Issue no 515 30th July 2010
top story
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The Internet is the basis of Africa’s second wave of investment after mobile. It’s much smaller but the potential is considerable. Almost everyone wants to see the Internet grow but there are significantly different strategies when it comes to making it happen. The private sector is seeking to find the magic services and applications that will generate both users and money. Governments and their donor supporters look to provide improved services and efficiencies in their processes. Russell Southwood looks at the contrasts between top down vs bottom up strategies for the African Internet.
Bottom up private sector strategies rely on creating products and services that people want and working out how to make money from them. M-money services like M-Pesa and the many subsequent copies tapped into a need and filled it. (As it happens, M-Pesa is one of those rare examples of a donor funding for a game-changing, mass market service.) The question now is how the private sector can encourage and widen Internet use so that all the many Gigabytes they have invested in will actually be used.
The top-down Government approach is to use what is generally donor money to create online versions of Government services that will make the life of citizens a great deal easier. Part of that is an emphasis on ensuring that all administrative districts are online. The hoped-for impact of all this online presence is an increase in the speed and efficiencies of Government processes. For example, this issue contains a story on computerising customer processes for importers and exporters.
In truth, the choice is not between bottom-up and top-down: it’s possible to do both things at once. But it’s helpful to compare the two approaches to see what the contrasts tell us about the likely success and limitations of each.
The bottom-up approach relies on people going online to do things that they want. When going online in Africa was like sucking a thick milkshake through a straw, this largely consisted of e-mail, finding dates and jobs and opportunities. But life is changing rapidly in some African countries.
According to Dennis Gikunda, Programme Manager, Google:” Using the Internet (in Kenya) is no longer about setting up an e-mail account. You either go to a social network or you use your website. Self-expression has become a form of entertainment where the audience is the medium.”
Facebook has really taken off because in many ways it’s the online equivalent of multiple mobile phone calls without having to answer all those phones. It has become the connecting, “soft” glue that has given new momentum to Internet use in Kenya. A recent survey of Pasha Centres (new version telecentres in remote locations) found that 33% of respondents were using Facebook.
Once Internet users get over a certain number, other people need to go online in order to join this growing community as networking effects kick in. The key demographic is 18-30 year olds and as this age group gets older, the online habits of youth will be more widely distributed in Africa’s next power generation. On the basis of a reliable national sample in Kenya, 5% use the Internet daily (out of 36 million). But this penetration of use is unevenly distributed. According to Daude Were, Africhange:”If you’re aiming content at business managers aged 30-50, Internet penetration is probably 90%. The same is probably true for journalists”. Another vector of this uneven development is Kenya Airways have a Facebook site and a Twitter account.
With greater use levels, advertising is beginning to become more commonplace on well-used websites. Ghana Web has 35 million page views per month (with 40% from Ghana) and its mobile site attracts 3-4 million views per month. Rob Bellaart claims with some justification that:”It’s an important medium in Ghana. It’s one of the few sites offering Ghanaian content that is consistently updated daily”. Its main competitors are Myjoyonline, Peace FM and Modern Ghana:”After that, there are lots of sites but not a whole lot of traffic.”
“We have arrangements with top ad selling networks who sell the space. We sell our own advertising to Ghanaian companies. The site is quite well known if a company is considering advertising on the Internet. We’re usually first on their hot list. We see advertising agencies allocating budgets, companies like Western Union, airlines, telcos and specialist ad networks for diaspora. The product allows small companies to reach Ghanaians in the diaspora. Budgets are still low. I used to advertise myself in the local media and the amount charged by newspapers is very high”.
Home in Kenya has recently re-launched its site, doubling traffic from 1.4 million hits in April 2010 to 2.9 million hits in June 2010. According to Alexa.com, it is Kenya’s third most used website. It offers Kenyan news headlines, weather updates, blogs and more than 1,000 properties for sale and rent, hotel and home let listings as well as features on health, beauty, restaurants, sports and lifestyle. According to Petra Somen, Portal Manager, AccessKenya Group:“You learn, you interact, you have fun, you find jobs and entertainment information and on goes the list.”
Old media has begun to feed new media. Ghetto Radio in Kenya which has a proportion of its listeners in the informal settlements has 11,100 Facebook fans. The station does not take phone calls but uses Facebook intensively to interact with its audiences. According to Were:” It gets comments from people in western Kenya who don’t listen to the show but pick up on the Facebook comments”. Nation TV in Kenya gets 5 million views on its You Tube channel: of course, you can discount for the diaspora share of those views but there’s still several million Kenyans using the service.
By contrast, although necessary, top-down Government initiatives seem more tentative and less immediate: it’s all more push than pull. There are very few cases of public sector initiatives yet driving Internet use in quite the same way as the things described above. The Kenya National Exams Council makes exam results available online and many of the some 650,000 students who take exams annually check their results online but this is not a service with daily users.
Policy-makers are fluent in mouthing e-this, e-that and e-the other but have not been notably successful in creating online services that might be used on a daily basis. A number of multinationals encourage this kind of rhetoric amongst their Government clients but seem to leave their business brain at the door when seeking to elaborate or implement these kinds of services. There have been few successes and almost no discussion of what went wrong with a view to doing it differently in the future. The confidential reports of failure circulate like samizdats but the public assessments are in main anodyne in the extreme.
However, it’s fair to say that the ability to pay utility bills online in some countries has significantly changed the lives of those who can do it. Donor funded projects have tended to be pilots and these have struggled to both understand what motivates users and to gain critical mass. By contrast, using Facebook does not seem to need capacity-building workshops for rural youth in Kenya.
Whereas ten years ago, computers in ministries were once described to me as “coat hangers”, their use in the more fast-lane African countries has moved out of the Ministries to regional offices and may yet make the move down to district level. But allowing civil servants access to the Internet and to communicate outside of rigidly, hierarchical management structures still seems too threatening. All too often it’s easier to communicate by post which takes weeks to arrive rather than through a more speedy e-mail: ossified civil service procedures make change hard to achieve.
But for many countries, if you visit different parts of Government, you sense that computers are still either marginal or the enthusiasm of particular individuals. The personal drive to use the Internet found amongst 18-30 year olds has little practical outlet in institutions run by “yesterday’s generation”: these people still have their secretaries open and print out their e-mails. The several Nigerian soft loan schemes for civil servants seem to provide the kind of incentive that might encourage a change: it’s individually driven and rewards changed behaviour.
An interesting top-down approach has been the US Government’s insistence that all visa applications are made online. This undoubtedly drives awareness and use however, not so long ago we carried out story about touts outside the US Embassy in Nigeria offering their services to help people through the process.
But whilst those African countries that have 60-80% literacy can probably largely rely on the market to ramp up Internet use, countries like Chad that have only 26% literacy are in a completely different situation. For understandable reasons, donors and Governments want to devise ways to deliver benefits to the largely rural poor.
And faced with low levels of literacy, computers in classrooms (like One Lap Top Per Child) would seem to be a good answer. The problem is that in the places where the rural poor live, there are only tiny numbers of educated people capable of making this a reality and precious few computer engineers when things breakdown or don’t work.
As an aside, I once spoke to an African responsible for implementing e-schools projects in a significant number of African countries and asked him whether he believed the Ministry of Education were capable of implementing these projects. After driving the issue around for a while, he laughed and said he did not. But donors feel the need to go through Ministries as they represent Governments and (some) Governments represent the people. Maybe there needs to be a recognition that Government needs a little competition in implementation and that new agencies with the right competences might offer that form of competition?
In terms of rural areas, it almost makes you feel that it would be wiser to focus on the relatively small, urban middle class in those countries before attempting the near-impossible in remote areas. Better information among the elite that is somewhat more widely distributed than usual might just light the blue touch-paper for more significant changes, including attracting international investment and growing a steadily widening of the circle of those who are literate.
Nothing solves everything but small changes drive larger changes: anecdotally, the need for certain kinds of simple texting seems to have had some impact on certain kinds of functional literacy. The challenge for those wanting to provide top-down services is to find the bottom-up private sector instinct for things that people actually want.
telecoms
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The Serbian government is offering a 40% stake in the state-owned telco to the highest bidder according to media reports. The government today holds 80% of Telekom while the balance is held by OTE (Hellenic Telecommunications Organisation), a Greek telecommunications company.
The decision to put Telekom Serbia, one of the most profitable Balkan companies on the market was announced in March. A press statement from LAPGreenN's Ugandan headquarters said the company's managing director, Engineer Abdulbaset Elazzabi, met with the Serbian Prime Minister, Mirko Cvetkovi to discuss LAPGreen's interest in buying a major stake in Telecom Serbia.
The meeting was a follow up to a meeting held earlier this year between Cvetkovi and Baghdadi Mahmudi, the Prime Minister of Libya. During the meeting, the Serbian Prime Minister welcomed LAPGreenN's participation in the public tender and assured Eng. Elazzabi that the Serbian Government was committed to a fair and transparent process.
Should LAPGreenN beat the other bidders to the deal, the purchase of Telekom Serbia would be the first of several international telecom acquisitions outside of Africa that LAPGreenN is currently reviewing."LAPGreenN believes Telekom Serbia would be a valuable addition to its existing holdings," the statement reads in part.
LAPGreenN will have to beat off competition from some of the world's telecom majors who include Deutsche Telecom, Telefonica of Spain, Turk Telecom and Egypt's Orascom who have all bid for the stake.
Germany's Deutsche Telecom, which already has a presence in neighbouring Croatia, Hungary, Macedonia and Montenegro - currently owns 20% of Telekom Serbia through its subsidiary, the Greek operator Hellenic Telecommunications Organisation (OTE).Currently, 80 percent of Telekom Serbia is owned by the state, with 27 percent of the company split between employees and citizens of Serbia. According to media reports, with the expected sale, every Serb over the age of 18 will receive money or shares they can sell. LAPGreenN already owns or controls telecom companies and licences in eight African countries including Uganda, Niger, Rwanda, Ivory Coast, Southern Sudan, Zambia, Togo and Sierra Leone. It currently has a capital fund in excess of US$5 billion. -
A battle to control Telecel Zimbabwe escalated this week after Empowerment Corporation (EC), owners of the firm's licence, pushed for the cancellation of the company's operating licence and the ouster of two of its directors.
EC, an empowerment group controlled by President Robert Mugabe's nephew, Leo, is pushing for the ouster of fugitive board chairperson James Makamba and his deputy, Jane Mutasa from its ranks.
Makamba and Mutasa, who has been acting chairperson after the former fled the country facing foreign currency externalisation charges, are to be replaced by Mugabe, Shephard Kapota and Moffat Marashwa, according to the "shareholders' agreement and the articles of association of the company," the investment vehicle said in a statement.
The latest development in EC lends credence to speculation that Mugabe has been eyeing control of the country's second largest telecommunications company. But other shareholders in Telecel say Mugabe failed to pay for Telecel shares after his cheques bounced on several occasions, a charge he does not deny.
EC's ouster of Makamba and Mutasa from the board is widely seen as an attempt to pave way for the removal of Makamba and Mutasa from the Telecel board. EC is a company wholly owned by the Zimbabwe Wealth Creation and Empowerment Council (ZWCEC) controlling 40% shareholding in the telecommunications company through a number of investment vehicles founded by various empowerment groups and private businesses.
ZWCEC wrote to Transport and Communication minister Nicholas Goche requesting the cancellation of the licence issued 14 years ago, so that it would be reissued to the investment vehicle.
In a letter dated May 28 to, ZWCEC chairperson Silas Hungwe appealed to the ministry which administers the Posts and Telecommunications Regulations Act to cancel Telecel Zimbabwe's licence. "ZWCEC will then re-establish the current distorted joint venture between Telecel International and itself on 60% and 40% shareholding structure respectively as it was at inception," Hungwe said.
"At present, ZWCEC holds 40% shares in Telecel Zimbabwe and Telecel International 60% because James Makamba sold to them 20% shares illegally which belonged to ZWCEC."
Hungwe said the licence should be cancelled because the project had "failed to comply with formation objectives, that is, empowering the majority of Zimbabweans and is operating against the Government Indigenisation and Empowerment Act".
The holding of an AGM had been resisted by Telecel, but in a letter addressed to the company secretary on Wednesday last week, Angeline Vere, Hungwe said that Empowerment Corporation was a "significant shareholder in Telecel Zimbabwe and thus has a right to call for the said meeting in terms of the Companies Act and to have it at Telecel Premises".
Makamba and Mutasa could not be reached for comment on the latest developments at the time of going to press. Goche last week said he was yet to get Hungwe's letter.The EC said they wanted the AGM, among other issues, to discuss the de-specification of Makamba and the role he played when he was specified.
It also wanted to "exercise its pre-emptive rights on the 60% shareholding "now" before another attempt to illegally sell them to a third party."
This comes after Orascom, the holding company for Telecel International, attempted to sell the company to MTN. Had the deal been completed, the shareholding structure in the local telecommunication company would be restructured.
Empowerment Corporation is also demanding a further 11% stake from Telecel International to shore up its shareholding to around 51% as a way of regularising the shareholding structure in line with the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Regulations.
The shareholding structure of EC is a puzzle as current, past and potential shareholders claim that they still hold stakes in the investment vehicle which was awarded a licence.
It remains unclear whether shareholders were required to pay for the stake or not as some argue that it was a political licence which was acquired specifically to empower marginalised groups while others, have argued that they paid for the stake. Mugabe confessed in an earlier interview with businessdigest that he did not pay for his shareholding arguing it "was not necessary to do so".
At its inception, each of the following, Zimbabwe Farmers' Union, Affirmative Action Group, Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association, Indigenous Business Women's Organisation and Small Scale Miners Association of Zimbabwe, had a 9% stake and the Integrated Engineering Group, owned by Mugabe, owned 10%.
Makamba's Kestrel Corporation owned 15%. Makamba and Mugabe's companies were brought in as technical partners. But sources in EC say Zimbabwe Farmers' Union, Affirmative Action Group, and Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association sold their shares to Makamba while Mugabe never paid a "cent." -
Gabon's government has launched a tender to build and operate a 3G mobile network, with a deadline for submissions to the regulator Artel by 30 September, reports Reuters. The tender is open to both domestic and foreign companies, with the aim of further liberalising the telecoms sector, the state announced.
Mobile and internet access services in Gabon have been criticised for unreliable coverage and service, and the government is looking to improve access as part of wider efforts to diversify investment. The country’s Minister of Communication, Postal Services and the Digital Economy, Ms Laure Olga Gondjout, said: ‘The third generation is a revolutionary tool that will allow the public easier access to information and [to] conduct business transactions over the internet.’ Gabon has four commercial 2G/2.5G mobile network operators – Zain, Libertis, Moov and Azur – with over 1.6 million subscriptions between them, giving a cellular penetration of above 100%. -
The government of Sierra Leone is looking to sell incumbent fixed line operator Sierratel, as officials acknowledge that the firm lacks the financial resources to compete with the country’s mobile providers, Computerworld West Africa reports. Earlier this week the National Commission of Privatisation (NCP) called for expressions of interest for the management of Sierratel – the first step in seeking bids for the operator – stating that it has ‘commenced a business reform programme of Sierratel with the objective of improving the efficiency, productivity, customer service delivery, capacity building and overall financial and operational performance.’ The contract will be awarded via an international bidding process, with prequalified applicants required to pay a non-refundable fee of USD10,000 (SLL38.9 million) for bidding documents. The state is looking for a telecoms company to take over all business areas of Sierratel, including day-to-day management, operations, maintenance and long term business planning, although the government has not yet disclosed the size of the stake that it wishes to offload. The company has struggled to rebuild its wireline infrastructure after rebel forces destroyed telephone lines and exchanges during the civil war which ended in 2002.
According to the NCP, Sierratel is overstaffed and suffers from a lack of capital; in the past the company has been forced to enter into joint venture partnerships to undergo urgent modernisation of its infrastructure. In June 2008 the telco accepted a delivery of Huawei-manufactured equipment worth USD16.5 million, which was paid for with a loan from the Chinese government. The CDMA 1x EV-DO cellular network was launched in April 2009.
(Source:Telegeography) -
*ITNews Africa reports that Tanzania’s first independently owned tower company, Eaton Tanzania, has opened for business in the capital, Dar Es Salaam. The newcomer will build and manage towers to support domestic mobile operators in an industry which is forecast to reach 33 million subscribers in the next four years. ‘This is a very exciting time for the mobile industry in Tanzania, which is set for rapid growth. We are open for business now and ready with our extensive expertise and local experience to partner with mobile operators,’ said David Hunter, country manager of Eaton Towers Tanzania. ‘We’ll manage their towers and help them rapidly roll out new sites so that they can focus on their customers whilst reaping the compelling economic benefits of tower sharing without having to make any additional capital expenditure,’ he added.
* Angolan CDMA-based mobile network operator Movicel is formulating a plan to switch to GSM/UMTS technology to compete better with its rival Unitel, a company source told news agency ANGOP. The source claimed that further information on the future strategy would be presented in an upcoming press conference, along with other development plans for the cellco. Movicel provides CDMA2000-based services in all 18 of Angolan provinces, and also offers 3G 1xEV-DO-based services. Unitel, the larger operator by subscribers, operates a GSM network with national scope in addition to 3G W-CDMA/HSDPA-based services. Movicel is 80% privately-owned by domestic, Chinese and Brazilian investors; state-run fixed line operator Angola Telecom retains an 18% stake and national postal operator Correios de Angola has 2%.
* Lagos — Nigeria's national carrier, Globacom has disclosed that it is not pulling out of Ghana. Glo will launch its operations in Ghana and ensure that every part of Ghana is covered with an excellent network. He emphasised that "we are not worried and even if it takes three months, Ghana will go live. Globacom had in May been reported to be considering withdrawing its services from Ghana.
*The Gambian leader, His Excellency Sheikh Professor Alhaji Dr Yahya Jammeh Saturday presided over the official inauguration of Qcell House, the headquarters of mobile telecommunication giant company, Qcell, located along Kairaba Avenue. The company is owned by Muhammed Jah, a young Gambian entrepreneur.
internet
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Construction of the East Africa Sub marine cable system (EASSy) has been complete and the facility will go live later this week, Zantel Wholesale and Roaming Director Nahaat Mahfoudh told the 'Daily News' on Monday.
He said construction started in Maputo, Mozambique in December 2009 and landed in Dar es Salaam in April 2010. EASSy becomes the second undersea fibre optic cable to land in Tanzania after SEACOM which is currently operational.
The cable has been formally handed over to the West Indian Ocean Cable Company (WIOCC) board by the Alcatel sub-marine networks -- the sub-contractors. WIOCC is the largest investor in EASSy with 29 per cent shareholding.
The cable constructed by a consortium of telecommunications companies offers a direct route to Europe, Asia and the Middle East and is the largest cable system in sub Sahara Africa. Zantel is the local investor through its shareholding in WIOCC.
Experts say EASSy would increase competition for internet connectivity in the country and region with the possibility of reducing tariffs. Mahfoudh explained that all was now in place to go LIVE. "All the testing had been done and we are fully operational. We also held a pre-sale symposium to local network operators to explain to them advantages of the cable," he said.
The EASSy cable has the capacity to deliver 1.4 terabytes per second, making it the largest submarine cable system serving the continent. He said that the cable which is in nine countries will offer transit connection through backhaul networks to at least 12 landlocked countries roviding the greatest area coverage.
"'EASSy will be the first east coast system to connect a direct route to Europe, making it the lowest latency system for traffic to key internet peering points in Europe and North America," explained Mr Mahfoudh.
Other cable systems have to connect through either India or UAE to reach Europe, he
said. EASSy is owned by 16 commercial telecom entities with 92 per cent owned by African operators and eight per cent by international operators.
The investing parties include: Bharti Airtel, Botswana Telecom Corporation, British Telecom, Comoros Telecom, Etisalat, France Telecom, Mauritius Telecom, MTN International Group, Neotel, Saudi Telecom Corporation, Sudatel, TTCL, Telma, Vodacom, Telkom South Africa, WIOCC and Zambia Telecom -
It was only a matter of when, not if, that Safaricom would fish out firms from the small pond of ICT providers to enable it grow its data business. The mobile phone services provider announced its intention to acquire ownership of two data operators, IGO Wireless and Instaconnect, in a move to strengthen its hand to make Internet and data services easily and cheaply accessible to more of its customers.
Now, retiring Michael Joseph says he is geared up for a paradigm shift that will forever change how students (from primary to university), individuals and corporate access the Internet, and in the process protecting and growing Safaricom's revenues to $1.5 billion and past.
"We always have been on the lookout to acquiring additional WiMAX to enable us maximise our data business," said Joseph, "The new acquisition will help us run at a good capacity helping us change how Kenyans access their Internet,"
IGO Wireless operates a fixed wireless data service and is said to hold a license for the Wimax spectrum while Instaconnect integrates data solutions for clients. Both companies are under one management and operate from Westlands on the outskirts of Nairobi's Central Business District. Their acquisition will help Safaricom reach a desired WiMAX frequency level of 21 megahertz. Wimax is a form of wireless digital communication that allows users to access broadband Internet from a 50km radius for fixed stations and 5-15km for mobile stations, according to industry estimates. In simpler terms, it is a technology that borrows from the radio where there are wireless receivers.
The proposed new acquisitions and partnerships with other companies on IT support should also enable Safaricom start cutting its teeth in the corporate Internet market which many analysts had said was beyond its reach. "I will get the analysts to eat their words in a year," Mr Joseph said on their intended foray into the corporate segment.
Other firms such as Access Kenya, UUNET, Wananchi and Kenya Data Networks have already made inroads in the price sensitive but good margin corporate segment.
But even as Safaricom prepares to absorb two new companies there is a looming battle with the regulators on the acquisitions. In regulations published at the end of May 2010, the Communications Commission of Kenya can veto any buyout deal exceeding 15 per cent in what was broadly seen as attempts to curtail the acquisition of small and medium-sized firms with crucial frequencies or infrastructure.
Safaricom though hopes the deal, to acquire the two companies, receives the regulator's green light after previous run-ins especially recently on the fees for the third generation spectrum (3G). "I hope the regulator will look at this (the acquisitions) as business. I am aware of the sensitivity of the timing," Joseph said in relation to the acquisitions.
The sum of the parts though tells a different story. There are about eight companies which hold the WiMAX frequencies and Safaricom will have acquired three, should the acquisition of IGO Wireless and Instaconnect not face any hurdles.
Safaricom's first acquisition was a 51 per cent stake in One Communications -- a Wimax services provider in August 2008. This was followed a year later, in August 2009, with a 100 per cent acquisition of Packet Stream Data Networks a wireless Internet provider.
By changing tack and acquiring complete companies Safaricom says it has learnt lessons from its first acquisition, that of One Communications where it paid Ksh291 million for a 51 per cent stake.
"It is a little bit more complicated when you own 51 per cent," Mr Joseph says referring to the task of handling the management of the company where the rights of the minority shareholders have to be considered in most of the decisions. Joseph admits as much stating that they have undertaken to buy the remaining 49 per cent much sooner than anticipated. "We have signed another deal with One Communication to acquire shares in a shorter period," he says "hopefully by the end of 2011." -
The normal functioning of the economy throughout central Mozambique has been compromised by a break in the underwater fibre-optic cable operated by the publicly owned telecommunications company, TDM. Much of the modern sector of the economy which depends on internet connections is suddenly unable to operate.
The cut in the cable took place last Saturday, about seven kilometres south of the city of Xai-Xai, capital of the southern province of Gaza, where the cable is under 25 to 30 metres of water.
This is the second time this year that such a cut has occurred. The first was on 26 April, near the town of Vilankulo, in Inhambane province. Then a ship with the required specialist equipment was already in the vicinity, and so the cable could be repaired within a few days. This time TDM may not be so lucky, and has warned its clients that the cable will not be repaired for at least six weeks.
In the meantime, TDM has resorted to alternatives, such as satellite and micro-wave connections, but these, it says, "will only guarantee a minimum of communication". In the meantime, TDM is working to install a terrestrial fibre-optic cable between Maputo and Inchope in the central province of Manica. A TDM press release states that its contacts with the contractor laying the cable indicate that this work may be complete within two weeks, allowing the restoration of communications traffic to normal levels.
In the meantime, users of mobile telephony in much of the country find that their cell phones are dead, the Internet is unavailable, and many public and private bodies that had taken being on-line for granted have ground to a halt.
For instance, the new biometric identity cards and passports can no longer be issued anywhere north of Xai-Xai. The Mozambique Tax Authority can longer issue taxpayers with the tax identification number (NUIT), on which tax collection is largely based. Reservations for air tickets cannot be made outside of Maputo. The Beira daily paper "Diario de Mocambique" cannot receive articles and advertising from any other province.
Banks, however, have not come to a standstill as happened in April. Then it was impossible to withdraw money from any automatic cash machines (ATMs) anywhere in central and northern Mozambique.
According to a report on the independent television station, STV, the banks have learnt their lesson and have back-up systems in place, which allow them to offer at least some services to their clients. -
* MWEB today announced that they are set to start using Seacom bandwidth again from tonight if everything goes according to plan. In a statement MWEB said that “if all goes well, we will start the cut-over process later tonight. We will carry on monitoring the service and only complete the full cut-over later tomorrow, once we are satisfied that everything is running smoothly.”It is understood that MWEB will follow a cautious approach with the cut-over process, and that it will maintain capacity on alternative system, including SAT-3/SAFE and TEAMS, until they are certain that the Seacom system performs as expected.
*Nairobi — -AccessKenya Group, the first publicly listed ICT Company and Kenya's leading data and IT services experts' recorded 99.97 per cent network connectivity in its fibre optic network in the first six months of 2010, demonstrating network reliability as a key benefit of their new network structure. AccessKenya has already covered Nairobi with its fibre network and will soon be commencing construction of a fibre network in Mombasa. The new fibre network will give the Group the ability to offer reliable and significantly higher speeds to its 6,800 customers across fibre from its 5,000 megabits of international fibre from TEAMS and Seacom.
computing
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Lagos State government has introduced an education software known as e-tutor in its schools, as part of its continuous efforts to improve the quality of education in the state.
The software, which was launched, in collaboration with an IT firm, Cognitive Solutions, would complement class teachers' efforts and enable students to learn at their own pace and have fun in the process.
Speaking at the flag-off ceremony, Permanent Secretary of the state Ministry of Education, Mrs. Omolara Erogbogbo said the move was part of the state government's efforts aimed at exploring additional positive ways of improving on the delivery of quality education to students in its schools.
She said the software, which comes in 15 subjects for secondary schools, was developed after some years of research, which revealed that there was a huge gap between examiners' expectation and students' performance, especially in Mathematics and the Sciences.
According to her, the software has been installed in 28 of the 35 schools approved for the first phase, while the Teachers' Establishment and Pensions Office has trained 1,516 teachers on the use of the software.
She added that the software would assist in integrating information technology into the mainstream of education, as students could study and evaluate themselves at their own pace, using either the practice centre or test centre available in the software, while the counselling centre would counsel them on preparation for examinations, common errors, as well as on subjects leading to career choices. "Additionally, the burden on teachers is eased since it can serve as resource and instructional materials centre to teachers and thus make their jobs easier."
Another distinctive feature of the software, she said was that it had the added advantage of providing blind students the opportunity of comprehensive self study using materials prepared by the best teachers in the subject fields, thus giving them a fair playing ground.
Chief Executive Officer of the IT Firm, Mr. Kola Omotunde-Young said. "Every child is unique and learns best through a combination of various learning method, which may be different from that of his or her colleague and e-tutor recognises this uniqueness and offers the students variety of ways to learn and have fun doing so." -
Seedcamp, a European micro seed fund that invests in early stage startup companies, has selected 11 South African technology startups topossibly attend the Seedcamp
Week programme held in September in London, UK, where they will be in line
for a potential €50,000 investment.Seedcamp, in conjunction with the Tech4Africa conference, recently put out a
call for applications for funding and received over 40 entries from technology startups across South Africa. The 10 selected African entrepreneurs will have a rare opportunity to pitch their businesses at a group of people connected to powerful investors, mentors and startups throughout EMEA,with one team being chosen to take part in Seedcamp Week in London.Seedcamp offers standard investments of €30,000-50,000 to selected companies
and connects next generation developers and entrepreneurs from a network of over 400 top-tier industry mentors.The 11 selected startups include:
10Layer: The most feature-complete, competent and customisable open source content management system for serious publishers and media houses.
Cobi interactive: An incubator for developing mobile software ideas. Cobi
focuses on investing in areas with varying degrees of risk - contract
mobile software development, partnerships and their own products.Cognician:
The original thinking guide.
A software application that automates complex intellectual tasks by
asking you a range of intelligent, thought-provoking questions.Cred:
A micropayments and subscriptions service that allows you to monetise
your text, audio or video content. The Cred API can be deployed with
any content management system and allows for the purchase and
redemption of Cred at content partners.Feeperfect:
Permitting any user to find the mobile contact number of anyone
registered on iYam.mobi, using either SMS or the web. Feeperfect are
building, and permitting anyone to build, quality SMS services people
are willing to pay for.FloCash:
The first cross border Pan African payment network offering basic
financial services to the un-banked masses, the platform of choice
for facilitating e-commerce and drive the exchange of ideas, people
and services between nations.GetaGreatBoss:
We enable great managers to showcase their management strength in
order to attract talent and boost their own careers.Obami:
A web-based communication and collaboration platform that’s been
developed for use within, and between schools. Obami ensures a safe
environment for kids to interact with each other and the adults in
their lives. Obami, which is free to schools, believes that helping
to expand school life beyond the boundaries of the classroom wall
will have a significant impact on Africa’s future.iSigned.com:
Offers secure, permanent online storage, management and sharing for
legal & other important documents. Individuals & businesses
can use iSigned to store wills, legal agreements, investment records,
etc and share them with other parties securely.Thisarmy:
Builds clean, simple & fun web apps.Twangoo:
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The Asagba of Asaba, HRH Prof. Chike Edozien, has urged the Nigerian Computer Society, NSC, to do all it can to help the nation automate the electoral process, so that the nation will forthwith experience peaceful transitions through credible elections.
The royal father made the call yesterday, in his Palace, during a courtesy call on him by a delegation of the Nigerian Computer Society, NCS, led by its president, Professor Charles Uwadia. The NCS is holding its national conference, the 23rd in the series, in Asaba, Delta State capital.
Represented by the Olikeze of Asaba, Chief John Iloba, the royal father noted that previous elections have always been contentious, especially when electoral disputes are before the election tribunals, and records are needed to prove cases or otherwise.
He added that in many cases, the absence or fidelity of such records, preserved in hard copy format have not served the course of justice. But now, Chief Iloba added, with the coming of computers, such records can be preserved and retrieved for use to resolve such cases.
"We at NCS are professionals. NCS is an advocacy group, we are not politicians. But as Nigerians, we are interested in what concerns us, and also how we can freely choose our leaders. That is why, as 2011 elections approach, we are holding this conference with the them focusing the electoral system. That is why we are here," he said. -
* Accra — The Center for Democratic Development (CDD- Ghana), a non - partisan organization, has asked Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning to put in serious policy efforts to ensure the computerization of some aspects of the administration of the Capitation Grant (CG) at the District Education Offices to ensure proper records keeping, effective reporting and monitoring to avoid leakages in the disbursement.
* Nairobi — Kenya and Uganda have finally agreed to address the perennial problems faced by transporters by implementing a $3.2 million (Sh25.6 billion) electronic single window system. This platform opens the way for the submission, receipt and processing of trade related documentation especially along the ports of entry and exit electronically.The system enables the exchange and automation of the processing of trade and cargo clearance information also known as electronic documents.
* Nairobi — Computer floppy disks have been banned from Form Four examinations this year. The Kenya National Examinations Council has written to all secondary schools offering computer studies instructing them to prepare their candidates to use CDs to store answers.
money
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The chairman of Telkom South Africa, Jeff Molobela, has announced that at least two investors have shown interest in the company’s struggling Nigerian unit Multilinks, news agency Reuters reports. Molobela said that Telkom has received offers from two unnamed companies: a GSM operator and an infrastructure fund.
Telkom wrote down the value of CDMA operator Multilinks by ZAR5.2 billion (USD706 million) in the financial year ended 31 March 2010 and its chief financial officer told Reuters last month that selling the unit was ‘one option’, although it is not known whether Telkom will decide to retain the loss-making unit. In January 2010 Telkom’s board rejected a proposal by former CEO Reuben September to merge Multilinks with rival CDMA operator Starcomms, and the company has ruled out acquiring other operators in Nigeria as a solution for the losses made there.
Telkom bought 75% of Multilinks for USD280 million in May 2007. The South African company acquired the remaining 25% of Multilinks it did not already own from Kenston Investments in January 2009 for USD130 million. -
Parliament last wee opened investigations into allegations of corruption in the $126 million (about Shs252 billion) National Backbone Infrastructure Project.
Citing inflated costs and foul play, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) yesterday ordered Dr Pat Samanya, the permanent secretary in the ICT ministry, to provide details of the project.
"The Auditor General has asked us to investigate this Project," PAC Chairman Nandala Mafabi said. "We have got information that officials in the ICT ministry connived to inflate the costs and taxpayers have lost billions of shillings in the process."
ICT ministry officials were last week appearing before PAC to answer audit queries for 2008-2009 where it emerged that the tax obligations for the faster Internet project was inflated from Shs2.6 billion to Shs7.5 billion through unclear circumstances.
The 2,130 kilometre project aims to speed up e-governance by providing a basic communication link to rural communities and improving service delivery in key areas such as health, education and agriculture. Dr Samanya apologised to the committee and promised to provide details on the project.
PAC investigations come a year after the ICT committee also questioned the $126 million (about Shs252b) cost for the national ICT project, arguing that Rwanda was carrying out a similar project across 2,300km at only $38m (about Shs76b).
Among issues in the Auditor General's report to be investigated by PAC, include reports that although Parliament had halted Phase II of the project, demanding for accountability of the Shs60b for Phase I of the project was spent, the ministry defied the directive.
Details before PAC show that Phase I was budgeted at $30 million (about Shs60b), Phase II at $61m (about Shs122b) and Phase III at $15m (about Shs30b) with an additional $20m (about Shs40b) budgeted as government counterpart funding.
"This (Internet) project has become a national scandal and synonymous with the ID (about Shs253b) and Chogm (Shs500b) projects," Shadow Finance Minister Oduman Okello said.
The first phase of the project covered Kampala, Entebbe, Bombo and Jinja. Although it was completed last year, but PAC last weel said they have reliable information that only the switch centre in Kampala site is operational. -
The House of Representatives last week witnessed another rowdy session following the disagreement amongst lawmakers over a proposal by the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) to expend the sum of N6.1 billion for the registration of mobile phone SIM cards in the country. The proposal which formed an integral part of the N69.3 billion expenditure the Commission plans to make in the 2010 fiscal year was thrown out during the preliminary consideration of the budget last week, but some members attempted to smuggle it into the budget again yesterday.
Chairman, House Committee on Rules and Business set the dangerous ball rolling when he moved a motion to have the House rescind its earlier decision on the SIM Card registration. According to Enang, re-instating the project in the budget will be needed to "balance" the figures in the proposed budget tally. The motion however met stiff resistance as the Chairman, House Committee on Drugs and Narcotics, Honourable Rabe Nasir put up a vehement opposition, insisting that the NCC Act did not require the regulator to register SIM cards.
Nasir argued that the task of SIM card registration ought to be the responsibility of the operators and not the regulator and expressed reservations about the quantum of funds being earmarked for the project.
Proceedings of the House were stalled for about thirty minutes as lawmakers argued on different sides of the divide. Although, the Chairman, House Committee on Communications, Honourable Dave Salako explained the rationale behind the proposal, his explanations could not assuage the growing anger of the protesters many of who saw the idea as a rip off.
According to Salako, the NigeriaCommunications Commission proposed the project because of the security implications of not having a clear database of phone subscribers on the various networks operating in Nigeria . Salako stated that though the initial idea was for the operators to register SIM cards linked to their individual network, the NCC offered to embark on the project following complaints by the telecommunications firms that they lacked the necessary platform to do it giving the cost of procuring the basic equipment required to register the SIM cards and the time it will take.
Deputy Speaker, Usman Nafada put the question twice but each time could not rule on the matter. It was not until he had threatened to divide the House that the voice vote clearly gave it to those who opposed the SIM card registration project.
Objections to the NCC budget began on Wednesday, June 30, 2010 the lawmaker's commenced debate on the general principles of the budget bill. The Nigerian Communications Commission had submitted its 2010 budget proposal alongside the budget proposal for the Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF), a subsidiary of the regulatory agency.
The lawmakers said the proposal was curious as the NCC being a regulator ought not to have any business with registration of SIM cards as such exercise should be the responsibility of the service providers. Some lawmakers also accused the NCC of flouting the stipulations of the 1999Constitution with respect to revenue generation and remittances, alleging that the agency has been generating revenue without remitting same to the Federation Account. The NCC was also accused of not remitting to the Federation Account unspent funds totalling N10billion in 2007 and 2008. Some lawmakers argued that there was an urgent need to amend the Act establishing the Commission to bring its operations and powers within the confines of the Constitution.
They also raised questions on the N4.2billion proposed by the NCC as capital expenditure in the current fiscal year, just as some lawmakers argued that the NCC ought to avoid unnecessary expenses in the name of capital votes and concentrate on its regulatory functions. -
Nedbank Business Banking last week presented the Bandwidth Barn, an information and communications technology business incubator in the Western Cape, with a cheque for R500 000 at a function at Nedbank’s offices at Cape Town’s V&A Waterfront.
The funds have been provided as a grant to the Bandwidth Barn as part of Nedbank Business Banking’s Enterprise Development assistance, and will be used to grow ICT companies in the Western Cape.
The Bandwidth Barn is a Cape Town based company that incubates businesses in the ICT sector. The company encourages innovation and provides ongoing training and support needed to help businesses overcome the entry barriers to employment, start-up, survival and growing their businesses.
The programme encompasses increasing ICT sector competitiveness through training and skills; supporting ICT Sector growth by stimulating and boosting entrepreneurship; and transformation of the ICT sector through SMME & BBBEE enterprise support.
A recent impact analysis on the successes of the Bandwidth Barn’s programmes since 2006 has revealed that of the 40 companies that have participated in the programme, 33 are still in business. This equates to a survival rate of 82.5%.
Nirmala Reddy, Nedbank Business Banking’s Senior Manager Enterprise Development says, “We are extremely proud to contribute to this important initiative. Bandwidth Barn’s success record surpasses international benchmarks in terms of success ratios from a sustainability point of view, and their contribution to the ICT sector is impacting positively on Cape Town’s vision to become the ‘Silicone Valley’ of the Southern Hemisphere.” -
* Malawi’s third licensed mobile operator Global Advanced Integrated Networks (GAIN), which intends to provide services under the G-Mobile banner, has received an injunction against a USD6.9 million fine issued by telecoms regulator Malawi Communication Regulatory Authority (MACRA) for failing to deploy its wireless network. Local newspaper Sunday Times reports that GAIN was given 30 days to pay the fine, which was issued on 20 May 2010. However, the cellco took the matter to the High Court in Mzuzu and gained an injunction against MACRA’s fine until a judicial review could be carried out. On 12 July Justice Lovemore Chikopa upheld the injunction and set 23 August 2010 as the date for the matter to be heard in court, with parties given until 9 August to exchange all the relevant documentation.
Telecoms Rates, Offers and Coverage (briefs)
*Qcell Gambia had signed up a subscriber base of around 100,000, as well as expanding its network coverage across the country and employing a staff of 300 Gambians, up from around 100 at launch.
*Zain Ghana has rolled out a bouquet of three new consumer products, designed for its pre-paid customers, in order to re-strengthen its commitment of putting consumers on the driving seat at all times.The products include -'Free Night Calls', 'Payback' and 'Friends and Family', which will allow Zain pre-paid customers to control their spending patterns, increase their talk time and get rewarded with bonus credits for receiving calls on their lines. Free Night Calls service will enable customers who talk for just 15p or more before 11:59 pm every day, to talk free of charge from 12 midnight to 5am. In addition, customers can also take advantage of the available off-peak tariff of 1Gp from 10pm to 11:59pm.
With Payback customers get a whopping 10% bonus of the value of all calls they receive from a Zain line and 3% bonus of the value of all calls they receive from other networks. The bonus credits that accrue to a customer can only be used for Zain to Zain calls (on-net) and is valid for 7 days. Interestingly, Friends and Family offers customers a window of opportunity to select and talk to the first 5 special people of their choice, at an astonishing 45% discount or 6.6Gp of Zain regular tariff, with no subscription fee. Also, there is a benefit of 50% discount for SMS sent to any of the 5 selected numbers because each SMS will cost only 0.02p.
* Johannesburg — Siemens Southern Africa said last week it had plans to develop further industrial products assembly plants in SA in line with its strategy to use the country as a base for further expansion in Africa. The company has assembly plants in Pinetown, Wadeville, Kya Sands and Isando. The locations of the new plants were undecided.
Web and Mobile, Content and Services
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The Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) has unveiled technology that can be used to track the location of kidnappers when such crime occurs.
The Acting Executive Vice Chairman/CEO of the Commission, Dr Bashir Gwandu who disclosed the technology in Abuja, said telecom operators would be assisted to install equipment on every mast and tower that could be used for triangulating between sites in order to identify real-geographical location of both GPS and None GPS-enabled mobile handsets.
Gwandu stated that in addition to the triangulation project, all GPS-enabled handsets can also be tracked by low earth orbit satellites. He further stated that there are other equipment that could be deployed to tract and identify the locations of handsets being used to solicit for ransom.
He said: "Once ownership of numbers can be identified, handsets can be tracked, and their geographical location becomes identifiable, then, any call made to solicit for ransom will help to locate the Kidnappers."
Decrying the problems of none registration of SIM cards, the NCC chief executive said "With just about N1,000, a multitude of crimes can be committed by purchasing multiple Sim-cards and fraudulently use them to threaten others via voice or text messages and also commit other phone-assisted crimes. "This has to stop, and we are working hard to stop it."
To curtail the phone assisted crimes, Gwandu said the Sim-card registration would not only help to identify the owners of mobile phone-numbers, but the data-base to be created would allow for pictures of criminals captured on CCTV or other cameras to be compared with and be searched in the phone users data-base for facial identification of criminals.
He further explained that the Sim-card registration could help in national-planning as well as for identification of criminals anywhere, anytime. -
As part of its commitment to support the IT industry with innovative products, NetApp exclusive distributor in Nigeria, has announced new storage management integration for greater performance and scalability of VMware vSphere environments.
The product enables customers to centrally manage all NetApp storage for VMware environments directly from the VMware vCenter Server console and fully leverage the benefits of virtualized infrastructures.
Virtualized infrastructures, according to the company are expanding the role of administrators and causing them to spend more time on storage monitoring and management.
"Virtualization of the server and storage infrastructure is reshaping today's data center as customers begin laying the foundation for cloud computing," Gary Green, vice president, Global Strategic Alliances, Vmware, adding that, "The integration between VMware vCenter Server and Virtual Storage Console further demonstrates how the VMware and NetApp partnership benefits our customers by providing enhanced visibility and management for greater productivity, response time, and overall return on investment."
Tightly integrated with VMware vCenter Server, the single storage, he said console enables VMware administrators to centrally monitor, provision, clone, back up, recover, and replicate storage operations for virtual server and desktop environments without requiring storage administrator assistance.
Virtual Storage Console, he said also helps optimize utilization and improve responsiveness with real-time discovery, health monitoring, and capacity management.
Tightly integrated with VMware vCenter Server, the single storage, he said console enables VMware administrators to centrally monitor, provision, clone, back up, recover, and replicate storage operations for virtual server and desktop environments without requiring storage administrator assistance.
Virtual Storage Console, he said also helps optimize utilization and improve responsiveness with real-time discovery, health monitoring, and capacity management.
"On any given day our team is looking at a number of different things, from the VMware infrastructure to the physical servers, from the load balancers to the storage," said Grant Leathers, director of Enterprise Infrastructure at Kelley Blue Book, which worked with regional systems integrator Trace3 to design and implement a solution based on NetApp technology, adding that "We need solutions that are integrated, easy to use, and provide better visibility for simplified management.
NetApp solutions have enabled us to save close to 70% of previously used disk space to reduce the amount of storage space used for VMware deployment from 12 to 4.5 terabytes."
More
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*Communications Minister Siphiwe Nyanda needs to appear before Parliament's communications portfolio committee to explain his reasons for dismissing his director general Mamodupi Mohlala, the DA said on Tuesday.
*Telkom last week announced that former journalist, newspaper editor and corporate communications manager, Praveen Naidoo, has joined the company as Senior Specialist for Media Relations.
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21-22 October 2010, Nairobi, Kenya
The most comprehensive African wholesale telecoms conference bringing together local and regional fixed-line and mobile operators from across the continent
For further information visit Capacity Media's website (http://www.capacitymedia.com/conferences-events.asp?id=66&cat=&subcat=&s...) -
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*Govt and Chams Consortium & One Secure Card - Nigeria
Abuja — The Board of the National Identity Management Commission has signed an agreement with Chams Consortium and One SecureCard Consortium to provide data capture and related services for the national identity management system for the country.
The NIMC chairman observed that signing of the contract marks the "beginning of the process to deliver a National Identity Database of 100 million enrollments over the next 30 months."
He said the board has ensured that there will be no job losses for those who have integrity and the right mindset for the operation of a national identity management system in Nigeria.
*Starcomms and PT – NigeriaNetwork communications solutions provider PT (formerly known as Performance Technologies) has announced that Nigerian CDMA operator Starcomms has selected its SEGway Signalling solution to upgrade its network to a complete IP architecture. PT's SEGway platform is a highly reliable signalling system that provides operators with a smooth migration to IP and SIP next-generation networks (NGN).
