Wednesday, September 28, 2011

HP expands direct presence in Africa

HP has expanded its direct presence in Africa to ten new countries to add onto the five markets the technology giant already operates in.
“In addition to our existing operations in Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa, we have opened in Angola, Botswana, Congo, Ghana, Senegal, Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda,” Chris Mukua, the new HP Uganda office country manager said in an email response.
HP officially opened shop in Uganda on September 19 while the other nine offices are at different stages of launch.
Mukua said the company’s strategy going forward is to create solutions tailored to the specific needs of high-growth markets, which have different market demands, infrastructure capabilities and socio-economic issues than those of mature markets.
“While each market has its own needs, we are finding that there are many similarities across our focus countries, such as government’s focus on improving education and healthcare or the need to develop a local talent pool of skilled IT workers,” he said.
“In Africa, we are targeting our programs to address issues like these through social innovation programs and university partnerships.
At the Uganda launch, HP said it has invested in a series of initiatives across Africa aimed at enabling governments and communities to leverage information technology to achieve their socio-economic goals and contribute to responsible, sustainable market growth and development.
Mukua said direct presence for commercial customers in Uganda and the other new markets will mean better access to HP’s broad portfolio of products and services.
This he said will allow commercial users to transform their businesses by taking advantage of improved IT infrastructure and a future based cloud computing and connectivity services.
Mukua said governments can leverage HP technology to drive economic growth and stability by modernizing the delivery of services in key areas such as education, healthcare and e-Government services.
Mukua said the company intends to broaden access of its consumer printer and PCs on the continent.
He said HP will also be introducing its cloud-based and connectivity technologies to the new markets it’s entering to help build a strong technology industry.
For HP product counterfeiters, Mukua said HP will work with law enforcement authorities to fight the availability of counterfeit products, which defraud customers, pose potential risks to consumers and bring negative economic impacts to the local economy.
Uganda’s Minister for Information and Communications Technology, Dr. Ruhakana Rugunda welcomed HP’s direct presence in Uganda.
“We look forward to working with HP to drive improvement of our public services, such as healthcare and education, through the use of information technologies,” Rugunda said.
He said so far HP has been integral in the installation of an early HIV infant diagnosis program that helps save the lives at different hospitals in Uganda.
HP has been in Africa since 1994 with operations in seven countries.
Mukua said that as industries across Africa grow and more of the population is connected via mobile networks, there is opportunity for governments and business to apply IT to achieve socio-economic goals.
He said opening more offices across Africa is consistent with HP’s stated strategy of accelerating the company’s growth in the world’s fastest growing economies.
HP brings together a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure at the convergence of the cloud and connectivity, creating seamless, secure, context-aware experiences for a connected world.
“We are intending to promote the full product portfolio in these markets,” Mukua said.
“HP is committed to investing for growth in Uganda,” said Stefanos Giourelis, managing director, HP Africa. “With its expanding economy, forward-looking leadership, and rapidly modernizing industries, Uganda represents an important part of HP’s growth strategy and Africa’s promising future.”

Airtel to invest US$100m in new Rwanda operation

Airtel has pledged to invest US$100 million in its newly awarded GSM and 3G license in Rwanda in the next three years.
Airtel, the African subsidiary of India’s Bharti, which it acquired in 2010 from the Zain group for $10.7 billion, was yesterday (Thursday) awarded the $30 million license in the Rwandan capital, Kigali on the sidelines of a Broadband Commission for Development conference that was attended by the World’s richest person, Carlos Slim.
Bharti Chairman, Sunil Bharti Mittal and the Rwanda President Paul Kagame made the announcement.
The Rwandan Government did not advertise or competitively appraise bidders for the license but instead appointed a technical team, which conducted the deal that ended up identifying Airtel.
Airtel before it became Zain has in the past missed out on an opportunity to set up shop in Rwanda. When Rwanda called for a third mobile license in 2008, then Zain put in a bid but was among other players that were beaten by Millicom International, which today is one of two mobile operators in the small East African nation, under the Tigo brand.
Airtel will now join MTN and Tigo, which have dominated the market since April this year when Rwandatel, a local telecom firm lost its mobile license after it emerged that it had failed to comply with license obligations.
Airtel, which already has a presence in Rwanda’s neighbours Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo is expected to heat up competition in the small country of 11 million people.
This is expected to lower the already falling call rates in a country where slightly over half of its population is poor and solely depends on subsistence agriculture.
Statistics from Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Agency (RURA), the telecommunications industry regulator indicate that mobile users have now reached 3,910,386 – something that has pushed mobile penetration to 38.4 percent.
MTN Rwanda leads the market with 2,824,874 users followed by Tigo with 1,300,159 customers as of July, according the telecom regulator.
With this license, Airtel’s African footprint will expand to 17 operations across the continent.
Airtel already has its presence in 16 countries of Africa, which include Burkina Faso, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Madagascar, Niger, Nigeria, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

Thursday, June 30, 2011

MTN inks content deal with music channel TRACE

As the African telecom players innovate to beat their competitors, South Africa’s MTN Group has pulled a first by announcing a brand and content licensing agreement with TRACE, an entertainment television channel.
The agreement is the first between a telecom company and an entertainment media network. TRACE is largely a music video channel that promotes urban contemporary music videos and is available on various cable and satellite pay television platforms.
As Africa’s internet speeds go up and prices come down, courtesy of fibre optic cables as opposed to expensive satellite connectivity, one of the major challenges facing Africa is lack of locally relevant and available African content to bring more people online.
MTN and Trace have entered their partnership at a time when mobile internet has been leveraged by the falling prices of Smartphones and the entry into the Smartphone arena by Chinese and South Korean electronics manufacturers like Huawei and Samsung.
Both Samsung and Huawei have recently launched onto the market especially Android-powered Smartphones that are much cheaper than types like the iPhone, the Blackberry and high-end Nokia types.
This deal will enable MTN offer what they have called innovative entertainment services to the fast-growing youth segment within the African mobile market.
On Monday, MTN launched the offer in Cameroon and it is due to be rolled out in multiple locations. Launches are planned in Ivory Coast, South Africa and Nigeria in the next few months.
“MTN youth subscribers will benefit from the unique entertainment experience around the TRACE brand, including exciting local and international content on entertainment and sports, live events and television,” a press statement issued by the MTN Groups reads in part.
Christian de Faria, MTN Group Senior Vice President: Commercial & Innovation said: “Our partnership with the multiple award-winning TRACE enhances the unique value that MTN currently provides to the youth segment.”
He said it is a great opportunity to propose an innovative, interactive and entertaining experience to millions of young Africans. A mobile phone he said has become a personalized universal remote control to permanently access content, listen to music, play, learn, interact and share.
Olivier Laouchez, the TRACE Chairman and chief executive officer said the partnership with MTN will enable his media network provide the African youth their major entertainment interests, which is music and sport via the mobile phone.
“With MTN, we are proud to be pioneers in such a venture on the African continent,” Laouchez said. “With this agreement, MTN and TRACE reinforce their position as the first movers and leaders of the youth segment with solutions that fit the specific needs of this segment.”
Wairagala Wakabi, a researcher at Collaboration on International ICT Policy in Eastern and Southern Africa (CIPESA) was happy about this deal.
“Any initiative that works to raise the local content that African people access and consume is most welcome, regardless of whether this content is delivered via traditional TV, mobile phone or the internet,” Wakabi said.
He said many African countries have an aspiration to have their media, specifically radio and Tv, deliver a bigger proportion of their programming as local content, but due to logistical and capacity problems, these aspirations are not translated into reality.
However he was quick to add that Africa also needs innovations and content that can impact on the livelihoods of the ordinary man on the street. Wakabi said that includes content on maternal health, on preventing malaria, farming practices and education.
“States, including through their universal access funds, obviously have a big role to play here, but it will be a happy day when MTN, TRACE, and others leverage on the successes they score within the entertainment sector to also get into innovations that directly impact on the livelihoods of our people in ways entertainment would never,” Wakabi said.

Investment opportunities abound as internet prices drop, SEACOM

Investment opportunities for the future in East and North Africa as a result of increasing access to high capacity bandwidth revolve around cloud computing, business process outsourcing (BPO) and content management, a SEACOM official has said.
Julius Opio, SEACOM’s head of sales said the future is also in the areas of managed services, e-Commerce, e-Health, e-Government and e-Learning as bandwidth capacity has improved greatly with prices down as well.
“The impact of high capacity bandwidth and solutions will dramatically shift the way we learn, conduct business and bridge the knowledge gap in Kenya and across the region hence enabling communities to unleash their creative potential and seamlessly integrate into the information driven global economy,” Opio said.
SEACOM was the very first undersea fibre optic cable to go live on the eastern side of Africa. Since then, two other broadband fibre optic cables have been completed.
Cloud computing is still very new to Africa while a lot is happening around the area of business process outsourcing while content management is an area of debate in the academia and has huge potential to especially get African content online.
Opio was making a presentation titled ‘Fibre optic technology and its impact in East and North Africa at a media meet in Nairobi as SEACOM, the very first submarine fibre optic cable to land on the eastern seaboard of Africa, prepares to celebrate two years since it went live in June 2009.
Opio said improved Internet connectivity and communication because of fallen capacity prices is continuing to create a lot of employment opportunities for the youth who are now developing products and marketing them online to wider markets.
Opio said since SEACOM went live, internet users in markets like Kenya registered a 10.9 percent growth from 7.8 million users in 2010 to 8.6 million users by the first quarter of 2011, quoting data availed by the Communications Commission of Kenya.
He said it is expected that mobile phones shall continue to dominate the provision of internet service.
Opio said the mobile internet numbers strongly imply that the telecommunications sector is entering an era of a digital revolution like never before and consumers are spending more time online, with half of the users getting online via their mobile phones.
Since the activation of SEACOM’s high capacity bandwidth, multinationals from around the world including software developers from the United States, global telecommunication companies, banking firms from South Africa have made additional investments in the region.
This Opio said is because they are confident of reliable internet connectivity that can support their businesses anywhere in the region to distance offices across the globe.
In the small and medium enterprises sector, which makes up more than 80 percent of enterprises almost anywhere you will go in Africa, Opio said there is now a growing need to outsource IT services such as managed premises for data hosting and network security as a result of increased bandwidth capacity.
There is also growing need for small and medium enterprises to outsource ITsoftware services such as payroll, enterprise resource planning (ERP), human resource and customer relations management among others.
Opio said operator-billed services revenues across the Africa & Middle East region are expected to rise to more than $107 billion in 2013.
Growth he said will be driven by mobile data services, decline in voice revenues to be partially offset by an increase in data revenues, both among 2.5G and 3G customers.
Mobile data services he said are expected to contribute 24 percent of operator-billed service revenues in 2013, against just 9 percent in 2008.
Jackie Mwai, SEACOM’s regional sales manager said that over the last two years, SEACOM has provided internet services to 75 education and research institutions in Kenya.
Mwai said education institutions have made large savings on access as prices have dropped from $2400 per megabit before SEACOM’s entrance. Today, SEACOM charges educational institutions in the region $300 per megabit.
Mwai said universities and research centers in Kenya he said now connect using SEACOM capacity to global education networks such as ENREN in South Africa and Europe. This he added is facilitating the use of information exchange platforms globally for E-learning purposes.
Universities previously using 64Kbps now use over 10Mbps (growth of about 1600 fold in one year) of high speed broadband capacity.
Meanwhile, SEACOM will grow its network by venturing into war-torn Somalia, Africa’s soon-to-be-youngest nation South Sudan and Burundi, which today have no fibre connectivity.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

East Africa invests a combined US$400m in fibre

Five East African countries will have invested a combined US$400 million in terrestrial fibre optic cables when work is completed on national fibre optic backbones that each is at different stages of building.
When complete, this vast network will carry Internet connectivity from the border with South Sudan in the north to Tanzania’s border with Zambia and Malawi in the south and the Democratic Republic of Congo in the west.
The terrestrial link, which is dubbed the East Africa Backhaul System, will then link into the submarine fibre optic cables on the East Africa coast.
This fibre, which covers more than 15,600 kilometres, links the five countries of Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi, will create the largest inter-linked region on the continent.
In January, Rwanda completed work on her 2,300km cable at a cost of $60 million. Korea Telecom (KT) undertook the fibre-laying work.
The cable covers the capital Kigali, links to the country’s main border posts with Uganda, Burundi, Tanzania and DR Congo.
It also covers all the four provinces, links into the main Police headquarters, universities and other remote government and administrative offices.
Tanzania is continuing with work to lay its more than 10,000 kilometre cable, costing some $170 million. Professor John S. Nkoma, the Director General of Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) said linking the cable to the main borders with Malawi, Zambia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi is almost done.
Nkoma was speaking in the Rwandan capital during the 18th Congress of the East Africa Communications Organisation (EACO) – an umbrella body for the telecoms regulators in the region.
Nkoma said private operators in Tanzania have got to pick up the cable to reach those areas that will not have been reached by the national backbone cable.
Phase one of the project covers 7,000 kilometres and the second phase will cover 3,000 kilometres. Like all the others, Nkoma said the Tanzania facility will be deployed by government to promote e-governance, e-health, e-commerce and e- learning.
Burundi is currently laying a 1,300 kilometre cable at a cost of $10.5 million, a grant from the World Bank.
The cable will cover key entry points—two on the Rwandan border and one on the Tanzanian side. The cable will also cover the capital Bujumbura and all the 17 provinces. ZTE of China has been awarded the tender to lay the cable.
Salvator Niyibizi from Burundi’s Ministry of Transport, Posts and Telecommunications told the Congress that the first phase is expected to be ready early next year.
The cable is expected to reduce the cost of internet access by more than 70 percent. Today, internet users in Burundi pay the highest for connectivity with operators parting with $3000 megabytes per second per month for bandwidth via satellite.
In Uganda, the government acquired a Chinese loan of about $102 million to lay the 2,100 kilometres plus cable, which has been embroiled in a corruption scandal and is more than 18 months behind schedule.
Patrick Mwesigwa, the acting head of Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) told the Congress that is implementing the backbone project in three phases with the first phase already done.
Work on phase two, which link the south of the country to the north is due for completion at the end of this year.
Phase three, which will connect the cable with Rwanda, is expected to begin in the course of the second half of the year.
“By mid-next year, the national backbone should be completed,” Mwesigwa said. He noted that the Ugandan cable has two components—one has linked all government offices and another with spare capacity for the private operators to lease.
The Kenya government is also investing $60 million in a fibre cable of its own. The National Optic Fibre Backbone Infrastructure (NOFBI) is being implemented by Chinese firms Huawei, ZTE and a third firm, Sagem.
Unlike the other countries of East Africa, Kenya’s private sector has laid a lot of the fibre optics. Some 5,000 kilometres of fibre had been laid by the private players by June 2010.
The five partner states plan to link their cables in one network to lower the cost of communication by increasing the speed and capacity of internet connectivity.
Telecommunications regulators from these partner states are also pushing for a regional internet exchange point to keep traffic within the region local.

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

East Africa invests a combined US$400m in fibre

Five East African countries will have invested a combined US$400 million in terrestrial fibre optic cables when work is completed on national fibre optic backbones that each is at different stages of building.
When complete, this vast network will carry Internet connectivity from the border with South Sudan in the north to Tanzania’s border with Zambia and Malawi in the south and the Democratic Republic of Congo in the west.
The terrestrial link, which is dubbed the East Africa Backhaul System, will then link into the submarine fibre optic cables on the East Africa coast.
This fibre, which covers more than 15,600 kilometres, links the five countries of Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi, will create the largest inter-linked region on the continent.
In January, Rwanda completed work on her 2,300km cable at a cost of $60 million. Korea Telecom (KT) undertook the fibre-laying work.
The cable covers the capital Kigali, links to the country’s main border posts with Uganda, Burundi, Tanzania and DR Congo.
It also covers all the four provinces, links into the main Police headquarters, universities and other remote government and administrative offices.
Tanzania is continuing with work to lay its more than 10,000 kilometre cable, costing some $170 million. Professor John S. Nkoma, the Director General of Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) said linking the cable to the main borders with Malawi, Zambia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi is almost done.
Nkoma was speaking in the Rwandan capital during the 18th Congress of the East Africa Communications Organisation (EACO) – an umbrella body for the telecoms regulators in the region.
Nkoma said private operators in Tanzania have got to pick up the cable to reach those areas that will not have been reached by the national backbone cable.
Phase one of the project covers 7,000 kilometres and the second phase will cover 3,000 kilometres. Like all the others, Nkoma said the Tanzania facility will be deployed by government to promote e-governance, e-health, e-commerce and e- learning.
Burundi is currently laying a 1,300 kilometre cable at a cost of $10.5 million, a grant from the World Bank.
The cable will cover key entry points—two on the Rwandan border and one on the Tanzanian side. The cable will also cover the capital Bujumbura and all the 17 provinces. ZTE of China has been awarded the tender to lay the cable.
Salvator Niyibizi from Burundi’s Ministry of Transport, Posts and Telecommunications told the Congress that the first phase is expected to be ready early next year.
The cable is expected to reduce the cost of internet access by more than 70 percent. Today, internet users in Burundi pay the highest for connectivity with operators parting with $3000 megabytes per second per month for bandwidth via satellite.
In Uganda, the government acquired a Chinese loan of about $102 million to lay the 2,100 kilometres plus cable, which has been embroiled in a corruption scandal and is more than 18 months behind schedule.
Patrick Mwesigwa, the acting head of Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) told the Congress that is implementing the backbone project in three phases with the first phase already done.
Work on phase two, which link the south of the country to the north is due for completion at the end of this year.
Phase three, which will connect the cable with Rwanda, is expected to begin in the course of the second half of the year.
“By mid-next year, the national backbone should be completed,” Mwesigwa said. He noted that the Ugandan cable has two components—one has linked all government offices and another with spare capacity for the private operators to lease.
The Kenya government is also investing $60 million in a fibre cable of its own. The National Optic Fibre Backbone Infrastructure (NOFBI) is being implemented by Chinese firms Huawei, ZTE and a third firm, Sagem.
Unlike the other countries of East Africa, Kenya’s private sector has laid a lot of the fibre optics. Some 5,000 kilometres of fibre had been laid by the private players by June 2010.
The five partner states plan to link their cables in one network to lower the cost of communication by increasing the speed and capacity of internet connectivity.
Telecommunications regulators from these partner states are also pushing for a regional internet exchange point to keep traffic within the region local.

Samsung to invest US$140m in Africa push

Consumer electronics manufacturer Samsung Electronics will invest US$140 million in an African push that is aimed at growing sales revenue, build assembling plants and engineering academies sponsor research projects and fight counterfeits.
George Ferreira, Samsung Africa’s chief operating officer said this investment will further be injected in growing its market share, increase distribution of its products on the continent and engage governments to lower import duty on electronic products.
“Our investments in Africa in the next five years will be approximately $140 million,” Ferreira said in a phone interview following the conclusion of the five-day Samsung Africa Forum 2011 that concluded in Nairobi on Friday.
This year alone, the firm plans to invest another $40 million in Africa, with a target to more than double sales revenue.
“Our plan is to grow approximately 60 percent this year and for the next four years, we should be growing approximately 45 to 55 percent every year,” Ferreira said.
He said that in 2010, the firm’s sales revenue from Africa grew by 31 percent to reach $1.2 billion. The company has set itself a sales target of $10 billion by 2015.
Globally, Samsung Electronics revenue hit $135.8 billion in 2010 with an ambitious vision to reach $400 billion by 2020.
Samsung used the Nairobi forum to display some of its products ranging from mobile devices, laptop computers, digital cameras, internet-connected televisions, refrigerators and washing machines.
Ferreira said Samsung wants to lead the African market by 2015, something that will see the company overtake long standing market leaders like Sony, Nokia and South Korean rival, LG Electronics.
Today, Samsung operates in 42 African countries from a mere 15 in 2009.
With its Africa headquarters in Johannesburg, South Africa, Samsung has opened regional offices in Nigeria for Western Africa and Kenya for Eastern Africa.
In the mobile handset segment of the market where the company largely rivals Nokia, it claims a market share of about 20 percent with Nokia leading with a share of between 35-37 percent according to Ferreira.
“On mobile handsets, we want to get over 30 percent of market share. This will then put us on a par with Nokia,” he said.
He said Samsung has overtaken Nokia in western Europe in the mobile market and seeks to do the same in Africa.
“To me it’s not whether we will beat Nokia or not. It’s only a matter of time because globally, we are overtaking Nokia,” he said.
In terms of research, Samsung already runs an engineering academy in South Africa and is looking to replicate it elsewhere on the continent with the goal of graduating 10,000 electronics engineers in Africa by 2015.
The Nairobi forum, coming after the very first one last year in Johannesburg served as a platform to demonstrate Samsung’s strategy as well as innovations that the company has to offer.
The forum focused on introducing localized products that cater for the African lifestyle.
Earlier in the week, Samsung Africa president, Kwang Kee Park, said, the company will largely focus on Africa’s top 10 economies, which together generate 79 percent of the continent’s wealth and house almost 47 percent of the population.

Friday, April 29, 2011

Uganda Telecom ordered to pay Ush3.5b to MTN Uganda

The Commercial Court has ordered Uganda Telecom to pay MTN Ushs5billion as part of monies owed in Inter-Connect Fees for the period 2008-2009.

The Head of the Commercial Court, Justice Geoffrey Kiryabwire, ruled against UTL in the principal sum of Ushs3.5billion, with interest up to October 2008 amounting to Ushs1.5billion, and additional interest of 19% of the full amount until payment is made in full.

Court also awarded MTN Uganda damages of Ushs100million.

MTN last month issued a public notice against Uganda Telecom over a Ushs20billion debt accumulated in unpaid interconnect fees collected from subscribers but not remitted to MTN as per contract. The ruling constitutes one of the debts MTN sued for.

The case, the first of two, was a lawsuit MTN brought against UTL for not paying fees accumulated on the Gemtel code.
MTN sued for Ushs3.48 billion and claimed interest at a rate of 19% per annum, which as of October 2008 stood at Ushs1.5billion. MTN also sought general damages of Ushs500million.

UTL in its defence said it did not owe any money as the traffic was deemed to be international traffic charged at a different rate, Justice Kiryabwire said traffic originating from MTN to UTL code +256477xxx is local traffic and not international traffic as claimed by UTL in their defence. He therefore ruled that the claim by MTN Uganda was successful.

MTN meanwhile has another case in court against UTL for the sum of Ushs7.2billion, and Court noted that the contentious issues in the second case are the same as those in the first case.
Justice Kirywabwire advised both parties to enter into a consent judgement on the grounds that the issues in contention are similar to the ones in the case just concluded in MTNs favour.
He ordered both parties to reconcile of the figures in question out of court and report back on May 23rd for hearing.

"These two cases were for the period 2008 and 2009. For the period 2010 alone we have done a joint reconciliation, and UTL has acknowledged that they owe us Ushs14.6billion for the traffic exchanged during the whole of 2010, which brings the total amount owed to more than Ushs20billion. We trust that these matters will soon be put to rest so that our subscribers are not unduly inconvenienced," MTN CEO Themba Khumalo said.

Friday, April 1, 2011

East Africa cyber laws coming to boost e-commerce

The five member states that make up the East African Community (EAC) are drafting a harmonised cyber law that is aimed at boosting electronic commerce.
The law will focus on intellectual property rights, competition, e-taxation and information security.
The five states are all at different stages of passing country-specific laws on cyber crime. Late last year, Uganda passed the Computer Misuse Bill, the Electronic Signatures Bill and the Electronic Transactions Bill, which have since become law.
Through the EAC association of telecommunications regulators, the states have in the meantime resolved to set up Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) to fight against cyber crime.
The law formulation process which is now underway by the EAC task force on cyber laws is aimed at harmonizing existing legislation like Uganda’s to come up with a law that will apply across Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi.
The taskforce, which has been meeting in Kenya’s coastal city of Mombasa, hopes to finalise on the draft cyber laws and submit them for adoption by respective institutions.
The Mombasa meeting is a follow up of the phase one cyber laws discussions, endorsed by the EAC Council of Ministers last November, that covered electronic transactions, e-signatures and authentication, data protection and privacy, consumer protection, and computer crime.
Lack of harmonisation of cyber laws by regional member states is not only stifling electronic commerce, but has also created a loophole in curbing computer related crimes, data and consumer protection.
“Developing country officials are increasingly aware of the need to adapt and harmonise legislation to take into account the Internet economy and the potential of both e-commerce and m-commerce for boosting domestic and cross-border business,” read a statement from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
“The intent is to finalise the draft and submit it for adoption by relevant EAC institutions.”
The task force meeting has reviewed progress in implementing the Cyber Law Framework’s Phase I, which covers electronic transactions, electronic signatures and authentication, data protection and privacy, consumer protection, and computer crime.
UNCTAD supports activities to build the capacities of developing countries in the Information Communication and Technology (ICT) field.
In East Africa and other regions, it has helped lawmakers prepare cyber laws that protect both consumers and businesses, and encourage economic growth.
East Africa has a combined population of about 120 million people and is now a single market as it moves towards a political federation.
Cyber crime in Africa is growing faster than on any other continent with estimates saying that about 80 percent of personal computers (PCs) on the African continent are already infected with viruses and other malicious software.
The more worrying news for cyber security experts is that broadband Internet access has become a reality, which means more users would be able to access the web, translating into more viruses and SPAM from online fraudsters in Africa.
A few countries like Tunisia and Nigeria have made some headway by way of legislation on cyber security initiatives.
Most African countries though have no legal regulations in place to stop or prosecute online crime, thus providing a safe haven for cybercriminals.
Aside from Uganda, the other EAC member states are each at different stages of developing country-specific cyber laws.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

African domain operators take on DCA’s Bekele

AfTLD, an organization of African country-code top-level domain operators, has announced its intention to apply to ICANN for the .africa TLD.
The initiative appears to be different to and competitive with the best-known .africa applicant to date, Sophia Bekele’s DotConnectAfrica. Considering that Bekele has been pushing for the dotafrica inititative – having received endorsements from the African Union, the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and other, the fact that AfTLD has jumped in this late in the process will muddy the waters.
AfTLD has said that it plans to seek a mandate for .africa from the Commission of the African Union. It also expects to discuss forming a company to manage the bid at a meeting in Ghana next month.
Vika Mpisane, AfTLD’s chairman and general manager of South Africa’s .za ccTLD, said in a press release:
“We are not just interested in .africa only, but we want to also take on .afrique, which is the French version of .africa.
“It’s only natural for us to do this because at least 50% of Africa speaks French. We also intend to have an internationalised version of .africa as well because we have significant Arabic Africa population, but we will start definitely with .africa first.”
Considering that some of the TLDs have not done a good job at running country-specific names and governments are looking to take back domains like .ug from the private interests that manage them afte realizing they are critical resources, one wonders which direction this will drive the .africa quest.
The release said AfTLD shortly intends to announce a “leading registry services provider” to run its back-end, but indicated that in future it would expect to run the registry from within Africa.
The current version of ICANN’s new TLDs Applicant Guidebook sets the bar for a .africa bid very high, in practice possibly requiring near-universal governmental support.
A bidder for this kind of protected geographic term would require letters of support from 60% of the nations concerned. For Africa, as the Guidebook defines it, that’s about 34 countries.
However, crucially, if more than one African government were to object in writing to any given .africa application, that bid could be killed off.
AfTLD has 24 ccTLD registry members. They’re not all government-run TLDs, so that doesn’t necessarily follow that it already has 24 countries on board.
A key question is whether endorsement of a bid by the African Union could be interpreted as blanket approval from all of its 53 member governments. I don’t think that’s a given, under the letter of the Guidebook.
But if it is, DotConnectAfrica may already be there. It has a signed letter from the African Union Commission chairman Jean Ping, dated August 2009, that endorses its specific bid.

Friday, March 18, 2011

Uganda to call time on mobile phone price wars

A precedent in the very competitive and fast growing African telecommunications sector could soon be set should the Ugandan Communications Commission (UCC) move ahead with guidelines for minimum phone call tariffs.
Uganda's rapidly expanding telecommunication sector has been hit by a raging price war going back to 2010. Competition among operators for new phone subscribers is digging into profit margins and reports have indicated this will also affect government taxes.
If the regulatory move goes through, UCC will be stepping in unchartered waters as it could be the first regulator in the East African region and indeed the entire continent to practically regulate a sector that is today characterised by low tariffs. The UCC has issued a notice seeking public opinion on the regulation of telecoms call rates.
The move is in response to an ongoing price war in the telecom sector, which started in the second half of 2010 -- sparked off by Warid Telecom when it introduced near-free calls, and has stretched into 2011.
According to UCC, the new guidelines, expected to come into effect at the end of the month are aimed at curbing anticompetitive tendencies, encouraging new investments, enhancing tariff transparency and protecting consumers.
"By the end of this month we hope to come out with a position on the call tariffs," Isaac Kalembe, a public relations officer with UCC said. "Consultations are still going on with the operators and then we will invite users to a stakeholders' meeting."
The price wars have mainly been instigated by new players such as Warid Telecom, which is owned by the Essar Group of India.
For example, Warid has been able to grow its subscriber base to 2 million in a space of three years, having launched operations in January 2008.
Put together, telecom operators have a subscriber base of 8 million users according to figures by UCC at the end of June 2010.
Warid has racked up those user numbers after introducing offers that have allowed users near-free calls all day within its network on top of other exciting offers over the last 12 months.
Airtel (formerly Zain) followed Warid when they launched similar offers to increase their numbers as well as keep its subscribers from jumping to the cheaper options.
The price wars have raised concern among the bigger players that have been around longer, like MTN Uganda and Uganda Telecom, which were dragged into the fight for fear of losing subscribers, forcing them to slash their prices too.
Twelve months ago, the Uganda telecom sector average mobile call rate was Ush11 (0.004 US Cents) per second, which fell to Ush5 (0.002 US Cents) and then to Ush3 (0.001 US Cents) per second.
Orange Uganda, Airtel and Warid had promised to keep their rates at three shillings per second but should UCC put the price ceiling above these prices, they will have no alternative but to change them.
Warid Telecom recently lowered the rate even further down with its offer of Ush1per second from 6:00am to 6:00pm while MTN has reduced calls within its network by a shilling up from three shillings per second.
For the short message service (SMS), Airtel is offering unlimited short messages to its subscribers for Ush200 (0.086 US Cents) per day and Ush50 (0.021) to other networks.
These rates are a far cry to the mid 1990s when the mobile phone was introduced in Uganda by Celtel (now Airtel). As a monopoly at the time, Celtel charged rates in US Dollars and handsets were costing more than Ush1 million ($434).
That monopoly was later turned into a duopoly with the entry of MTN Uganda in 1998. The duopoly led to a gradual decrease in prices. When Uganda Telecom entered the market in 2001, an oligopolist market was created when the three players operated in the market and charged users high tariffs.
With the entry of WARID and Smile Telecom in the Uganda telecom sector in 2008, and Orange in 2009, a perfect competitive market situation was created.
While the reduced telecom prices resulted in a reduction in general price inflation because of the importance of communication services, operators have suffered a fall in revenue as users who owned a single mobile phone were forced to hold two and spread their expenditure on telecom services among the operators.
Phone users today spread their expenditure on phone calls to avoid the high tariffs that are charged on calls across networks they are not subscribed to.
"When inflation declined significantly in October 2010, it was because of airtime. When you make a shift or a jump, you reduce inflation because the income that would have been spent on air time is saved," a report by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics then said.
A price war similar to the one in Uganda has been raging in the Kenyan market, where Airtel has been out to erode Safaricom's dominance of voice revenues.
However, Kenyan regulators are yet to propose anything resembling minimum tariffs.
But with the telecoms market in Uganda headed for price controls, the rest of the region will be looking to see whether the regulator's hand will come into play to improve the players' margins.

Friday, March 11, 2011

MTN bring Android-powered Smartphone to Uganda

MTN Uganda has launched onto the Uganda market an Android-powered Smartphone that retails at Ush340,000. Manufactured by Chinese technology giant, Huawei Technologies, the phone, the phone looks like a mini-iPhone. I did a short interview with the MTN Uganda CEO, Mr. Themba Khumalo and below are excerpts.

Q: First of all, tell us about this growing relationship between MTN Uganda and Huawei Technologies?
A: To maintain our leading position in the telecommunications sector we have over the last fifteen years worked with the best service providers available. We are always looking for ways of serving our customers better, and we are continually involved in developing innovative services which enhance the way our people operate and live. All this is achieved through smart partnership with vendors like Huawei Technologies amongst. Huawei is today our second main vendor with Ericsson in the lead. Our partnering with global vendors such as such as Huawei guarantees to Ugandans that the services and products they receive from MTN Uganda are of world class quality.
Q: Why is MTN bringing to the market an Android Smartphone when there are smart phones based on other platforms already on the market?
A: First of all, Android Technology is important for Africa, and indeed Uganda, because it allows our own software developers to come up with locally grown applications and programs that are locally grown and can be used by more of the local populace. Other platforms are also going in this direction but Google has done a lot of work in getting local software developers to build applications for Android phones. We know there are already a large number of brilliant Ugandans working on mobile phone applications and programs. Introducing Android technology gives them the opportunity to place themselves on the global map of software developers.
But development aside, when we have more smart phones such as the IDEOS available in Uganda running Ugandan built applications; more and more people in Uganda will be enabled to use our high speed 3G+ network to access information and internet-based services. This is another reason we partnered with Huawei, the entry price of the IDEOS is very affordable to many ordinary Ugandans at less than UShs350,000.
Q: Is this an exclusively Uganda market product or all of MTN's Africa operations will launch the same at some stage? If that is the case, what is MTN’s thinking behind launching these Android phones across your African operations?
A: The IDEOS offer we have launched here is specifically for the Ugandan market, I do believe the business case is there and most of Africa operations are broadening their smart phone portfolios to stimulate data usage growth. Without commenting much on the broader strategy it suffices to state data is a key component of the long term strategy in MTN. We know very well the power of communications in emerging markets and the catalytic role it has in economic development. Our company is continuously seeking opportunities to support sustainable revenue growth.
Q: Smartphones are known to be expensive because of the technology on which they are based, how much will one of those phones go for?
Through the partnership with Huawei Technologies, we have managed to keep the cost of the phone affordable. It is currently on the market retailing at about Ushs344,500 only - which is less than US$200. This offer is not for the phone alone, it is bundled together with monthly internet access packages. This is certainly affordable, considering that grey/imitation mobile phone are retailing for around the same amount of money but do not provide the benefit of quality after sales support.
Q: You say this particular phone will enable Ugandans take advantage of MTN’s 3G+ network, what will be made possible from as far as MTN is concerned as well as the user?
MTN 3G+ is not any mere Internet solution – it is a well-rounded data communications solution that will enable our customers to access fast, affordable and accessible data services. The MTN high speed 3G+ network allows users to make full use of the internet - with most ordinary data networks in Uganda you cannot use popular sites and services such as content streaming services (which include YouTube) and the websites hosted by most news organisations. You will also find it hard to conduct content uploads, which limits our capacity as Ugandans to share locally generated content with the rest of the world. In India and China, for example, business outsourcing is thriving because their communication networks can handle the upload and download of vast amounts of data - and that is a whole new industry that has bolstered their economies.
We are now living in the information age, and the control of information has been decentralised. Now, anyone with access to the main communication network - the internet - can inform, educate and influence decisions. This is why the 3G+ network and devices that are compatible with 3G are so important - they allow more and more mobile Ugandans to learn more, but more importantly, share more.
Q: What advise do you have for software developers considering that with Android, localized apps can be created and utilised through this platform?
This is the time to get your name out there. Develop more localised applications so that they are put onto the Android marketplace for download. We are going to explore partnerships with learning centres such as universities to support more localised software development. Everyone holding an IDEOS Android in Uganda is a potential consumer of the applications you develop.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

DotConnectAfrica seeks partner to run “.AFRICA” domain

DotConnectAfrica (DCA) is looking for a registry partner for the technical and operational services of the .AFRICA generic top level domain (gTLD) that DCA intends to apply for when the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) moves to expand the internet space in June.
“DotConnectAfrica (DCA) intends to participate in the new gTLD application issued by ICANN. As such DCA will be looking for a registry partner for technical and operational services for the planned .AFRICA top level domain, that is consistent with the road-map of ICANN's requirements,” a statement from DCA reads in part.
Interested parties with requisite capability to provide registry services should submit an Expression of Interest (EOI) with the name and address of the company, company profile and financial capabilities.
Others are experience in providing registry services (technical and operational) and presence and or experience in developing markets.
DCA will contact selected parties for more detailed discussions and a selection process.
Pre-qualification would include technical and financial evaluation as well as support from a host country.
Interested registers have been asked to send their expressions of interest to the address: eoi@dotconnectafrica.org.
Sophia Bekele, the executive director DCA is leading the chase for a .AFRICA domain arguing that .africa as a gTLD is long overdue given the potential it has to brand the continent’s products and services. “While Africa’s image has suffered through war, famine and governance issues, there is also another image that the world does not know about Africa, and that can be told through its people, when they engage in promoting their products and services for trade and investment in the new gTLD,” she said in an earlier interview.
Bekele explained that a shift in the industry away from the original gTLDs that have served Africa like the dotcoms and dotorgs to a dotafrica will mean development of a new industry and market for Africa empowering African jobs and wealth creation.
She said Africa will be empowered in the process so that gTLDs don’t have to go to ICANN for financial support as is the case with African community gTLDs
“The dotafrica registry can instead fulfill that need, and this DCA is ready to do,” Bekele said. Africa has already missed the boat in the last many rounds; but we have seen the successes of .eu and then .asia. Now is the time for .africa.”
At the moment, the Internet contains just 21 gTLDs, from the most famous, dot-com to lesser known extensions like dot-name or dot-travel.
The dotafrica registry has so far received endorsements from the African Union, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and recently the International Domain Resolution Union (IDRU).

Thursday, February 17, 2011

The place of social media in Uganda’s elections 2011


Do social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr have a place in Uganda’s ongoing 2011 election campaigns as February 18 looms large with every passing day?
And are these new media platforms having impact if any among the various constituents of the major political parties that have a presence on the Internet the same way newspapers, television and radio broadcasts have?
Well, a look at the websites of the four main political parties participating in the general elections indicates that social media has been adopted by the major political players in Uganda but is yet to catch on like is the case in the developed world.
Social media was a big factor in the US presidential elections back in 2008 when President Barack Obama widely succeeded at it during the Democratic Party primaries and during his election bid for the US presidency.
Obama used Facebook, Twitter, as well as apps for the iPhone, to get people voting in numbers that had not been seen before.
Members of the electorate even contributed millions of US Dollars to Obama’s campaign with the help of new media and the social networking sites were major channels for generating the money let alone inform members about what was going in.
Authors of a book titled “Throwing Sheep in the Boardroom: How Online Social Networking Will Change Your Life” said Obama had more than 2 million American supporters on Facebook; his rival McCain had, just over 600,000.
On Twitter, Obama could count on more than 112,000 supporters 'tweeting' to get him elected. McCain, for his part, had only 4,600 followers on Twitter.
The party websites of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) and the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) have recognized the need for interactivity through the social networking sites, which are especially popular among the young people.
The NRM and FDC have members actively participating using the social networks.
This though cannot be said of the Democratic Party (DP), which has the Facebook, MySpace and Twitter icons on the party website, but they do not take you to the party’s Facebook page or Twitter account.
It is worse for the Uganda People’s Congress (UPC), which has an old fashioned website (www.upcparty.net). The website does not have any interactive resources. Some of the material on the website has not been updated in months.
In fact, there is nothing to show on the UPC website that the party has a candidate traversing the country in search of votes and selling the UPC manifesto to Ugandans in readiness for a general election.
The NRM website (www.nrm.ug) is the most dynamic and modern of them all. The party constituents and members can follow goings on using Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube.
Supporters can also make phone calls for any inquiries and also subscribe for short message services (SMS) on their mobile phones to receive the latest NRM updates by sending an SMS to 6760.
On the Twitter account @YKMuseveni, no one was following President Yoweri Museveni while 15 people are followers.
On both the Museveni Facebook fan page and the NRM Secretariat Facebook page, there is a total of 467 members.
The pages essentially have posts of newspaper articles and it is these that members are reacting to that form the bulk of the activity on the pages.
Visitors to the website can listen to podcasts, watch YouTube videos of some of candidate Museveni’s campaign rallies across the country or view still images off the Flickr website.
The Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), which is leading a coalition of political parties has a website (www.fdcuganda.org), which comes with a blog and an emailing list for starters.
One can also follow FDC on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and there is a provision for RSS feeds.
On the social networking site Twitter, nine people, most of them top members of FDC were following FDC on Twitter while 37 people are followers.
“I weep whenever I look at the pathetic state of our health sector. I don’t need to come from Kampala to remind you,” one of the tweets on the FDC twitter accounts reads.
FDC’s twitter page was more active with 85 tweets compared to 3 on the NRM twitter account.
On the FDC Facebook page, 857 people ‘like’ FDC and the page has a combination of newspaper posting with members commenting as well as actual posts from within the FDC.
The Uganda Federal Alliance (UFA) of Betty Kamya, the Member of Parliament for Rubaga North, who is also in the presidential race, has a Facebook page with 44 members who like UFA.
Jaberi Bidandi Ssali’s People’s Progressive Party (PPP) does not have a website let alone a Facebook or Twitter account to talk of.
The same is the case with Abed Bwanika’s People’s Development Party (PDP).
In general, visits to Facebook pages, Twitter accounts indicate there is interactivity between the parties and their members or constituencies, but it is still very insignificant.
One cannot easily draw conclusions based on the numbers of visitors to these social media or members of the electorate taking advantage of social media but the fact people are interacting indicates Uganda is not so far off for social media to play a big role in the electoral process.
Elsewhere, these new platforms give perfect real time feedback to political events, political statements that when many members of the electorate use them, they cam amplify the impact of an event according to an article that was published by the Guardian newspaper right after the elections in the United Kingdom (UK) this year.
Attempts to speak to party spokespeople about the ways in which they are using social media were fruitless. Most are upcountry, while those that are in Kampala missed various appointments for interviews.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Can Uganda BPO operators look to India for sub-contracting deals?

On top of the strategies already in place, Uganda’s nascent business process outsourcing (BPO) sector needs to look to India for sub-contracting deals to get the sector off the ground.
To be able to pull this off, the Ministry of Information Communication Technology (ICT) and the National Information Technology Authority (NITA-U) need to work together with the private sector to build business alliances with top Indian BPO companies – if this is agreeable to the Indian operators.
This seems to be the view of Brad William, a keen watcher of the global BPO industry. William was reacting to a post titled “Uganda moves to implement BPO model” that was posted on this blog (Click Uganda).
William said India’s BPO industry has evolved and matured to present higher-end services that require judgment-based analysis and domain expertise, rather than function-specific, rules-based performance parameters alone.
Below is William’s argument:
As service providers strive to offer end-to-end services, we see BPO falling into different segments. At one end of the spectrum is the traditional rules-based transactional outsourcing; while at the other end is judgment-based transaction processing and full-service business process outsourcing.
India has won its spurs as the world’s outsourcing destination of choice. Currently the country has a commanding share of the global outsourcing market.
India is undoubtedly the most favored IT/BPO destination of the world. This raises the question why most of the big MNCs are interested in outsourcing their operations to BPOs in India.
The answer is very simple- India is home to large and skilled human resources. India has inherent strengths, which have made it a major success as an outsourcing destination.
India produces the largest number of graduates in the world. The name of India has become synonymous with that of BPOs and IT industry hence the name BPO India.
Besides being technically sound, the work force is proficient in English and work at lower wages in comparison to other developed countries of the world.
India also has a distinct advantage of being in a different time zone that gives it flexibility in working hours.
All these factors make the Indian BPOs more efficient and cost effective. In order to meet the growing international demand for lucrative, customer-interaction centers, many organizations worldwide are looking to BPO India.
A subset of outsourcing, Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) involves contracting the operations and responsibilities through a third party service provider.
From the last couple of years, the BPO industry has evolved as the most substantial sector in the Indian market. India has emerged as the most favored location for all BPO services across the globe.
This has accelerated the Indian economy to the heights, progressively boosting the statistics depicting the growth in the years to come and it has been however forecasted that by 2020, more than 80% of the world of business process outsourcing services will be served by the Indian companies.
Marked as the best place to attain superior quality services globally, the BPO industry is strengthening its foundation in India.
In January, Uganda launched her BPO model and strategy and one justification for this by ICT Minister Aggrey Awori is that MNC’s are finding rates in India to be very high and as a result will look to cheaper rates, which they will find in places like Uganda.
While Minister Awori is without a doubt spot on as far as rates are concerned, it looks like India will continue to attract BPO work while destinations like Uganda grow and build know how.
My feeling is Uganda would be better served if government pursued a working relationship with the government of India and indeed the Indian private sector beyond just getting BPO trainers from India. Why not encourage sub-contracting arrangements between big Indian BPO operators and Ugandan BPO operators.
By taking this direction or adding it into the Uganda BPO model and strategy, it would give a much needed shot in the hands of Uganda’s BPO operators considering that Uganda shares similar characteristics with India.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Airtel and MasterCard to enable users buy goods with their phones

Airtel Africa, Standard Chartered Bank and MasterCard Worldwide have entered an arrangement that will enable mobile phone users to make online purchases from MasterCard merchants around the world.
Dubbed the world’s first virtual card that operates off a wallet residing on a mobile phone, the Airtel 1time Shopping Card will offer communities the opportunity for greater participation in the financial system as they realise the substantial benefits of mobile commerce.
“This launch of the world’s first virtual number on a mobile card marks a big milestone in mobile commerce,” Manoj Kholi, the Airtel chief executive officer (international) and joint managing director said.
“The airtel 1time shopping card will offer consumers a robust e-commerce solution that delivers security, accessibility, acceptance, ability and global reach. Subsequent phases of the program will allow airtel susbscribers to make payments across the MasterCard network.”
Kohli said the single use shopping card will soon be available in Kenya and rolled out to markets across Africa, subject to regulatory approvals.
“Airtel Africa customers in Kenya will soon be able to use their mobile phone to make online purchases from MasterCard merchants around the world,” Kohli said.
The simplified online transaction will work in the following way; each time an airtel customer is shopping online he or she will be able to request a single use shopping card number.
Airtel money services will generate a special 16 digit number that enables the completion of the transaction.
On completion of the transaction, a confirmation message will be sent to the consumer’s handset.
The single use feature of the airtel 1time Shopping Card provides the consumer with a convenient and secure online shopping experience.
Powered by MasterCard in Control technology the airtel 1time Shopping Card will enable more consumers to connect to the global marketplace via their mobile phones.
“Whether located in urban or rural communities, people will be able to participate in commerce from their hometown to anywhere in the world,” said Michael Miebach, division president, Middle East and Africa, MasterCard Worldwide.
He said MasterCard sees mobile payments as an innovative way to let consumers quickly and securely purchase their favorite items in this connected world.
These innovations at MasterCard he said also provide governments and other participants in the economy with a platform for financial inclusion.
“As a leading international bank in Africa, we are always looking for ways to bring innovative financial solutions to our customers,” Kariuki Ngari, the general manager and cluster head, Consumer Banking for Kenya and East Africa, Standard Chartered Bank said.
“The virtual card is a unique way of ensuring that our customers can transact in the digital world for the first time without having to carry a piece of plastic.”
Kohli said the global opportunity for mobile payments is large and the global unbanked population with mobile phones is expected to grow 70 percent over the next year to 1.7 billion people by 2012.
The opportunity for mobile payments Kohli said is especially significant in Africa, where there are close to 400 million mobile phone users and an unbanked population of 230 million households.
By 2014, Africa is expected to see 56% mobile penetration.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Airtel fires first shot in likely SMS war

Over the past one year, telecommunication providers across sub Saharan Africa have engaged in price wars as each aimed to undercut the other’s call tariffs for subscriber numbers and as a result, rates have reached their lowest levels ever and are unlikely to go down further for some time to come.
Rates for short message services (SMS) have however rarely been touched.
Airtel has however fired the first shot in a likely price war on the SMS front by announcing for the first time a reduction in the SMS rates while in some cases, a user just has to pay a one-off fee to get access to free SMS within the Airtel network.
Airtel announced this offer in its major markets across the 16 operations it rebranded at the end of last year.
The short message service is one area where mobile telephone operators make significant amounts of revenue given the high levels of SMS traffic – a function users consider cheaper than calling in some instances while among the youth, it is the best way to communicate.
In Uganda, the texting offer, which has been named ‘fretxt’ gives customers the option to sign up for unlimited daily, weekly and monthly text bundles at the cost of US Cents 0.08, US Cents 0.4 and US$1.7 respectively.
Further still, text messages across rival networks have also dropped drastically by more than half from US Cents 0.04 to US Cents 0.02.
Mr. V.G Somasekhar, Airtel Uganda managing director said mobile value added services like text messaging are very relevant today because the mobile phone has become a multipurpose tool that goes beyond making and receiving phone calls
“While customers are enjoying our affordable call tariffs, there is as much traffic in the use of text messages, which indicates that text messaging services are just as important to our customers,” Somasekhar said.
“We want to see more Ugandans enjoy the benefits of mobile telecommunication and by reducing our SMS costs we are making it even easier to reach friends, family and even boost businesses at almost no cost.”
Somasekhar also noted that the tariff was in response to customers’ needs and most certainly the youth segment. “We are in constant communication with our customers and have recently been called on to provide even more affordable SMS rates,” he said.
In Kenya, Airtel has reduced the charges for SMS across all networks to Ksh1 (US Cents 0.01) following a plea by the Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) for mobile phone operators to lower their SMS charges. CCK has asked operators to have reduced SMS rates within the next five months.

Acer to roll out educational solutions in Africa

Eager to tap into Africa’s education sector, which has so far been less impacted by the information technology (IT) revolution, Acer is to roll out its new Acer Education Centre partner certification to 15 African countries.
Acer Education Centre is a partnership arrangement that Acer will use to certify technology partners in its drive to ensure that Africa’s education sector benefits from the latest technologies.
This type of partnership arrangement has been established by Acer in South Africa with 15 partners working with educational institutions to boost the relationship and interactions between teachers and students using the latest technologies.
Erik Blom, the education sector BU manager at Acer said the Acer Education Centre channel programme will enable the company recruit a network of regional dealers able to sell, implement and support complete solutions in the education market.
“With this new certification, we want to create a set of partners who have a deep understanding of the specific technology needs of the education market and how Acer’s products can address these requirements,” Blom said.
Programme partners will offer schools and other learning institutions access to products and solutions tailored to their needs, as well as specific expertise around technology in the educational sector. Blom was speaking following the launch of the programme in Uganda where ITec Solutions Ltd., has been appointed as the Acer partner.
Blom said the education market in Africa offers a host of exciting opportunities for Acer and its business partners with a growing number of learning institutions integrating technology into their teaching methods and curricula.
“Technology has a vital role to play in education by supplementing classroom teaching, giving learners access to information sources and preparing them for a tech-driven workplace,” Blom said.
“It also helps teachers and administrators to carry out administrative tasks more efficiently, and can fill gaps in subjects and areas where there aren’t enough teachers on hand.”
Acer showed offer a product that lets teachers interact electronically with their students using its ‘Acer Classroom Manager’ – a touch-screen white board that is linked to a projector, netbooks on student’s desks allowing for a seamless interaction between students and teachers.
Blom said class manager has been used successfully in South Africa where remote access capabilities of classroom manager have been implemented.
“As a global leader in personal computing solutions, Acer wants to play an active role in developing and cultivating the school of the future, providing innovative and extremely affordable solutions to the global education community,” Blom said.
He warned that it was vital for institutions and schools to choose the right technologies, ones that are simple to install and easy to use, reliable and affordable.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Acer to roll out educational solutions in Africa

Eager to tap into Africa’s education sector, which has so far been less impacted by the information technology (IT) revolution, Acer is to roll out its new Acer Education Centre partner certification to 15 African countries.
Acer Education Centre is a partnership arrangement that Acer will use to certify technology partners in its drive to ensure that Africa’s education sector benefits from the latest technologies.
This type of partnership arrangement has been established by Acer in South Africa with 15 partners working with educational institutions to boost the relationship and interactions between teachers and students using the latest technologies.
Erik Blom, the education sector BU manager at Acer said the Acer Education Centre channel programme will enable the company recruit a network of regional dealers able to sell, implement and support complete solutions in the education market.
“With this new certification, we want to create a set of partners who have a deep understanding of the specific technology needs of the education market and how Acer’s products can address these requirements,” Blom said.
Programme partners will offer schools and other learning institutions access to products and solutions tailored to their needs, as well as specific expertise around technology in the educational sector. Blom was speaking following the launch of the programme in Uganda where ITec Solutions Ltd., has been appointed as the Acer partner.
Blom said the education market in Africa offers a host of exciting opportunities for Acer and its business partners with a growing number of learning institutions integrating technology into their teaching methods and curricula.
“Technology has a vital role to play in education by supplementing classroom teaching, giving learners access to information sources and preparing them for a tech-driven workplace,” Blom said.
“It also helps teachers and administrators to carry out administrative tasks more efficiently, and can fill gaps in subjects and areas where there aren’t enough teachers on hand.”
Acer showed offer a product that lets teachers interact electronically with their students using its ‘Acer Classroom Manager’ – a touch-screen white board that is linked to a projector, netbooks on student’s desks allowing for a seamless interaction between students and teachers.
Blom said class manager has been used successfully in South Africa where remote access capabilities of classroom manager have been implemented.
“As a global leader in personal computing solutions, Acer wants to play an active role in developing and cultivating the school of the future, providing innovative and extremely affordable solutions to the global education community,” Blom said.
He warned that it was vital for institutions and schools to choose the right technologies, ones that are simple to install and easy to use, reliable and affordable.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

DotConnectAfrica asks US gov’t not to delay application process


DotConnectAfrica (DCA), the not for profit organisation that is applying for the .africa “generic top-level domain”, or gTLD has written an open letter to the US Department of Commerce asking it not to delay the application process to widen the Internet space with the addition of new domains.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN’s) was on schedule to expand the Internet's domain name space in May this year.
However, last December, the US Department of Commerce (DOC) wrote to ICANN asking them to delay the process until they have finalised a risk/benefit report into further opening up of the Internet domain space.
“Yes we see delays, not by ICANN but based on the letter from the Department of Commerce to ICANN to delay the process until ICANN has finalised a risk/benefit report,” Sophia Bekele, the executive director DCA said in an email response.
The DOC asked ICANN to delay the process a day before the ICANN public forum on new gTLDs in Cartagena, Colombia in December – something that came as a surprise to everyone in the industry.
In the letter to Ms. Fiona M. Alexander, the associate administrator of the National Information Telecommunications and Administration at the DOC, copied to both the chairman and chief executive of ICANN, Bekele reiterates the three key principles why DCA has championed the .africa domain. Bekele also presented the same case during the ICANN Cartagena public forum.
She said .africa as a gTLD is long overdue given the potential it has to brand the continent’s products and services, so that the rest of the world will know what Africa does and what the continent has to offer.
“While Africa’s image has suffered through war, famine and governance issues, there is also another image that the world does not know about Africa, and that can be told through its people, when they engage in promoting their products and services for trade and investment in the new gTLD,” the letter reads in part.
The letter said this is in line with the current US administration’s policy of “focus on Africa”, to assist in increasing trade and investment.
“While, we all acknowledge ICANN is an international organization, it is also based in the US. Therefore, the dotafrica gTLD fulfills this US agenda and support for Africa’s speedy entry in the global village,” the letter reads.
Bekele, a former ICANN policy advisor said DCA has instituted a programme called ‘generation.africa’ as part of the dotafrica agenda to empower the youth to adapt to the powers of the Internet and its use.
She said just like the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a goodwill ambassador to ICANN, has championed broadband in Africa, DCA is calling on ICANN to do the same for the .africa agenda.
Bekele explained that a shift in the industry away from the original gTLDs that have served Africa like the dotcoms and dotorgs to a dotafrica will mean development of a new industry and market for Africa empowering African jobs and wealth creation.
She said Africa will be empowered in the process so that gTLDs don’t have to go to ICANN for financial support as is the case with African community gTLDs
“The dotafrica registry can instead fulfill that need, and this DCA is ready to do,” Bekele said. Africa has already missed the boat in the last many rounds; but we have seen the successes of .eu and then .asia. Now is the time for .africa.”
At the moment, the Internet contains just 21 gTLDs, from the most famous, dot-com to lesser known extensions like dot-name or dot-travel.
The dotafrica registry has so far received endorsements from the African Union, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and recently the International Domain Resolution Union (IDRU).
In its letter of endorsement on December 5, 2010, the executive director of IDRU, David Allen, stated, the IDRU endorses your efforts for the “dotafrica” initiative.
“IDRU stands ready to assist DotConnectAfrica in its gTLD application for '.africa' in regard to the various African languages that it would support. At the international level, these include Arabic and French and Portuguese; at the local level also - for example - Amharic and Swahili,” the IDRU endorsement reads in part.

Uganda moves to implement BPO model

Uganda has moved to implement her Business Processing Outsourcing (BPO) strategy and model, which has so far cost some Ush5b (US$2.1m).
The strategy will see some 3,000 young Ugandans acquire BPO skills through training that has already commenced with some 500 youth at Makerere University’s Faculty of Computing and Information Technology (FCIT).
FCIT has partnered with National Information Technology Authority Uganda (NITA-U) to develop an international BPO training programme that will be used to provide BPO training in the country and also act as a benchmark for other training institutions, which may wish to develop competencies in BPO training.
Mr. James Saaka, the executive director NITA-U said the BPO training programme at Makerere is aimed at addressing the BPO skills gap that Uganda is facing compared to leading BPO destinations like India, Malaysia, South Africa, Egypt, Mauritius and other BPO emerging markets.
“Once the programme commences, the country will stand to benefit from a critical mass BPO skilled personnel and a wealth of BPO skilled managers and entrepreneurs that are key in attracting global BPO business,” Saaka said.
According to Saaka, the Uganda government is developing the capacity of BPO operators in the country to cope with the competitive nature of the industry while positioning Uganda as a BPO destination.
He said the goal of the programme is to develop BPO skills, to build, demonstrate and establish a BPO incubation centre with a 300 seat-call centre as a BPO centre of excellence to provide direct and indirect employment opportunities for 1000 Ugandans within 2010/2011 financial year for starters.
Government will provide rented space for BPO operators that are not in the call centre category, provide bandwidth for BPO operators and clean power with backup power as incentives for BPO operators who will operate in the incubation centre.
Government will also provide a training facility for BPO trainers, to brand and market the BPO industry in Uganda and to develop BPO governance frameworks.
Government’s decision to support the BPO industry through the provision of incentives is intended to make the industry grow, mature, become globally competitive and deliver the expected benefits.
The expected benefits Saaka talks about include creating employment, increase in government revenue, increased economic development and further investment in infrastructure to support the BPO industry and marketing Uganda as a preferred BPO destination.
Business Process Outsourcing is the strategic use of the third party service providers to perform activities traditionally handled by internal staff in a company or an institution.
It is common in the airlines, insurance, banking and energy sectors.
Information Communications and Technology Minister Aggrey Awori said there is a growing demand for ICT outsourcing in Africa that Uganda needs to capture.
“BPO has two categories including; back office outsourcing which involves internal business functions such as billing or purchasing, and front office outsourcing which includes customer-related services such as marketing or technical support,” Awori said.
Awori said that with the ever increasing number of graduates from Ugandan universities, of whom only 40% are absorbed in the formal job market coupled with Uganda’s use of English as a language of instruction, the BPO industry would be able to employ a large number of university graduates.
Minister Awori said in India, the BPO market is massive, generating revenues of US$30b per year, but that rising costs mean it is a less cost effective option for basic outsourcing services.
Management costs he said are approaching US levels, employee costs rising at 10-15% per year, and it is becoming difficult to attract/retail talent – justification he said for countries like Uganda to join the BPO industry.
He warned that BPO and ICT services are very competitive and companies that provide these services will require strict adherence to set standards as well as strict operating procedures that cannot easily be met without dedicated top-tier infrastructure and support from the host governments.
A BPO technical working group has been set up to spearhead the activities of the BPO roadmap.

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