System Build Project

System Build Project

Introduction

It is a considered view that henceforward no development programme of any country should be regarded as balanced, properly integrated or likely to be effective unless it includes a full and appropriate role for telecommunications, and accords a corresponding priority to the improvement and expansion of telecommunications. This statement was made in the report released in 1984 by the Independent Commission for World-Wide Telecommunications Development that was established to recommend ways to stimulate the development of telecommunications, especially in the developing world. Since then, mobile cellular telecommunications emerged and spread, and many countries have carried out telecom reforms in response to economic crises and technological advances. Economic crises left some governments unable to continue financing the expansion and maintenance of the telecommunications network at the same time that technological advances resulted in new services that required additional financial investments. Opening up the telecommunications sector to private operators was a means to continue developing the telecommunication sector. The Commission's pronouncement raises the issue of how mobile cellular telecommunications is being treated in developing countries. Therefore, all the issues related to System Build Project will be discussed in detail.

Discussion

In general, governments worldwide have treated mobile cellular networks and telecommunication services as supplementary to fixed line telephony. When the service was first introduced in most countries not many mobile cellular operators were obligated to provide any kind of universal service. This policy has formed the basis for the regulation of mobile cellular telephony. The growth of mobile telephony services in most countries has been phenomenal. In 2002, the number of mobile cellular subscribers surpassed the number of fixed lines in the majority of countries worldwide with average penetration rates of 18.72 and 17.55 respectively. The penetration rate for mobile cellular is the number of subscriber identity module (SIM) cards sold or number of active mobile phone numbers expressed as a percentage of the population (Boisot, 2004, 67).

In 2002, mobile cellular subscribers comprised 51.6 percent of the world's total telephone subscribers. By 2008, the average world penetration rate for the fixed line was 18.49 where as for mobile cellular it was 59.74%. The penetration rate for the fixed line is the number of fixed lines expressed as a percentage of the population. The ratio of mobile cellular subscriptions to fixed line telephones was 3.3:1. Since then a few countries in Africa, Botswana, Gabon, Seychelles and South Africa, have achieved penetration rates of more than 90 percent. The regulations that governments in Africa are using for mobile cellular telecommunications are facilitating the availability of the service in urban areas to a large extent. However, in most countries in Africa the majority of the population lives in the rural areas. The affordability of the service is a controversial issue and in many countries governments and regulators, on behalf of complaining citizens, are trying to take action to make the service more affordable. In 2009 in South Africa, for example, when the new ANC government took office it vowed to ...