March 2013

Africa’s top banking and mobile phone executives assembled in Nairobi recently to listen to the counsel of one of the world’s leading technology companies. “Software is the manufacturing of the future,” IBM chief executive Ginni Rometty told them. Should this prove to be the case, it might mitigate one of the continent’s chief economic conundrums – how to sustain growth and spread its benefits without the factories that have typically fuelled big leaps in other developing economies.

In most African countries the road, rail and port infrastructure is in need of heavy upgrading if their economies are to become more competitive. But the speed with which the continent has built telephony networks and embraced mobile has taught the rest of the world much about Africa’s potential. Mobile phone subscriptions have risen to 475 million from 90 million in sub-Saharan Africa within seven years. Their spread has changed not only the nature of communication but the state of banking, commerce and investment on the continent. The phone has become so essential that people skip meals so as to be able to afford scratch-card credit for it.

Plans to boost superfast broadband in rural areas descended into farce as BT was left as the only bidder for £530 million of state funds.

Ministers’ efforts to deliver superfast rural broadband have dragged on for two and a half years, triggered an European Union probe, and cost millions in consultancy fees. The outcome raises questions about the procurement process, designed to encourage competition with BT for the contracts to deliver the government target of providing nationwide Internet access. The Financial Times has learnt that the only other government approved bidder, Fujitsu, no longer intends to bid for contracts in the £530 million tender. The tender has attracted considerable criticism from companies over difficulties that new entrants have in competing with the scale of BT, which already owns a national telecoms network and service infrastructure.

BT has won all available funds under the procurement, and is in line to pick up the rest of the £530 million allocated across more than 40 local contracts organized under Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK), part of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

UK Prime Minister David Cameron set the stage for a bruising showdown on press regulation as he abruptly quit cross-party talks on the Leveson proposals.

The premier wrongfooted political opponents by declaring in a hastily convened press conference that there would be a vote in the House of Commons on March 18 on his plan for a royal charter to create a self-regulator for the press. Cameron said his proposal was the “fastest possible way to deliver the strong self-regulation body that Leveson proposed.” He added that there was “no point” producing a system that the press would oppose. Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband said they were “disappointed” by the decision, with both party leaders convinced that a compromise deal had been within reach.

Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt heads to Myanmar next week, a sign of the Southeast Asian country's appeal to leading U.S. technology companies as it emerges from decades of secrecy and crippling western sanctions.

The visit on March 22 will be the first by a high-level executive from a U.S. technology giant, as many American companies have been held back by U.S. regulations that restrict their access to this market of 60 million people, giving international rivals an edge. Myanmar's information-technology sector is seen as a potential billion-dollar industry, soon to be boosted by planned advances in telecommunications. Two licenses will shortly be awarded to foreign operators, a step that is expected to improve Internet and mobile networks there.