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WEEKLY PUBLICATION DEADLINE: 12 pm GMT Sunday. ISSUE NO 404 Ghana special: Celtel to launch as Zain in Q3 and considering 3G roll-outThe dead hand of the Ghanaian Government has prevented a good market from reaching its full potential and becoming a great market. Everyone knows what needs to happen but somehow it never quite seems to get done. Nevertheless competition in the mobile sector is about to hot up. After lengthy delays Ghana Telecom (with its One Touch mobile subsidiary) looks likely to be sold to an international player. Zain looks likely to launch operations in Q3 of this year and a sixth licence will be granted, probably to the modest and retiring Mike Adenuga of Globacom. In this issue we publish what is probably the first interview with Zain’s new CEO, formerly CEO with One Touch, Philip Sowah and we also look at the rise of VAS services in an interview with Rancard Mobility’s Kofie Dadzie. Back in Ghana after a three year absence, the most striking thing is the growth in Wi-Fi hot-spots both pay-for in public spaces and free in hotels. There are also several confident wireless ISPs including Busy Internet and iBurst. However, the joys of accessible bandwidth were rather undercut by a city-wide power cut: one step forward, one step back. The Government’s long backlog of past messes (Ghana Telecom, Westel and Voltacom) is shortening but it’s been over five years and counting. Westel has been sold to Celtel who will relaunch as Zain this autumn. The Government is still in negotiation with Vodafone (who had people in the country for two weeks doing due diligence) and France Telecom. Other operators – Russian and Indian – were mentioned but these hardly fit the criteria that everyone seems to have set: respectable international operators capable of making the required investment. The company is currently ludicrously over-staffed (3,700 people) but the Government appears to have made no effort to pick up the costs of making anyone redundant. The National Infrastructure Company – which will based on the Voltacom fibre assets along with the in-fill network Huawei is building – will appoint a professional CEO but will inherit the Voltacom staff and stay part of Government. Not exactly the recipe to light the blue touch paper for significant change. SAT3 prices are down to US$2,250 on the basis of the GISPA deal but Ghana Telecom now seems to be offering these to all takers, prompting GISPA to renegotiate. At a national level, both market leader MTN and Tigo – frustrated at the quality of Ghana Telecom’s offer – are building their own fibre networks. MTN may be no 1 (with over 50% of the market) but customers are unhappy with current levels of network congestion. The NCC’s public ultimatum to the operators (which seemed to follow a similar move by Nigeria’s NCC) seems to have disappeared into the mist. All the mobile operators are selling GPRS and EDGE. There will soon be six operators in a licence process that it’s hard not to believe will result in Globacom entering the market. But with a total potential of 10-11 million subscribers, there may well be enough for everyone despite the predictable moaning about too many operators. Kasapa (which will soon be bought by an international company) is offering its network to ISPs to help them sell Internet services, giving them about a third of the revenues. By the end of 2008 or early in 2009 it will introduce EVDO which will ratchet up the expectation level in market. Coverage is currently 7 out of the 10 regions in the country. In terms of the priorities of the regulator NCA, it will first make a 3G allocation to existing operators before moving on to making Wi-MAX spectrum allocations. It still maintains that VoIP is a technology and if you have a proper licence you can do it. But unlike Kenya’s CCK it has made no move to give ISPs a new licence to include VoIP and this undoubtedly will hold up the arrival of Triple Play. The NCA says that the Wi-MAX licences will have “Triple Play capabilities”. Unfortunately NCA has to follow the rather slow-moving Government that has ruled out more liberalisation while it offloads Ghana Telecom. It remains to be seen whether the process will pick up speed once that deed has been done. Zain Ghana’s Sowah will offer customers a “Rolls-Royce” networkQ: So how long were you with One Touch? Three years and before that I was in the USA as an e-Procurement Manager for Becton Dickinson and prior to that, I was with IBM Global Services. Q: When will you launch? It will be this year but I can’t go into details. We will launch as Zain as the rebranding of the other Celtel operations will happen over the summer. Q: What will be the extent of the network at launch? We’re expecting to have a substantial proportion of the country covered and we will not have the levels of congestion of our competitors. We’re both building in significant capacity to offer higher service levels and for a higher level of customers. Q: What’s you market entry strategy? We can see some of the shortcomings in the market: for example, quality of service and customer service and we think these are areas we can do better at. We will also launch our One Network offer and all other parts of the Zain promise. Q: What about price? Compared to other countries Ghana already has quite low prices. There’s no advantage in having a price war and it’s not part of Zain’s strategy. Q: What’s your target number of subscribers? In every market, Zain’s goal is to be number one. It’s our intention to be as close to number two in the market as possible in the next couple of years. Q: What’s the total potential in the market? Every time we set a target, we exceed it. The current penetration figure we think can be achieved in Ghana is 55% but who knows? Q: What will the impact be of the sixth licence entrant? We do not think it is necessary at this time. With Zain coming to market and Ghana Telecom (with its mobile subsidiary One Touch) being sold, there’s enough additional competitive activity. Q: Who would you like to see buy Ghana Telecom? As a Ghanaian, I’d like to see it run by an well-know international operator. That would make most sense. Q: Will Zain be introducing GRPS and EDGE? Yes, at a very minimum. 3G is being considered because we are truly building a “Rolls Royce” of a network to make the user experience truly different. Q: What about mobile data services? We’re not tapped in there at all so there’s potential for SMS and SMS-based services and data over GPRS and EDGE. Ghanaians love music. Q: You bought Westel which is not a mobile operator. What are you going to do with things you bought that don’t relate to the new operation? Essential Westel is an international gateway and some subscribers. We will give the existing subscribers service but how has not been finalised. Our starting point is that they will get service at a higher level. Q: Will you build fibre into your infrastructure plans? We will do the business case for fibre but will start with microwave infrastructure. Of course, we can lease fibre from other operators. Q: What do you think of the Government’s National Infrastructure Company? It’s an interesting idea but I don’t have updated information on it. There’s a meeting to bring us up to date (next week). The idea has to be managed very carefully. But a number of operators already have fibre networks and therefore it might never be profitable. Q: What do you think of the current level of SAT3 prices? Our understanding is that Ghana Telecom will be giving quotes to operators but I have no sense of the pricing yet. It’s being discussed. Q: What did you learn from your time at One Touch? I learnt an enormous amount including a good understanding of the mobile telecoms environment in Ghana. It taught me how to do a lot with very little! Rancard Mobility’s Dadzie offers a regional VAS platform for operators and content providers Q: When did you start the company and why? In April 2001 because we wanted to focus on enterprise and communications apps. But by 2001 we had already built a carrier class WAP gateway but it needed the mobile carriers to introduce GPRS and to extend their coverage to give it a “shot in the arm”, make them interested in it. Q: So how did you make the transition from enterprise applications to the current business? Well we’d always had this focus on communications technology so it wasn’t such a big leap. We looked at DoCoMo’s i-Mode model and what worked in the UK and based on that built a fully integrated platform. When mobile VAS providers began to re-emerge, we weren’t actually looking for that business because we were still doing enterprise projects. But we had started building enterprise applications for mobile operators. For example, we built a web interface to allow customers to see their bills for Millicom Ghana. As we built that relationship, it said it wanted an SMS gateway and so we said ‘we can give you that’. Another company, Itel, one of MTN Ghana’s distributors, wanted to produce an online platform to communicate with its vendors. So you’re now a mobile VAS provider? Basically we offer a service delivery platform for mobile carriers and content providers. For the latter, we act as a bridge between them and the mobile operator and it could be for e-mail, multimedia, SMS or whatever using any protocol and including DRM. Content providers can be content providers. It will stream content on to any website and the content can be loaded on to our system and be distributed. And our platform for all this work is Rancard Mobility.com What’s the split between operators and content providers as you customers? It can vary between 50/50 and 60/40 but it won’t work without both being properly involved. One without the other won’t work. Some operators mandate content providers to work with 2-3 chosen content providers for that carrier. Some content providers use the platform directly. What sort of content providers are you working with? I’ll give you two examples. Media Edge is the media content arm of Charterhouse. The latter is an events manager and does things like the Ghana Music Awards, a talent show called Miss Malaika and Stars of the Future. It does SMS voting at these events and also downloads. These events are shown on TV and we manage all the interactive audience response. It generates several hundreds of thousands of messages and sometimes even millions of messages. Voting is a high-use application. Nestle Central and West Africa promote an event called Nestle African Revelations that is managed by Publicis (an advertising agency). We provided connectivity for providers in Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, Mali and Cameroon so that people from across a whole region could take part in voting on acts in the event. We are currently talking to a large multinational about rolling out SMS-based data services. We do information services for Millicom’s Tigo – news and sport – in which multiple content providers can log into a single platform and we can deliver to several countries. We’re servicing about 50,000 messages a day on our platform and we expect this to grow to 0.5 million a day by the end of the year. This growth will come from us working with a Nigerian provider so we know that there will be an 80% growth in volume based on past experience. Some VAS players want to do everything (content and distribution) but we’ve stuck to content distribution. The more content providers you have, the more you attract because you’re not competing with your content providers. What’s the deal for content providers? The apps that drive the messaging are free, we charge for hosting and we charge a transaction fee for actually delivering messages. What are the percentages? That depends on whether you’re using our apps or just using our platform. It can vary between 10-40% of the value of the message. Typically the mobile operator gets the lion’s share based on them carrying most of the marketing costs. But it will be the usability and utility of the apps that will keep customers using them. Sometimes it’s 50% to the operator and sometimes 60-70% as they own the subscriber. Where we host the content provider, we will get 40% from the operator and pay the content provider’s share out of that. So what’s new in terms of service? There are three things: on-demand information services, competitions and trivia supported by radio and TV and interactive TV shows. The model for information services follows what happens elsewhere. They provide things like news and entertainment, local and international sport and music, etc. There are sports journalists and syndicators. But it’s fair to say that traditional media getting into SMS in Ghana has been a little slow. So for information services all you need to do is set up an RSS feed and you can send it out over different platforms. How do you work across the region? We use local partners. It’s a two-way thing. Other providers come to us to access other countries and we go to them to access their country. A lot of them buy our technology or they buy it from elsewhere. How does someone in say Mali survive running this kind of business? That’s why you work with someone who is based there (and don’t open offices everywhere). That person does it as part of other businesses he runs. If the media and marketing campaign is strong, it will generate enough business for you to get enough people out there to do it. Are you talking to ad agencies? We have an app called ad server and we’ve had various conversations but nothing has been launched yet. We want it to be easy to launch and to have a billing component. On the latter, we are already doing dynamic billing so that we can make different charges for different types of content. CORRECTIONS:Issue 403: African Telecoms, Media and Technology Fund to invest US$75 million in its chosen sectors plus an SME fund Two corrections: The Fund will be US$100 million and it has not yet acquired Trunking Systems but is in the process of seeking monopolies and CCK clearance for a transaction.
Sudatel celebrates 4 millions subscribers while increasing its capital to $2.5 billionSudanese incumbent Sudatel this week celebrated reaching 4 million subscribers in Sudan and raising its capital base to US$2.5 billion. Sudatel General Director Eng. Amad Aldeen Hussein said that Sudatel works to develop telecommunication service, which is the base for development and prosperity in Sudan. “Sudatel investments encouraged other telecommunication companies to provide services in Sudan, however Sudatel provides wireless services in more that 800 rural areas in Sudan,” said Eng Amad Aldeen adding that Sudatel has investments in Senegal and Mauritania and has the largest telecommunication network in Sudan. In an extra ordinary meeting of the Sudatel General Assembly, which took place on April 23 in Friendship Hall in Khartoum, the company decided to increase its capital from US$750 million to US$ 2.5 billion and to change its name to become Sudatel Group for Telecommunication Ltd. The company changed its name and increased the capital to cope with the expansion into new countries outside Sudan. The new shares will not affect the old shareholders. The Company is ambitious to become one of five top telecommunication operators in the Arab world and Africa. In Mauritania through its subsidiary Chinguitel it now has 160000 subscribers. “The company also won the telecommunication license in Senegal and now is building the network to provide good telecommunication services” he said adding that Sudatel bought the share of a telecommunication company in Nigeria and is modernizing the network using 3G technologies . (Source: Sudaninside) Senate backs up LTA to enforce new GSM licence standardisation in LiberiaIn the wake of the ongoing row between the Liberia Telecommunications Authority (LTA) and GSM service providers in Liberia over GSM license standardisation, the Senate Committee on Posts and Telecommunications and Information has endorsed the regulatory decisions of the LTA, including the new licensing and frequency authorization regulations which the LTA published recently. At a public inquiry at the Capitol Building on Thursday involving all five commissioners of the LTA, the Senate committee on Posts and Telecommunications and Information headed by Grand Bassa County Senior Senator Gbezongar Finley, urged the LTA to use the Telecom Law to take appropriate decisions and actions that will reform the jumbled Liberia telecommunications landscape in the interest of the government and people of Liberia. According to a release, the Senate committee advised the LTA to adapt a robust posture in ensuring compliance to its regulations in the face of resistance from GSM service providers. Earlier, LTA Chairman Albert Bropleh outlined the obstacles being put in the way of the Regulator, including failure by the GSM companies to timely comply with regulations of the LTA. (Source: The News) Vodacom launches M-cash service M-Pesa in TanzaniaVodafone's mobile phone-based solution for transferring money is now available in the country, thanks to a partnership between Vodafone and Vodacom Tanzania. The partners commercially launched Vodafone M-Pesa in the country on Wednesday during a function presided over by Finance Minister Mustafa Mkulo. The service will allow Vodacom subscribers to send and receive money from Sh2,000 (US$1.68) to Sh500,000 (US$420) to all the country's geographical locations including those that lie beyond the reach of commercial banks. M-Pesa is derived from two words with 'M' standing for Mobile while 'Pesa' is a Kiswahili word for Money. It is hoped that the service will help to revolutionize money transferring in a country where only about 10 per cent of its middle to old aged population of 16million have conventional bank accounts. By contrast, an estimated 7.5 million Tanzanians have either mobile phones or just have access to mobile phones, although only Vodacom’s 4 million subscribers will be able to open an M-Pesa account. M-Pesa product manager,Jacques Voost said in a presentation that Vodacom has already appointed about 500 M-Pesa agents countrywide - noting that the goal was to have at least 2,000 agents during the first year of the product's life time. Consequently, the company has already deposited Sh100 million in the M-Pesa account and that the deposits would be growing following the commercial launch. He defended the level of security associated with the service - noting that it was only introduced after a thorough research in Kenya where the service has been proved secure and very helpful. "Up to $2million is deposited in Safaricom's M-Pesa in Kenya but cases of insecurity are yet to be recorded," he said. (Source: The Citizen) GSM growth slows, CDMA flourishes in MoroccoAccording to Morocco’s telecoms regulator the ANRT, the country’s mobile phone users reached 20.62 million at the end of March 2008, up from 20.03 million at the end of 2007, with net additions of 587,000 in the first quarter down on the 841,000 new subscribers in the preceding quarter and the 1.12 million recorded in 1Q 2007. The watchdog said that cellular penetration reached 66.85% at 31 March 2008, up from 56.14% a year earlier. The leading operator by subscribers, Maroc Telecom, increased its GSM user base to 13.697 million subscribers at end-March, up from 13.327 million three months before, while its GSM rival Meditel’s customer base rose to 6.919 million from 6.702 million in December. Subscriber growth in the overall post-paid market during the quarter was 28,000, while total pre-paid users increased by 559,000. The slowdown in cellular growth can be attributed to the rapid gains achieved by fixed-wireless/WiLL and limited mobility CDMA2000 1x-based telephony in Morocco, with the lion’s share signing up to Wana’s (formerly Maroc Connect) consumer brand, Bayn (launched in February 2007, which had claimed over a million users by the end of 2007). According to the regulator’s figures, the fixed line (including CDMA) market grew to 2.711 million subscribers at the end of March 2008, up from 2.394 million three months earlier, with 53,000 net new business users and 263,700 new residential subscribers. The ANRT also reported that total internet subscribers stood at 581,866 at the end of 1Q08, after 55,786 new users were added in the quarter; ADSL represents 83.8% of all subscribers, with Maroc Telecom dominating the market. (Source: Telegeography) In brief:- There are 1.5 billion people in emerging markets who do not currently own a mobile handset but are willing and, through appropriate business models, would be able to purchase one within the next 12 to 24 months. The key to accelerating sales to these near-term handset buyers is tapping into existing financing mechanisms. With appropriate marketing and partnership strategies, handset manufacturers and mobile operators could facilitate first-time handset purchases." Vital Wave Consulting's latest report provides a comprehensive review of formal and informal financing mechanisms in the top ten near-term markets. Resource guides include data for 119 countries, including mobile penetration rates as of mid-2007, the annual income levels (ceiling and floor) for the near-term target market, and data on 50 financial services organizations that are potential partners for programs to extend financial services to first-time handset buyers. To buy this report go to the http://www.vitalwaveconsulting.com/publications/publications.htm. - Apple iPhones are to be made available for the first time on the continent through Vodacom in South Africa. However, they continue to find their way into the continent. A recent visit to Ghana identified 6 people in a mobile operator’s marketing department toting the uber-phone. - Egypt's telecoms regulator said that it had postponed the bid deadline for Egypt's second fixed-line licence to July 29 as local connectivity agreement negotiations were still ongoing. The deadline for bidding for the licence, which will end state-run Telecom Egypt's fixed-line monopoly, had previously been set for June 19. The number of companies showing interest in the licence had risen to 12. - Nigeria's telecommunications regulator and industry players have agreed to introduce Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to help alleviate network congestion, and that stakeholders in the communications arena including private companies should help drive the benchmarks. - The Egyptian government has asked mobile telephone operators to block services to anonymous users. Currently there are several hundred thousand users who have not registered names and home addresses to telephone numbers. Two of the three operators, Vodafone Egypt and Mobinil, have begun complying with the request. - Algerie Telecom (AT) signed a strategic partnership contract to integrate solutions with the American Cisco Systems company, announced Wednesday in Algiers Chief executive Mouloud Djaziri. This partnership will help AT meet, in a short time, the demands of institutions, national firms and the State’s bodies to interconnect national and regional sites, set up a secure intranet, find solutions to IP telephony, and provide all the innovative services. - In Mauritius, the ICT Authority (ICTA) have just come up with a new directive to set cost-based Interconnection Usage Charges (IUC) for interconnection between networks in Mauritius. In the same breath they have implemented a zero access deficit compensation policy, which is somewhat quite difficult to get accepted by the incumbent operator. The papers in relation to their directive is available at http://www.icta.mu - State-owned Sierra Leone Telecommunications (Sierratel) will launch a CDMA fixed-wireless network by September 2008, according to the country's deputy minister for information and communication, Mohamed Koroma. Telecoms, Rates, Offers and Coverage- Celtel Uganda has also introduced a new rate plan for pre-paid customers, giving them more choice and flexibility. On the Chacha plan, per second billing will be at sh7 during peak period (8am - 5pm) and sh5 during the off-peak period (9pm -12am & 5am - 8am) only for calls within the Celtel network. The Mambo plan provides a competitively priced per minute rate charged at sh300 for calls within the Celtel network and sh340 to other networks all day and night. - Globacom Nigeria, one of the leading GSM operators has said it is currently working on a scheme that will add 1,500 new base stations to its network nation wide. It has also said it is increasing its network switch capacity to accommodate 35 million subscribers before the end of this year. - Vodafone has announced today that it has signed an agreement to take Apple's iPhone to ten new markets around the globe, including Egypt and India. - Despite recurrent quality of service issues, Nigeria’s telecoms sector is doing well. The nation’s subscriber base has increased to 60,941,434 as of March 2008. GSM operators took the lion’s share with 57,622,901, while mobile Code Multiple Division Access CDMA recorded 780,938 and fixed wired/wireless recorded 2,537,504 lines. The total active subscriber base was put at 45,899,711, up from 42,915,867 recorded in January. Out of this total, GSM recorded 43, 786,542 active lines, mobile CDMA, 567,185 and fixed wired/wireless 1,545,984. - Mi-Fone's will launch next month a range of ultra low cost mobile phones in Kenya. The various mobile phone will retail at between US dollars 25 to 60. - In Zimbabwe, mobile network providers are pushing for a new tariff increase barely a week after the National Incomes and Pricing Commission (NIPC) approved a 1 000% review on their charges.
Telecom Egypt and 15 Other Telecommunications Companies Sign Agreement to Build High Bandwidth Undersea Cable System from UK to IndiaMajor operators last week signed a formal Construction and Maintenance Agreement (C&MA) to build the first direct, high-bandwidth optical-fiber submarine cable system from the United Kingdom to India. The Europe India Gateway (EIG) cable system, which will cost close to US$700 million, will significantly enhance capacity and diversity between the countries of these regions. 16 telecommunications companies are investing in the project: AT&T; Bharti Airtel; BT; C&W; Djibouti Telecom; Du; Gibtelecom; IAM; Libyan Post, Telecom and Information Technology Company; MTN Group Ltd; Omantel; PT Comunicações, S.A.; Saudi Telecom Company; Telecom Egypt; Telkom SA Ltd; and Verizon Business. The EIG cable system, targeted to be operational in second quarter of 2010, is a 15,000 kilometer (9,000 mile) system that will connect 13 countries and three continents. Landings are planned in the United Kingdom, Portugal, Gibraltar, Morocco, Monaco, France, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, Oman, United Arab Emirates, and India. In addition to serving these regions, the EIG cable system will also provide seamless interconnection with other major cable systems connecting Europe, Africa, Asia and North America. The system will utilize state-of-art next generation technology that is designed to provide up to 3.84 terabits (Tbps) using dense-wavelength-division-multiplexing (DWDM) to provide upgradeable transmission facilities that support Internet, e-commerce, video, data and voice. In addition to complementing existing high bandwidth cable systems in the region, the EIG cable system will provide much needed diversity for broadband traffic currently relying largely on traditional routes from Europe to India. This is important considering the threat of earthquakes in this region. The EIG cable system, with its large bandwidth and high quality transmission technology, will help meet the present and future growth in telecommunications traffic between the targeted regions. In addition to the C&MA signing, the EIG Consortium also signed a supply contract with Alcatel-Lucent and Tyco Telecommunications for the cable system’s construction. (Source: Reuters) Kenya’s Coffee Board Bets On Online Trade to Boost SalesThe Coffee Board of Kenya is exploring the possibility of starting the third window of coffee sales which involves selling the coffee online. This comes one year after opening of the second known as direct sales. Sources said that the move is meant to ensure farmers get maximum benefits from the liberalised sector. According to the board, the third window will take up a special category of high grade speciality coffees. Once placed on the website, the high grade coffees will be open to any willing buyer in the world who bids highest. Still in formulation stages, the new option of selling coffee will be tried and if successful, it will be rolled out nationally. Currently, most of Kenya's top grade coffees are sold through the coffee auction which accounts for 95 per cent of the total coffee sold in the country. The remaining five per cent is sold directly to buyers through the direct sales. According to coffee board's Michael Mungai, the second window has taken up most of the top quality coffees sold from the country. "Speciality coffees have mostly been going through direct sales," said Mr Mungai. But in its first year of operation, the second window failed to meet the expectations of farmers and stakeholders. This has been blamed on lack of capacity to carry out international trade by both commercial and grower marketing agents. The second window has however picked in its second year and figures from the board show that about 20,000 bags of top grade coffee have been sold directly to foreign buyers so far for the year 2007/2008. This marks a 100 per cent increase from the 10,000 bags which were sold through direct sales in 2006/2007. Despite the marked increase, direct sales still remain far lower than the traditional auction system which managed to sell 259,219 bags of main grade, miscellaneous and unwashed coffee for the year 2007/2008. But unlike the second window which targets specific buyers in specific buying countries, the third window will widen the possible market to include all willing buyers internationally. (Source: Business Daily) Uganda Electricity Transmission Company to lease part of its fibre optic network capacityThe Uganda Electricity Transmission Company (UETCL) has applied to the Uganda Communications Commission to lease out part of its fibre optic infrastructure. UETCL was motivated to apply for the public infrastructure provider license after uganda telecom, Infocom, MTN and Celtel requested to rent the fibre cable network. UETCL has installed over 400km of core fibre optic on transmission network. The network runs through Lugogo-Nalubaale – Tororo- Kenya, Kampala North-Lugogo-Mutundwe, Kampala North-Namanve and Masaka- Mbarara. Godfrey Kisekka, the IT manager, said the deal would earn the company more revenue. “Renting of the fibre optic will help UETCL achieve a financial efficiency and help reduce the burden on power tariff subsidy by the Government,” he argued this week. Kisekka said all the new planned transmission line networks will come with the fibre optic cable as a requirement. The planned projects include Bujagali-Kawanda 220kV, Opuyo-Moroto 132kV, Mputa-Nkenda 132kV and upgrading of the Tororo-Opuyo-Lira 132kV transmission lines. The firm, Kisekka, said uses the fibre optic communication links to monitor and control power flow and for its private telephone communication. (Source: New Vision) In brief:- The South African government has revised its plans for an undersea cable from Cape Town to South America and will now run the cable to Europe instead. The project costing ZAR5 billion (USD66.5 million) will run cable from Melkbosstrand near Cape Town to London with links to at least ten African countries along the way. At the same briefing, Matsepe-Casaburri stated her department was also determined to see the completion of the Nepad Broadband ICT Network, or Uhurunet. She noted that Asia had become important for South African commerce and a cable extending there was needed. - An English-language website dedicated to business and finance in Morocco was launched in Casablanca by the "Centre Marocain de Conjoncture" (CMC). The site, accessible through the URL www.moroccobusinessnews.com is dedicated to foreign investors in particular English-speaking countries. - Desré Buirski, the artist best known for designing Madiba's trademark presidential shirts, represented South Africa at the launch event of the iGoogle artist themes project in New York last week. Buirski was one of 60 artists from around the world to design her own theme for iGoogle. - Nine days after the breakdown of the Broadband Internet Facility in the Upper East Region, operators of the facility, Ghana Telecommunications Limited (GT), have restored it. But operators of Internet Cafés are upset over the slow speed of the restored bandwidth. The slow speed of restoration reflects the overall low maintainence performance of the company. - South Africa’s banking group FNB is launching a new online software solution developed in collaboration with a group of South African entrepreneurs, and is now offering it to their small and medium-sized customers. The solution is designed to address administrative and financial control bottlenecks commonly found in small and medium sized businesses, especially delays in producing accurate financial statements. - Tunisie Telecom has recently launched a 2 megabits ADSL offer. For a promotional period the connection at 2MB will be at the same price than the current 1MB which retails at $34 per month. Migration to the higher bandwidth level for existing customers is free of charge. - Mauritania’s local newspaper “Biladi” is now available online at www.biladi.mr
Brian Computers and Niger State Sign MoU in NigeriaIn a bid to ensure that the citizens of Niger State are empowered with IT knowledge and skills needed to face the 21st knowledge economy, Nigerian PCs assembler, Brian Integrated Systems Limited has signed an MOU with the Niger State Government on a computer ownership scheme that will benefit its civil servants. The scheme, known as Niger State Government Assisted Computer Ownership Scheme, (NSCOS) is geared at encouraging government and private sector joint venture collaboration with a view to developing a program to facilitate the acquisitions of computes by all civil servants of the Niger State Government. The MOU will ensure that the Niger State Government through its Ministry of Science and Technology pays 50% of the cost of 300 units of desktops computers while the beneficiaries spreading over a period of 24 months would pay the remaining 50% of the cost. The Managing Director of Brian Integrated Systems Tunji Balogun stated that his company will live up to its expectations by supplying the Niger State Government robust and latest PCs available in the IT market. "This is not the first of its kind. We are ready to partner with any state and other private sector in the Nigerian economy on Computer For All Initiative (Cain). We do not supply old technologies. We deal on the latest technologies available in the global IT market. We have done it in several states, including Ogun, Osun, Uyo, and Kwara States. We are ready to partner with other states," he said. (Source: This Day) Social Security Fund in ICT Drive in RwandaRetired workers demanding their pensions in Rwanda Social Security Fund have reason to smile with introduction of computerised record keeping to ensure quicker service delivery. In a bid to maintain proper records and accountability in providing pensions and receiving contributions, the state owned agency with financial autonomy is carrying out massive storage of client records in computers. The new and extra-ordinary use of the Information Communication Technology (ICT) in record keeping comes primarily to reduce the pending files of beneficiaries demanding their pension money. The head of declaration and return processing in the RSSF, Deo Ntikurirwa says that the fund initiated the computerised record keeping process in 2006. However, it was put into action in September last year. The fund seeks to compile about four million hand-filled forms filled between 1963 and 1990. To speed up data entry exercise, all employees have been obliged to compile at least 1000 forms every week. Currently, more than 3.4million files have been compiled and the exercise will end in June. The client records include name, contribution and the registration code. (Source: East African Business Week) OSS powers South Africa’s fastest growing websitesWith unique readers growing by 190 percent over the past year, Engineering News has been named by Nielson Online as South Africa’s fastest growing website. The publication’s sister sites, Mining Weekly and Polity, occupied the second and fourth places respectively. All three of the sites were moved onto an open source software platform a year ago. Engineering News, published by Creamer Media, grew its readership from 23,455 unique readers in March 2007 to 67,924 in March this year. Mining Weekly climbed 156 percent from 12,034 to 30,788 unique readers a month. Polity grew 121 percent from 12,472 to 27,544 at the end of March 2008. The overall growth in the market during this period was 44 percent. In March last year Creamer Media moved its online operation from a Windows-based one to a publishing system based on Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP (LAMP). The Preditor publishing system that Creamer Media now uses was built by local company Prefix Technologies. (Source: Tectonic) In brief:- The growing adoption of electronic forms of payment in Nigeria has become a revolution. From less than 50,000 transactions recorded on the Interswitch network four years ago, it has increased to over 51,000,000 per month as of March 2008. Mitchel Elegbe, the Managing Director of Interswitch, a payment solutions platform provider with 25 Nigerian Banks stated that by March 2007, the network witnessed 13.6 million transactions, which increased fundamentally to 51.2 million as at March 2008. Elegbe, added that in 2007, the network recorded a growth of 276 .2 per cent with a volume of 271 million transactions worth N430 billion across its entire network from different channels-ATMs, POS terminals, mobile, Internet, and bank branches using the network - The government of Uganda will facilitate students in tertiary institutions to procure laptop computers to enhance usage of Information Communication Technology (ICT) in the country. State Minister for ICT Alintuma Nsambu said university students will acquire the computers at the cost of US$300 (about Shs600,000) a price below the selling price at the local market. Mr Nsambu said the project to cost US$1.2 million will be implemented with support from United States. 5,000 computers have already been requested. - The Kenya government says it will increase funding to the Information Communications Technology (ICT) sector in efforts to realise the Digital Village Programme that aims to boost employment in the country. The sector has already applied to the treasury to disburse funds to supplement the Ksh610 million ($10 million) already pledged by the World Bank to support growth of digital villages across the country. - Senegalese schools are billed to get 30,000 computers as part of the progress made toward realising the goals of ''Digital Solidarity Fund'' project, according to the Director of SENECLIC, Ababacar Diop - The OpenOffice.org community has announced a public beta release of OpenOffice.org 3.0. The most immediately visible change to OpenOffice.org 3.0 is the new “Start Centre”, new fresh-looking icons, and a new zoom control in the status bar. - Throwing some of its not-inconsiderable weight behind open source software, Google has joined oCert, or the open source computer emergency response team. oCert is a volunteer organisation of security professionals that aims to co-ordinate responses to security threats in the open source software world, much like the national Cert bodies such as US-Cert. - InkMedia “ http://ink-media.com/home.html” are low-cost hardware laptops being provided by Ink Media Inc, Canada in collaboration with Gerry Morgan Foundation, Canada http://www.gerrymorganfoundation.org. The vision by InkMedia's inventor Gerry Morgan is to provide low-cost hardware alternatives as result of ongoing convergence that can help us provide ICT access and learning tools to the next one billion people on the planet. - Ingram Micro has been appointed as a distributor for the full range of Asus components throughout South Africa and the sub-Saharan region.
Safaricom IPO Nets a Whopping Sh191 BillionThe much-hyped Safaricom's initial public offer has raked in Sh191 billion in bids from local and international investors. The amount realised is way above the targeted Sh50 billion that the Government hoped to raise from 10 billion shares it offloaded in the market. Preliminary figures show that the local investors have oversubscribed their share offer by close to 254 per cent. According to preliminary data released by the Government last Wednesday, foreign investors paid a 10 per cent premium price for the issue to attract Sh76 billion ($1.15 billion). Locally, the issue mopped up a staggering Sh115 billion from the money market. The combined bids reflect a subscription rate of 382 per cent, or a 282 per cent over-subscription. Final results in the local pool will be known over the next few weeks once application processing is finalised. But indications are strong that the investors will not get full subscription even if the plough-back from the international pool is effected. (Source: The East African Standard) Celtel Zambia IPO to start next JuneLocal and international investors have an opportunity of buying into yet another mobile phone company, Celtel Zambia, barely two weeks after the close of the Safaricom IPO. On offer are one billion shares, 20 per cent of Celtel Zambia, at a price of Zambian Kwacha (ZMK) 640 or Sh11 at current exchange rates. It is open to employees of Celtel Zambia, Zambian nationals and corporates, foreign institutional investors. That means individual investors in Kenya will have to go through pooled funds set up by investment banks and unit trusts. Applications for the ordinary shares will be in a minimum of 700 ordinary shares and thereafter in multiples of 100 ordinary shares. Sterling Investment Bank and Afrika Investment Bank are among the members of the Nairobi Stock Exchange that are facilitating participation in the IPO. David Ithanya, a director at Sterling Investment Bank, described Celtel Zambia as a good short-term buy. Celtel Zambia has so far been a star performer of the 15 African subsidiaries in the Celtel International stable. In 2007, it reported revenues of US$250 million and net profits of US$ 53 million. Operating profit before factoring in Income Tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) have grown from US$38 million dollars in 2005 to US$122 million in 2007. Celtel Kenya has been a laggard, reporting a net loss of US$ 22 million on revenues of US$209 million last year. The Zambian subsidiary controls 78 per cent of that country's market with subscribers standing at 1.9 million at the end of last year out of a population of 12 million people. The mobile penetration rate in Zambia was estimated at 20 per cent by the world cellular information service. Competition in the mobile market comes from two other mobile operators - Cell - Z and MTN Zambia. Plans are also underway to license a fourth mobile phone operator. The mobile telephony market lacks innovative products offering like in Kenya where mobile phone subscribers have launched money transfer services. Competition is primarily on the basis of coverage, price, quality, brand, service offerings and customer service. According to its prospectus, Celtel Zambia has segmented its market into corporate, small and medium enterprises and individual customers. A large majority of its customers, 92 per cent, are on per second billing, a fact that has seen its monthly average revenue per user (ARPU) declining from US$16 in 2005 to US$13 in 2007 despite an increase in customers. (Source: Business Daily) Subscriber growth at Orascom Egypt leads to earnings riseOrascom Telecom, the Egypt-based regional telecom operator, yesterday unveiled positive growth in the first quarter of 2008, with revenues rising 22% year-on-year to $1.295 billion. In the three months to 31st March, 2008, EBITDA rose 28% to $584 million, as net income topped $210 million, an improvement of 25%. The rise was largely due to an increase in the group's total subscriber base, which increased 38% from March 2007 to exceed 74 million. The large majority of its total customer base is derived from Mobilink in Pakistan (31.8 million), Mobinil in Egypt (16.1 million) and Djezzy in Algeria (13.8 million). However, bangalink in Bangladesh saw the sharpest increase in subscriber numbers, rising 115% from the same period in 2007 to 8.3 million subscribers today. In addition, the group said that ARPU decline has slowed over the course of the year, with growth registered in the likes of Tunisia and Bangladesh. Proforma global ARPU in Q1 2008 - excluding Iraqna - stood at $6.6. Other highlights in the quarter include the securing of a $2.5 billion committed bank facility, used to refinance outstanding debt and for general corporate purposes. In April, Orascom Telecom also announced a $1.6 billion cash tender offer for up to 106 million ordinary shares. (Source: ITP) Onatel’s planned IPO gets IFC support in Burkina FasoThe IFC, a division of the World Bank Group has announced that it will support the upgrade of fixed and mobile networks at Onatel, Burkina Faso’s telecommunications operator. The €7.5 million investment will be part of a broader effort to develop a competitive telecommunications market in Burkina Faso, increase connectivity, and improve opportunities for the business sector. Onatel began increasing private participation in the telecommunications sector in December 2006, when the government sold a 51 percent stake of the company to Morocco’s Itissalat Al-Maghrib (Maroc Telecom). The government of Burkina Faso is planning to sell an additional 20 percent stake through an initial public offering, which will be the first by a Burkinabé company. IFC and the government are discussing ways that IFC can support the transaction, help attract private investments to the country, and further develop domestic and regional capital markets. “IFC’s global expertise in telecommunications and experience in various legal and regulatory environments will be valuable assets as we upgrade our networks and seek to increase private sector participation in the sector,” Mohammed Morchid, Onatel’s General Manager. (Source: Cellular News) In brief:- Transcorp, the majority shareholder in Nitel, has denied reports that it will sell 41% out of its 51% stake in the wireline operator, but did admit that it was seeking a new investor for a smaller share. 'Transcorp would cede 27% of its current holding,' Transcorp Vice President of Public Relations Adedayo Ojo told the IDG News Service. The government, which owns the remaining 49% of Nitel, said in December 2007 that another core investor should be found to help turn around Nitel's ailing performance. - India's leading cellular operator, Bharti Airtel is reported to have started exploratory talks with MTN South Africa regarding a take over bid. According to the Financial Times, insiders had mentioned R165 per MTN share and said Bharti had secured bank loans of $12bn towards the deal. It would fund the balance by issuing shares. - The Egyptian Company for Mobile Services (Mobinil) has announced its first quarter results which show a 52% year-on-year increase in subscribers to 16.16 million. In the first three months of 2008, Mobinil added 1.044 million customers to its base, helping revenues to climb 27% to EGP2.25 billion. EBITDA rose by 18% to EGP1.04 billion, reflecting an EBITDA margin of 44.5%. Net income increased by 14% to EGP451 million while CAPEX was EGP523 million.
Moneybox Africa to Deploy Mobile Financial Platform in NigeriaMoneyBoxAfrica is partnering Paybox, the German based mobile payment enterprise solutions, aimed at developing a mobile banking product for everyone in Africa. A statement made available to This Day, said that MoneyBox Africa is a new savings and payment system based on a scratch card that is enabled by any mobile phone and offers a cash-like way to remotely save, spend, and transfer money. According to the statement, Moneybox Africa is an initiative of Nigeria's leading technology focused on investment and financing institutions, Integrated Capital Services (in alliance with ICSL, Interswitch, e-Transact and SWIC Microfinance Bank). It is also partnering with Paybox solutions, AG, the trendsetting company for mobile payment enterprise solutions headquartered in Germany. The new partnership leverages Paybox's Mobiliser Platform and the Money Mobiliser product offered the largest mobile financial ecosystem across Africa in the near future. With 80 per cent of African population under-banked without any access to financial services, the continent required an affordable line of services that will allow poor Africans to execute financial transactions remotely and conveniently," the statement said. According to the statement, Mobile Banking seems to be an attractive alternative platform with an innovative savings and payment system that convert any mobile phone to a micro bank. And the new mobile payment system is based on scratch cards that was enabled by mobile phones. Customers can open their accounts on the streets, remotely save money into their accounts, top up their phones, pay utility bills and tithes, buy insurance premium, send money to friends and relatives, withdraw cash at agents' locations or ATMs, get access to credit and make investments. In addition, the system provides basic m-Payment services with minimal sign up barriers, creating more businesses but accepting lower margins, supporting remote and proximity scenarios. Moneybox Africa also offers the end customers an easy upgrade path to a stored-value-account and eventually a bank account. It provides key services beyond the basic banking functionalities such as bill payment, airtime top up, international remittance with the appropriate user interface technologies. The Moneybox Africa offers cost-efficiency, convenience and flexibility. (Source: This Day) Easy FM Pioneers Reverse Auction service to Kenyan mobile usersEasy FM has partnered with a mobile phone service provider to offer its listeners a chance to participate in the first ever reverse bidding auction on phone. The service will allow mobile phone subscribers who listen to the radio station to bid for various products and buy them for just a few shillings. "We have switched on this concept, it's now the person who has the lowest unique bid who wins," says Symon Ndirangu, the chief executive officer of Information Convergence Technologies, the partnering firm. While traditional auctions aim for the highest bid, a reverse auction is the very opposite. The intention of the bidder is to keep the offered amount as low as possible in order to win. At the same time, they must submit a unique offer unmatched by any other bidder. Ndirangu says if there are several participants with the same offer, the bid would fail despite its low worth, since it is not unique. In the first session, the winner with the lowest bid of Sh2.90 walked away with an item worth Sh76,000. (Source: Business Daily)
People* The Association of Telecoms companies of Nigeria ATCON has re-elected new officers to run its affairs for the next one year. Dr. Emmanuel E. Ekuwem, the President of the Association was unanimously re-elected as national president of ATCON. Events* THIRD AFRICAN BANKING TECHNOLOGY CONFERENCE 6-7 May 2008, Lagos, Nigeria The event is being hosted by AITEC Africa and will focus on "Competing in a Borderless World". This conference represents an opportunity for financial sector to assess latest technologies, both local and international, that will help increase productivity and profitability and improve clients' service. For further information visit http://www.aitecafrica.com/ * VoIP WORLD AFRICA 12-15 May 2008, Johannesburg, South Africa The world of VoIP is rapidly changing - costs are coming down; more applications are coming into play and new forms of revenue generation are being exploited. For further information visit the website
* ITU TELECOM AFRICA 2008 12 - 15 May, Cairo, Egypt, Cairo International Convention and Exhibition Centre (CICC) Comprising a high-calibre Exhibition, a Forum and a whole lot more, ITU TELECOM AFRICA 2008 will provide a major networking platform for Africa's top ICT names to come together to focus on the core issues relating to ICT expansion across the region. For further information visit http://www.itu.int/AFRICA2008/?050707 * ITU REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT FORUM 2008 "Bridging the ICT standardization gap in developing countries" for the African Region 26-28 May 2008, Accra, Ghana The Forums are intended for executives from National Regulatory Bodies, Telecommunication Operators and Service Providers in the regions who need to be kept abreast of the latest development in telecommunications and who need to be familiar with the future challenges ITU is facing and, therefore, be able to draw up strategies to achieve greater participation in ITU activities, in particular ITU Study Group activities. For further information visit http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/tech/indexDevelopmentForum.html * TELECOMS FRAUD AFRICA 2008 26-29 May 2008, Cape Town, South Africa IIR's Telecoms Fraud Africa conference 2008 brings you case studies, networking, advice and analysis from expects in detecting and managing telecoms fraud. With special attention to roaming frauds and internal frauds, operational issues and the impact of new technologies. For more information please visit, http://www.iir-events.com/IIR-Conf/page.aspx?id=11306 * E-LEARNING AFRICA 29-30 May 2008, Accra, Ghana eLearning Africa 2008 is a conference organised by ICWE GmbH and Hoffmann & Reif that focuses on ICT for development, education and training in Africa. The event establishes and links a Pan-African network of decision makers from governments and administrations with universities, schools, governmental and private training providers, industry, and important partners in development cooperation. For further visit www.eLearning-Africa.com * FORUM ON TELECOMMUNICATIONS/ICT PARTNERSHIP IN AFRICA 4-6 June 2008, Dakar, Senegal After consultation with the Steering Committee of the African Telecommunications Regulators' Network, it proved more efficient to combine the Public and Private Sector Partnership Forums (PPPF) and the Forum on Telecommunication Regulation in Africa (FTRA) into a single forum referred to as the Forum on Telecom/ICT Regulation and Partnership in Africa (FTRA), which will be held for three days. For further information visit http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/AFR * SEMINAR ON E-GOVERNMENT FOR DEVELOPMENT: STRATEGIES AND POLICIES 13-27 June 2008, Washington DC, USA This intensive face-to-face seminar includes lectures, panel discussions, and interactive workshops presented by leading e-Government experts from USAID, USTTI Board member corporations, private sector firms, universities, NGOs, and multinational organizations. For additional information about the content of the course, how to apply, as well as funding, visit the USTTI website at http://ustti.org * WEST CENTRA AFRICA COM 18-19 June, Abuja, Nigeria Reflecting the region's existing economic and cultural ties, this event will bring together the Western and Central regions of Africa. With over 20 countries represented, West & Central Africa Com will give all participants an opportunity to create and develop partnerships with over 100 operators and service providers in the region. For further information visit http://www.comworldseries.com/newt/l/gsm/events/westafrica * FRAUD PREVENTION AND REVENUE ASSURANCE MEA 1-2 July 2008,Dubai UAE ViB events’ Fraud Prevention and Revenue Assurance MENA will bring together telecoms operators and industry experts to discuss the critical issues, which are faced by revenue assurance and fraud personnel today. For further information visit website
* UNLOCKING THE POTENTIAL OF MOBILE TECHNOLOGY FOR SOCIAL IMPAC August 2008, Johannesburg, South Africa he fourth annual SANGONeT “ICTs for Civil Society” conference and exhibition will be held in August 2008 in Johannesburg. This year’s event will be co-hosted with MobileActive.org and branded as “MobileActive08”. For further information visit www.sangonet.org.za * THE AFRICAN NETWORK (TAN) CONFERENCE 16th August 2008, Accra, Ghana The theme for TANCon Ghana 2008 is “Next Frontier in Business: Propelling Africa to New Heights”, to reflect the growing number of African entrepreneurs in business today, and to showcase to the world Africa's limitless intellectual and economic capital. This year’s attendees will include seasoned, as well as first-time entrepreneurs, business leaders, public policy leaders, venture capitalists and investment bankers interested in learning first-hand how to successfully invest in technology and in Africa. The topics that would be covered at this year’s conference will include Social Entrepreneurship, Women in African Business, Raising Capital, Entrepreneurship in Informal Sector, Infrastructure Development and Creative Partnership Strategies. Attendees will network with the big wigs in entrepreneurship, business, government policy makers and politicians. For further information visit http://www.theafricannetwork.org/tancon/africa/ * CAPACITY AFRICA 2008 14-15 Oct 2008, Cape Town, South Africa This unique event features a business-driven agenda that will address the latest market developments and opportunities and equip delegates with strategic information to enable them to grow their businesses. Dedicated networking opportunities throughout the programme will provide you with the optimum opportunity to build profitable partnerships and execute business deals. For additional information visit http://www.capacitymedia.com/conferences-events.asp Jobs and Opportunities* Call for Mentors – South Africa CITI is looking for mentors for their Mentorship Programme. If you’d like to volunteer as a mentor, please send the following information to Tamzin Martin tamzin@citi.org.za : 1. Your CV 2. Your business website address 3. Motivation letter describing why you are a suitable mentor. Please see the Call for Interest which explains more about the Mentorship Programme at http://www.citi.org.za/grow/the-2008-mentorship-project Contracts* Telkom Kenya and Ericsson - Kenya Telkom Kenya gave a strong signal of its intentions to give Kenyans another mobile telephone service when it signed a Sh8.9 billion (93 million Euros) deal with Swedish telecommunications company, Ericsson. Under the deal, which includes equipment and services under a Build Operate Transfer (BOT) agreement, Ericsson will immediately commence the roll out of all core GSM network components. * LTT and Alcatel-Lucent - Libya Libya Telecom and Technology (LTT) has announced that it will deploy commercial WiMAX services, following the signing of a deal with Alcatel-Lucent. Alcatel-Lucent will provide a complete WiMAX infrastructure to LTT, the national ISP of Libya, to enable the operator to bring a range of services to business and residential customers, initially in urban areas of the country. The service is due for an initial commercial launch by September, and will include voice over IP and high-speed Internet access for fixed and mobile services, and to enhance the existing fixed broadband capabilities.
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