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Africa’s Non-inclusion in Defining Fifth Generation Mobile Networks

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e-Infrastructure and e-Services for Developing Countries (AFRICOMM 2016)

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Abstract

This paper identifies and unpacks a troubling phenomenon whereby Africans have historically been and currently are de-facto excluded from processes that set mobile network standards such as 3G, 4G, and (now) 5G. It combines technical and procedural observations and colonial discourses of computing, concluding that enshrined systems and processes that steer the changes in mobile technology disempower African inputs and represent a continuation of the single use of situated techniques, skills, methods and processes in the production of core mobile technologies, all conceptualised outside Africa.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Scientific and Industrial Research and Development Centre, Harare, Zimbabwe

    Gertjan van Stam

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  1. Gertjan van Stam
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Correspondence to Gertjan van Stam .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg, Luxembourg

    Tegawendé F. Bissyande

  2. University of Ouagadougou, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

    Oumarou Sie

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© 2018 ICST Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering

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van Stam, G. (2018). Africa’s Non-inclusion in Defining Fifth Generation Mobile Networks. In: Bissyande, T., Sie, O. (eds) e-Infrastructure and e-Services for Developing Countries. AFRICOMM 2016. Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, vol 208. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66742-3_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66742-3_2

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-66741-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-66742-3

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