Vanguard

Visafone has further strengthened its market position by acquiring Multilinks Communications Limited's CDMA mobile assets. Multilinks is arguably the oldest mobile phone company in Nigeria, having been operating in the country for over 15 years. Telkom Limited, it was learnt, agreed to sell Multilinks' CDMA business to Visafone Communications Limited for N8.1 billion ($52 million).
 
Telkom on November 22 said Multilinks has 7,000 kilometres (4,351 miles) of fiber-optic cable, 2,000 kilometres of which is shared with MTN Group Ltd. and Globacom Ltd.

Facebook, the world's most visited social media platform, continues to conceive new and innovative advertising platforms, ensuring the best possible results for advertisers the world over, including Nigeria.

The World Bank has provided $79 million - that is, about N11.8 billion - financing for IHS Plc, one of Nigeria's leading telecommunications infrastructure providers, to help it develop mobile phone coverage infrastructure across the country.

The fund, which is coming through International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector arm of the World Bank, would enhance IHS's efforts to build and acquire mobile phone towers in Nigeria and sub-Saharan Africa, thereby reducing communications cost across the region.

The Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission Engr. Eugene Ikemefuna Juwah has emphasized the need for cooperation among all the regulatory agencies in the country to ensure interest of government and business operators are not jeopardised.

Engr. Juwah who was a guest to Corporate Vanguard last week said the NCC is the agency that is charged with ensuring that environmental standards are maintained in the setting of masts at base stations.

The Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, Dr Eugene Juwah, with a team of officials including the Executive Commissioner, Stakeholders Management, Okey Itanyi, and a host of others, last weekend, stormed Vanguard premises on a courtesy visit, where the team unveiled some of its agenda to lift the nation to the threshold of strong telecommunication countries of the world.

Q: What are the things you are bringing in?

Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, Dr. Eugene Juwah, last week said that the commission had not given licence to any operator in Nigeria to do LTE.

However, Juwah explained that though operators can do LTE on the platform of the 2.3Ghz licence which they already have, it was not as if there was no licence meant specifically for LTE services.

With the commissioning of the new Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria, (IXPN) last week in Lagos by the Nigerian Communication Commission, (NCC), Nigeria is expected to experience immediate drop in connectivity costs to the tune of more than $20 million in offshore bandwidth payments in the first year of operations.

The IXPN, initiated during the Obasanjo administration, when fully implement according to the promoters is expected to fast-track development in various sectors of the economy.

Two alleged accomplices of the former governor of Delta State, James Ibori, have pleaded guilty to V-Mobile shares theft charges. Daniel McCann and Mr. De Boer were charged for forgery and money laundering in relation to the sale of V-Mobile telecoms shares owned by Akwa Ibom and Delta States. They are accused of violating the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act of the UK by creating fake documents between Delta State and "Africa Finance Ltd," and also between Delta and "African Development Company."

The National Information Development Agency NITDA and the Nigeria Communication Satellite limited NIGCOMSAT were the only two government IT parastatals allocated funds in the 2011 budget proposal of President Goodluck Jonathan. Once again, the Information Technology sector is embedded inside the Ministry of Science and Technology.

Galaxy Backbone is partnering with MainOne Cable Company for the direct procurement of bandwidth capacity for the next 15 years. Main One provides the backbone infrastructure which provides reliable access to broadband communication services while Galaxy will deliver Data, Internet, Voice and Video services to its customers via its integrated infrastructure platform, 1-GOV.net.