Kenya – legal VOIP begins to shake up the market and bring prices down

Kenya is now open for legal VoIP business and its impact has been to lower international calling prices by just under 80%. But the medium-term impact will be to act as a “can-opener” on questions about the cost of calling both regionally and nationally as the new operators go into discussions with the existing fixed and mobile incumbents. Back from a recent visit Russell Southwood looks at the runners and identifies where competition has still not happened.

When Telkom Kenya was the only legal voice carrier and before the rise of the grey market, it was relatively easy to get estimates of the number of incoming and outgoing minutes in the market. But when Telkom Kenya employees got embroiled in call diversion and grey market operators took advantage of the arbitrage opportunities offered by its high rates, it became significantly more difficult to estimate the size of the market. One VoIP operator told us that it might be anywhere between 50-70 million minutes a year, both incoming and outgoing. As this same operator told us:”We know of at least one carrier that deals with 5 million minutes a year.” Another calculates that there are between 2-3 million minutes a month incoming and that outgoing minutes are around 30% of that total, which would be approximately 47 million minutes. Whatever the true estimate is, there is no doubt that the amount of outgoing minutes is increasing as rates fall.

The new entrants are currently only taking a tiny share of that market. AccessKenya is only doing 50,000 minutes a month although that figures is rising very quickly. UUNet is currently billing US$25,000 a month although in the long run it believes this figure could easily rise to US3-4 million a month.

Seven ISPs have been granted the new licences by regulator CCK that allow them to offer VoIP. In a parallel move, it deregistered another 30 ISPs, almost all of whom are not well known in the market. At a corporate level, there are three main contenders: AccessKenya, Swift and UUNet. All three have chosen to go the quality over price route because VoIP is still an unknown quantity for most corporates. That said, all three are offering significant savings over existing rates offered by incumbent Telkom Kenya.

Access Kenya is offering “business quality voice” to its corporate customers. It has taken the “least-cost-routing” (LCR) technology it developed in the UK over the last ten years and modified it for local use to provide what it claims is a “no-hassle solution for the client”. The Least Cost Routing (LCR) box is put in after the PBX and it looks at the outgoing call and chooses the cheapest option. All domestic calls currently go into Kenya Telkom. Because the LCR box does the call routing it means that the client company does not need to install IP-enabled phones.

As AccessKenya’s MD Jonathan Somen told us:”We’ve been testing the service since last year and got our approvals in January this year. It is Tier 1 quality with enough dedicated bandwidth to ensure carrier quality. We will scale the pipe to make sure it’s big enough to ensure this”. AccessKenya has made a US$250,000 investment in its IP platform.

Currently Telkom Kenya will charge a fixed line customer 90 cents a minute for a call to Washington DC whereas AccessKenya is charging 25 cents a minute. And as Somen says:”We’re charging 25 cents a minute to all main global destinations.”

UUNet launched its first enterprise VOIP service in October 2005 but found that customers kept asking: what’s the legal position? It offered what it described as “risk-free VoIP”, implementing gateways (using Quintum) and WANs for corporates that allowed them to call between offices for simply the cost of the bandwidth. So corporate clients like  Kenya Airways and Barclays Bank in Nairobi can call all their regional offices at almost no cost. Around 75 customers have signed up for this service.

Its international VoIP service has not been formally launched (although it started in November 2005) and has about 20 customers. It installs a gateway that diverts the traffic to IP also using an LCR box. The smallest gateway costs a client about US$500, whilst one of the larger ones (with around 30 channels) would cost between US$2-3,000. Against Telkom Kenya’s 90 cents a minute to Washington DC it is offering 20 cents a minute to the USA and the UK but other destinations are slightly more expensive.

It is also launching a call-shop product offering both PIN-based and PIN-less dialling that according to UUNet CEO Charles Njoroge is a “retail-directed version of the same product.” The platform requires a leased line and a gateway but is pre- rather than the post-paid corporate solution. It will sell minutes to cyber-cafes and call-shops for about 17-18 cents a minute allowing them to sell for 25 cents a minute to main destinations.

It makes much of its affiliation with Verizon (that now owns UUNet’s owner MCI):” Our affiliation with Verizon through MCI gives us access to tier 1 services. Customers find the idea of tiered services hard to understand. You need lots of minutes to be able to deal with the big players. But we’re able to carry our minutes on tier 1 carriers with MPLS. Voice-quality is guaranteed”. Verizon wholesales minutes to them at 6 cents a minute (plus the cost of bandwidth).

Like AccessKenya it has chosen to go the quality route:”We’ve created both services with low margins by choice. We could squeeze more out of it with greater compression but we want to go for high quality to get big customers. It’s a strategic decision,” says Njoroge.

So who are the others in the market outside of the “big three”? Most of them are not well known for their voice services, although one of them – GeoNet – has launched a pre-paid calling card. But as one operator told us:”The suspicion is that some of them are simply in business to terminate non-Tier 1 minutes, particularly to mobiles.” The quality and volume of these non-tier 1 minutes has been so bad that leading mobile operator Safaricom was forced late last year to place adverts explaining that it was not responsible for the poor quality on these calls. As another operator told us:”It’s a real mess. There’s still an arbitrage opportunity and the only way out is to make the interconnection rate much cheaper. This will squeeze the grey market out of existence. The ball really is in the court of the mobile operators.”

And this is really the nub of the matter. It is relatively easy to send outgoing calls internationally by IP without needing to interconnect with the established networks. But for a proper market to function – with incoming terminations to all operators and national and domestic routing of calls – there needs to be a proper interconnection regime between the new and the old operators. As ever, interconnection is the devil in the detail.

Although no-one will go on the record because negotiations are clearly sensitive, it is clear that the old carriers are not making this process easy. They are putting up a range of quality-of-service barriers: for example, one of them is insisting on a minimum 120 millisecond delay on the network which is clearly not realistic when the satellite connection produces 4-500 millisecond delays on the international hop.

The other issue is that once everyone has gone through the predictable “delaying tactics” phase, there is the much more difficult issue of the interconnection prices themselves. Currently per minute landline to mobile is KS27 (US37 cents) and mobile to mobile KS10 (US14 cents). It doesn’t take a person of great genius to see that local interconnection rates are now well out of line with international rates that fall in the 20-25 cents range. It’s currently more expensive to call from the fixed network to a mobile network than it is to call the UK.

And as one operator observed ruefully:”It will hit the mobile carriers hardest, pulling income off their networks.” Another operator is more sanguine:” They have to give us what they already give each other. If Safaricom gives Celtel, KS10 to terminate on its network, they have to give us the same. The winner is the consumer who will get cheaper rates”.

Thus far everyone is focused on international calling but domestic calling cannot be far away. One operator explained to us that it would be perfectly possible to offer Nairobi-Mombasa calling for KS9 a minute against Telkom’s current rate of KS12 a minute. Or the client could pay a flat fee for all calls and simply use their bandwidth to make the calls. But as Njoroge noted:” Local VoIP will take some time but it will lead to the setting up of a local VoIP clearing house”.

But the process of customers deserting the incumbent’s network will probably take a long time as the majority of customers are still Telkom Kenya fixed line customers. The VoIP operators believe that the old operators should come to terms with them and together they would all grow the market.

Meanwhile Telkom Kenya has a pre-paid VoIP calling card for its fixed line customers. Although we have made requests for customer numbers, no information was forthcoming although one insider told us that it was probably in the “tens of thousands” on a fixed line customer base that was optimistically described as 300,000.  It offers the service with the interesting slogan of “Call internationally for the cost of a local call”. Think about the implications of that one: one or the other must be over or under-priced. A call to Washington DC costs KS15 (US21 cents) a minute against its own fixed line equivalent of 90 cents. In other words, the de-facto international rate is down to 20 cents and in the medium to long term it will lose 78% of its revenue from this type of calling. And for those without fixed lines, Telkom Kenya is probably already haunted by the spectre of legal VoIP call-shops and cyber-cafes.

MAURITANIA GOES LOOKING FOR INVESTORS WITH A CALL FOR INTEREST

The Mauritanian government has just issued an international call for interest for the provision of new telecommunication services for the country. This includes mobile phone services, the routing of international traffic, the rollout and running of international links, the rollout and running of intercity links, the rollout and running of local links, the rollout and running of a VSAT network and the rollout and running of a pre-paid calling card platform for local, national and international calls. Mauritania wants to further expand its existing infrastructure which comprises two mobile network operators: Mattel owned by Tunisia Telecom and Mauritel the mobile arm of the privatised national incumbent (owned by Maroc Telecom) and one fixed line network (Mauritel).  Despite a teledensity of 26% at the end of 2005 which is above the African average teledensity,  Mauritania still remains behind some other countries in Africa with high calling charges, lack of service diversity and quality and an underdeveloped internet sector.

Rather than relying on the hypothetical goodwill of the existing providers to fill the service gaps (in 2004 the regulator ARE had to issue fines to the telcos for poor quality of service!), the government and the regulator have taken the view that further competition would spur the development and the improvement of the current service offering. With oil revenue expected to generate $300 millions this year Mauritania’s economic future is set to get better and this in return will stimulate enough demand for additional modern communications services. On the overall there is potential business to be made for any new entrants and furthermore there is the opportunity to acquire a telecommunication licence, something that is becoming rare in Africa too (see article about Telkom SA investments plans below).

When it comes to rolling out new telecommunication services pragmatism seems to prevail in Mauritania.  Through this call for interest, the Mauritanian regulator hopes to catch international investors attention and at the end of this process it will be in a position to evaluate who will be interested in putting money in a bid. This approach might show a lack of national strategy or vision of what the telecommunication sector should look like in Mauritania but it has the merit of maximising the success of a future call for tenders. Other African countries have failed to attract suitable bids when they put up for sale a stake in their national telecommunications assets – we only have to remember the failed call for tender for Nitel in Nigeria or Camtel in Cameroon.

Remi Fekete from Gide Loyrette Nouel, the lawyers appointed to advise the Mauritanian government and the regulator for this international call reckons that Mauritania is willing to become a leader in ICT in Africa and therefore it is prepared to implement a transparent bidding process to award new licences. According to Fekete, the national authorities have no preconceived ideas about which companies they would like to see applying and they have ensured that the selection criteria are clear to assess proposals based on service offering and business experience. Further information about this call for interest can be found on the regulator website at  www.are.mr

SAFARICOM: GOVT COULD EARN BILLIONS FROM SALE OF 9PC SHARE TO VODAFONE

Until last week, the government was still clinging on to its shares in Safaricom Ltd, literally sitting on a jewel even as Telkom was tottering towards insolvency.

It has emerged that the Kenya government only consented to selling 9 per cent of the shares in mobile telephone company Safaricom Ltd to Vodafone of the UK, after realising that it was not going to be possible to raise the billions required to resuscitate the ailing Telkom Kenya.

President Mwai Kibaki also announced that an additional 34 per cent stake held by Telkom in the most profitable company in Kenya will be sold to the public in an initial public offering (IPO).

State-owned Telkom Kenya owns 60 per cent of Safaricom Ltd, with the British company owning the remaining 40 per cent.

The government must raise a massive Ksh27 billion ($375 million) to modernise the ailing parastatal and finance retrenchment of nearly 11,000 staff who must be sent home to reduce the expenses from a bloated workforce.

But it does not have this kind of money in hand, and does not have the financial flexibility to borrow it.

One of the largest corporate organisations in Kenya – with a workforce of 18,000 – Telkom is in deep distress, with losses ranging from Ksh3 billion ($41.6 million) to Ksh5 billion ($69.4 million) per annum.

Indeed, Telkom Kenya's only valuable asset at the moment is the 60 per cent stake in Safaricom.

The government's argument has all along been that no potential strategic investor will take an interest in Telkom if its Safaricom shares are excluded from its balance sheet.

Thus, Kibaki's announcement last week not only signalled a major change in strategic thinking on the part of the government, but also showed that it had – at last – realised that there was more to gain in unlocking the value it owns in Safaricom shares, than in holding onto the shares of a company that has not paid it a dividend since it was established more than five years ago.

Indeed, at the rate at which Safaricom has been growing, and with reports that the company will this year be taking on a huge syndicated loan from the local banking sector, the likelihood is that the government and Telkom will have to wait for several more years before they can start receiving dividends from the company.

Still, success in either selling 9 per cent shares of Safaricom and floating another 34 per cent on the Nairobi Stock Exchange will depend greatly on what Vodafone wants and its own strategic interests.

Under an existing shareholders agreement signed in 1999, the government cannot sell its shares of Safaricom Ltd without the consent of Vodafone, which has pre-emptive rights over the shares.

In addition, the government will need Vodafone's co-operation to deal with the charges that have been placed on the company's shares by creditors.

Indeed, Safaricom has borrowed heavily, using the shares as security, with the consequence that these shares may not be available for sale until the debts are discharged.

In negotiating with the government, Vodafone will want major concessions, including renegotiation of the shareholders' agreement to reflect its enhanced shareholding position.

It is noteworthy that Vodafone is on record as having sought to buy more of Telkom's Safaricom shares, it intention being to assume 51 per cent shareholding of the profitable company and to include it in its consolidated accounts.

In April last year, the British conglomerate wrote to the Ministry of Finance offering to purchase 11 per cent of shares in Safaricom Ltd from Telkom at a price of $100 million.

The letter was addressed to the then Finance minister David Mwiraria.

The offer was accompanied by three proposals:

First, that Vodafone would waive its pre-emptive rights on Safaricom shares to support a listing of the company on the Nairobi Stock Exchange.

Second, that it would consent to a new shareholders agreement to reflect the new ownership structure.

And, finally, that Vodafone would expect Telkom to use some of the proceeds to clear interconnect debts owed to Safaricom.

Audit firm PKF Consulting, which had been appointed by the government to advise on the corporate restructuring of Telkom, had recommended that the government only sell 9 per cent of Safaricom shares to Vodafone.

It said that, with Vodafone at 49 per cent, the government could then negotiate a shareholders agreement whereby Vodafone and the government disposed of 12.5 per cent each to the public so that the public ended up with 25 per cent shares of the company.

How much is Safaricom worth and can the government raise enough money for Telkom's restructuring from selling 9 per cent?

That remains an open-ended question. However, going by the $1 billion enterprise-value-price that Vodafone put on the table in April last year, it is clear that it is possible for the government to get the money it needs – depending on how it negotiates.

It is to be remembered that the $1 billion enterprise value set by Vodafone in April last year was essentially a negotiating position to start proper haggling.

According to international conventions, prices of telecommunications companies are determined by the number of subscriptions.

Under one such convention, one line is valued at $400. With Safaricom's lines having increased to an estimated 3.8 million, sale of even a small amount of Telkom shares in the company can earn the government billions of shillings.

According to a valuation by PKF Consulting, the value of Telkom's 60 per cent shares in Safaricom is in the region of $471 million and $790 million, based on the financial statements and subscribers as at May 31 last year.

From a review of Safaricom's financial statements for the four years upto March 2004, the following trends emerge:

First, revenues increased from Ksh1.6 billion ($22.2 million) in 2000 to Ksh18.8 billion ($261 million) in 2004.

Although the company had a high gearing ratio, it was attributable to syndicated term loans from local banks in 2002 and a euro-denominated term loan in 2003. There has been a tremendous improvement in debt collections and the ability of the company to offset its short-term maturing obligations, especially trade creditors.

Vodafone is one of the largest recent inward investors in Kenya, its first investment being the 40 per cent stake in Safaricom.

Since that time, the business has grown phenomenally. Safaricom has attracted over Ksh11.5 billion ($159.7 million) in private sector investment from both international and local investors, created over 15,000 direct and indirect telecommunications jobs, and contributed more than Ksh25 billion ($347.2 million) in taxes as at 2004.

(SOURCE: The EastAfrican)

UNITEL IN ANGOLA TO EXPAND ITS GSM NETWORK

Omnitele says that it has been contracted by operator Unitel to provide support services for the network expansion projects in Angola. Unitel has operated a GSM network in Angola since early 2001. Since the introduction of GSM services Unitel's subscriber base has been in rapid growth and today Unitel has more than one million subscribers. Due to strong demand for basic services and in order to enable mobile data services, Unitel is starting an important upgrade of the network functionality and capacity to serve up to 3 million subscribers.

The network expansion project includes deployment of various next generation MSC-servers in Luanda and Media Gateways in each of the 15 provinces of Angola. At the same time EDGE will be deployed in the whole network in order to enable enhanced data services. In parallel with the core network capacity and functionality upgrade, a roll-out of approximately 700 base stations will take place to increase the radio network capacity and coverage.

Omnitele's services during the project consist of supervision of quality of network planning, different acceptance processes, project management support and technical support.

"This support agreement extends our cooperation to new areas. Previously Omnitele has been engaged in network quality audits, process development, network improvements and technology selection to name a few. The project schedule, the new technologies introduced in the network and the mere size of the radio network roll-out in sometimes difficult conditions is a great challenge to all parties involved in the project. Based on our experience of Omnitele's performance in the previous assignments, we are confident that Unitel will benefit greatly from Omnitele's vast expertise in this demanding network expansion project" - Mr. Nicolau Netto, CEO, Unitel.

The Mobile World notes that Angola has two active networks. They report that Unitel actually ended last year with just under 1.2 million customers while the CDMA operator, Movicel Telecomunica?s (a subsidiary of Angola Telecom) ended Q3 2005 a little short of 400,000 subscribers.

(SOURCE: Cellular News)

SOUTH AFRICA: TELKOM EYES STAKE IN PORTUGAL TELECOM

Telkom may make a bid to expand its footprint into several African states in one large leap, by teaming up with potential bidders for Portugal's biggest telephone group, Portugal Telecom.

Telkom CEO Papi Molotsane was in Lisbon last week, and was in talks with telecoms company AR Telecom about making a joint bid for Portugal Telecom, according to media reports in Portugal.

Telkom spokeswoman Lulu Letlape declined to give further details, but said: "We're looking at growing, and this is one of the many opportunities that we've been approached about." Telkom would be interested in Portugal Telecom for its operations in several African countries, including a 25% stake in Angola's Unitel and a 32% holding in Morocco's Medi Telecom.

Portugal Telecom also has operations in Democratic Republic of Congo, and in Mozambique, Guinea Bissau, Kenya, Sao Tome and Cape Verde.

Telkom wants to expand across Africa, and has cited Angola, Botswana, Kenya, Nigeria and Congo as the most attractive targets. Last year it bid for a 51% of Nigeria's fixed and cellular operator Nitel, but pulled out because of a lack of transparency over Nitel's debts.

"There are very few greenfield licences available, so the only way for Telkom to expand into Africa is through acquisitions. Angola is an area that Telkom is interested in," said Gavin Joubert of Coronation Fund Managers.

"There is a chance that Telkom will want to buy the African assets of Portugal Telecom," said Claude van Cuyck of Sanlam Investment Management. "If there is any logic in such a transaction, it will be the focus on Africa."

Shares in Telkom were trading 1,4% down at R150,80 yesterday, giving it a market value of R84bn. Portugal Telecom has a market capitalisation of $11,2bn.

Telkom and AR Telecom could launch a joint bid against another Portuguese operator, Sonae, which made a $10,7bn offer for Portugal Telecom last month. Portugal Telecom rejected Sonae's "hostile bid" on the grounds that it was too low. Forbes.com reports that since Sonae was rebuffed, one of the country's leading banks, Banco Espirito Santo, has been preparing a counter bid. The bank is Portugal Telecom's second-biggest shareholder.

(SOURCE: Business Day)

UGANDA: CMI, NETWORKS DENY PHONE TAPPING CLAIMS

The head of Military Intelligence and mobile telephone network operators have denied claims of mobile phone tapping and bugging. The claims, detailing the technical process, capacity and staffing were placed on the previously blocked website www.radiokatwe.com by "a Ugandan in the diaspora." The document claims that CMI and State House working with network operators tap into private phone calls of "suspects."

The site claims tapping is done in three categories; Levels 1, 2 and 3. "Currently, CMI can only tap and record 12 lines at a time. This is what they term as a "Level 1" report. Every two days, the recorded phone calls are taken to CMI headquarters at Kitante Road where they are tallied manually by a sorting team to search for call patterns and filtering for most suspected calls on these computer print outs," it alleged. At "Level 2", it claims the tapping is done on foreign calls from countries of interest and are selected on the basis of the frequency of calls, time and area of the receiver.

"A foreign number calling politically sensitive parts of Gulu, Kitgum, and Kizza Besigye's home area of Rukungiri are made into a "Level 2" report," according to the website.

The "Level 3" report, category A is for phone numbers from a database that has been created and is constantly being updated. "Category A are numbers of high damage risk personalities," it claimed. This level's targets, it claims include; police officers from the rank of assistant inspector of police to inspector general of police, all cabinet ministers, all key media editors and reporters, and all major players and officials in the Buganda Kingdom.

It further said, "possible ways of realising that your phone is tapped is when you are speaking and you hear too much noise in the background or you hear an echo."

The site said the biggest mobile operators; MTN and UTL-Mango have CMI communications engineers stationed in their offices. CMI, MTN and UTL have dismissed the claims as rumours. The UPDF spokesman, Major Felix Kulayigye, dismissed the claims as political rumours.

'CMI is not tapping anyone's telephone," Kulayigye said last week. " This is one of those claims that should not be given attention, all the allegations on that website are false."

Asked whether CMI would tap phones of suspected terrorists, Kulayigye said that would not be a subject for media discussion.

MTN publicist Phillip Besiimire on Sunday said the network "does not have technical capacity to tap anyone's telephone."

This is not the first time a complaint of phone tapping comes to light. Former Lira Municipality MP Cecilia Ogwal in 2003 attacked MTN and CMI accusing the two organisations of tapping her mobile phone.

FDC Coordinator Anne Mugisha also accused UTL of conniving with the government to tap phones of political opponents during the recently concluded general elections.

(SOURCE: The Monitor)

RACE FOR TUNISIE TELECOM STAKE HEATS UP

Six companies are reported to have placed bids to acquire a 35% stake in Tunisia's state telco Tunisie Telecom, according to the Tunisian communication ministry.

Tunisie Telecom is the monopoly fixed-line operator in Tunisia and is estimated to control 72% of the country’s mobile market with 3.2 million subscribers at the end of last year. It also holds a 51% stake in Mauritania’s Mattel, which had 250,000 subscribers at the end of last year.

The stake is valued at around US$1.8 billion and is reported to have attracted bids from France Telecom; Vivendi Universal; South Africa’s MTN; as well as Etisalat. It has been reported that TECOM, the Dubai-based telecoms provider that was acquired by Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company in February for US$330 million, and the organisation behind the second operator all-service UAE operator, ‘du’ is also a qualified bidder.

TECOM’s apparent qualification would be anomalous for two reasons. First is that the entity no longer exists in its own right having now been absorbed into EITC, and second that Ahmad Bin Byat, chairman of EITC has stated that the company will effectively be a local one, restricting its focus of activities on the UAE market.

“This is an emirates company, its main focus is the emirates and I believe we have the world here,” Bin Byat told CommsMEA recently.

The sixth bidder for the stake in Tunisie Telecom is reported to be a partnership between Telecom Italia and Saudi Oger, a bid no doubt established to replicate the success the two parties enjoyed in bidding for a controlling stake of Turk Telecom last year.

Last October, thirteen players were reported to have pre-qualified for the stake in the Tunisian telco – and included Bahrain’s Batelco, Saudi Telecom Company, Telefonica Portugal Telecom, Bouyges Telecom, and T-Mobile.

Financial offers for the operator are set to be examined in the second half of March in the presence of all the bidders but the name of the winner will only be known in about three months time, according to reports quoting the ministry. An auction may be considered if offers are within 10% of each other.

(SOURCE: ITP Technology)

IN BRIEF:

- Nokia opened an office in Nairobi in a move aimed at capturing the expanding regional market. Previously, Nokia was serving the East African region from Dubai. The office would help the mobile phone manufacturer expand its market share by unveiling products tailored for the local market. The office is the third to be opened by Nokia in Southern and East African region after South Africa and Ethiopia. "More African offices will follow throughout 2006 as Nokia continues to cement its presence in one of the most exciting markets in the world," said Timo Toikkanen, the vice president in charge of the Middle East and Africa for Nokia.

TELECOMS, RATES, OFFERS AND COVERAGE

- Glo Mobile in Nigeria has announced additional 30 towns in its network. These include coverage of over 35 major cities, towns and expressways at the beginning of this year. With this, Glo said it has now entered every region and every state in the federation. The Public Relations Manager of Globacom, Mr. Bode Opeseitan, said having covered most major cities in the country, the company is now increasing its cell sites in the towns and is moving into smaller towns and rural areas. Glo Mobile  has a subscriber figure of about 5.5 million and a connection capacity approaching 12 million lines.

- Meanwhile  MTEL, the mobile subsidiary of incumbent telco NITEL, has revealed plans to increase the capacity of its network by 2.5 million lines, to take total capacity to 3.7 million. The expansion is part of the cellco’s ‘network augmentation’ programme which was launched last year, with Ericsson, Huawei, ZTE, Motorola, Nokia and Siemens being selected as the vendors for the project. M-Tel said it would build an additional 800 base stations as part of the programme; it currently has 500. At the end of 2005 the cellco claimed 1.4 million subscribers and a market share of around 8%. It competes with MTN Nigeria, Vee Networks and Globacom.

TELKOM FORCES INTERNET SOLUTIONS TO HALT ADSL SIGNUPS

Internet Solutions (IS) has decided to suspend the provisioning of any new IS ADSL users on their network due to capacity problems.

In a statement released on Tuesday they said that ‘the links between ourselves and Telkom are approaching a level whereby we would no longer be able to provide a reliable service should we continue adding new users to our ADSL network’.

IS added that upgrades were requested over four months ago, but that Telkom has missed three previous deadlines which resulted in this regrettable situation.

“In November 2005 Internet Solutions had 2 x155 Mbps ATM IPC links deployed in order for IS to transit the Telkom ADSL backbone. …backbone links are upgraded prior to them reaching the maximum allowable operating utilisation in accordance with IS’ capacity management policy,” IS said.

“IS placed an order for a new (third) IPC link at the beginning of November 2005, 3 months prior to the forecasted due date of end January 2006, which is aligned with the maximum provisioning lead time offered by our supplier, Telkom. As a side note, Telkom typically provisions new capacity for the IPC links within a month,” they continued.

Telkom said that they were experiencing an infrastructure capacity shortage in early December which would cause a delay beyond 30 days. IS was able to secure an extra 69 Mbps of ATM IPC bandwidth in January 2006 as an intermediate quantum of bandwidth to the full 155 Mbps that we ordered.

At this point the fiber has been installed, but a major change to the ATM node is now required which is causing a delay. Technical work has been scheduled for the 18th of March during the early morning hours, but IS is hesitant to make any promises.

“Due to the inability of our supplier to meet previously offered deadlines, we are unable to provide a definite date for the upgrade to be operational,” IS said.

This situation has forced IS to halt all new ADSL signups to protect their 10,000 strong user base.

“At this time almost all of IS’ IPC bandwidth is utilised, with our real concern that if any further load is placed on this infrastructure, latency and packet loss will spike and render the IS ADSL service unusable; hence our decision to suspend the roll out of any further IS ADSL accounts until the additional IPC bandwidth is installed,” IS said.

IS has apologized to customers for this problem. They said that they will still accept and process applications, but that these users will not ‘go live’ until the upgrade has been completed. They anticipate a two week delay.

It is unclear as to whether it is truly difficult circumstances, incompetence or dirty-tricks that have resulted in the delay upgrade, but what is certain is that Telkom has now effectively halted their only true competitor in the ADSL arena.

(SOURCE: MyADSL)

ETHIOPIA: TEN HOSPITALS TO BEGIN TELEMEDICINE SERVICES SOON

Ten selected hospitals in the country will soon begin telemedicine services to fight poverty and increase the current poor health coverage, officials said on Wednesday.

The hospitals to get the facility are those in rural parts of the country with an average distance of 500 KM from the capital.

"We have been undertaking pilot projects in the past few weeks where we have seen encouraging results to expand the service at large. Thousands of people are expected to get the service, particularly in the rural areas of the country. The service seeks to provide an online network for selected ten hospitals and health districts in the country" Ethiopian Minister of Health, Dr, Thewodros Adhanom Said.

When the service goes fully operational in all the selected hospitals and health districts, the telemedicine is hoped to help reduce the high infant's mortality rate, one of the highest in the world, and to increase the current 60 % health coverage in the coming few years.

"The telemedicine service we have launched here in Ethiopia would also help us in the fight against poverty and would reduce infant mortality rates in the country to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Telemedicine has a big advantage for countries like Ethiopia where over 85 % people are living in rural parts," Dr. Adhanom said.

With an estimated 74 million people, Ethiopia has 190 hospitals, including those hospitals belonging to private and NGOs.

According to available information from the Ethiopian ministry of health, one doctor is said to give medical services for 38,000 people.

Statistics shows that Ethiopia has around 2,000 doctors in total.

Out of the estimated 2,000 doctors, around 60 % of them are said to be concentrated in the capital, Addis Ababa where around five million people live.

Telemedicine is most useful when patients are extremely isolated such as in remote and rural communities or where specialist are in a very high demand, according to Dr, Nega Alemayehu who is a telecommunication expert .

"The already installed Broadband Multimedia and Broadband VSAT networks could therefore enable telemedicine to run successfully and properly implemented far better than the previous available telecom technologies," the expert said.

(SOURCE: The Daily Monitor)

GHANA TELECOM TO CREDIT OVERCHARGED INTERNET OPERATORS

The management of Ghana Telecom (GT) is to credit its Internet clientele operating within Hohoe District who were overcharged by the company.

Emmanuel Amoah-Duah, Commercial Manager in charge of Billing announced this at a forum dubbed "Time With GT" held at Hohoe. Mr Amoah-Duah was responding to concerns made by Mr Godwin Fiakpornu an Internet operator about high bills operators had to pay leading to the closure of five Internet centres. Amoah-Duah said investigations into the anomaly had been completed therefore, bills to be submitted in March bill would show actual figures.

He explained that the problem was due to a technical programming error, which led to double billing of Internet operators. Mr Fiakpornu, Chief Executive of Emmason Centre, complained that he paid six million cedis in October and 11.4 million cedis in November last year, for six hours link-up on the Internet. He noted that with a charge of 75 cedis per minute, the amount for October should have been 900,000 cedis and 1.8 million cedis for November.

Emmanuel Dziko, General Manager in charge of Strategy and Business Development of GT, said management was working hard to upgrade existing products and services.

He said new products would be introduced to improve quality of service and rebuild its corporate image.

Dziko said GT had replaced all electro-mechanical switches with enhanced digital equipment, introduced wireless solutions to complement the copper cable network to beef up its managerial capacity and expertise to remain focused and competitive.

He pointed out that even though GT appreciated that its service delivery was not the best, there had been improvement. Selorm Fiador, Commercial Manager in-charge of Customer Service called on the public to patronize GT products and services especially the Easy Talk, Easy Phone Prepaid and Postpaid cards.

He advised them to avoid wasting time on call holds and refrain from dealing with intermediaries.

Seth Seglah, Hohoe District Head of GT said currently 1,158 lines had been connected from its 5,000 capacity network within the district.

He said wireless loops had been replaced by cellular terminals in areas without cable networks with drop circuits to serve Jasikan and Kadjebi districts. Mr Seglah said acceptance test was being run on the GT One Touch network at Chinderi in the Krachi-West district. Other issues discussed at the forum included poor customer service, delayed delivery of services, slow response to fault complaints and inadequate information on billing procedures.

(SOURCE: Ghana News)

IN BRIEF:

- Djaweb, a subsidiary of Algerie Telecom, has launched in Algiers an e-learning service through prepaid cards. Carried out in partnership with multinational companies Thomson Netg and Microsoft, this first ever service in Africa proposes, via the Internet, content for 4,000 training programmes in ICT and skills development.

- The Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) is expected to hold public hearings into its proposed ADSL regulations within the next two months, and indications are the authority is likely to heed calls to regulate local broadband pricing.

- Morocco wants to boost the use of the domain name extension .ma. To enable this change ANRT, the telecommunication regulator, has announced a  new charter which sets the framework for the allocation of domain names. In parallel Maroc Telecom has announced an important decrease in its registration prices for domain names with the extension .ma : an annual registration subscription will cost from now only 150 DH ($17) down from 800 DH ($88).

WEB TOOL BUILDS AFRICAN LANGUAGE COMPUTING

LocaleGEN, an online tool to help build African language locales in up to 700 African languages, will be released. Alberto Escudero-Pascual, a software localisation developer known for his work on the Swahili translation of Linux (KiLinux) is responsible for the development, and says the tool aims to help facilitate the creation of African language locales.

A locale is a set of software parameters that defines a user's language, country and any special variant users want to see in their computer interface, he says. “A major challenge for Africa in terms of computer access is language and linguistic barriers,” says Escudero-Pascual, who is based in Sweden. LocaleGEN aims to overcome these barriers.

There is a great need for localisation projects like the one Escudero-Pascual has developed, says Nhlanhla Mabaso, manager of the CSIR Open Source Centre. “About 50 million people in East, Southern and Central Africa are unable to absorb the Internet and other computer software suites because all the ICT vocabulary is in the mainstream languages of English and French, leaving Africa and Africans with a great need for IT software support”

According to Escudero-Pascual, the online tool is a platform which allows not only developers but “minority” language users to submit language specific information in order to build locales that suit specific users and communities. “In the Igbo province of Nigeria for example, there is four-day week as opposed to a conventional seven-day Western day week.”

The data collection and standardisation tool has been on trial for a month, and has already been used to build six locales in the African languages of Ewe, Akan, Gaa, Lingala, Igbo and Kamba, says Escudero-Pascual.

He is hoping local developers will use the tool, to build a large common locale data repository.

After the submission of the different linguistic data by the interested user, Escudero-Pascual and his team are responsible for the checking of the internal technical details and the submission and standardising process.

Escudero-Pascual and his team are creating the locales around the open source OpenOffice software package.

“Localisation of software in Africa is slowly taking shape, but there is a definite gap around the developing of ‘African' software,” said Escudero-Pascual.