Business News

Nairobi, Kenya – Dr. Donald Keck, a former Vice President and Technology Director at Corning Incorporated, the world’s
largest supplier of optical fibre, will be one of the plenary session key note speakers at the 2006 ICTe Africa conference in
Nairobi, Kenya.

In 1970, Dr. Robert Maurer, Dr. Donald Keck, and Dr. Peter Schultz designed and produced the first optical fibre with
optical losses low enough for wide use in telecommunications. Previously, the limiting factor for communication over
optical fibre was the amount of light lost during transmission. The key was restricting light loss to 20 decibels per kilometer
(at least one percent of the light entering a fibre remains after traveling one kilometer). Scientists around the world had
worked on the problem for years to no avail.

Optical fibre is the foundation for the global and modern multimedia telecommunications networks. More than 90 percent
of the U.S. long-distance traffic is already carried over optical fibre and millions of kilometers have been installed, virtually
all of it using the original design of Maurer, Keck and Schultz.

It is evident that the deployment of optical fibre for communications has catalyzed the rapid development of Information
and Communications Technology (ICT), especially in the developed countries. It is also evident that accelerated ICT
development has had a profound impact on economic development in those counties that embrace modern ICTs.

Unfortunately, the digital divide between Africa and the rest of the world continues unabated. Africa still spends hundreds
of millions of dollars a year to route voice and data traffic from Africa to Africa through Europe and North America.
Internet penetration is only 2.5% compared to 17.8% for the rest of the world and 69% for Hong Kong. The cost of the
only fibre link between a few sub-Saharan African countries and the rest of the world, SAT-3/WASC/SAFE, remains the
most expensive in the world due to lack of competition and therefore remains underutilized. Despite the low cost of labour
and shorter time difference with Europe and North America, Africa has still been unable to compete with India and other
countries for the lucrative tele-center market. The list of short comings is endless.

Dr. Keck’s presentation is expected to motivate the audience to embrace fibre optic deployment in Africa as a vehicle to
catching up with the rest of the world on ICT development and shrink the digital divide.

More details on the conference can be found on http://www.nepadcouncil.org/ICTeAfrica2006 or by contacting the
conference coordinator, Miss Alida Phielix: aphielix@nepadcouncil.org