This paper looks at the role of internet intermediaries in South Africa as well as their limitations on enabling communication and facilitating information flows and the recently placed policy focus on internet intermediaries.

This paper is part of a research project conducted on intermediary liability in Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa and Uganda. The paper draws on the independent research conducted by in-country researchers. The research includes five reports, as well as blog posts.

This paper looks at issues around intermediary liability and the legal and institutional environment in Nigeria, and draws conclusions based on these while making recommendations on how Nigeria can make the best of the on-going legislative processes that will define the liability of intermediaries.

This paper explores regulations relevant to the responsibilities of intermediaries in Uganda. It cites incidences of content takedowns, attempts to block access to internet content, mobile content filtering and media persecutions, and the applicable sections of the law.

This report registers the process of the open governance network building achieved during the research process in Uganda. It describes advocacy and awareness raising developed through meetings and interviews with more than 30 individuals, the use of mailing lists and social media to create awareness about open governance, dissemination and advocacy for OGD and network development with key organisations.

African countries lag behind the rest of the world in their use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). To reduce the digital divide quickly and cost-effectively, wireless networks are considered. WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) is a wireless broadband access technology that uses Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) which is a multicarrier modulation scheme. OFDM presents a problem of a high crest factor or Peak to Average Power Ratio (PAPR). To circumvent this problem either High Power Amplifiers (HPAs) with large dynamic range or PAPR reduction techniques are used. The former scheme increases cost of the system while the latter introduces redundancy or distortion. A novel PAPR reduction scheme is presented. It is a combination of the ideas of Tone Reservation and Selected Mapping. The advantage of this scheme is that it has a lower complexity. It is simulated for a WiMAX system.

This report, commissioned by the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), is concerned with the relationship between human rights and the internet; and with perceptions of the internet, its impact on human rights and the concept of internet rights within mainstream rights organisations. It pays particular attention to the rights encapsulated in Articles 18, 19 and 20 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (freedoms of conscience, expression and association). The study forms part of APC’s work on internet rights and freedom of expression and, in particular, the “Internet rights are human rights” project.