News & Events
NEWS RELEASE
BOCRA Hosts Benchmarking Delegation from South Sudan
BOCRA is hosting a delegation from South Sudan on a benchmarking visit from 3-7 December 2019. The purpose of the visit is to learn from Botswana’s experience, challenges and successes with establishing a Universal Access and Service Fund (UASF). South Sudan is in the process of establishing its own Universal Service Fund. Welcoming the South Sudan delegation, Mr Martin Mokgware, BOCRA Chief Executive noted that it was a great honour and privilege for Botswana that its UASF continues to be found to be worthy. He said that the Fund was ready and willing to share its experience and also learn from fellow UASF in Africa and across the world. Mr Mokgware pointed out that in Botswana the Universal Access and Service Fund (UASF) was created as a special purpose vehicle to address gaps within the communication market. The UASF’s mandate is to ensure that all Batswana in the underserved and unserved areas have access to basic yet essential services within the regulated sectors of
telecommunications, postal, broadcasting and internet. The UASF has earned international recognition at the Commonwealth Telecommunication Organization (CTO) for the best initiative of Schools Connectivity which covers 68 primary schools in Ghanzi district, Kgalagadi district and some parts of Mabutsane district. Each primary school in the identified districts was given 50 learner tablets, a multipurpose printer with fax and a scanner, 5MBps internet connectivity and related peripherals. IT officers were hired, on a fixed term of 3 years, so that they can impart IT skills to teachers and students as well as manage the ICT equipment. In addition, all Junior secondary schools in the areas were given laptops to augment what the government had already provided. Nine Community Junior Secondary schools benefitted from the exercise.
BOCRA pointed out that the UASF is guided by a Strategic Plan, with the current plan running from 2019 to 2024 and that the Fund derives its revenue from levies collected from communications sector licensees as well as surplus income from BOCRA’s operational budget. The Fund is run by a Board of Trustees, with BOCRA serving as the UASF Secretariat. The Board of Trustees is appointed by the Minister responsible for communications, on recommendation from the BOCRA Board, and members are selected to represent different segments of the “Communications’’ market.
During their stay in Botswana, the delegation met with Botswana Fibre Networks (BoFiNet) to appreciate the significant role played by the backbone infrastructure provider. The delegation also met with the department of Telecommunications and Postal Services who took them through the initial milestones towards reaching out to the underserved and unserved communities of Botswana before existence of the UASF. Further to that the delegates visited Betesankwe Primary School, one of the beneficiaries of UASF project on School Connectivity and Computerisation. They had also requested to see a model of a Community Access Centre, locally known as a Kitsong centre, and had an opportunity to visit one in Sese village. At the end of their visit, the team will tour BOCRA’s monitoring centre in Phakalane where they will appreciate the systems in place for Quality of Service monitoring, among others.
The UASF model adopted by Botswana has been hailed as one of the most efficient models particularly for emerging economies of Africa. In November 2019 BOCRA hosted their counterparts Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (MACRA) on a similar exercise and has in the recent past also hosted several other bodies in region.
For more information, please contact:
Mr Aaron Nyelesi
Director, Corporate Communications and Consumer Affairs
nyelesi@bocra.org.bw
On the 30 October 2019, BOCRA will launch platforms that will facilitate the following online services:
- Licence application and payment;
- Licence verification and renewal
The official launch will take place at the Maun Bus rank
Time: 1200hrs – 1600hrs.
Be there.
#rephushadigital
Click here for the list of licensees.
Quotations and all supporting documents in a sealed envelope should be submitted not later than 17:00hrs on 28 August 2019 to the following address:
Botswana Communications Regulatory Authority
Plot 50671 Independence Avenue
Private Bag 00495
Gaborone
Tel: +267 368 5500
Fax: +267 395 7976
Click here for the final broadcasting election code of conduct july 2019...
22-24 July 2019
Avani Hotel
BOCRA, in partnership with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), will host the 7th Africa Domain Names Systems under the theme: Building Trust in the African DNS Industry for a Thriving Digital Economy. This will event will bring together global and regional experts to discuss the latest issues and opportunities in the DNS industry in Africa.
The forum is co-organized by ICANN, AfTLD, and AfRegistrar. For more information, please visit: dnsforum.africa
On the 27 – 31 May 2019, BOCRA will host the 4th Sub-Sahara Spectrum Management Conference and the ITU Capacity Building Workshop on Cross Border Frequency Co-ordination . Hosted with partners International Telecommunication Union (ITU), African Telecommunications Union (ATU), Forum Europe, these conferences will provide platforms for:
- Top-level meetings and topical discussions on spectrum management and coordination policies across Sub Sahara Africa and beyond;
- Capacity building on Cross Border Frequency Coordination to address latest technical tools and coordination mechanisms that are used by African countries to achieve smooth dialogue on spectrum management and monitoring issues; and
- Launch of Policy and Regulation for Digital Africa (PRIDA) to foster universally accessible, affordable and effective wireless broadband across the continent to unlock future benefits on internet-based services;
On May 17, the Botswana ICT sector, led by the Ministry of Transport and Communications will convene in Sefhare village on May 17, to commemorate the World Telecommunication and Information Society Day (WTISD) 2019, and the Girls in ICT Day. During these events, the ICT stakeholders will donate ICTs and connectivity to selected schools within the area and teach ICT skills to students and youth in the area.
Commemorated under the themes - Bridging the Standardization Gap; and Expanding Horizons, Changing Attitudes; the objectives of these events are to reflect how uptake and usage of ICTs in Botswana can positively impact Botswana’s ICT- centric economy, growth and job creation. ENDs.
Further Notes
Founded on 1865 as the International Telegraph Convention was established to ensure that telegraph networks had a common language, codes and technical rules to facilitate communications. Later, renamed the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), this United Nations specialized agency is mandated to oversee all ICTs and establish standards which will ensure that networks and devices communicate and interoperate seamlessly.
This year, May 17 marks the 50th anniversary of the World Telecommunication and Information Society Day (WTISD). It comes as no surprise that the ITU chose for theme: Bridging the Standardization Gap because the ITU has since its founding been devoted to establishing standards. This theme is a throwback to the ITU’s historic and continuing concern - to develop standards that will help close the communications gap.
As we go about our daily lives, we encounter ITU’s global standards every day without knowing it. Yet, hidden within the ICT networks and devices we use every day, ITU standards rarely perceived by users, exist, and are vital to ensuring that ICT equipment and devices manufactured by thousands of different companies around the world can interoperate.
The theme, ‘Bridging the Standardization Gap’, highlights the disparity between developed and developing countries in how far they are involved in standardization. Commonly referred to as the Standardization Gap, this inequality contributes to the so-called digital divide. Because of the highly specialized and technical nature of standards, this area is sometimes viewed as purely technical. To address this misconception, the ITU has initiated a Bridging the Digital Gap programme to help developing countries get on the ladder to contribute to the development of standards.
The ITU calls upon governments, academia, ICT stakeholders to recognize and emphasize the critical role of globally interoperable standards to the areas of electronic commerce, eHealth, scientific information, and to promote the development and adoption of open, interoperable, non-discriminatory and demands-driven standards.
When developing countries do not participate in developing standards, they must accept the design choices and associated policy consequences of dominant standards. As such, developing countries often find themselves being forced acquire inefficient products, ill-suited to domestic use, resulting in costly and inefficient infrastructure.
In order to close the standardization gap, Botswana must resolve to initiate plans that will in the short to long term provide for an active contribution to the ITU standardization work; and build technical expertise within its human resource capital to develop standards.
For further information, please contact:
Mr Aaron T. Nyelesi
Director – Corporate Communications and PR BOCRA
Tel (mobile) 713 137 65
The Authority seeks to appoint qualified, enthusiastic and results oriented citizen of Botswana in the following position:
Closing Date: 10 May 2019
