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.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
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.
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.
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.
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