| ||||||||||
 |
|
STUDY ABROAD OPTIONS
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||
WEEKLY PUBLICATION DEADLINE: 12 pm GMT Sunday. ISSUE NO 184 POLICE AND THIEVES: FAKE CARTRIDGE SELLERS, E-MAIL SCAMMERS AND CYBER-COPSFAKE CARTRIDGE SELLERS RUINING THE MARKET FOR LEGITIMATE PRODUCTS Melanie Vermoter of Despec (an HP reseller) has a problem. People are selling cheap, fake ink-jet printer cartridges in some of her key markets and ruining her potential business. Do you buy those cheap cartridges to save money? It could prove a false economy as they have inferior ink that lasts a shorter time than their proprietary equivalent. And if if they make your machine break down, the presence of one of them could void your warranty. The most common printer cartridge involves fraudulent inks. The HP proprietary ink cartridge 51645A is the most popular in the world and the fastest moving product in the market. The scammers take away an empty ink cartridge and fill them with inferior ink. More sophisticated fraudsters simply manufacture cheap copies. A fraudulent ink cartridge factory was uncovered in China which did the whole process and it was nearly impossible to tell the difference the fake and the real cartridge from outward appearances. With a fraudulent ink cartridge the quality is very poor and there are often leakages which can damage the printer. Because the ink quality is lower the number of pages printed by the cartridge is very low. Another scam worked by grey market resellers is to mix fake cartidges with real ones:80% original with 20% fakes. This often happens in Ghana and Nigeria where the grey market resellers have strong links with the USA and UK but stock also comes out of Dubai, Singapore and Russia. A fraud prevalent in Nigeria involves the install by date. The fraudsters know that the cartridge will be valid 6 months after the install by date. They buy up expired cartridges, change the sell by date and sell them as news. Toner cartridges are unlikely to be counterfeits because these are harder to produce and the turnover is not as high. The counterfeiters want to target fast-moving, high-value product and toner cartridges don’t offer the kind of price differential they want. The value of ink-jet cartridges is ramped up when import duties are levied on consumables. As Vermoter observes:"There’s a duty exemption on hardware but it’s still levied on consumables. Duties on consumables are very high. It makes up about 20-35% on inks and toners. On the popular HP 51645A cartridge in Nigeria it’s 35% of the USD34 retail price. This level of duty actually encourages counterfeiting". What about the high cost of the cartridge? "My margins are very low. I can’t lower the price." And as Melanie Vermoter of Despec told us:"We are trying to grow a reseller base in Nigeria so that we know that they will only buy product through us". The counterfeit market in Nigeria is probably somewhere between 80-85% of the total market. If it didn’t exist, the market in Nigeria would probably be worth USD80m. But the fraudulent cartridge looks almost exactly the same
as the HP branded product. With a fraudulent product, the key
things to look for are: There are a number of anti-counterfeiting measures that have
taken: But as Vermoter herself is the first to admit:"With the high-grade counterfeiting it’s difficult to tell the difference and I’ve been fooled". The Imaging Consumables Coalition of Europe (ICCE) MEA has an anti-counterfeiting team, usually people from legal backgrounds. They are based all over the world but they are actively targeting Africa as it has a bad reputation for counterfeiting along with the Far East and Russia. Where there is money to be laundered, you find counterfeiters. As Vermoter points out: There is a problem with dirty money going into consumables. But successful operations have been carried out in Africa. We have even identified counterfeit manufacturing operations in Africa". ICCE’s MEA (Middle East and Africa) campaign can be contacted via its website: http://www.icce.net which provides details of how to avoid purchasing counterfeit product. WHERE DO E-MAIL SCAMMERS COME FROM AND WHAT ARE THEY DOING Africa is widely perceived as a hotbed of cyber-crime based on the proliferation of 419 scam e-mails but the reality is not as it might appear. Mark Davies of BusyInternet goes through the available figures and talks about his own experience of crime as a cyber-café owner. There are very few sources of internet crime statistics but one of the largest available is the US-based Internet Fraud Complaint Centre run by the FBI. It reported USD17 million worth of fraud in 2001 which rose to USD54 million. This figure represents 75,000 complaints. Of these, 48,000 are referred for action, a three-fold increase over the previous year. The average complaint was for a loss of USD299 and only 3.6% of all complaints are for losses of over USD5000. It should be stressed that these figures represent reported cases and as with all crime reporting it is the tip of the unreported iceberg. The key categories of cyber-crime are as follows: Credit card represents the lowest loss, the average being USD120 per transaction. The other seven top ten crimes represent only 6% of total complaints. "Nigerian Letter Scams" represent only 0.4% of the total but it has the highest average loss of USD5,400. Other crimes included: child pornography, unauthorised intrusion (hacking), communications, investment and identity fraud. 66% is perpetrated using e-mail and 19% using websites. The geographic breakdown of where the fraud originated from
was as follows: All computers must have unique addresses and all e-mails contain this address. The role of a proxy to "mask" this unique address. For anonymity and fast access we use one public IP address and that address is registered to me. As the owner of one of the largest cyber-cafes in Africa (with 100 machines) we found ourselves encountering this world of cyber-crime when we started receiving letters and phone calls from merchants and the security companies employed by the larger sites. The e-mail below was a typical communication: "My name is Ryan Edwards and I work for a company called Jump.ca in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. We offer internet sales to customer ranging from cell phones, laptops, PDAs and various other computer components. I have been receiving, over the past couple months, various orders for laptops purchased using stolen credit cards. I have obtained the IP address of these customers, and 2 of them come from the same IP address that your company controls. Below is a list of the IP addresses and dates that these purchases have been made". The e-mail from Yahoo’s security consultant illustrate the scale of the problem: "We actually just worked out a deal with a Florida ISP that service Ghana. It seems to balance legitimate users with making a significant impact on fraud. They are going to block their Ghana and Nigeria ports from accessing store.yahoo.com All 20,000 Yahoo stores resolve to this IP address. Frankly, there is NEVER going to be a legitimate order coming from Ghana, going to a Yahoo store. Almost all of them don’t ship internationally anyway, and really, any order from Ghana is with a stolen credit card. The Ghana thieves have been focusing on Yahoo more because there are many unsophisticated store owners on Yahoo that don’t have the anti-fraud capabilities of an Amazon.com. Please let me know what you think. Rick Smith When I started to investigate with other cafes and users it became clear that the problem was quite widespread According to Francis Quartey of IDN Ghana:" Yes this problem is particularly a challenging one for IDN, partly because we carry a lot of the high speed cafe customers. We have had problems with investigators serving us court summons; surveilling our Baltimore office;threatening letters from state security agents, and actually blockage of ip’s by our tier one ip provider". The fraud goes by the name of Saakawa. There are active groups operating out of cybercafes. They are often young, intimidating, difficult to manage: often they are characterised locally as "nima boyz". It’seen as a rite of passage, as much as economic endeavor. The scam is very simple. Thieves get credit card numbers. These are often obtained from: online generators; stolen from other retail environments (hotels); Stolen from the post; using keystroke loggers and by tricking you (fake websites; Paypal & Citibank). They place online orders and these are shipped to friends in US then on to Africa. Much of the cyber crime comes from merchants not following verification procedures. They should match the name, number and address of the online buyer but smaller, naïve merchants have flawed verification procedures. There is no incentive for credit card companies to prevent this kind of fraud. The cardholder doesn’t pay (maybe up to USD50). The issuing bank/Visa doesn’t pay. The merchant/seller pays (PLUS transaction charges). Online Merchants are being put out of businesses as the card companies can take up to six months to question a charge. Most refund the total cost of charge to cardholder. The originating ISPs, cybercafes (countries sometimes) are being blocked And the cybercafes become magnet for embezzlers. It intimidates both staff and other customers of cybercafes and the cybercafe owners themselves are often threatened by the criminals if they confront them. Often Africa is blacklisted and it misrepresents the majority of African internet use to other countries. There are a number of measures that might be taken to stop
this kind of fraud: AFRICA’S POLICE FORCES BEGIN TO GEAR UP TO FIGHT CYBER-CRIME It took developing country police forces a number of years to get geared up to fight cyber-crime. No wonder then it is taking Africa time to put in place police expertise to fight cyber crime. News Update talked to Amos Onyancha, one of the continent’s new breed of cyber-cops about the work being undertaken in Kenya and through an Interpol working group at a continental level. The Kenyan Cyber-Crime Unit has four people working for it: one attached to Central Bank Fraud and three members of CID. All four have computing experience with the Central Bank staff member having an MA in Computing. Both the Central Bank and the Treasury have this experience in their IT departments. They are using existing criminal law to prosecute crimes perpetrated
using a computer that include: There are no existing laws to cover things like 419 scams and child pornography. The Economic Crime Bill is currently going through the Kenyan Parliament. According to Amos Onyancha of the Unit: "We realised the need for specialisation (to tackle this kind of crime) in CID. We needed to tackle economic crimes like cheque and card fraud and the Director thought it would be a good idea to set up a section to deal with cyber-crime." Kenya has set up a national task force to track these kinds of crimes working with the private sector including companies like Kencell, Safaricom and a number of ISPs. As Onyancha told us: "We asked them to come up with a monitoring task force as security levels are very poor. What the Nigerians can do using hacking is very serious and we have Nigerians (of this kind) here in Kenya." As elsewhere, there is a shortage of computer forensic expertise: "Another problem is the experts we have. They can be ICT experts but do they have the forensic knowledge to be witnesses in court?" "At present I take the Court to the site and explain the processes to them so that they can see it being done. At least then they’ve seen what’s happening even if they can’t always understand the technologies." Current cyber crimes being experienced in Kenya are: hacking; software piracy (which is widespread); and stolen credit card numbers: "We even have people using fake swipe cards to defraud ATMs. It’s easier to use a computer to carry out a crime than it is to go car-jacking." "We had a case of a Nigerian guy who used waiters in a hotel to get credit card numbers in order to clone cards. He’s gone before the magistrate and we’ve got the machines, the scanners, modem and computer." The Unit is in regular contact with Visa and Mastercard and both send personnel to give evidence in cases that come before the courts. The African Working Party on Information Technology Crimes has been set up under the auspices of Interpol. There is already a European Working Party and they are an acknowledgement that cyber crimes are cross-border crimes. Fourteen countries are members including: Tanzania, South Africa, Kenya, Ghana Cote D’Ivoire, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Burundi and Rwanda. Nigeria are not currently represented which seems a curious oversight on the part of their government. The working party wants to come up with common ways of investigating computer and IT-enabled crimes. It is also trying to harmonise laws on the subject in the region so that offences in all states are common. A key part of the working party’s work is to get African countries to sign up to the Budapest Cyber-Crime Covention. It provides definitions of all computer-related crimes and acts as a guide to legislation. It also discusses: restitution and confiscation, jurisdictions, extradition. Most countries don’t know what the Convention entails and thus far only four countries have signed including Senegal and South Africa. "One of the problems is jurisdiction. Cyber-crimes go beyond borders. It often takes time to convince other jurisdictions to extradite a person. Often criminals of this kind are ahead of the Government. Unless the issue of extradition is tackled, this kind of crime will flourish. Electronic crime takes seconds whereas extradition takes a very long time. The Budapest Convention is the basis for addressing this problem." According to Interpol’s strategic goals described in the Interpol High Tech Crime Strategy, representatives of the academic sector attended this meeting as well. The current chairman is D.C. Myburgh from the National Computer Crime Unit of South Africa, Vice-Chairmen are Isaac Prah, Head of the ICT Unit in Accra, Ghana and Dominic Kisavi, Deputy OC Cyber Crime Unit Nairobi, Kenya. The Technical Advisor to the Working Party is Professor Dana van der Merwe from the Department of Criminal and Procedural Law of the University of South Africa in Pretoria. The group agreed unanimously on following objectives for the
African Working Party on Information Technology Crime: The following initial projects were agreed upon: The last meeting was held from 10 to 11 June 2003 in Accra, Ghana and the next meeting will take place in Nairobi in February 2004.
FOUR INCUMBENT TELCOS SIGN MOU ON EAST AFRICAN FIBRE PROJECTFour telecommunication firms have signed an agreement to construct a fibre optic cable linking the eastern Africa seaboard. Telkom Kenya, Botswana Telecom, Rwanda Telecom and Zanzibar Telecom signed the memorandum of understanding during the third steering committee meeting on the submarine cable system held in Nairobi. Twelve firms in the region are involved in the project and the rest are expected to sign by December 31, 2003. Preliminary feasibility studies show the cost of the undersea cable from South Africa past Zanzibar to Djibouti to cost between Sh15.4 billion to Sh18.5 billion and will be ready for commercial service by December 2006. The planned cable will link the region to other international cables in South East Asia, Middle East and Western European Cable and Fibre Optic Link around the Globe (FLAG). The Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System will have landing points in Djibouti, Mogadishu, Mombasa, Dar es Salaam, Maputo, Mahajanga, Mtunzini and Zanzibar. Telkom Kenya has been given the responsibility of coordinating the implementation of the project. A detailed feasibility study, including site surveys, will be carried out in the first quarter of 2004. The study will be carried out by a consultant who will also assist in the preparation of tender documents. When the cable is ready for commercial service the cost of international telecommunications operations between eastern Africa and the rest of the world is expected to reduce by an estimated 50 to 70 percent. Telcom firms from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Zanzibar, Djibouti, South Africa, Mozambique, Botswana, Rwanda, Madagascar and Malawi are involved in the project. (SOURCE: The Nation) GRAMEEN FOUNDATION USA AND MTN UGANDA LAUNCH MTN VILLAGEPHONEUganda’s Vice President, Professor Gilbert Bukenya, today officially launched "MTN villagePhone" a joint venture between Grameen Foundation USA and MTN Uganda, the country’s leading telecommunications company. The Vice President launched the rural telecommunications initiative in a ceremony in Kayunga District by making a symbolic inaugural call using the Village Phone business owned by Sophia Nalujja, just one of 115 Village Phone Operators (VPOs) currently operating in 18 districts across Uganda. MTN villagePhone extends telecommunications access to rural villages across Uganda, in partnership with micro-finance institutions, by creating opportunities for individuals living in impoverished rural areas to become "Village Phone Operators." Village Phone Operators-counterparts of Bangladesh’s "Phone Ladies"—take a micro-loan (as little as USD230, repaid over a period of up two 12 months) to purchase a mobile phone kit. By deploying 5,000 village phones over the next five years, MTN villagePhone has the potential to provide 10 million rural Ugandans access-for the first time- to affordable telecommunications services. "MTN villagePhone is the first successful replication outside of Bangladesh of Grameen Telecom’s pioneering Village Phone program, which currently has over 40,000 village phone operators," Grameen Foundation USA President Alex Counts said. "It also represents a unique cross-sector partnership between Grameen Foundation USA, MTN Uganda and five micro-finance organizations operating in Uganda—and potentially more as services are expanded throughout the country." The micro-finance partners are a strong distribution channel to rural markets, allowing access to populations that were not readily accessible before to the telecommunications industry. Village Phone businesses can be established in areas where electricity is unavailable and in areas where the MTN network can only be accessed with a booster antenna. In addition to the antenna, the equipment package also includes a solar power panel or car battery, a wireless handset, a VPO user manual, and a fixed line dedicated simcard that can be loaded with the prepaid airtime and requires no service fees. MTN villagePhone provides special airtime rates for the VPOs to enable them to provide affordable telecommunications services to people in their village. People in rural communities are now able to make a call without traveling many kilometers to the nearest town, by simply going to their VPO. It is estimated that a phone call that costs ten cents can save the caller one dollar in wages or business that would be otherwise lost due to travel. Grameen Foundation USA is a non-profit organization (NGO) based in Washington, DC, that empowers the world’s poorest people to lift themselves out of poverty with dignity through access to financial services and to information. The Village Phone program is managed by the Grameen Technology Center, an initiative of Grameen Foundation USA, and is supported by the World Bank infoDev, IFC, AED, and others including individual philanthropists Replications of this model in other developing countries are being considered. Started only five years ago, MTN Uganda is the Uganda government’s liberalization success story having led the telecommunications sector in the provision of innovative and affordable GSM and fixed line services that have seen the company attain 70 per cent market share of the entire subscriber market. NIGERIAN GSM OPERATOR M-TEL ORDERS PRE-PAID WIRELESS PLATFORMNigerian GSM network operator M-Tel has selected Boston Communications’s bcgi Prepaid Wireless platform for its real-time subscriber management capabilities that will enable the operator to profitably offer prepaid wireless service to its subscribers. bcgi’s Prepaid Wireless solution will be integrated directly to M-Tel’s existing Sentori Billing and Customer Care system. This enables the operator to bring its prepaid wireless offering to market quickly with one prepaid/postpaid rating and billing solution. M-Tel is the first customer to benefit from integration efforts between bcgi and Sentori. (SOURCE: Cellular News) SA’S TSHWANE METRO PILOTS POWERLINE COMMUNICATIONS BUT AWAITS LICENCEThe City of Tshwane Metro Municipality, which has tested powerline communications (PLC) kit for 18 months, admits it may not offer telecoms services in the current regulatory regime. Its dream to do so depends on the granting of a mooted metro licence, which "can do much to bridge socio-economic inequalities and will not operate in opposition to Telkom". Charles Kuun, managing engineer for operations systems in the Tshwane electricity department, says the city is driving the idea of metropolitan licences. Kuun is a proponent of controversial PLC equipment as a "cost-effective and proven way" to offer telco services, which Tshwane would undertake "primarily for its socio-economic benefit, and only secondarily as a possible business venture". "As regards the regulatory framework, there is no licence for us or any metros at this point," he concedes. "We have approval from ICASA [the Independent Communications Authority of SA] to run these pilots, which have now been completed, but there is no regulatory framework to offer the service yet." Kuun says the second national operator is "very friendly" about the idea of exploiting synergies, and he says Telkom will not find Tshwane in opposition to its own roll-out plans to rural areas. "We could take Telkom to areas where laying cable would be prohibitively expensive, and with a single connection, they can take that community out to the outside world. We would use Telkom’s lines to get outside the community," he says. It is this proposed synergy that Tshwane is punting in its push for metro licences and cooperation. "We see it as a missing link, not competition," Kuun says. The Department of Communications’ push for convergence could ultimately aid its cause, he remarks. (SOURCE: IT Web) TANZANIA’S REGULATOR TCC SAYS FOUR CELLULAR OPERATORS ARE ENOUGHAs more people in Tanzania go for mobile telephony,the Tanzania Communications Commission (TCC) -www.tcc.go.tz - has no plans to license another operator to join the four currently serving the market. Until recently, the country boasted of five operators compared to Kenya’s two and three in Uganda. However, volatile business conditions forced Tritel to close shop having entered the market in 1995 as the second operator two years after the pioneer of the sector, MIC Tanzania Ltd. which trades as Mobitel. "TCC has no plans to license another mobile operator after the exit of TRTEL," noted P. S. Gundula on behalf of the Commission’s director general late last month. Gundula said that was the official position of TCC on the matter. (SOURCE: Tanzania’s Development Gateway) IN BRIEF- Samsung has become the latest global consumer electronics group to set up a liaison office in Nairobi as it seeks to entrench itself in the East African region. - Ericsson Enterprise has expanded its telecoms distribution channel in southern Africa - for five years the exclusive domain of Dimension Data - to now include Bridge Interactive.
TELECOM RATES, OFFERS AND COVERAGE- Telkom SA Limited has filed its 2004 tariff adjustments with the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA), in accordance with the Telecommunications Act, 103 of 1996, and regulations made under the Act. The current regulations impose a price cap formula on a basket of specified services that Telkom previously had the exclusive right to provide, including installations; prepaid and postpaid line rental; local, long distance and international calls; fixed-to-mobile calls; public payphone calls; ISDN services; the Diginet product; and the Megaline product. Currently, the overall tariffs for all services in the basket may not be increased by more than 1.5% below inflation in South Africa, based on the consumer price index (CPI) and measured using revenue for the services in the basket at constant volumes for the prior year. For full details go to: http://www.prnewswire.com/ - Telephone links have been re-established between the north and south of Benin that had been cut since last Saturday following an outage on the fibre optic cable. - GSM operator Orange in Cote D’Ivoire has cut its minutes from 120 to 80 FCFA between midnight and six in the morning. International calls have been cut from 900 to 600 FCFA. Also between midday and 14.30 calls will be reduced by 25%. - A two month old dispute between Sonatel and its Guinea-Bissau counterpart that cut the connection between the two countries means that Guinea-Bissau citizens on the border are crossing over to use the telecentres in Wassadou, in the Department of Vélingara. The owners of the telecentres are reporting a tripling of turnover in the two months. Thierno Baïla Soumaré, owner of the Allahou telecentre told Wal Dajiri:"I am getting between 100,000-200,000 FCFA a day, and there have been increases of between 20,000-25,000 FCFA daily." Because this area of Guinea Bissau is an area of strong emigration to Portugal, many of these calls are international ones. Callers are by every method of transport on the weekends. - The State Bank of Mauritius is now offering pre-paid mobile cards via its branches.
SA’S MBEKI DENOUNCES "CALIFORNIA LAW" ON DOMAIN NAMESThe issue of administering Internet domain names should be discussed at next month’s world information summit in Geneva, "otherwise the world continues to be governed by California law", says president Thabo Mbeki. Mbeki addressed a media conference last week, after a meeting of the President’s International Advisory Council (PIAC) that deals with IT issues relating to this country’s and Africa’s development. "We need to discuss the possibility of putting in place a multilateral mechanism for Internet governance and the summit is a good place to do it," Mbeki said. "It may be the current way it is governed through ICANN is the best way, but this has to be examined." The World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) is due to be held in Switzerland from 10 to 12 December. The issue of Internet governance has been a major sticking point between government and non-government organisations in the run-up to the event. Many of the poorer nations such as Brazil, SA, Saudi Arabia and China would like to see the administration of Internet domain name registrations moved from the public private company ICANN, which is incorporated under California law, to a multinational organisation such as the United Nations. However, the US and the European Union staunchly support the ICANN model. According to Department of Communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri, at the same news conference, the WSIS will address a number of other issues that have developed into sticking points between the more developed and less developed of the world’s economies. These are human rights, the protection of intellectual property, Internet security, the media and the Internet, and financing to get poorer countries up to speed with connecting to the Internet. (SOURCE: IT Web) ADVERTISEMENT Bypass network congestion, reach new markets and offer top quality, high-speed Internet access with one provider: Intelsat. Our Internet Trunking Service is a turnkey, end-to-end solution providing direct, high-speed Internet access to small and medium-sized ISPs. We offer fully redundant, multi-homed connectivity to the Internet backbone with rapid, responsive deployment to terrestrially underserved areas. With our diverse and scalable solutions you can capture more market share and give customers the access and bandwidth they want. Go further with Intelsat. Connect with us at +27 11 535-4700 or visit www.intelsat.com
MOROCCO REMOVES ALL TARIFF BARRIERS ON IT PRODUCTSMorocco has joined a WTO agreement on removing all tariff barriers to information technology (IT) products such as personal computers and telecoms equipment. The step is expected to attract foreign investors and promote local industries by making IT products cheaper for Moroccans. Morocco’s Ambassador to the WTO, Omar Hilale, had presented his country’s membership request to the organisation’s Information Technology Agreement (ITA) on 5 November this year. The WTO today announced that Morocco had been formally admitted to the ITA group of countries last Friday. Mr Hilale said that Morocco’s imports of IT products have been rising in recent years "due to tariff cuts," adding that Rabat intends to eliminate most of these tariffs by 1 April 2004 under the ITA. Participation in the ITA means that the country must eliminate tariffs and all other duties and charges on covered IT imports from all WTO members. Ambasador Hilale further said that joining the ITA would make prices of IT inputs in Morocco more competitive and "send the right signal to foreign investors." IT inputs, including telecom services, generally are heavier priced in developing countries than in industrialised countries and thus often raise the hurdles for foreign investments. For example, the costs of using internet in Morocco are in average eight times that of France. Morocco has however often been described as a forerunner of telecom liberalisation in the developing world due to its early reforms of the sector. Maroc Telecom has been privatised, producing sales revenues for the government of several billion euros. French Vivendi Universal is now the main shareholder. The Moroccan reform efforts are however reported to have come to a standstill during the latest years. Market monopolies by giant companies such as Maroc Telecom have led to inflated prices in the telecom sector. Also tariff barriers on IT products - which now are to be removed - have contributed to a low international competitiveness. Morocco will be the 61st country joining the WTO’s Information Technology Agreement, according to the organisation. This membership now accounts for "about 97 percent of world trade in IT products," WTO says. (SOURCE: Afrol News) FOUR US FIRMS LICENSED TO SET UP DATA AND CALL CENTRES IN UGANDAThe Uganda Investment Authority (UIA) has identified four US companies that are to be licensed to establish call and data centres. The four, whose names were not readily available are from Kenya, South Africa, India and the United States of America (USA). John Musajjakaawa, the UIA information, communication and technology (ICT) officer said in an interview over the weekend, Uganda’s competitiveness level in the ICT sector had risen due to the educated workforce. "UIA has therefore identified some of the largest ICT companies from each of the four countries of Kenya, South Africa, India and the US to be licensed in order to establish call and data centres here," Musajjakaawa said. He said Uganda still needed investors in the establishment of the e-commerce, especially in data processing. (SOURCE: New Vision) WOOLWORTHS PARTNERS WITH SAS TO NURTURE LIFETIME CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPSOne of SA’s leading quality retailers has upped its investment in business intelligence to further build and nurture lifetime relationships with its customers. Woolworths is partnering with SAS, leaders in business intelligence, to better understand customer needs, aspirations and behaviours, and gain larger wallet share. Woolworths Financial Services recently purchased SAS’s data mining solution, Enterprise Miner. Raoul Miller, head of knowledge management, is quick to explain, however, that its major investment is in SAS’s intellectual capital, rather than in the solution as such. "Four years ago, SAS was predominantly a software and solutions provider to us," he says. "For the past two years, however, we have managed that relationship into a real partnership. SAS brings its intellectual capital and best of breed experience to the table, giving us the competitive advantage needed to achieve our business goals. "We did not simply buy a software solution," he continues. "We chose a data mining solution from the vendor with the most value-add. SAS offers us access to its intellectual property, best practices, insights, experience and case studies, both local and international. All that is an integral part of the package that came with Enterprise Miner." Woolworths Financial Services’ major product is the Woolworths in-store card. It also offers personal loans, a Visa card and unit trusts. It expects a positive return on investment from its new data mining capabilities over the next three years. "Achieving differentiation in financial services is difficult, as most businesses in the financial services space sell very similar products," say Miller. "In Woolworths, we see the management of customer relationships as one of the primary means of differentiating ourselves and our brand in the marketplace. "To achieve our overall growth goal, we focus on the customer’s interaction with us, ensuring that this experience is enjoyable, whatever the touchpoint. We use the intelligence garnered from our data to ensure that we talk directly to our customers’ expectations, thus ensuring their buy-in to our brand." Enterprise Miner was implemented in September, and the intelligence garnered is applied back into more effective management of customer relationships. Because the Woolworths in-store card exists primarily to fund purchases of its retail products, the intelligence produced by Financial Services is of value to the Woolworths retail business as well. "There is an obvious tight link between the two," says Miller. "The behaviours we see from the use of our cards can also be used to further understand the kinds of merchandise that should be in our stores, what customers are likely to buy, our staff-customer relationships and the entire supply chain," says Miller. Business intelligence is also used to support direct marketing campaigns. "Woolworths’ Financial Services business is very mature, and had started to mine its in-store card information some time ago," says Almarie Rabie, business development specialist, SAS Institute SA. "It had a big investment in business intelligence, and was doing daily reporting. "However, this was not integrated enterprise-wide, the intelligence took a long time to generate and it took as much as three months to build intelligence models. In addition, the intelligence which surfaced was limited. Woolworths Financial Services needed to start generating intelligence to accurately predict things like what new products customers were likely to buy, and to determine how to maximise customers’ lifetime contribution, for example. "Enterprise Miner has vastly improved productivity, enabling analysts to build models in a much shorter timeframe and generate information speedily. The solution also supplies much richer intelligence for use in marketing campaigns." The focus can now be on acquiring new customers and the re-activation of, as well as up-selling and cross-selling to, existing customers. "Most importantly, we have worked together with Woolworths to generate an enterprise-wide intelligence strategy," says Rabie. "At the end of the day, business intelligence is helping Woolworths Financial Services to increase customer numbers and share of wallet, which supports its goal of profitable growth." Rabie attributes the success of the project to strong executive sponsorship for the business intelligence initiative within Woolworths. IN BRIEF- SA’s Department of Communications has awarded a tender to a consortium of consultants to undertake an inventory of databases to determine which are critical for the country. The consortium is made up of KPMG, GOBODO, ICT Works and Sizwe NtsalubaVSP. The value of the contract was not disclosed. - The United States government has given a grant of USD14m (about Ugsh28b) to support the information, communication and technology sector in Uganda. A memorandum of understanding which approves the funds to be channelled through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was signed recently between the Uganda Investment Authority (UIA) and US government officials. The Government is carrying out a study for establishment of an incubation centre where experts would develop ideas for electronic devices. - NamITech Limited and ActivCard, an international provider of digital identity technology, has announced a strategic partnership that will see NamITech becoming a reseller of ActivCard Solutions, in addition to manufacturing the smart cards integral to these solutions. The partnership will be driven out of NamITrust, the specialist security division within NamITech.
GHANA TELECOM CANNOT ATTRACT INVESTORS BECAUSE OF SHARE DISPUTE, SAYS CEOGhana Telecom cannot attract substantial investment it badly needs to stay in business because of the impasse between the government and Telecom Malaysia. Serious legal problems are believed to have forced the present managers of GT to suspend an ambitious strategic business plan designed to attract investors to salvage the finances of the company by the close of 2005. Chief Executive Officer, Oystein Bjorge, disclosed that the dispute with the Malaysian company, which has filed a multi-million dollar claim over purported financial dishonesty, threatens to possibly render the company bankrupt if government fails to resolve the issue immediately. (SOURCE: Ghana Web) IN BRIEF- - Investments in Nigeria’s telecommunications industry have hit an all-time high of N450 billion (USD4 billion) from the N6.75 billion ($50 million) level recorded in 1999, the Minister of Communications, Chief Cornelius Adebayo, told a recent three-day workshop on "Legal Issues in Telecommunications for Judges and Legislators."
VETERAN BULAWAYO JOURNALIST RUKUNI LAUNCHES ZIM NEWS WEBSITE TO AVOID PRESS LAWSExploiting the unregulated publishing platform of the Internet, another Zimbabwe news site has been launched to meet the demand for independent, non-government affiliated news. Based in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second largest city, The Insider provides news for the country’s business community covering economics, commodities and stock markets. The publication is independent of the government and major news organisations. Founded by Charles Rukuni, The Insider began as a printed newspaper in 1990. Rampant inflation this year made printing costs prohibitive and after 13 years, Rukuni was forced to end publication in May. The Insider was re-launched online on September 19 through a US-based server and immediately gave the publication a cost-effective international platform. "There is great demand for good copy in Zimbabwe," says Rukuni. "Zimbabwe has more newspaper readers pro-rata than even our more developed neighbour, South Africa. "But readers in Zimbabwe are very discerning. They decide which news is true or valid and what is not." Rukuni feels that the Internet is an important way to provide up-to-date, independent news for Zimbabweans. "The only daily papers in the country are government-controlled and the weeklies do not have daily updates even on their web- sites," he explained. "The Internet is also unrestricted - it helps spread the word across the world. And if the stories are good, they can be picked up by other news agencies." The Insider faces the typical challenge of developing a reliable income stream for the publication, but Rukuni plans to focus on his audience within the business community. For now, the publication has to deal with the more fundamental issue of web access. "Internet cafes are always filled - especially by the young. Zimbabwe also now has about 10 universities and this helps in boosting web access," he said. "But the costs at Internet cafes have gone up this week to Z$30 per minute. It’s not much if you translate it to pounds sterling - but it is a lot considering the minimum wage in Zimbabwe." Rukuni has 20 years’ experience as a journalist and trainer for many publications in South Africa, Kenya, Zimbabwe, the US and the UK. In 1992, he launched The Worker, the newspaper of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions. Rukuni feels that he can report quite safely within Zimbabwe and is awaiting the outcome of his application for registration with the country’s Media Information Commission. "I think there is a lot of hope," he says. "The challenge is that I know I am being watched, both by the people I have trained and by my readers because most of them probably know more than I do. So I am kept on my toes." (SOURCE: Financial Gazette) IN BRIEF- Imfundo’s database for education activities of relevance to officials and educators in Africa has completely revised and updated this, so that it now contains information on some 342 such activities (see http://imfundo.digitalbrain.com/imfundo/frontpage/linkresources/?verb=view) - Uganda’s Infomania, operators of an electronic business directory, have embarked on a Shs 58 million programme to sensitise the public on how the e-directory works. The compact disc (CD) directory was launched mid this year. It has over 30,000 listings that include service providers, educational institutions, IT companies, parastatals, tourism, trade, industry and investment opportunities. - A new Kiswahili webmail interface is being developed and you are invited to test the beta version. Please go to http://webmail.variomedia.de and choose the language Swahili (Beta). Some commands have not yet been translated, and are therefore being shown in English. - Cameroonian bassist Richard Bona has launched his own site: www.bonatology.com - Online with Richard Bona. - An article called "Digital Media and African Publishing", which has just appeared in The Book & The Computer online symposium ‘Book Culture at the Crossroads’, is available at http://www.honco.net/os/index.html - Ever innovative, allAfrica.com just launched a catalogue of blogs about/out of Africa at http://blogs.allafrica.com; if you are a blogger who should be listed get in contact and tell them. - ThinkQuest Africa (http://www.thinkquestafrica.org/) is a flagship programme supported by SchoolNet Africa (http://www.schoolnetafrica.net). ThinkQuest Africa is an Internet contest for African learners between the ages of 12-19. Learners should form a team and collaborate in the development of an educational web site.
A PYRAMID BRIEFING ON WIMAX - IS IT RELEVANT FOR AFRICA?Industry analysts John Yunker of Pyramid has provided an invaluable briefing on Wi-Max that asks all the big questions. Wi-Max is increasingly being mentioned in the African context because of its obvious relevance to town and rural contexts. Read the briefing and see what you think. What is WiMAX and Why Should We Care? WiMAX stands for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access and it is the latest, and most-hyped, generation of fixed wireless technology in years. What differentiates WiMAX from earlier broadband wireless access (BWA) iterations is standardization. Chipsets are currently custom-built for each broadband wireless access vendor, adding time and cost to the process. Intel, Fujitsu and others would like to bring scale to the market and, ideally, create a larger market along the way. Similar to the way that the Wi-Fi Alliance enforced standards compliance among vendor members, the WiMAX Forum plans to do the same among its members. Compliance results in interoperability, which in turn results in plug-and-play products. In the years ahead, WiMAX vendors no longer have to provide end-to-end solutions; they can specialize on base stations or wireless modems. Specialization will result in competitive pricing and value-added innovations. And now for a reality break... We believe that WiMAX will succeed commercially, but not easily, nor quickly. There is a great deal of vendor resistance, operator reluctance and general market confusion at work. Based on research conducted for our report WiMAX and Wi-Fi: Unwiring the World we have found that: 1. Fixed wireless operators are not very enthusiastic about WiMAX. Operators have been burned by last-mile promises in the past and most are not eager to test first-generation WiMAX equipment. Does this mean WiMAX won’t succeed? Absolutely not. But it does mean that vendors need to recruit a few high-profile operators to build real-world success stories early. Operators will come to embrace WiMAX, but only after the bugs are gone and the prices are competitive - 2005 at the earliest. 2. WiMAX will evolve in two distinct stages ­ the second stage will be disruptive. The first stage begins next year, with new equipment that will be priced and function a lot like existing BWA equipment. Not very exciting. The second stage is where the true disruptions will begin ­ for more information, check out our report. 3. WiMAX has split the vendor community. Because vendors see such dramatic (and painful) changes coming, many are lining up against WiMAX. Expect the chorus of pros and cons to grow louder and a bit nastier in the months ahead. 4. Hot markets will be CEE and Asia-Pacific. Fixed wireless will show greatest adoption Central and Eastern Europe and throughout Asia ­ regions where fixed infrastructure is low. The US could also see a rebirth in fixed wireless next year thanks to Nextel. In fact, Nextel might be the ideal operator for an Intel/Alvarion WiMAX rollout. If you’d like to learn more on WiMAX, please see the latest report. You can also join our conference call, which will be hosted by John, on December 10th at 10am EST. The call is complimentary for those that purchase the WiMAX report or US$195 to participate. Please contact Camila for details: camila@pyr.com / +1 617- 494-1515 ext. 246.
PEOPLE* David Meintjes has taken the decision to step down as CEO of UUNET SA, and to consult to UUNET on its corporate development strategy. His decision came as a result of taking a lifestyle choice to spend more time with his family, and sees him moving to Stellenbosch."This has not been an easy decision to take, and is in no way a reflection of the confidence I have in the future development and stability of the company," says Meintjes. "I have been with UUNET SA for seven years and have been proud to be a part of its growth from an industry and company perspective. UUNET has not only led the way in terms of infrastructure development, solution innovation, but we have also expanded our services into five African countries. I believe that UUNET will continue to remain the leading service provider in Africa, through its great people and passion for the growth of the Internet economy." While a new CEO has not yet been appointed, Carl Roberts, chief of staff EMEA, MCI, will take overall responsibility for UUNET SA in the interim, until a successor is recruited. This decision will also give UUNET an opportunity to strengthen an already strong management team, which has over 60 years Internet experience. MCI has recently renewed its commitment to its African operations. This confidence is founded on the strong financial health of the company and certainty in its market growth. "Having seen the benefit of being in business for the last 10 years, UUNET is well positioned to take advantage of the local market once deregulation becomes a reality, something which will continue to strengthen its ability to drive innovative solutions into Africa," concludes Meintjes. * Djibouti’s Minister of Posts and Telecommunications Rifki Abdoulkader Bamakhrama has appointed Pierre Durey, General manager and Reguig Taoufik, administrative and financial Director. Durey replaces former General Manager M.Mohamed Kamil Ali.The Secretary-general of the ministry for Finances, the National Economy, in charge with Planning and Privatization, also president of the Commission of privatization, M. Mohamed Abdi Douksieh said at the ceremony of to appoint the new team that their task was to carry out "the rectification initially of this company before launching a sound possible privatization "
EVENTSEAST AFRICA FINANCE AND IT CONFERENCE, 25-26 NOVEMBER 2003 Hotel Inter-Continental Theme: "Integrating IT into the Banking Business Model" DAY 1 ­ Tuesday 25 November WELCOME: Sean Moroney, Group Chairman, AITEC Africa KEYNOTE 1: A roadmap for African banking: Why African banks
should go Wireless KEYNOTE 2: Demystifying data communication TRACK TWO- KENYA PRIVATE SECTOR ICT AND MICROFINANCE FOCUS DAY ONE Joint opening with main finance track 9am to 10.30 am Day I 9:00 Opening Sector Scan - Overview 10:30 Tea Break Policy Session 11:00 Chairman ICT Board 11:10 Association of Microfinance Institutions 11:25 Sector Scan 11:30 Policy Issues related to ICT in MFI 11:55 ICT policy for MFI 12:20 Q&A 1:00 Lunch Strategy Session 2:00 How to best utilize ICT in MFI 2:25 Customer Relationship Management in MFI 2:50 Q&A 3:40 Tea Break 4:00 Panel Discussion based on Day’s Report 5:00 End of Day One Day II e-Infrastructure 9:00 Technology and micro finance: threat and opportunity 9:25 Putting the "e" into small loan financing 9:50 Use of Smartcards in MFI 10:15 Q&A 10:45 Tea Break 11:05 Breakout Sessions: Tentative Breakout sessions 1:00 Lunch 5:00 Summary FINACE TRACK PROGRAME CUSTOMER SERVICES IN THE DIGITAL AGE The market place is changing focus, what can banks offer the
'new customers’ to win them over? Customer Relationship Management & Marketing: Customer
retention through Technology Branch of the future Banking for the unbanked: Banking for the populous Customer Service Management Managing Risk with Enterprisewide Datawarehouses Banking business - IT alignment: IT as a partner in the business MICROFINANCE: SPREADING BANKING & FINANCIAL SERVICES TO THE GRASSROOTS A focus on Microfinance under the auspices of the ICT Board of the Kenya Private Sector Alliance DAY 2 ­ Wednesday 26 November The cost of card transactions - Technology, fraud and convenience Can technology replace relationships in banking? Card based Solutions ­ the new evolution in payments systems Online Banking Reports: Reality or myth? Enterprise data management: Get the most out of your data Network Convergence in the banking sector: Looking at converging
legacy Systems Enterprise content management Document Management & Workflow SECURITY AND BUSINESS CONTINUITY Cyber Crime: An ABSA Case Study Secured Data Storage and Disaster recovery Absolute Continuity of Services through Reliability and Availability
of Power Managed IT services for banking & finance: Outsourcing
technology management to reduce operational costs Implementing a pay-as-you grow solution: Increased system availability
of critical networks while decreasing total cost of ownership Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity
JOBS AND OPPORTUNITIES- The Request for Service that it is hoped will lay the basis for the African Internet Exchange "is to be circulated to all network operators who are interested in providing this service within Africa. With this RFS, we intend to obtain innovative and cost-effective proposals that meet the requirements of the African Internet community. Since this is a new opportunity opening up in Africa’s communications, it will provide the successful party (or parties) entry into a market that has huge suppressed demand with plenty of growth potential." The RFS lays out the bandwidth and technical requirements to be met. The bandwidth requirements are focused on IXPs in six countries: South Africa. Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Mozambique and Nigeria. To get a PDF copy of the RFS, send an e-mail with RFS in the header to info@balancingact-africa.com - eHealth Study Competition: £150 For All Accepted Cases; £300 Prizes The eGovernment for Development Information Exchange is seeking short case studies of ICT-based public sector health information systems in developing/transitional economies. The scope is broad - Health Ministry MIS, hospital patient records, telemedicine, health education Web sites, etc., etc. Failures or successes are welcome. It would like to invite you to submit an e-health case study of this type. You can submit online via Web page:
If our correspondent is "off the mark" or you have
factual amendments, mail them to us and we will include them
in subsequent News Updates. If you'd like to contribute, write
and let us know. |
|
    
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
This page last updated on January 28 2004.
|
||||||||||||||||||||
