Issue no 475 9th October 2009
top story
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Almost unnoticed African universities have come together to sort out their bandwidth problems in the new era of fibre. In April 2010, European NREN Dante will start to implement with eastern Africa’s UbuntuNet Alliance, a continental network to link up African universities with plentiful bandwidth to their colleagues across the globe. On 1 November West and Central Africa will set up its own network organisation to join the process. African universities currently spend an estimated US$1.4 million and are destined to become important players in network development.
15 million euros from the European Commission will go via European National Research Network (NREN) Dante to buy connectivity for African universities with a start date for implementation of April 2010. A 25% contribution will either come from the African Union or national Governments. According to UbuntuNet Alliance’s Tusu Tusubira:”Dante will buy the cross-border connectivity and UbuntuNet may get to operate it. UbuntuNet wants to be part of the implementation and to develop the opportunity.”
In advance of this happening, National Research Networks (NRENs) have been buying their own capacity in considerable quantity at low prices that acknowledge universities are a different type of customer. According to Tusubira:”NRENs are getting offers of 20-25% off commercial prices and the providers can see the benefits.” TERNET in Tanzania is being offered an STM4 at a good price and the Rwandan Government has bought an STM4 for 1 year from Seacom, an STM1 of which will go to RwEdNet. Tusubira estimates that the US$1.4 million currently spent by the universities will eventually buy 60 Gbps duplex and this up from around 800 mbps semi-duplex.
South African NREN TENET got the ball rolling by buying an STM64 from Seacom, which is just short of 10 Gbps. Price? US$20 million up-front plus a 3% operation and maintenance charge for a protected circuit. As an independent cable provider Seacom understood the importance of the university market as an “anchor tenant” early whereas some of the other telco-initiated cable providers were keener on universities buying individually at higher prices. As Dunacan Martin, CEO of TENET tells it:”Seacom has been very supportive.”
By the end of year, the South African research and education backbone SANRen will connected and the full bandwidth can be delivered to the member universities. Currently universities are receiving less than 0.5 Gbps. But Martin made the point that at the end of this September TENET gave up using SAT3:”The price dropped by 90% for layer 2 to London.”
As interestingly, TENET is buying and lighting a dark fibre route of 160 kms from the landing station to Durban provided by Dark Fibre Africa. The latter gets together three customers to pay for building a dark fibre route. Again the cost savings are immense, according to Martin:”Including the equipment to light the route it will cost us R13 million and that is a small fraction of what an incumbent was going to charge us for a 10 Gb circuit. Also with dark fibre, the capacity can be upgraded.”
However all is not plain sailing as the capacity will have to cross borders to supply universities in neighbouring countries. The problem as Martin has discovered is as follows:”Cross border connectivity prices are controlled by unpublished agreements between incumbent operators on either side of the border. One of the negotiating partners, Telkom, said it would drop its prices to accommodate us but the other country’s telco would not agree”.
But for other customers, telcos in this situation hold prices high on both ends. In these circumstances, it is hard to see why power utilities, who have cross border fibre capacity in Southern Africa, are not licensed to provide a competitive cross-border offer. However, UbuntuNet Alliance’s CEO Tusu Tusubira is anticipating fewer problems with this cross-berder issue in the more liberalised East African region.
At present, national NRENs are buying capacity for themselves and there is an issue as to whether UbuntuNet Alliance will buy capacity and do the regional link-ups or whether national NRENs will do it for themselves. But as CEO Tusubira observed:”There is now trust between different groups and they are coming forward with their problems. We’re working as a real network.”
On the West and Central side of the continent, the Co-ordinator of Research and Education Networking of the Association of African Universities, Boubakar Barry has been the moving force behind getting an UbuntuNet Alliance-like structure together that will be launched on 1 November.
Barry emphasises the unique nature of universities as customers:”Providers should not consider the Higher Education and Research institutions as normal customers. They are critical for the development of Africa. It’s now very important for them to be able to part of the game with this type of infrastructure for global academic collaborations.”
Universities need to be licensed to transmit traffic both nationally and internationally:”The same rules cannot apply to Higher Education and Research Institutions that apply to other operators. It’s a public good. If you train and educate people, it benefits the private sector as they need highly trained engineers. Networked universities will provide them.”
Barry makes the point that the Higher Education and Research Institutions have themselves to understand their own importance and budget for this work on an annual basis:”Funding can’t simply be provided to address a particular problem. It has to be budgeted for annually. If it breaks down, the money has to be there to fix it otherwise we won’t benefit from all this bandwidth.”
telecoms
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The Mozambique government will finally launch an international tender for a third mobile phone licence in December, after delays amidst complaints from the two existing mobile wireless operators, a government official said.
A third operator was due to be licensed in Mozambique by June this year, but the awarding of the license was delayed amidst opposition from Mcel, a state owned company and South Africa's Vodacom, which is owned by Vodafone.
The tender was put on hold in April, while the Mozambique National Institute for Telecommunication (INCM) had renewed negotiations with other parties in the country's telecom industry. "We had last minute issues to deal with local operators, mCel and Vodacom. We are discussing technical and financial issues and the launch of the tender has been shelved for a while, but it will go ahead," INCM spokesperson told Reuters in April.
Transport and Communications Minister Paulo Zucula said on Tuesday a market study had been concluded and the government is currently preparing a bidding document. "Within a month or two, the tender will come out, what I mean is the tender will be launched by December," he told Reuters in an interview.
"First we had to do market study in the whole country to find out if there is room or not, we had to sit and discuss with other stakeholder and operators, all this has been concluded and the market is there," Zucula said.
Vodacom Mozambique has about 1.3 million subscribers, after paying about $15 million for a licence to enter the market six years ago while Mcel, which was established in 1997, says it has 3.5 million clients."Right now we are preparing the bidding documents, how long will it take for the new operator to start is up to the winning bidder," Zucula said.
Reuters
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Director General of the Bureau for Public Enterprises (BPE) Dr. Christopher Anayanwu said at the weekend in Abuja that despite the ailing nature of the Nigeria Telecommunication Limited (Nitel) there exists a possibility of another GSM company emerging from the sale.
Anyanwu who disclosed this during an interactive session with newsmen further explained that NITEL currently has a CDMA network that can fetch between two to three billion US Dollars if auctioned by the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC). This he said explained would further expand the space, create more competition, open the market more and crash the tariffs
Saud Anyanwu, "There is a CDMA network that covers the whole country. It has its own frequency intact. The license alone can be sold by NCC and that can yield about $2 or $3 million, but this is a license with an equipment on the ground.
"So, any company can acquire that and run a mobile network. In any case we want to create more competition, open the market more and get lower tariffs because all of us use mobile phones and we know the problems with the way billings and everything and there is some sort of monopoly and we are helpless."
The DG also provided update on the current efforts of the new board of NITEL to find a buyer for the company. He said so far the privatization process was on course and working as scheduled. He disclosed that so far it has gotten expressions of interest from 14 companies and still counting.
He described most of the offers as coming from very serious players in the telecommunication sector including Glo, MTN, Etisalat and some other serious foreign operators.
Commenting on the 60-day timeline given the board by the Federal Government to dispose of Nitel, Anyanwu said there was nothing sacrosanct about the deadline and that the board was working in concert with Government , noting that if the need arose for a shift in the deadline action, it could be done.
The DG further disclosed that one of the efforts the board is putting in place is to get most of the Nitel facilities functional in order to attract higher offer from the would-be buyers."Presently we are about to do due diligence where they will all come and see the assets of Nitel. We must one way or another get the assets functioning i.e. power them up nationwide so that they will see that they are not buying a carcass but that they are investing in an on-going business”.
"So, we are seeking approval to get some people and get some funds to test-run the entire structure and see that it is working so that the investor will know that he is investing into something that is working," Anyanwu said.
This Day
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In 2009 Angolan company Multitel invested US$10 million in improving its telecommunications services, particularly in providing broadband, the company’s managing director, António Geirinhas said Wednesday in Luanda.
Speaking to Angolan news agency Angop on the sidelines of the launch of the company's new logo, Geirinhas said that Multitel had made a number of investments over the last three years that had allowed it to grow and reach a notable position on the Angolan market, focusing on new technologies.
He said that the company was working so that, in the short term, it could serve the whole of Angola more efficiently, as well as expanding its network of customers to segmented areas and personalised services.
Multitel-Serviços de Telecomunicações is an Angolan company that has been present on the market since 1999, and is licensed for a concession contract for a communications service for public use by the national Communications Institute (Inacom) and its main shareholders are Angola Telecom, Portugal Telecom and Banco de Fomento e Indústria (BFI).
macauhub
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South Africa-based Econet Wireless is disputing Gulf carrier Zain's ownership of one of its most important operations, a long running legal challenge that has almost no chance of success. However Econet is seizing the opportunity to have another go at trying to put its case.
Econet said on Wednesday it disputed the purchase in 2006 by Celtel, now called Zain, of a majority stake in a group called Vee Networks Limited, now Zain Nigeria. Econet -- which has operations in nine countries in Africa, Europe and the East Asia Pacific Rim -- said in a statement it was pursuing arbitration proceedings because it believed it had been denied its right of first refusal over the stake.
It has now appealed to legal authorities including an international tribunal operating under the auspices of the United Nations for the transaction to be unwound. The South African group was a founding shareholder of Vee Networks and claimed that its right of first refusal over the stake was breached in 2006, when its Nigerian partners sold their shares to Zain.
Econet said that as part of the proceedings it had applied for interim measures to prevent Zain from selling, transferring, disposing of, dealing with or otherwise encumbering the disputed stake until the matter was resolved. Econet said Celtel had provided "certain undertakings to preserve the status quo".
However, Zain's Chief Executive Officer Saad al Barrak told reporters on Monday evening that he had not signed anything. "This has no basis whatsoever... This is a fantasy," he said, without commenting further on the case.
Reuters
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- The negotiations for the sale of Zain Group's assets in Africa are frozen, says the Chief Executive Officer of Zain, Kuwait's largest public company. This news came during a media forum that hosted Zain's CEO Dr Saad Al-Barrak as a guest speaker. Responding to a question related to the sale of Zain's stake owned by Kharafi Group, Dr Saad Al-Barrak said, "It is the wish of a group of shareholders who received an offer and they accepted it... so they are free to act." News reports last month quoted officials from Kharafi Group and others as having agreed to sell 46 percent stake of Zain to an international consortium.
- The workers of Zambia’s telco incumbent Zamtel want to be paid separation packages before the sale of 75 percent shares to a strategic equity partner. Unionised workers are demanding that the company pays them separation packages before being engaged on new contracts of employment.
- The number of mobile telecommunications subscribers in Mozambique totalled 4.4 million at the end of 2008, according to a report from the Mozambican Ministry for Transport and Communications. According to the document, cited by Mozambican newspaper Notícias, in 2004 there were 610,000 mobile telephone subscribers.
internet
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The World Bank has announced a 10-year US$215 million fund to support the countries of the Central African region in developing their high-speed telecommunications backbone infrastructure to increase the availability of high-speed Internet and reduce end-user prices.
Three countries - Cameroon, Chad and Central African Republic (CAR) - are participating in the initial US$26.2 million phase of the Program. A further eight countries are also eligible to participate in the Program - Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Niger, Nigeria, São Tomé and Principe, and Sudan.
The Central African Backbone (CAB) Program is being supported through a partnership between the World Bank Group and the African Development Bank (AfDB). The program also aims to leverage an additional US$98 million from the private sector.
The CAB Program brings much needed connectivity to Central Africa. Until now, people in Central Africa have the lowest quality and highest cost Internet and telephone services in Africa. The population pays up to two times more in monthly Internet rates than people living in other African countries, and up to three times more than those living in other parts of the world. "The CAB Program is very important for the countries involved and lies at the heart of their development strategies. It will assist countries to strengthen their enabling environment, create competition and, ultimately increase access and lower the costs for end users," said Mary Barton-Dock, World Bank Country Director for Cameroon, Chad and Central African Republic.
Cellular News
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Even though Ghana is the first country in West Africa to launch the Internet in 1993, the country ranks 28, out of 56 countries on the continent when it comes to Internet penetration, an official of MTN Ghana has said according to a report by the GNA. Ghana was also among the first countries in Africa to introduce ADSL broadband services.
Ms Efua Falconer, Acting Senior Manager, Corporate Communications of Scancom Limited (MTN Ghana), told the GNA that there were less than 800,000 Internet users in the country. This figure however, just like the number of Ghanaians using mobile phones, conflicts with another figure on how many Ghanaians have access to the Internet – a 2008 data from the National Communications Authority (NCA) puts the number of Ghanaians with access to the Internet at 1.5 million.
Indeed, Internet penetration in Ghana has not been encouraging and one of the factors attributed to the slow growth is cost. Recently Internet service providers in Ghana called on the government to reduce or completely eliminate taxes incurred by broadband suppliers to make the service available and affordable. The cost of setting up and running an ISP business is also high.
They argued that by reducing the cost element of the service facility, the country will be on course to achieving 50 per cent broadband penetration by 2015 since the service will become cheap and affordable. Eric Akumiah, Secretary of the Internet Society, Ghana told the media in 2008 that Internet usage in Ghana was a mere 2.7 per cent as compared to 5.3 per cent in Africa.
GNA
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Egyptians critical of their government are using new media and the Internet to expose its improprieties and press for social change. Twitter users in Egypt have provided minute-by-minute coverage of labour strikes, while Facebook groups are rallying opposition against the ruling party and its policies. But perhaps the most striking example of new media activism are the dozens of videos of police brutality - many filmed using mobile phone cameras - that have been uploaded to blogs and YouTube.
"The Internet has created a new type of activism," says blogger Sherif Abdel Aziz. "It took the political voice from activists and gave it to the average citizen." Internet use is growing rapidly in Egypt as connection costs fall. More than 12 million Egyptians, about 15 percent of the population, are logging on regularly. And in doing so, they are being exposed to a flood of news and views outside the sphere of the state-dominated press.
At the same time, says rights lawyer Ahmed Seif, executive director of the Hisham Mubarak Law Centre, blogs, online forums and social networking sites are allowing many opposition voices to be heard for the first time.
"Previously, it was very difficult to have dissenting views published in Egypt," Seif told IPS. "Now it is the decision of every person to publish, and nobody needs to wait for an editor to give them the green light - it's all instantaneous. As a result, during the last five years we've seen more (critical) material published than ever before."
A report released last year by the government-run Information and Decision Support Centre (IDSC) put the number of bloggers in Egypt at 160,000. Social networking site Facebook claims to have over 800,000 members in Egypt, while Twitter use among Arabs jumped more than 260 percent last quarter.
Activists in particular have been quick to adopt these Internet-based applications, and often employ multiple platforms. "I'm a big Twitter fan because it's a very fast medium to disseminate information," says Hossam El-Hamalawy, a journalist and labour activist. "If I receive breaking news, I usually Twitter it. And then when I have the time, I'll sit down and write a proper post for my blog and upload photos to my Flikr group."
Noha Atef, founder of the human rights blog Torture in Egypt, says the speed and scale of the Internet make it an effective tool for activism and citizen journalism.
"It has become impossible for the government to suppress our reports," she says. "With Twitter, for instance, you can send a message from your mobile phone in seconds, and they cannot stop it."
In fact, the government could stop it, but appears to have recognised that if it blocks certain websites, activists will quickly migrate to other sites. At the same time, engaging in this cat and mouse game would risk aggravating the millions of Egyptians who are not using these sites for political purposes.
"The Egyptian government has no intention of imposing restrictions on the political use of the Internet or blocking sites simply because it is aware that to do so would be futile," says Adel Abdel Sadek, head of Internet and IT Studies at Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies. "Besides, many of these same sites can also be used to support the government's position."
Political analysts point to the role that Facebook, Twitter and YouTube played in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, with campaigns employing new media to court younger voters. They argue that in a country like Egypt, where over half the population is under 25, the ruling party must take a similar approach or risk alienating the younger segment of society.
The President's son and presumed successor, Gamal Mubarak, recently used Facebook to engage the Egyptian public in an open discussion. His unofficial fan club on the social network has 1,300 members, but is overshadowed by dozens of anti-government groups. The largest of these, the 6th of April Youth Movement, claims over 70,000 members.
Egyptian authorities have permitted the Internet to operate relatively free of censorship, but there are other informal methods that establish red lines. State security officials monitor Internet usage, and take note of those whose online writings are critical of the regime or its values.
In 2007, blogger Kareem Amer was sentenced to four years in prison for insulting Islam and the President on his blog. Dozens of other bloggers have been threatened, arrested, and in some cases, tortured.
Karim El-Beheiry, a prominent blogger and labour activist, says the sheer number of Egyptians criticising the government online makes it impractical to arrest all of them. Instead, the state targets dissidents who attempt to transform their virtual activism into a physical movement. "It's not dangerous to criticise the government online," he says. "It's dangerous to write, then go down into the street (to join a demonstration). That's when they arrest you."
IPS
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- After years of haggling with the SABC and etv to get their satirical puppet show ZNews aired, cartoonist Zapiro and producer Thierry Cassuto have ditched traditional networks in favour of the web. This week Zapiro - real name Jonathan Shapiro - and Cassuto will launch ZA News which will be shown via the web and be available for download on cellphones.
- The power of forests to deliver climate change solutions was displayed in a new virtual tour of Madagascar launched today by Google Earth in partnership with Conservation International (CI). Mixing satellite images with photos and videos, the tour shows initiatives to protect tropical forests and calls on citizens and governments to support these types of projects at the UN climate change talks in Copenhagen in December. (http://www.conservation.org/explore/map/pages/map.aspx)
- M-net has launched the African film Library, the largest electronic collection of African films ever. The platform was launched at the end of last week. At this moment without signing up you can watch trailers of some of the greatest African films from different decades by some of the most respected pan African film makers.
http://www.africanfilmlibrary.com/
- The extraordinary meeting of permanent Arab e-information commission opened at the Arab League building to consider the creation of an Arab website with a view to making Arab issues known to international public opinion. The technical department head at the Arab Information Ministers Council, Yasser Abdelmounaim, underlined that the meeting "comes as part of a previous decision taken by the council, which assigned the commission to carry out a study on the creation of the Arab website.
computing
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Amazon's Kindle will be available to South Africans from the middle of this month. While cracked versions of the famed e-book reader have been used in the country, the official version was previously only usable in the US. However, this morning, the company announced it has released an international version that will be available to 100 countries around the world, including SA.
According to Amazon, the Kindle can be pre-ordered from the Amazon.com Web site for just over R2 000 ($279 at today's exchange rate, and without shipping and import duties) and shipping will begin on 19 October.
“We have millions of customers in countries all over the world who read English-language books. Kindle enables these customers to think of a book and download it wirelessly in less than 60 seconds,” says Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos.
Kindle uses the same 3G wireless technology as cellphones, and the company Web site shows that SA is almost entirely covered for book downloads. While most sites will make use of GPRS or Edge, most of the major cities will use 3G speeds for download.
South Africans will have access to New York Times Best Sellers and New Releases from $11.99 (R86.65), and other books will be available from $5.99 (R43.29). Some of the experimental features will not be available to South African readers, including the basic Web browser and the blogs service.
Analysts have pondered the likelihood of Amazon developing the Kindle into a tablet-like device for tasks like e-mailing, texting and surfing the Web, thus competing with devices reportedly being developed by Apple.
But Bezos reiterated his intention to optimise the reading experience, saying the company rejects compromise, whether it be a touchscreen that affects legibility or computer displays that eat up too much power.
At the same time, Amazon is working on making Kindle digital books available on more devices. Besides the Kindle, those books can now be accessed on the iPhone or iPod Touch.
"We want you to read your Kindle books on laptops and smartphones, anything with an installed base," Bezos said. He said he was not "in principle" against making the works available on rival devices like Sony's, but was focused on platforms with "large installed bases".
E-readers are expected by some to be the hottest gadget this holiday season, and Bezos said he had "a lot of confidence" that it would be a "great holiday quarter for Kindle". Bezos said that for every 100 customers who buy a book, 48 buy it as an e-book, up from 35 five months ago.
ITWeb
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Microsoft Corp. has announced that it will soon start a strong media campaign against pirated computer software programs.
Andrew Waititu, licensing and compliance manager for East Africa, on told journalists that his company has made a market assessment in Ethiopia. “Based on the assessment we found out that 85-90 percent of the software programs in the local market are pirated,” Waititu said.
According to Waititu, Ethiopian government offices, the largest computer buyers, are suffering from the impacts of pirated software. “We need to create awareness among the public on the negative impacts of pirated software. People may think that they would save money by purchasing pirated software for cheap prices. However, the repercussion will cost the consumer more,” he said.
The Reporter
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IDC research shows that shipments of hardcopy peripherals to Egypt continued to record sharp year-on-year declines in volume during the second quarter of 2009. This marks the third consecutive quarter of decline in the Egyptian market since the onset of the global financial crisis.
Shipments of hardcopy peripherals fell to 62,813 units worth $23.18 million in Q2 2009, representing a 37.2% year-on-year decline in volume and a 44.9% slump in value. Despite having very distinct characteristics, Egypt's hardcopy peripherals market came under the same pressures faced by markets throughout the region as the global financial crisis weighed down on the country's economy, leading to a considerable slowdown in demand from the corporate and consumer segments.
Government institutions and the banking sector in Egypt are key buyers of mid-range to high end printing peripherals, such machines account for a considerable portion of market value. The drop in the number and size of government and corporate tenders was a key factor behind the slowdown in shipments and the drastic decline in market value.
Research shows that various sectors of Egypt's economy suffered as a result of the financial crunch. Exports declined year-on-year, whilst tourism and Suez Canal receipts also receded, as did foreign direct investment into the country. These factors directly and negatively impacted government and corporate budgets, and also damaged business confidence in the country. "Procurement decisions and replacement cycles were delayed, and adoption criteria shifted to lower specifications, to suit cost control measures," says Rasheed Janabi, Senior Analyst with the Imaging and Hardcopy Devices Group at IDC Middle EastIDC Middle East, Africa, and Turkey.
Shipments of laser peripherals to Egypt in Q2 2009 declined 32.1% year-on-year to just under 28,800 units, while the value of those shipments fell 45.0% to $19.82 million. "The factors leading to this decline relate to the cuts in government and corporate procurement budgets. This was compounded by measures undertaken by the channel to weather the financial crisis, such as lowering trade volumes and limiting stocking times and levels," says Rasheed Janabi. "Several vendors resorted to special measures to tackle the slump in demand, including channel restructuring, competitive pricing strategies, and a shift in product focus to lower speed segments."
Low consumer confidence also took its toll on demand for inkjet printers and multifunctional peripherals (MFPs) in Egypt, with shipments declining 40.8% in volume and 45.9% in value year-on-year in Q2 2009 to 32,914 units worth $2.67 million. The slowdown in consumer demand has been compounded by the challenges faced by the channel, resulting in weak inkjet shipments since the turn of the year.
IDC's hardcopy peripherals tracker fills the need for detailed and timely supply side information on Egypt's market for hardcopy peripherals (printers, MFPs, single-function copiers). The comprehensive database details the changes and trends in the increasingly competitive Egyptian market and includes powerful query filters and essential market intelligence that lets users generate actionable insights to plan short- and long-term strategies. It also provides detailed overviews of Egypt's HCP market and analyzes key products, trends, and vendor strategies, sorting data by vendor shipments and revenue, based on technology, price band, model, and speed.
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- Computer Warehouse Group (ExpertEdge) has announced that SAP has appointed it as an approved SAP E-Academy Centre in Nigeria. Jaco Van Zyl, the Manager , Education Business Solutions for SAP Africa said that he was delighted to be associated with CWG/ExpertEdge and the professionalism that they will bring to SAP training in the region.
- Rwanda Revenue Authority is set to launch the Revenue Authorities Digital Data Exchange (RADDEx). RADDEx is a computer system that was designed to facilitate exchange of Customs data between two or more countries in the East African Community (EAC).It is a common interface between Customs IT systems that was jointly developed by revenue bodies of Rwanda, Kenya and Uganda in partnership with USAID/ECA.
- The Rwanda Development Board / Information Technology (RDB/IT) officially launched ICT buses in a bid to bridge the digital divide country-wide. The buses are mobile internet cafes each equipped with 22 computers with high speed internet to enable the target group access business opportunities and general information.
money
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Safaricom’s Sh12 billion bond has open following the approval from financial regulators. It announced that it will be seeking an initial Sh5 billion at a price to be announced later. The process ends an eleven-month hunt for funding by the mobile firm, which initially indicated that it was searching for cash to fuel its expansion plans in December last year.
The mobile firm’s capital expenditure is expected to remain relatively high over the next few years, which is consistent with the strategy of expanding the GSM coverage footprint in rural areas as it increases capacity levels in key urban areas. “This money will mostly be used to facilitate the expansion of our emerging data business,” said Peter Arina, Safaricom chief commercial officer, in a previous interview.
Medium term notes typically range in maturity from one to 10 years and give investors an idea of what their maturity will be when they compare its price to that of other fixed-income securities. Companies typically turn to these kind of facilities so they can access constant cash flows from the debt issuance. These notes also allow a company to tailor its debt issuance to meet its immediate financing needs.
Safaricom CEO Michael Joseph has indicated that his firm was keen to use at least Sh2 billion on infrastructure development and capital expenditure immediately. It is not the first time that telecoms firms have turned to the markets to secure funds to fuel their capital expenditure. This will be Safaricom’s second public bond issuance since 2001 when it went to market to source Sh4 billion. At the time, the bond was 100 per cent over-subscribed, and was the largest corporate deal of its kind in either the capital or bond markets. In 2005, Safaricom’s competitor Zain successfully issued a five-year bond for Sh4.5 billion which, was also oversubscribed by 100 per cent.
The successful completion of this bond offering will bring Safaricom’s total funding from the Kenyan debt markets to Sh20 billion. The latest deal also represents the Safaricom’s third capital markets offering, establishing the company as an active participant in the domestic market.
Business Daily
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Datacentrix last week released its interim results for the six months ended 31 August 2009, saying its performance was knocked by unrealised government deals. Chairman, Gary Morolo says the company experienced growth in all areas of its business, except for the public sector division.
He says the change in administration is to blame for the division's poor performance. The new administration has brought in a level of complexity that has been a challenge for the business during the period, he adds, with the change in leadership resulting in many of the tendered projects being placed under review, or being put on the shelf.
Investors at the company's presentation last week were not impressed with its performance and questioned why similar businesses, like GijimaAST, managed to maintain government contracts, while Datacentrix is battling to keep its tenders alive. For GijimaAST, the public sector business contributed 44% of its R3 billion revenue for the half year.
Datacentrix CEO Ahmed Mohamed says the public sector troubles are driven by external factors and, while the company has managed to diminish its reliance on government contracts for growth, it still represents a significant 20% to 25% of the business.
Mohamed says most of the contracts still have a hope of being revived and some deals with government are just under review. He says the new administration is putting new processes in place and there are new, possibly higher earning tenders on the horizon. Despite the hammering the company has received at the hands of government, it plans to continue dealing with the public sector and indeed grow its footprint in the area.
Morolo says it sees government spend picking up again over the next six months, with the coming of the World Cup. The company pointed to a study conducted by the IDC, which shows a possible growth in government procurement.
According to Morolo, there is an expected upswing in government infrastructure investment, which the company hopes to exploit over the half year leading to its final results. While the company will not expand on the opportunities available to it, it says it is well positioned to take on business related to the World Cup and other government infrastructure prospects. In anticipation of the increased investment, and to take the division onto a more focussed route, the company has appointed Kenny Nkosi to head up its public sector unit.
ITWeb
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The Telecommunication sector's contribution to Ghana's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) currently estimated at almost 10 per cent more than tripled from 1.8 per cent to 6 per cent between 2000 and 2005, said Ms Efua Falconer, Acting Senior Manager, Corporate Communications of MTN Ghana.
Falconer who was speaking on the topic "The Role of Telecommunications in the Development of Ghana's Economy- Opportunities, Challenges and Technology- MTN Ghana's Perspective" at a forum with a cross section of the media on Thursday in Sunyani, said total tax revenue for the country in 2008 amounted to GH¢4,299.5 billion of which MTN's contribution was GH¢222.8 million or 5 per cent.
The forum aimed at ensuring sustainable engagement by the company with key partners and stakeholders as part of the drive to giving impetus to the social and economic development of the country. Falconer said MTN Ghana was providing an income to 120,000 Ghanaians through "its points of presence selling" (retailing) MTN products, whilst it was estimated that financially the company directly supported more than 500,000 Ghanaians.
She said the future growth and opportunity of the telecommunications industry depended on Data/Internet and Converged Services, saying the industry had therefore moved from "network centric" to "customer centric".
The sector had now departed from what network services could be offered to the customer, to how and what technologies were needed to provide the customer with his/her desired experience, she explained.
Falconer said MTN Ghana was therefore deploying Information Communication Technology (ICT) centres in rural communities, including Techimantia in the Tano South District of Brong-Ahafo, to encourage internet usage in the country.
GNA
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The Egyptian government will not allow Telecom Egypt to purchase two information technology units, up for sale by Orascom Telecom, preferring private investors as buyers, the communications minister said.
"We will not allow it because it (Telecom Egypt) will be too dominant in the market," Tarek Kamel told Reuters in an interview at a telecoms industry conference in Geneva. "It would exceed 90 percent of the capacity and I would be hesitant to allow that," Kamel said. Telecom Egypt has said it would be interested in buying Orascom Telecom's LINKDotNet operations.
Reuters
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- Zimbabwe mobile operator, Econet has reduced to 20 percent its stake in Afre Corporation after selling five percent in a drive to dispose of all non-telecommunication assets. The telco operator, through a vehicle Econet Global Holdings also recently sold its 10 percent stake in troubled Kingdom Meikles Limited. Econet board announced in March this year that it would sell its interests in non-core businesses.
- Maroc Telecom, Morocco's leading phone operator, has declared that it has been chosen the best Performing Ai40 Company award by the 2009 Africa Investor Index Series awards.
- Moroccan conglomerate ONA achieved, during the first half of 2009, a net result of 1.79 billion Dirham (216.396 million US dollar), that is a 97.1% rise compared to last year, said here on Thursday ONA managing director, Mouatassim Belghazi. The rise is due to the climb of the capital of Wana - ONA's telecoms arm - to 2.85 billion dirhams, through the acquisition by Zain Al Ajial consortium of a stake in Wana Corporate SA, the official told the press. The non-Moroccan part in Wana's capital reaches 31%, he said, adding that the group's consolidated turnover amounts to some 18.28 billion dirhams, a 2.6% rise.
Web and Mobile, Content and Services
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The Chief Justice, Benjamin Odoki, on Tuesday launched the Judiciary website during a function at Grand Imperial Hotel in Kampala. He said the website would enable the judiciary challenge corruption through providing access to judicial information as one of its major functions. He said it was a major step in the use of information and communications technology to improve justice delivery.
Odoki said the website also had the potential to assist the judiciary to communicate better with the outside world and to serve the nation more efficiently and effectively.
Justices David Kutosi Wangutusi, the head of the Judicial Studies Institute (JSI) and Edmund Ssempa Lugayizi, both of the High Court, were among the many judicial officers including the Chief Registrar, Flavia Anglin and many Government officers that attended the occasion.
Dr Fredrick Kitoogo, the Judiciary's principal information technology officer, demonstrated to the audience how the information would be accessed on the Website by the potential users and other stakeholders before the chief law lord launched it.
He said the website would be available to researchers, policy-makers and implementers. It would also help demystify the Judiciary and thus build public trust and enhance access to the court of judicature "It will also serve as an interactive electronic library where information documentation, reports and pamphlets will be uploaded and made available to whoever needs them in an effective and efficient manner," Odoki told his guest.
Justice Wangutusi, who is also the chairman of the technology committee, told the guests that the launch of the website is a big stride in creating a road map for ICT implementation in the Judiciary. He said that in line with the national ICT policy framework, the Judiciary developed an ICT policy in 2008 to guide the usage of ICT in the Judiciary. They are in the process of updating the ICT strategy for 2009-2013.
The website project was the fruits of the Judiciary's partnership with DANIDA, who rendered financial support to his team of experts in the ICT section.
New Vision
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Mobile phone company Nokia is expected to roll out its money transfer services in the East African region next year according to the firm's regional spokesperson. The global mobile phone giant recently unveiled Nokia Money which is similar to MTN Uganda's Mobile Money and Zain's Zap. The service is meant to extend affordable, accessible and user friendly money transfer services to billions of un-banked people around the world.
Ms Dorothy Ooko, Nokia communications manager, Eastern and Southern Africa, told Business Power in an interview last week, that the Nokia Money service will be rolled out gradually to selected markets including the East African region in 2010.
The entry of Nokia's service in East Africa could further tilt the scales in the money transfer industry that has already become very competitive. Traditional money transfer agents like Western Union and Moneygam will most likely be the biggest losers to Nokia's initiative as it will seek to mop up a share of their international market.
Ooko said the service will be extended to Uganda and Kenya, where the pioneering mobile money transfer services have been a huge success. "Here, we will come to compliment and not compete with the existing service providers," said Ms Ooko who was in Kampala to examine the company's corporate social responsibility projects. She added that unlike the current service providers Nokia Money will enable transactions to be done, by subscribers of any network in the world, and will not be limited by national borders like it is with local or regional players.
The Finland-based firm will roll out its service in a partnership with Obopay, a service provider for payment via mobile phones in which Nokia invested in earlier this year. Obopay operates s a mobile payment platform that facilitate users of international credit and debit cards like Visa and Master Card to utilize the system to pay money.
In markets like East and West Africa where mobile money services have already been launched, Nokia says it will work with telecoms to enable them cross international borders through its "Obopay payment service. Ms Ooko said; "Offering Nokia Money to and with operators will enable mobile operators to offer customers better services while not limiting and restricting the growth of the service in their network," She added that the service will also open up new income lines for the telecoms and diversity their retention options.
Nokia money is also is expected to quicken the rapid exchange of money around the world like it's happening in different countries and regions. The mobile phone giant with up to 1 billion customers around the world is seeking to tap into a market of at least 4 billion mobile phone users around the world with its money transfer service.
The Monitor
Telecoms, Rates, Offers and Coverage
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South Africa's Vodacom has launched a vehicle tracking service in cooperation with Tracker and Sierra Wireless. The inSIM embedded SIM component was designed and developed by Wavecom, now part of Sierra Wireless, and will be used by Tracker, a stolen vehicle recovery and fleet management company. Vodacom provides Tracker with its network services.
- A price cutting war is now under way between the Mozambican mobile phone company M-Cel, and its South African-owned rival, Vodacom. M-cel has announced a 20 per cent cut in the tariffs of all clients on contracts, taking effect as from 1 October - a clear response to the 10 per cent cut in post-paid calls announced by Vodacom on 23 September. M-cel boasts that the price cut means that it now offers the lowest tariffs for mobile phone contracts in the country.
- MTN Rwanda, the country’s largest cellco by subscribers, has invested over USD2 million in the deployment of infrastructure required for its ‘MTN Zone’ service, reports local daily The New Times, citing the company’s CEO, Khaled Mikkawi. MTN has been working with equipment vendor Ericsson on the deployment of MTN Zone, which offers mobile subscribers discounts on calls based on the amount of capacity available on the network at their current location.
- Nigerian CDMA operator Starcomms has launched a promotion allowing subscribers to call India, Hong Kong, the US, Canada, China and the UK for NGN10 (USD0.068) per minute.
More
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* Alcatel-Lucent announces that Amr El Leithy is joining the MEA management team and will be appointed MEA President on January 1, 2010, succeeding Vincenzo Nesci.
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MOBILE WEB AFRICA
13-14 October 2009, Johannesburg, South Africa
Coverage of one of the most important technological advances of the 21st century and the exceptionally interactive roundtable format promises to make Mobile Web Africa one of the leading events of 2009 in Africa.
Attend Mobile Web Africa and help understand how the mobile web and mobile applications can contribute to the evolution of the continent.
With capacity limited to just under 200, register your interest in attending this exclusive conference immediately. Join the unrivalled speaker faculty as well as a delegation with representation from the entire ecosystem.
http://www.mobilewebafrica.com/
AITEC GHANA 2009
22-24 October 2009, International Conference Centre, Accra
MMT 09 - Mobile Money Transfer
26-27 October2009, Dubai.
MMT 09 is a 'must attend' event for anyone who is serious about remittances. Over 350 mobile network operators, microfinance institutions, money transfer networks, banks and technology providers will converge at MMT 09 to discuss the best ways to make money from mobile money transfer. Nowhere else in the world will you find so many MMT project leaders all gathered in one place.
ComBIT AFRICA
2-4 November 2009, Lagoon Conference Centre, Victoria Island, Lagos
AITEC has been commissioned to organise this leading annual ICT expo hosted by the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON). This year’s theme is “Setting the Pace for Africa’s ICT Transformation”
OUTSOURCING & CONTACT CENTRES EAST AFRICA
11-12 November 2009, Laico Regency Hotel, Nairobi
Now in its fourth year, this is East Africa’s leading BPO conference, gathering international outsourcing companies and buyers of outsourced services with local service providers to explore partnerships and business opportunities.
CUSTOMER SERVICE & CONTACT CENTRE WEST AFRICA
24-25 November 2009, Oriental Hotel, Lagos
ONLINE EDUCA BERLIN 2009
2-4 December, Berlin, Germany
Innovate, Share, Succeed – is the theme of OEB 2009. This year’s agenda will be about your learning innovations, your expertise and the great ideas that will lead your organisation, company or school to success.
For the full programme visit the organiser’s website
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* Amy Mahan Research Fellowship Program to Assess the Impact of Public Access to ICTs
Up to 12 Research Fellowships will be awarded, each providing a grant of up to 22,000 € and specialized guidance to enable emerging scholars to carry out their own new and original study examining the impact of public access to information and communication technologies (ICT).
Emerging developing country researchers from Africa, the Middle East, the Asia Pacific region and Latin America and the Caribbean are invited to apply for a Fellowship. They may submit their application and conduct their research in English, French, Portuguese or Spanish. The deadline for applying is Midnight Eastern Standard Time, 31 December 2009.
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* Safaricom and Alvarion - Kenya
WiMAX vendor, Alvarion says that it has selected by Kenya's Safaricom for a three-year turnkey WiMAX project. The Safaricom WiMAX project will augment the Kenyan undersea fiber optic cable that now connects East Africa to international communications networks. Our new WiMAX broadband network will enable us to offer high quality broadband services to our customers throughout the country, connecting all of Kenya, and creating new opportunities for business growth for multiple segments," said Michael Joseph, CEO of Safaricom.
* Jamii Telecommunication and Veraz Networks - Kenya
Veraz Networks Inc said that Jamii Telecommunication Limited (JTL), a provider of communication solutions in Kenya and East Africa, has chosen Veraz's ControlSwitch platform to enable optimised routing and improved network management without having to rely on other providers in Africa.
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