appalling misjudgment by Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, who released over 90,000 documents leaked to him relating to the war in Afghanistan. Well, it looks like another scandal is about to blow up. This time concerns personal privacy rather than national security – but the parallels are striking.

On Wednesday, Ron Bowes, a Canadian security consultant, “harvested” the names, profile addresses, and unique ID numbers of 100 million Facebook users – a fifth of the network’s total user base. He collated the information in a single 2.8GB file and posted it on BitTorrent, a peer-to-peer file-sharing network. Like Assange’s Afghanistan dossier, it was immediately accessible to anyone with an internet connection – including corporations. Check out this list of the firms who have downloaded the database so far.

My name appears in Bowes’ database. So does my mum’s. And so, probably, does yours, unless you’re super-vigilant about your Facebook privacy settings. Because, though you might not be aware of it, chances are that certain elements of your Facebook profile are set to appear publicly.

It emerged on Wednesday afternoon that Bowes conducted this exercise to help him learn how to break passwords – very unsettling, I’m sure you’ll agree. But Bowes is not the villain in this piece, because his act of mischief – and we can’t call it more than that, because the information he collected was freely available to anyone who cared to search for it – was only possible because Facebook itself has repeatedly and shamelessly betrayed its users’ trust, instituting rollback after rollback of privacy settings. Finally, in May, Facebook listened to user complaints and simplified its privacy settings, requiring far less information to be public by default.

Julian Assange and Mark Zuckerberg have a great deal in common. Both sit at the helm of powerful organisations that use technology to disseminate massive amounts of sensitive data. Both have clear, and, to my mind, very unsettling, ideologies that are starting to define social norms on the internet.

Assange is an outspoken opponent of the war in Afghanistan, which surely informed his decision to send the Afghanistan dossiers directly to Left-wing, anti-war newspapers rather than simply publish them on the site as had previously been Wikileaks’ method of disseminating information.
And Zuckerberg has repeatedly said that he wants Facebook users to learn to embrace openness. “We decided that these would be the social norms now,” he once said about the growing trend for sharing information online…..

Uganda 7-11 Terror Attacks Disrupt Internet

Our thoughts and prayers to all who lost loved ones and those injured in such a barbaric attack on the innocent.

Kato Mivule

Bomb Blasts Disrupt Internet Services – All Africa
David Mugabe | 14 July 2010

Kampala — The deadly twin bomb blasts that hit Kampala last Sunday have forced Internet service providers to rethink their service delivery by providing back-up to the fibre optic cables.

The explosions damaged the Uganda Electricity Transmission Company (UETCL) pylons, thus breaking supply of bandwidth that is transmitted through the power lines.

End users reported hours of interruption. The New Vision can confirm that only about 20% of the capacity was available during most of the day on Monday.Even users from as far as Lira said the service was poor and unreliable by last week, but had worsened on Monday.

“Ours has been very slow since last week, but it got worse on Monday,” said a worker with the National Social Security Fund in Lira.Uganda telecom (utl), which controls 85% of the data market, conceded that their service to eastern Uganda, from Busoga region, was affected.

“A microwave link will be set up to act as a back-up like we have done in Kampala. Wherever we have fibre and copper, we also have satellite,” said Mark Kaheru, utl’s spokeperson. Kaheru said fibre still remains the most reliable option, but precautions will now have to be taken into account outside Kampala, even though the damage is not frequent.

“The cable is 40 metres in the air. This is the second time we have had the interruption in the last seven years,” Kaheru said. The fibre from Kampala to Kenya starts at Kyadondo Rugby Club and it is managed by UETCL.
Relevant Links

Service providers sent engineers at the bomb site on Monday morning, but they were turned away by security officers who were combing the area for clues on the deadly terrorist attack. Orange Telecom chief strategy officer Edouard Blondeau explained that because of the interruption “we have to look for ways of putting our eggs in different baskets to mitigate the risks because damage is part of the daily fibre life.

Blondeau said the firm is linking up to SEACOM, another undersea fibre optic cable, which was launched last year. Orange Telecom is connected to TEAMS and satellite. Orange, however, reported that the service was restored on Tuesday by about 9:00pm. Other service providers said they had to prioritise service to corporates and limit traffic to individuals during the interruption.

Mr. Bharti Desperate For the African Telecom Market, Meets Museveni

Kato Mivule

With Bharti facing fierce competition in Asia, it is no doubt that he is desperate to take a huge chunk of the African I.T market. However, Africans should play hard ball too, for they have leverage and Africa’s Telecom sector is one of the fastest growing and lucrative markets in the world.

Museveni meets telecom investors – Daily Monitor
President Museveni has urged investors to exploit opportunities in the agro-processing industry in Uganda including engaging in the production of fertilizers, phosphates and the steel industry. Mr Museveni was on Tuesday speaking at a meeting with investors from India and Singapore.

According a State House press statement, the investors were led by Mr Sinil Bharti Mittal chairman and Group CEO of Bharti Enterprises based in New Delhi, India and Ms Chua Sock Koong, the Group CEO of Singapore Telecommunications limited.
Mr Sunil Bharti Mittal an Indian telecom mogul, is the founder and managing director of Bharti Enterprises.

Uganda's President Meets Bharti, Image Source: Daily Monitor

The $7.2 billion turn over company, according to reports, runs India’s largest GSM – based mobile phone service while Singapore Telecommunications Limited (SingTel) is a telecommunications company that provides mobile phone and fixed line telephone operations.

Zain acquisition
Bharti Airtel recently concluded the acquisition of Zain Group’s mobile operations in 15 countries across Africa for an enterprise valuation of $10.7 billion.
The meeting was also attended by Mr James Mulwana, the chairman of the Zain-Uganda board of directors and Mr Yessi Oenga the managing director of Zain Uganda.

Details on how Zain Uganda will be affected by Bharti’s takeover are likely to be revealed at a press conference that is slated to be held in Kampala tomorrow.

The World Cup, Information Privacy, and Data Insecurity in Africa

Kato Mivule | June 8, 2010
With the World Cup fever high, ZDNET published an article showing an increase in cybercrime activities surrounding the World Cup festivities.

Protection tips for the upcoming FIFA World Cup themed cybercrime campaigns – ZDNET
“…With just four days until the FIFA World Cup begins, cybercriminals have already started showing their interest in taking advantage of the event, by launching targeted malicious PDFs/malware serving campaigns, blackhat SEO and fraudulent propositions, followed by lottery winning notifications/letters of claim themed scams. Considering that, these threats and exploitation tactics are prone to intensify throughout the entire event, let’s review some of the most commonly used attack vectors, and discuss the risk mitigation strategies for each and every one of them…”

Spam Volume Prior To World Cup. Image Source: ZDNET

Yet this underscores a major problem in Africa’s I.T Infrastructure, which most of it is insecure not because of a lack of sophistication to handle such cyber threats but a lack of priority.

Most Telecom companies for example do have state of the art technologies that could be channeled to address cybercrime yet none of these resources are utilized in a proactive way.

South Africa as a nation is exceptional in this approach as they have had a considerable investment in research when it comes to Information Privacy and Security.

However, with the exponential growth of the Telecom Sector, and amazing increase in the numbers of youngsters who are signing up for Online Social Networks such as Facebook, Twitter, etc, Privacy and Security can no longer be ignored.

Yet even documented incidences of Africa’s PCs being used as Transits for worms, Trojan horses, and all other cybercriminals need to comprehensively addressed, not forgetting the stereotypical “Nigerian Email” scam.

Yet in a clandestine fashion, African Governments have been known to employ primitive data mining techniques to spy on their citizens to check on all who are criticizing the ‘Village Chief’…

However, Information Privacy and Security should aim at empowering the locals rather than empowering the ‘powers that be’, this can be used to hold the ‘Village Chief’ accountable.

South Africa’ IT Performance Shows IT Growth in Africa

South Africa Information Technology Report Q2 2010 (Business Monitor International)
Companies and Markets | 07 Apr 2010

Market Overview ; South African IT spending is expected to increase from US$9.5bn in 2010 to around US$14.4bn in 2014, faster than real GDP growth. Despite an expected slowdown in investment associated with the 2010 FIFA World Cup, there should be opportunities for vendors across several sectors of a steadily growing South African IT market during our five-year forecast period. The 2010-2014 South African IT market compound annual growth rate (CAGR) is projected to be in the region of 11%, as a number of IT infrastructure projects generate spending at federal and provincial levels. Much spending in key IT verticals such as telecoms, banking and mining will be driven by factors internal to those sectors. The IT market fundamentals of sub-10% PC penetration, rising incomes and falling prices also underpin our growth forecast.

A successful hosting of the 2010 FIFA World Cup could be expected to attract more foreign investment. The IT market will also be driven by a continued improvement in South Africa’s ICT infrastructure and bandwidth availability. 2009 saw steep falls in the cost of ADSL services, which declined by as much as 80% in some areas, bringing broadband internet within reach of a wider proportion of South Africans.

Industry Developments The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) has announced that it will spend more than SAR500mn on IT projects in the current financial year. The objectives include improving service delivery and immigration services and fighting corruption. IT projects will receive ZAR514mn in 2009, with this allocation growing to ZAR652mn in 2010/11.

The 2010 World Cup has had an impact, not only in terms of investments in IT systems directly linked to the event, but those driven by associated investments in areas such as infrastructure. Meanwhile, in the run-up to 2010, the licensing of a second national telecoms operator will provide opportunities for operators. In Gauteng, new technology is being used to improve policing and education, put more services such as driver’s licence booking online and automate healthcare records. Following her appointment in 2009 to the Open Source Software Standing Committee, Nthabiseng Mosupye, the director of information services at the Department of Public Works, called for a renewed drive to implement the government mandate of 2005, which saw all government departments making use of free open source software.

Competitive Landscape Government figures have estimated that Microsoft accounts for around one-third of national spending on software licences. In 2010, the software market leader hopes that sales of its Windows 7 operating system, launched in October 2009, will boost its sales in South Africa. Microsoft announced last year that four Microsoft Innovation Centres will be built in Africa in the next two years, two of them in South Africa.

Most of the major multinational IT services players have African regional headquarters in South Africa. In September 2009, IBM opened an Africa Innovation Centre in Cape Town, which the company hoped would act as a driver to grow its customer and business partner network in South Africa. The US company has expanded its local partner community by 200% since early 2008. Despite the tough economic conditions, PC vendors have strengthened their presence in the market with new distribution agreements and partnerships. In 2009 Korean company Samsung appointed local information and communication technology (ICT) distributor Rectron as distributor for its entire line of IT products. HP appointed local company LetMeRepair as a new authorised Home Product Service Partner for in and out of warranty repairs of its PC range.

Computer Sales
South Africa’s computer hardware market is forecast to grow to at a CAGR of 11% over the next few years from an estimated US$4.1bn in 2010 to US$6.3bn in 2014. In 2009, sales were hit by sluggish retail demand, with the wholesale and retail trade sector contracting. The main growth drivers during our five-year forecast period include rising computer penetration, falling prices and vendor and retailer promotions, and the popularity of notebook computers and ultra-light products. In the past few years, falling prices have helped boost PC unit shipments, along with aggressive retail promotions. In 2009, the popularity of low-cost netbooks gave further momentum to this trend. Netbooks are now available from online stores such as kalahari.net and ngrcomputers.co.za for as little as SAR3300, breaking new territory for affordability.

Software
The software market is forecast at around US$1.8mn in 2010 and, despite current economic headwinds, is projected to have a CAGR of around 11% over the 2010-2014 period. South Africa’s software market is developing, despite the problem of software piracy, which still accounts for around 36% of software. The growing regional ambitions of South African companies will be a factor driving corporate spending on software, but vendors will have to meet increasing demand for vertical-specific applications. The economic slowdown represents a challenge to software vendors, as enterprises are tempted to focus more on the bottom line. This situation is likely to lead to further consideration of open source solutions in some sectors. Meanwhile, the progress of the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model in South Africa should receive a boost from projected improvements in South Africa’s broadband infrastructure.

IT Services
The IT services market is projected at around US$3.5bn in 2010 and is expected to grow to around US$5.3bn in 2014. The 2010 World Cup and other major infrastructure and transport projects provide a framework for faster spending growth during the forecast period.

Despite the current economic crisis, work will continue on most of the major infrastructure and IT projects associated with that event. Spending on IT services still depends heavily on government programmes, and in the current economic environment, the government will remain the largest spending IT services vertical, followed by financial services and telecoms.

E-Readiness
Internet penetration in South Africa is by far the highest on the continent, although broadband penetration remains low. In the small business sector, some progress is being made: according to a 2008 survey, 63% of smaller companies that use computers to connect to the internet now have a DSL internet connection, exactly the proportion using dial-up five years ago. Despite the opportunities, prospects for the IT market remain constrained by high communication costs and uneven infrastructure development. The government has launched a series of initiatives to tackle this issue, but there are doubts as to whether the government has the will to tackle the key question of termination rates and pricing implications.

The South African broadband market will become increasingly dynamic over the next five years. One development that is expected to have a major shake-up effect on the market is the inauguration of various undersea cables. Some of these are due to go live by 2010 and will help to reduce the cost of bandwidth. Other developments that are expected to provide the broadband market with a major stimulus include local loop unbundling – scheduled for completion in 2011 – and the deployment of new network infrastructures to rival Telkom’s national network.

Things Fall Apart For Uganda’s Fiber Optic Cable

Kato Mivule | April 21, 2010
It is always the poor who suffer while the elites can afford expensive satellite connections in Kampala… Corruption and mismanagement are some of the largest impediments to ICT development in Uganda…

Internet cable project stopped | New Vision |April 20, 2010
By Cyprian Musoke

THE National Information Technology Authority has stopped the laying of the Internet cable over reports of poor quality and inflated costs.

The three-phase project, which was meant to be ready by now, has been mired in controversy since it started in 2006.

The cable is meant to be linked to the submarine cable that arrived at the East African coast recently and to provide faster and cheaper Internet access to Uganda.

However, experts say the project will not deliver on the objectives because of the poor quality of the cable. Experts also said Uganda was spending far more on the “inferior” cable than what Rwanda spent on a superior one.

In a letter to the Chinese firm, Huawei Technologies, which is implementing the $106m (about sh221b) national fibre-optic project, the ICT watchdog said the work should wait until a forensic audit is conducted.

The permanent secretary of the ICT ministry, Dr. Godfrey Kibuuka, said the audit was goung on, but refused to give details.

The head of the parliamentary committee on ICT, Igeme Nabeta, also said yesterday the MPs had ordered the Chinese company to stop to allow a review of their work to ensure value for money.

“Where we find that they made mistakes they have to fix them at their own cost,” he stressed.

He said they would like to see the first phase operational before they give the project a greenlight.

“We want to see those e-government services operational.” The first phase involved laying a cable covering Kampala city, Entebbe, Mukono and Bombo towns, to enable high-speed data transfer between government offices.

Under the project, 2,100km of backbone fibre-optic cable would be laid. The New Vision broke the story recently that the cable was largely defective and inadequate for the national backbone infrastructure.

Uganda, it emerged, was using the G652 type instead of the G655 which would enable fast transmission and to take care of future growth.

The project is funded by a concessional loan from the export/import bank of China. Uganda will pay back the loan over 20 years.

“The contractor had transferred the completed phase to the Government. In some parts, the cable was laid in swamp land, elsewhere there are no generators, and many trenches are too shallow,” the MPs said in a report.

Despite the order from Parliament and the ICT ministry to halt the second phase, Huawei refused to stop.
Huawei blamed the damage to the cable on the numerous dig-ups in the city by various companies installing underground infrastructure.

Huawei wants each party to appoint its own experts to establish the quality of their work and said it was ready to fix any errors which they are responsible for.

Google To Report Spying Governments

Kato Mivule | April 21, 2010

Google now lets you know if the Ugandan Government is spying on you…

Government requests directed to Google and YouTube
http://www.google.com/governmentrequests/

Like other technology and communications companies, we regularly receive requests from government agencies around the world to remove content from our services, or provide information about users of our services and products. The map shows the number of requests that we received between July 1, 2009 and December 31, 2009, with certain limitations.

We know these numbers are imperfect and may not provide a complete picture of these government requests. For example, a single request may ask for the removal of more than one URL or for the disclosure of information for multiple users.


Mismanagement and Corruption Hinder ICT in Uganda

Mismanagement and Corruption Hinder ICT in Uganda…

Uganda lays wrong ICT cable – Experts |New Vision | April 4, 2010

UGANDA is laying the wrong fibre optic cable for the national backbone infrastructure, local and international experts have said.

Uganda is using the G652 type whereas it should be using G655 for the kind of data Uganda will need to transmit.

But despite instructions from the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Parliament to halt the second phase until the technical issues have been resolved, the Chinese company, Huawei Technologies, has refused to stop.

Every day the works continue, the company is using up more of the $106m (sh212b) for what experts say will prove to be a ‘white elephant’.

The National Transmission Backbone Infrastructure and related e-Government Infrastructure is a project funded by a concessional loan from the export/import bank (EXIM) of China.

Uganda has to pay back the loan over a period of 20 years.
The Chinese government sourced and recommended Huawei Technologies to carry out the implementation.

There was no tender and according to inside sources, no proper needs assessment study prior to implementation.
One source said a project document from Malawi was simply copied and the word ‘Malawi’ changed into ‘Uganda’.

The project involves building a 2,100 km fibre optic cable network linking 20 major towns, making Internet accessible and affordable to the majority of Ugandans and enabling e-Government.
Ultimately, it is meant to be linked to the submarine cables that have recently arrived at the East African coast and provide faster and cheaper Internet access to Uganda.
The backbone infrastructure is very instrumental for Uganda’s development.
It will determine whether the country will catch the ICT train or miss it.

The UN has established that there is a direct link between the spread of Internet and economic growth. The International Telecommunication Union found that every 1% increase in Internet penetration results into a $593 increment to GDP per capita.
Yet, contrary to neighbouring Rwanda, the country might miss the train due to an inadequate network and outdated technology that experts predict will constantly break down.

Wrong cable type
Questions about the type of cable were raised as far back as June 2009. In a brief to the ICT minister, the Project Implementation Unit recommended a shift from G652 to G655.

It argued that the cable used has Four Wavelength Mixing, a “phenomenon that introduces signal distortion that is extremely difficult to overcome”.
It also said the cable has very high levels of chromatic dispersion, “a phenomenon that introduces errors during signal transmission”.

More concerns about the type of cable were raised in a document drafted in September by the parliamentary committee on ICT.
The committee found that the bandwidth per fibre was too small. Bandwidth is the amount of traffic the fibre can carry simultaneously.
The G655 has a capacity of transmitting 40 gegabites per second whereas the current one can only transmit 2.5Gb, upgradable to 10Gb.

Experts say this is insufficient for Uganda’s current needs. It cannot provide for future growth bearing in mind that other countries, like Rwanda, may tap on the same infrastructure.

“The G652 cable does not have enough provision for future upgrade path for higher data rates, multiple channels and longer distances,” said the ICT committee.
One expert explained that it will be like driving traffic from a 10-lane road converging onto a one-lane road; leading to huge traffic jams.

“Projects like e-health or e-education using video-links may become difficult if not impossible to run across the country because they require huge bandwidth,” the expert said.
Makerere University had planned to set up five up-country centres allowing students to attend classes at the main campus through a video-link. Such projects, the expert said, may be excluded with this type of cable as data and video traffic grows across the country.

Dispersion distance
The committee also established that the reachable dispersion distance for the current cable is less than half of the G655.
This is the distance from where the optical signal, or light, dissipates or phases out.

According to the ICT committee, the reachable distance of the G652 is 80km, whereas the signal for the G655 can reach over 210km.

When the signal phases out, it needs to be regenerated through ‘boosters’, which are expensive to build and maintain.
It will also greatly contribute to ‘down time’ of the infrastructure, meaning the system will shut down.

Cores
Another concern raised is the number of cores of fibre that has been installed.
The cable being laid is only a 24 core fibre whereas experts recommend 96 cores as a minimum to ensure that future growth in data and video usage is not interrupted.

The number of cores determines the number of separate channels. Security sensitive information, for example, is preferably transmitted through a separate channel.
“The advantage of more cores is that they can be distributed over a much wider area,” an international ICT expert told The New Vision.
“In some instances, the cores not used by the Government could be leased to third party providers, making it a profitable business.”
Uganda will need this additional income to pay off the Chinese loan.

Price
Apart from the type of cable, experts have also raised questions about the price.
Rwanda spent $38m to cover a distance of 2,300km to connect 35 sites.
Uganda, on the other hand, will spend $61.6m to cover 2,100km.

That means that Uganda will spend about $30,000 per kilometre on the project, whereas Rwanda will spend $16,000 per kilometre.
This is despite the fact that Rwanda is using the G655 type, the one recommended by experts, which is slightly more expensive.

MPs and officials of the National Information Technology Authority (NITA) are particularly worried that the Chinese company is continuing the works without any supervision.

The Auditor General in his December report already criticised the lack of proper supervision during the first phase.

He noted that the Project Implementation Unit was only set up six months after the works had started.
“By this time, substantial amount of work on the contract had been undertaken,” the report says.

“Capacity was still lacking in terms of numbers and expertise, with the unit manned by only six technical staff, out of which only four were field-based.”
NITA and the ICT committee have demanded the immediate suspension of the works pending an entire review of the project based on a proper needs assessment study.

“A full technical audit is urgently required to save whatever is left of the $106m, and immediate steps need to be taken to rectify the situation,” said a source.

“Otherwise potentially fatal technical problems are facing both the National Backbone Infrastructure and e-Government.”

Missing the ICT train, NITA says, will be catastrophic for the future of Uganda.
“Wasting $106m is bad enough. But the loss of the money is nothing compared to the long-term consequences of missing the ICT revolution.”

Phone firms shift focus to post growth

Phone firms shift focus to post growth | Daily Nation | Jevans Nyabiage

Mobile phones are slowly starting to replace personal computers in sub-Saharan Africa, where a PC is still quite expensive.

Mobile phone service operators are betting on data to grow their revenues as income from voice nears saturation.

Telecom research firm, Frost & Sullivan says data services is the next kid on the block for mobile phone firms if they have to register continued growth.

This, the firm says, is because mobile phones are no longer seen as a tool for basic phone calls and text messages only.

The just-released annual results for operator MTN confirm the growing role of data services for African mobile firms.

The group reported that approximately 15 per cent of its revenue last year came from data.

Frost & Sullivan’s ICT analyst Silvia Venter says this is an indication that the days of data consisting only of basic SMSs and accounting for less than 10 per cent of an operator’s revenue are gone.

She says mobile phones are slowly starting to replace personal computers in sub-Saharan Africa, where a PC is still quite expensive.

In Kenya, Safaricom recently said it is shifting its over-reliance on voice which is reaching saturation with new frontiers like data and value added services, which it bets to grow its future revenues.

Other operators

According to chief commercial officer Peter Arina, over the past three years the firm has invested about Sh7.5 billion in a bid to establish a cross-section of technologies aimed at positioning the firm as a serious data player.

Although there are no public figures on the uptake of data for the other operators, their aggressive marketing for the same points to the ongoing battle.

Telkom Kenya bets on its fixed line to increase data solutions while Zain Kenya recently signed agreements with 45 telecoms operators around the globe to allow it expand international roaming coverage for data services.

Ugandan Google Maps Launched Featuring Entebbe and Kampala

Kato Mivule | March 1st 2010

An interesting development as Ugandan maps become digitized. Google is surely becoming a force in the Information Technology Revolution in Africa…

Uganda: Google Launches Maps | AllAfrica| Sylvia Nankya |24 February 2010
Kampala — Detailed maps of Kampala and Entebbe are now accessible on Google Maps through any web browser. The maps can also be accessed on data enabled mobile handsets. They come with both a satellite and a terrain view of the cities. Kenya and South Africa were the first beneficiaries of the Project which has now extended to 29 cities across Africa. “Google Maps isn’t just a searchable digitised maps helping you to find a local place, service or product – it is about making information with a geographical dimension available to everyone” Rachel Payne Country Manager Google Uganda said recently. Google believes that more accurate local information can greatly improve the breadth of information available about a given area and in turn can help efforts to bolster tourism and business investment. Businesses can also benefit

Google Map of Entebbe

from the Street View technology by embedding Google maps directly into their site for free, helping them to promote a chain of hotels or raise awareness about a local library or restaurant, Payne said. She added that the service will give tourists a taste of the variety that Uganda offers, and a chance to research their holidays in advance. The map data includes a substantial amount of user generated content provided via Google Map Maker. The Map Maker allows users to locate, draw, label and provide attributes for local map features, such as roads, parks, or rivers, turning local users into “citizen cartographers.” Payne allays fears that the maps could pose a security threat to the cities. “The Information we are using on Google is approved and available to every citizen, she said.

Is Bharti Airtel’s Zain Deal Good For Africa? Maybe Not

Kato Mivule | February 16, 2010

Bharti is positioned to take over Zain assets in Africa and that includes operations in Uganda. However, Bharti failed at gaining access to Africa’s Telecom Boom by taking over MTN assets in Africa. Bharti then is reported to have borrowed money to secure the Zain assets in Africa. The translation of this is might mean restructuring and more of a profit driven ideology that might sacrifice employees and African indigenous talent in the short term. Yet still Bharti Airtel will bring with it innovation in the area of mobile applications and probably move Africa towards fully utilizing “Africa’s new PC”, as one blogger refereed to the mobile phone phenomenon in Africa.

Bharti AirTel Logo

Zain Sees $5 Billion Profit From Africa Unit Sale | Businessweek
Feb. 16 (Bloomberg) — Zain, Kuwait’s biggest phone company, said it expects a return of as much as $5 billion from selling most of its African operations to Bharti Airtel Ltd. in a deal that would almost halve its assets…Bharti, South Asia’s biggest mobile-phone company, and Zain said yesterday they entered into exclusive talks under which the Indian company would buy the African assets for $10.7 billion. Bharti will pay $10 billion when the deal is completed and the rest a year later, Zain said in a statement on the Kuwait Stock Exchange Web site today. The transaction excludes Zain’s operations in Sudan and Morocco….Bharti is seeking Zain’s African business for access to an estimated 42 million customers across 15 African countries from Nigeria to Uganda. Bharti’s third attempt to enter Africa highlights billionaire Chairman Sunil Mittal’s ambitions to expand overseas as competition intensifies at home, where call rates have fallen to less than a penny a minute. Mittal has tried to gain access to other fast-growing markets, including a second failed attempt last year to buy South Africa’s MTN Group Ltd. for about $23 billion.

Zain Logo

Bharti eyes debt financing for Zain Africa buy – sources | Money Control
Bharti Airtel, which has offered USD 10.7 billion for Kuwaiti telecom Zain’s African assets, is likely to finance the majority of the deal’s purchase price with foreign currency loans, three people familiar with the matter said…Zain, which is selling its telecoms operations in 15 African countries to Bharti, said on Tuesday the deal included USD10 billion to be paid at completion and the remaining USD 700 million by the end of the year…Separately, the NDTV Profit television channel said Bharti was considering a rights issue to help fund the deal. However, at the time of its ultimately thwarted merger talks with South Africa’s MTN Group last year, Bharti had said there was no plan for any rights issue. A Bharti Airtel spokesman declined to comment on Tuesday on how the firm would fund the deal. Standard Chartered and Barclays are advising Bharti Airtel on the merger and its funding, one of the sources told Reuters.

Broadband brings new hope to Africa’s poor, elderly- ITU

The East African|February 8 2010

Effective delivery of essential services in Africa lies with the deployment of broadband networks, according to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a United Nations agency for information and communication technology.

During the recently concluded African Union Summit held in Addis Ababa Ethiopia, the agency appealed to African countries to focus on broadband networks as the transformational technology that will aid in the efficient use of energy, management of healthcare in poor, ageing and isolated population as well as the delivery of the best education to future generations.

ITU secretary general Hamadoun Toure said broadband is the most powerful tool to drive global social and economic development as well as accelerate the realisation of the UN Millennium Development Goals.

He, however, noted that the cost of broadband must be made affordable and accessible in order to benefit Africa.

“While the technology exists, the benefits are yet to be realised in most countries. This is because broadband networks can never deliver on their full potential until they provide each citizen with fast, affordable access,” said Dr Toure.

The ITU boss told the AU meeting, whose theme was “Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in Africa: Prospects and Challenges for Development,” that broadband networks must be regarded as basic national infrastructure, just like transport, energy and water networks.

Dr Toure added that Africa has to “act as one in its approach to formulating its Vision 2020,” during this decade — whose theme is premised on the idea of an integrated Africa through the utilisation of ICT.

Vision 2020 will address various strategies including common codes and spectrum management, harmonisation of policy and regulatory frameworks and low cost continental roaming.

It will also address affordable rural access and direct inter-continental links through fibre optics and satellite.

“In general, it will tackle key global issues related to ICT such as cyber security, cyber peace and emergency communications especially during natural disasters, content development through e-health, e-commerce, e-government, e-education and e-agriculture,” he said.

In order to encourage investment in the continent’s ICT sector, the ITU boss said there is “real opportunity to use all the potential of public-private partnerships (PPPs).”

The driver to new investments in the ICT sector, he added, would be a policy and regulatory framework conducive to competition and growth, as well as capacity building and training on policy issues in the continent.

On the levels of mobile tele-density (the number of telephone lines per 100 people), Toure said at the start of last year, the levels across Africa were at 38 per cent of the population but had improved to 42 per cent.

He, however, said the Internet user base, which by 2008 had grown to 48 per cent, was still low with only 8 per cent of the continent’s 840 million people having access.

Jean Ping, chairperson of the AU Commission highlighted different projects the body had launched in various fields including ICT, infrastructure, energy, agriculture and education.

“The Commission has also made progress in driving the science, technology and information society. An example is the tele-medicine facility opened at the AU clinic during the Summit through partnership with the Indian government,” said Ping.

The tele-medicine facility, financed by the Indian government, is part of the Pan African e-Network project, which is meant to enhance Africa’s capacity by imparting quality education to students and providing tele-medicine services, tele-education and video-conferencing as well as voice services for heads of state.

South Africa’s Internet Users Projected to Double in 5 Years

Kato Mivule January 20, 2010

Though the projections look promising on the side of PC Connectivity, much focus could be placed on smartphones and Notebooks. Personally I do not think that PC Connectivity is the future. The number of Cell Phone subscribers is 300 Million and beyond currently in Africa. Therefore smartphones and Notebooks have a far brighter future in Africa. Education could be focused on how best to utilize smartphones to solve a number of problems in Africa…

Web: SA’s internet users could double by
2015
SA Business Report January 15, 2010 By Thabiso Mochiko

South Africa’s internet users could double to 10 million by 2015
as the the cost of telecommunications falls and the number of personal computers
and smartphones connected to the Internet grows, Arthur Goldstuck, the managing
director of World Wide Worx, said on Friday.

The firm announced
this week that internet users in the country rose by 15 percent to 5.3 million
at the end of 2009 and could reach 6 million by the end of
2010.

Goldstuck said the growth to 10 million users would come from
a combination of an estimated 8 million computers with a internet connection by
2015 and increase in the number of consumers owning smartphones that have access
the internet.

“It will take a couple more years before mobile
internet users outnumber PC-based internet users,” he
said.

Goldstuck added that for internet usage to increase limits on
internet use needed to disappear completely or at least be made far less
restrictive.

“One of the areas of most dramatic usage growth
worldwide right now is in video material online, but South Africa’s data
restrictions mean we are kept from becoming part of that trend. It will take
several years for online video to take off to the same extent in South Africa,
but lifting data restrictions will open that market immediately,” he
said.

Barriers to entry should also be lowered including the cost
of access to asymmetric digital subscriber line or ADSL, which is dominated by
Telkom.

“A stronger push needs to be made for computer literacy,
starting in schools, but also extending to adult education in disadvantaged
communities,” he concluded. – I-Net Bridge

MS Office 2010 in Africa is a Waste of Time

Kato Mivule | January 6, 2010

Microsoft is set to release the new Office 2010 Suit sometime soon and has already dictated prices for the new product that range from 99 to 499 US Dollars.

I find the ‘Price Release’ strategy a little arrogant and outrageous given the current state of the global economy, especially when it comes to Africa. Millions of Clients around the world are expected to migrate from Office 2007 or 2003 for that matter and get onboard with Office 2010 at Microsoft’s terms.

Microsoft sets prices for forthcoming Office 2010 – Washington Post
“SEATTLE — Microsoft Corp. will sell four versions of its forthcoming Office 2010 software, due out in June, for prices ranging from $99 to $499. The company said Tuesday it will sell Office Home and Student edition, which comes with four core programs, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, for $149 as boxed software that can, as with previous versions, be installed on three computers in the home. A “Product Key Card,” which has a code to unlock one copy of Office 2010 pre-loaded on new PCs, costs $119. Microsoft will sell an education-only version, Office Professional Academic, through campus book stores and some retailers for $99. Besides the core programs, the academic version comes with the Outlook e-mail program, Publisher for desktop publishing and the Access database software…”

Some critics are giving Microsoft high marks because of the successful “flawless” launching of Windows 7 late last year. Though it might be true that Windows 7 had a successful début, many of Microsoft’s Clients had been waiting for almost a decade for a new operating system to replace Windows XP.

Clients were more than willing to put up with the flaws of Windows XP than purchase a bulky and disgusting Windows Vista Operating System. Yet the successful “flawless” launching of Windows 7 and almost simultaneous release of MS Office 2010 will not catapult the sales for Microsoft.

Already many in the corporate world are transitioning to OpenOffice.org and taking full advantage of Google’s version of online office products that seem to be getting better.

For one thing in Africa, Office 2010 will sit on shelves and OpenOffice and Google will make inroads at almost no costs apart from training and support.

Rather than pay 499 US Dollars for new MS Office 2010 professional, African IT heads would rather invest in training, support, and Internet Access at lower costs for OpenOffice and Google web office products.

Many in Africa still utilize MS Office 2003 and I do not think they see it fit to waste resources to purchase a new MS Office 2010 professional for 499 US Dollars.