ICTworks by Inveneo

This year, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania have had to introduce power rationing, with industrial areas losing power intermittently for a day or a few hours at a time and residential areas losing power for up to three days in a week. In Kenya, it is estimated that the power outages will have negative effects on economic growth and that lower bandwidth prices will not benefit the small companies based in residential areas.

"The situation in Kenya is very ironical, I have a friend who shifted his offices from Nairobi city center to one of the residential areas; offering technical services locally and abroad, now he is experiencing blackouts for three days in a week," said Tony Ng'eno, managing director of WinAfrique, a renewable energy company operating in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Angola.

"Lack of regular or sufficient power delivery has a negative impact on the ICT sector; it increases costs for both providers and users alike by (requiring) additional sources of power like generators, which increases both capex and operational costs," said Dobek Pater, telecom analyst at Africa Analysis.

http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=3D6F8DE0-1A64-67EA-E49CC7285E0C224A