- How to use electrical outlets and cheap lasers to steal data
- The botnet world is booming
- NTIA seeks volunteers to review broadband applications
- The 10 dumbest mistakes network managers make
- What's driving this university to IPv6? Going green
The Zambian government has raised international gateway license fees from US$12 million to $19.5 million, despite complaints from telecom companies that fees are already too high.
The fees have been adjusted upwards by the government with immediate effect, said Minister of Communications and Transport Dora Siliya.
The increase makes Zambia the most expensive country in the Southern African Development Community and the East African region for private telecom investors to do business.
Currently, the cost of acquiring an international gateway license stands at $214,000 in Kenya and at $50,000 in Uganda.
The increase is in deviance of the private mobile service providers in the country, which have been pushing the government to reduce the gateway license fees blamed for the high cost of communication in the country.
In April, mobile telecommunication company Zain petitioned the Zambian Parliament to break the deadlock over international gateway license fees that has been dragging on for more than two years. Zain asked parliamentarians to force the Zambian government to reduce the cost of the licenses to make the mobile market competitive.
Many countries in the region have already deregulated their international gateways, allowing private mobile operators to have their own international gateways. The Zambian government, however, claims that doing so would put the country's security at risk.
In protest of Zambia's failure to deregulate the international gateway, Zain Zambia has refused to launch a borderless network in the country.
Partner Content
Explore the Ultrium Edge
The powerful tape technology can address data security with tape encryption as well as long term data protection.
Find Out More
Disk and Tape Square Off
Discover what disk and tape really cost and which solution provides lower total cost of ownership and optimizes energy use for your organization
Download this White Paper
Don't Fall for the Myths
The Clipper Group explores the truth behind the myths of tape, digging into the misconceptions in the disk vs. tape debate.
Review this information
information examination
An examination of information security issues, methods and securing data with LTO-4 tape drive encryption
Read this analysis
Comments (1)
gateway feesBy Anonymous on August 20, 2008, 2:12 pmIts ridilous for Dora Siliya and her companions to keep on hiking fees.Its is already expensive to call Zambia worse to call within Zambia. When are we going to...
Reply | Read entire comment
View all comments