Beal Talks Digital Dividend At ICT Summit

Nairobi, Kenya-- Digital migration expert Meredith Beal talked to a crowd of tech savvy entrepreneurs and developers at AITEC’s ICT Summit in Nairobi, Kenya. Beal’s presentation looked at what countries are doing with their digital dividend – the reclaimed spectrum after completing the migration from analog to digital.

Beal said that many countries plan to use the reclaimed spectrum to advance wireless services, some to extend access to the Internet in rural areas and some plan to re-sell the frequencies to generate revenue. Mauritius, the first African country to embark on the transition from analog to digital, used most of the bandwidth freed up as a result of the migration to expand mobile services and also used its dividend to increase Internet access by the populace. Internet access has nearly doubled there since 2005 according to the International Telecommunications Union.

Beal shared the stage with Bill Hearmon, Founder and Chairman of African Broadband Forum, who focused on the opportunities that use of white spaces offer for Internet connectivity in Africa.

Beal is a frequent speaker at AITEC events and has provided expertise on panels addressing television content development, digital television migration, community radio, music industry development and other topics. Next year he will organize a Digital Media Festival at AITEC’s Broadcast Film Music Africa Conference.

AITEC is an ICT publishing and professional development training organization. It has been a pioneer in spreading knowledge about the Internet, computing and telecommunications across most of English-speaking Africa.