The Nation Newspaper

Category: e-Business

  • How to secure Chibok girls release, by ICT expert

    The Nigeria Computer Society (NCS) has faulted the  the Federal Government’s strategy in combating insurgents. The government, it said, has failed to utilise information communication technology (ICT) tools to fight the its surgents.

    NCS President Prof David Adewumi said satellite technology and geographical mapping of areas the insurgents laid siege could  secure the release of the over 200 abducted Chibok school girls.

    He said what should have been done had been left undone by the government.

    Adewunmi said: “When you talk about satellite technology, it can be used to find out or locate or co-locate objects in very long distance. There is the Sat 3 that is in orbit. This satellite facility is not being fully utilised because it has the capacity to locate to the minutest details where ever those insurgents might be in the forest. It can also be used for agric purpose.

    “One thing that is clear is that we have not deployed enough technology to fight insecurity in the country.”

    Adewumi who spoke with The Nation said there is need for accurate data gathering in the country because if the available data is not dependable, it will not yield any positive results.

    According to him, the entire Sambisa Forest in Bornu State where the insurgents have been operating from could also be mapped for computer simulation. “The Sambisa Forest, as large as it may be, could be mapped and simulated using computer simulation technology. The NCS therefore recommends the immediate and appropriate use of ICT tools to tackle the insecurity in the land. Federal Government must as a matter of priority establish a National Biometric Database Programme. There is a need to address and extract functional information from the present databases maintained by Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), Police, National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), the banks and others. Furthermore, other ICT devices such as surveillance cameras, social network analysis, biometric surveillance data mining, satellite imagery, internet protocol (IP) devices should be employed professionally to checkmate insecurity in the country.

    “With the highest professional regard, NCS is ready and willing to partner with the Federal Government to actualise this.”

    The president recalled that after the September 11 terrorists’ attacks on the twin-towers of the World Trade Centre in the United States (US), no such attacks has been successful in that country because the government has deployed technology tools massively to prevent a re-occurrence.

    “Government has not lived up to its responsibility of funding the development of the ICT sector in the country by providing the basic infrastructure. There are quite a number of ICT facilities that are supposed to be used even by local government areas and state government. There is need to deploy the simplest technology such as the Wireless Hidden Surveillance Camera. I don’t think government is deploying enough of ICT tools to tackle the security challenges in the country,” Prof Adewumi said.

  • Infracos will breed coruption, monopoly

    Infracos will breed coruption, monopoly

    The proposed licensing of seven infrastructure providers (Infracos) by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), to deepen broadband penetration, will promote corruption and monopoly, says  Chief Executive Officer, Disc Communications Limited, Mr Bayo Banjo, an engineer,  canvasses the unbundling of spectrum licences to operators. LUCAS AJANAKU met him.

    With the liberalisation of the telecoms sector more than a decade ago by former President Olusegun Obasanjo came the transformation of the sector. The number of telephone lines have shot up to over 100 million from about 400,000 while teledensity is more than 90 per cent from less than 10 per cent. With the transformation came some challenges, such as low service quality, cybercrimes and near-extinction of small operators.

    Internet as a tool for job creation

    What I do know is that no nation can be stable if the unemployment level is high as  is in this country.

    We will not be able to have a stable nation and I look at the internet as a tool that can create these jobs because what the internet does is that it links people to the rest of the world, so it means that if we have a good internet infrastructure our youths, when the worst comes to the worst, can find employment abroad while being in Nigeria

    There are many opportunities and I think the most glaring case of a country that has population problem and has used the internet so effectively is India. Most of the software are developed in India, most of the value-added services, either phone answering and others come out of India.  Once the infrastructure is in place, it becomes independent of the government. So, it will even assist the government in job creation. As you know, there are some bad sides to that but there is a huge job title called Yahoo-yahoo, a lot of our young people and even older ones are involved in this, but of course, in any new innovation, there are always bad sides.When mobile phones came, I remember I had to caution people who said, ‘oh things will be fantastic, you can call the police,’ but the reverse is the case. The armed robber can use the phone to warn his people carrying out an operation that police are around. A corrupt bank official can call someone and say XYZ has just withdrawn N4million, meet him at such and such places. So, in any innovation, there is always the good and the bad side.

    Challenges

    What I believe our problems are with the internet are cost, speed, reliability and in some cases, the devices which involve awareness, education or whatever. Talking about what the problems with the use of the internet are, you don’t need any qualification to say what they are. The only qualification you need is that you are a user.

    We are going through all these noises about internet revolution, bandwidth revolution and others without results.

    There are, at least, four operators that already have the network that can deliver internet efficiently. In fact, I think two of them have the adequate frequency to deliver. So, what is stopping everybody adopting it?  What is stopping the kind of explosion we had with the mobile phone? We had 400,000 phones before now. The GSM at least solved one of the biggest problems we had with availability of phones. Now, if you want 100 phones today, you can get them immediately, that problem has been solved.

    One of the major problems is cost and that is why I have said if the government is going to help at all, generally, you will find out that when the government dabbles into this, they come in with good intention, but we know what generally happens, after that. I attribute a lot of the success of the communication system to the fact that the government put a person from the private sector in charge and this gentleman was a CEO in his own right in a private company. He was used to being in charge and as an operator, the first thing I noticed about the NCC at that time, was that if you apply for a licence, and you are qualified, it will be given to you.

    Fight against cybercrimes

    We are lucky yet that the hackers have not come. I think the first hacking I have seen was probably the stock exchange computers but when they do come, it will be disastrous. The first way to catch a criminal is find out what he does with the ill-gotten wealth. You see a person who was driving beetle and suddenly he is buying a fleet of 500 cars. In developed countries, immediately, they focus on him. They ask him: ‘Where did you get the money?  But here, we don’t have that. So, let us put it this way, 80 per cent of crime fighters try to know the source of suspect’s income,  which we don’t bother about here. So, we are in real trouble.

    You will agree with me that as of yet, we don’t really have much impact on cybercrime. Imagine a situation where somebody breaks into the computers of a bank and changes all the account balances and quickly rushes to withdraw as much as they can from a particular branch. When that becomes rampant, and when we do not see that person being caught or prosecuted, or when we see that person being caught and there is technical excuse as to why the person was not jailed, then there will be an avalanche; then there will be chaos and that’s why I think cyber security in all its aspects should be treated very seriously.

     Infracos not the answer to broadband

    Infrastructure  service providers (Infracos) for one zone is not good enough. It’s a fibre optic network so why do you want one? In fact, what even makes it worse is that this one operator is going to be financed by government to the tune of billions. Who is going to be number one on the list of benficiaries? Of course the president’s friends, senators and others. It will be number 50 before you get a real operator vying for that licence. Is that not a monopoly? Luckily, they will allow the people that already have the networks to continue to operate. Why the restriction? Let economics drive out the unserious people, that is the reality. If you tell me there is one licence in an area and you are going to pump money, who will get those licences.

    If the Infracos get funding from the government, will the government let them be autonomous? Will the government not have representation on their boards to secure its investment? We know what happened in NITEL.

     NigComSat

    Look at what has happened with NigComSat. It’s a good idea, the essential thing that we need but what has happened? Is it servicing anybody? It has the power to reach any part of Nigeria. In short, government has created another NITEL. NigComSat should be sold to investors in the private sector. Again, selling must be done with caution because of real and unreal money.  I call it non-real money, I don’t want to call the money what it is but I give you an example, in Abuja, have you not noticed many big estates empty. All over the place, empty. Why are they empty? Because the landlords want a rent that is too high. Why can they afford to keep their estates empty? Because it is not real money. If it is money that somebody worked hard for, he cannot keep an estate empty for five years, he will reduce his rent.  It is the same thing with businesses. If non-real money is allowed to invest in businesses, they do not have the motivation to run it as it its real money. In most foreign countries, its not the case that you bringing money, its not the case of you coming to an auction, they will investigate where that money came from and they will be sure that it is proper investors’ money because they know investors will want return on their investment. They know the investors will make people running the business to account for their invetsemnt. It is not simple black and white that people are trying to make it appear; if I have unreal money, I happen to come across $10billion, I can invest in something else, it’s doing well, it’s not doing well. I buy a licence, I tie up a frequency. I know how I got the money. But if it’s real money, investor money, those investors will want a return on their investment or they will sell their shares or close the thing down or which ever.

    Mortality rate of local operators

    Where I think the government went wrong is realising that it is the small operator that is the most valuable. In my interaction with the NCC, they will say things, such as: ‘to enter telecoms, you must come with huge funds; IT business is expensive; you must come with your expertise and others. The biggest problem  is that regulators don’t understand anti-competitive behaviour. This makes big companies to sabotage small companies. We have this in the non-telecoms world there are rumours about businessmen, particularly in sugar, rice, salt and whatever sabotaging other importers. As a result, all the small operators have vanished. The biggest ICT companies in the world, for very strange reasons, started from garage.  It is only Dell that started as a student, selling computers on campus. It grew to overpower Compac, IBM and others. So, the hallmark of any developing country, the first policy you must put above all other policies is to protect innovation. Without that, you cannot move forward. America went through this. Rockefeller had to introduce anti-trust laws but the point is this, if I am a big company, and I am happily making money with this technology and a new technology comes that will help the public, why will I adopt it? I want to maximise my investment on the old technology, so I will suppress the new technology. A small company can easily adapt to a new technology. For a big company that is covering the whole of Nigeria, to change technology will probably require a few billion dollars. His attitude will be to resist it. In fact, in many cases what you will see is that most of the big companies in Nigeria already have an internet network. They all have their internet network whether the last mile is WiFi or whether it is 3.5G. They all have a network yet the internet is not exploding.

    Operators not doing enough

    They are growing these networks as lip service because they will rather stick with the old technology, which is more profitable – you make your calls on your phone, I charge you per minute. On the new technology, you have a monthly fee and with that, you can talk as much as you can; you can text as much as you like. So, if I was a big operator, I will do all in my power to make sure that bandwidth does not come cheap and is not adopted by the general public. You must also remember that internet, technically is free but what you are paying for is the cost of the delivery. So, someone brings free internet from Europe down here, through submarine cable, he has invested billions on the submarine cable, he wants to get his money back. So, you are paying the cost of the delivery. Internet does not cost, it is the delivery that costs.

    One of the suggestions I make to government is that subsidise the delivery cost, bring the price down, do it like for three or four years because, we have a problem in this country where the figures of the internet subscribers are very low. You go to companies that are providing internet, they will say they have 6000 subscribers, 100000 subscribers whereas on the telephone, they have 62 million, 30 million. So, there is no incentive to invest because they cannit see the demand. They have put out the network, what is stopping it is cost. When government brings down the cost of the internet, then there will be an explosion in users coupled with awareness and education but the truth is this the internet has a dangerous possibility. The internet is all in all, it can be everything. It can attck the broadcast industry, it can wipe out the delivery system of the broadcast industry, I mean with good bandwidth, you can get all your films either as a stream or on demand. If you take out the phone network, people will be using things like skype which is free. So, you can imagine the threat, its something that the government has to attend to. I have always advocated that government try and influence through policy rather than getting involved.

    These are one of the problems that is gong to face the proliferation of the internet but I will say one thing we must stop is government entering into the businrss aagins. And that is what they are trying to do. One thing we must stop is the issue of monopolies. Where suddenly, government policy brings out a licence they say will only be issued to only one person, or to one group in a particular area, that is monopoly already.

  • Infracos will breed coruption, monopoly

    Infracos will breed coruption, monopoly

    The proposed licensing of seven infrastructure providers (Infracos) by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), to deepen broadband penetration in the country, will promote corruption and monopolistic practices, says  Chief Executive Officer, Disc Communications Limited, Mr Bayo Banjo, an engineer.  He canvasses the unbundling of spectrum licences to operators. LUCAS AJANAKU met him.

    With the liberalisation of the telecoms sector more than a decade ago by former President Olusegun Obasanjo came the transformation of the sector. The number of telephone lines have shot up to over 100 million from about 400,000 while teledensity is more than 90 per cent from less than 10 per cent. With the transformation came some challenges, such as low service quality, cybercrimes and near-extinction of small operators.

    Internet as a tool for job creation

    What I do know is that no nation can be stable if the unemployment level is high as  is in this country.

    We will not be able to have a stable nation and I look at the internet as a tool that can create these jobs because what the internet does is that it links people to the rest of the world, so it means that if we have a good internet infrastructure our youths, when the worst comes to the worst, can find employment abroad while being in Nigeria

    There are many opportunities and I think the most glaring case of a country that has population problem and has used the internet so effectively is India. Most of the software are developed in India, most of the value-added services, either phone answering and others come out of India.  Once the infrastructure is in place, it becomes independent of the government. So, it will even assist the government in job creation. As you know, there are some bad sides to that but there is a huge job title called Yahoo-yahoo, a lot of our young people and even older ones are involved in this, but of course, in any new innovation, there are always bad sides.When mobile phones came, I remember I had to caution people who said, ‘oh things will be fantastic, you can call the police,’ but the reverse is the case. The armed robber can use the phone to warn his people carrying out an operation that police are around. A corrupt bank official can call someone and say XYZ has just withdrawn N4million, meet him at such and such places. So, in any innovation, there is always the good and the bad side.

    Challenges

    What I believe our problems are with the internet are cost, speed, reliability and in some cases, the devices which involve awareness, education or whatever. Talking about what the problems with the use of the internet are, you don’t need any qualification to say what they are. The only qualification you need is that you are a user.

    We are going through all these noises about internet revolution, bandwidth revolution and others without results.

    There are, at least, four operators that already have the network that can deliver internet efficiently. In fact, I think two of them have the adequate frequency to deliver. So, what is stopping everybody adopting it?  What is stopping the kind of explosion we had with the mobile phone? We had 400,000 phones before now. The GSM at least solved one of the biggest problems we had with availability of phones. Now, if you want 100 phones today, you can get them immediately, that problem has been solved.

    One of the major problems is cost and that is why I have said if the government is going to help at all, generally, you will find out that when the government dabbles into this, they come in with good intention, but we know what generally happens, after that. I attribute a lot of the success of the communication system to the fact that the government put a person from the private sector in charge and this gentleman was a CEO in his own right in a private company. He was used to being in charge and as an operator, the first thing I noticed about the NCC at that time, was that if you apply for a licence, and you are qualified, it will be given to you.

    Fight against cybercrimes

    We are lucky yet that the hackers have not come. I think the first hacking I have seen was probably the stock exchange computers but when they do come, it will be disastrous. The first way to catch a criminal is find out what he does with the ill-gotten wealth. You see a person who was driving beetle and suddenly he is buying a fleet of 500 cars. In developed countries, immediately, they focus on him. They ask him: ‘Where did you get the money?  But here, we don’t have that. So, let us put it this way, 80 per cent of crime fighters try to know the source of suspect’s income,  which we don’t bother about here. So, we are in real trouble.

    You will agree with me that as of yet, we don’t really have much impact on cybercrime. Imagine a situation where somebody breaks into the computers of a bank and changes all the account balances and quickly rushes to withdraw as much as they can from a particular branch. When that becomes rampant, and when we do not see that person being caught or prosecuted, or when we see that person being caught and there is technical excuse as to why the person was not jailed, then there will be an avalanche; then there will be chaos and that’s why I think cyber security in all its aspects should be treated very seriously.

     Infracos not the answer to broadband

    Infrastructure  service providers (Infracos) for one zone is not good enough. It’s a fibre optic network so why do you want one? In fact, what even makes it worse is that this one operator is going to be financed by government to the tune of billions. Who is going to be number one on the list of benficiaries? Of course the president’s friends, senators and others. It will be number 50 before you get a real operator vying for that licence. Is that not a monopoly? Luckily, they will allow the people that already have the networks to continue to operate. Why the restriction? Let economics drive out the unserious people, that is the reality. If you tell me there is one licence in an area and you are going to pump money, who will get those licences.

    If the Infracos get funding from the government, will the government let them be autonomous? Will the government not have representation on their boards to secure its investment? We know what happened in NITEL.

     NigComSat

    Look at what has happened with NigComSat. It’s a good idea, the essential thing that we need but what has happened? Is it servicing anybody? It has the power to reach any part of Nigeria. In short, government has created another NITEL. NigComSat should be sold to investors in the private sector. Again, selling must be done with caution because of real and unreal money.  I call it non-real money, I don’t want to call the money what it is but I give you an example, in Abuja, have you not noticed many big estates empty. All over the place, empty. Why are they empty? Because the landlords want a rent that is too high. Why can they afford to keep their estates empty? Because it is not real money. If it is money that somebody worked hard for, he cannot keep an estate empty for five years, he will reduce his rent.  It is the same thing with businesses. If non-real money is allowed to invest in businesses, they do not have the motivation to run it as it its real money. In most foreign countries, its not the case that you bringing money, its not the case of you coming to an auction, they will investigate where that money came from and they will be sure that it is proper investors’ money because they know investors will want return on their investment. They know the investors will make people running the business to account for their invetsemnt. It is not simple black and white that people are trying to make it appear; if I have unreal money, I happen to come across $10billion, I can invest in something else, it’s doing well, it’s not doing well. I buy a licence, I tie up a frequency. I know how I got the money. But if it’s real money, investor money, those investors will want a return on their investment or they will sell their shares or close the thing down or which ever.

    Mortality rate of local operators

    Where I think the government went wrong is realising that it is the small operator that is the most valuable. In my interaction with the NCC, they will say things, such as: ‘to enter telecoms, you must come with huge funds; IT business is expensive; you must come with your expertise and others. The biggest problem  is that regulators don’t understand anti-competitive behaviour. This makes big companies to sabotage small companies. We have this in the non-telecoms world there are rumours about businessmen, particularly in sugar, rice, salt and whatever sabotaging other importers. As a result, all the small operators have vanished. The biggest ICT companies in the world, for very strange reasons, started from garage.  It is only Dell that started as a student, selling computers on campus. It grew to overpower Compac, IBM and others. So, the hallmark of any developing country, the first policy you must put above all other policies is to protect innovation. Without that, you cannot move forward. America went through this. Rockefeller had to introduce anti-trust laws but the point is this, if I am a big company, and I am happily making money with this technology and a new technology comes that will help the public, why will I adopt it? I want to maximise my investment on the old technology, so I will suppress the new technology. A small company can easily adapt to a new technology. For a big company that is covering the whole of Nigeria, to change technology will probably require a few billion dollars. His attitude will be to resist it. In fact, in many cases what you will see is that most of the big companies in Nigeria already have an internet network. They all have their internet network whether the last mile is WiFi or whether it is 3.5G. They all have a network yet the internet is not exploding.

    Operators not doing enough

    They are growing these networks as lip service because they will rather stick with the old technology, which is more profitable – you make your calls on your phone, I charge you per minute. On the new technology, you have a monthly fee and with that, you can talk as much as you can; you can text as much as you like. So, if I was a big operator, I will do all in my power to make sure that bandwidth does not come cheap and is not adopted by the general public. You must also remember that internet, technically is free but what you are paying for is the cost of the delivery. So, someone brings free internet from Europe down here, through submarine cable, he has invested billions on the submarine cable, he wants to get his money back. So, you are paying the cost of the delivery. Internet does not cost, it is the delivery that costs.

    One of the suggestions I make to government is that subsidise the delivery cost, bring the price down, do it like for three or four years because, we have a problem in this country where the figures of the internet subscribers are very low. You go to companies that are providing internet, they will say they have 6000 subscribers, 100000 subscribers whereas on the telephone, they have 62 million, 30 million. So, there is no incentive to invest because they cannit see the demand. They have put out the network, what is stopping it is cost. When government brings down the cost of the internet, then there will be an explosion in users coupled with awareness and education but the truth is this the internet has a dangerous possibility. The internet is all in all, it can be everything. It can attck the broadcast industry, it can wipe out the delivery system of the broadcast industry, I mean with good bandwidth, you can get all your films either as a stream or on demand. If you take out the phone network, people will be using things like skype which is free. So, you can imagine the threat, its something that the government has to attend to. I have always advocated that government try and influence through policy rather than getting involved.

  • Rural telephony project hits brickwall

    The rural telephony project of the Federal Government designed to take telephony to all the nooks and crannies of the country may have run into a ditch because of the liberalisation of the telecoms sector and subsequent issuance of global system for mobile communication (GSM) to operators, sources have said.

    According to them, while the equipment installed during the first phase of the project in many parts of the country have been vandalised, the technology that the project was to ride upon at conception has become obsolete.

    Another important issue, which would have been crucial to the success of the project, is spectrum which was at the time the project was being conceptualised, was usually granted at the discretion of the Federal Government.

    The source said: “This contract was awarded as far as 2005 and it was a loan arrangement between Nigeria and China Exim Bank. The first phase was completed with the exemption of one or two areas where they could not secure land to build the master stations and the idea was that, at the time it was conceived, it was Nigeria Telecommunication Limited (NITEL) that was to take it up and use it as a spreading chip for services. So, most of the transmissions, NITEL was supposed to be the transmission hub, so they were to hook up to NITEL exchanges, but subsequently, the liberalisation policy came. GSM came and government’s focus changed, NITEL was meant to be privatised or at least sold to the public, so the question of NITEL becoming a carrier for rural telephony jeopardised the system then. So, efforts shifted. The government was no longer budgeting for telecoms because it has been liberalised and the government did not want to partake in any form of telephone service.”

    He added: “But about four years later, there was no budget on it because it was not a priority of the government to partake in telephony service and the rate at which GSM was consuming the system everybody felt that rural telephony will be not be a priority.”

    The source said since investment had been made and there was need to allow it go down the drain, the government said the best way to go was to give it out to private operators.

    “So, the country was divided into six zones and private operators were appointed. The process was almost concluded when it was said the Ministry should seek the buy-in of the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) because it was meant to be a concession arrangement. Remember when it was conceived, there was no ICRC, so ICRC came with all sorts of conditions that were not precedent to the establishment of the rural telephony and for in past three years, the ministry had not been able to get the buy-in of the ICRC. They were  coming up with things that were not part of the conditions when the project was created.

    “There was no way to backdate what was done then to meet what ICRC is doing today. ICRC has not given any concession and the project is almost like moribund; the six operators have been selected; they have gone through bidding.”

    But speaking in with The Nation, Director, Posts & Telecommunications, Ministry of Communication Technology, Engr John Ayodele admits that the situation is complicated but said all hopes are not lost.

    He said: “ It’s a bit complicated but not insurmountable, it just means that we have to reengineer the whole scheme from the beginning and that is what we want to discuss with ICRC even start from scratch, then it will be like selling scrap and we want to avoid selling scrap. Its national issue and anyway we can get it done to add value to what we already have is the best for the nation and we need to move forward to see how it adds value to the system and we are getting there gradually.”

  • Ekiti Samsung Engineering Academy coming soon

    The Samsung Electronics Engineering Academy being built in Ado Ekiti, the Ekiti State capital will be opened before the end of the year,  Managing Director, Samsung Electronics West Africa, Bravo Kim, has said.

    He said the institution would achieve its target of training 10,000 electronics engineers in Africa.

    Kim, who spoke on the sideline at the graduation of the first set of students from the Lagos academy, said work was ongoing by the state government, assuring that before the year ends, the project would be completed.

    He said: “At Samsung, we are determined to create a large pool of skilled electronics engineers. The target is that we train 10,000 across the whole of Africa by next year and we are committed to achieving this target.

    “We have centres in Kenya, South Africa. We are going to open another centre in Ekiti before the end of this year. The government has done the ground breaking ceremony of the project and they are working to get it running.”

    The Samsung Electronics Engineering Academy provides hands-on, vocational skills training for Grade 10-12 students, opening up skilled, well-paying job opportunities for its students; differentiates Samsung’s quality of service to its customers as we build a workforce of technicians and exclusive service experts in line with the government’s drive of creating decent jobs, especially for young citizens.

    Students undergo a year’s programme, which comprise basic, intermediate and advanced engineering skills, aligned to their set curriculum at a corresponding technical school.

    Upon completion of the programme, students earn themselves an opportunity for an internship at Samsung or Samsung’s Channel Partners. Outstanding performers  participate in a year’s  Learnership opportunity at the firm’s headquarters in South Korea as part of the 100 African young leaders programme.

     

     

  • Deploy technology to tackle insecurity, urge firms

    Indigenous technology firm, Computer Warehouse Group Plc (CWG) and Chinese telecoms equipment vendor, Huawei, have said the deployment of advanced information communication technology (ICT) tools will address the security challenges confronting the country and the Africa.

    The firms said tools, such as surveillance internet protocol (IP), could help end the era of impunity by criminals who are unleashing terror on innocent people.

    They spoke during a special breakfast meeting on IP surveillance in Lagos. It has as theme: Detect and curb physical security threat in your environment.

    Huawei Enterprise Solution Manager, Mr. Joseph Olayemi, said IP surveillance tool is an Intelligence Video Surveillance (IVS) surveillance solution that is digitised and networked, adding that it is the networked version of well-known closed-circuit television (CCTV).

    He said the video surveillance systems have undergone significant changes, shifting from the earliest analogue surveillance to digital surveillance, which was prominent in the past few years, to the burgeoning IP video surveillance.

    According to him, there has been a shift from the use of CCTV systems to the IP surveillance globally owing to its greater efficiency. He added that coupled with its coverage advancements, IP system allows for remote viewing and control, sharing images and footages with security officials and ease of communication through the internet for security alerts, improved search capability, greater ease of use, better quality images and the possibilities of recording, playing-back and storing video clips for future usages.

    He argued that the tool may further be integrated into Nigeria’s and Africa’s peculiar environment and better exploited for the safety of personal and corporate assets.

    He cited the success the tool has recorded with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) mega-stations, insisting that the IP surveillance solution can reduce vandalism and construction and maintenance costs of similar systems across the country.

    He observed that the pilot city-wide installation project in Bayelsa State has shown that the IP surveillance solution can be used to monitor terrorists.

    Associate Vice President, CWG Plc, Mr. Adedayo Abegunde, said the forum was orgnaised to bring the IP surveillance technology to the fore as an answer to the challenge of insecurity in the nation.

    Olayemi said the IP surveillance package comes with low bandwidth consumption, the possibility of accessing its data from anywhere, larger storage capacity, better video resolutions, wider perimeter coverage, capturing of fast moving objects and intelligent analysis capacity.

    The Assistant General Manager, DCC Networks, Mr. Gbenga Odegbami said CWG has the required capacity to install and maintain all categories of end-to-end IP Surveillance solution. He added that the firm operates a global quality standard that is driven by trained professionals and procedures that would tailor the solution to suit the needs and specifications of prospective customers at the minimum total cost of ownership.

  • Global frequency licences breed monopoly

    Global frequency licences breed monopoly

    Consistent issuance of global spectrum licences to operators by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) ties spectrum down and frustrate efforts at deepening service provision. Chief Executive Officer, Disc Communications Limited, Engr Bayo Banjo said this practice must stop. He says provision of internet infrastructure could create jobs while the acquisitive nature of the society will keep frustrating fight against cybercrimes. LUCAS AJANAKU reports

    With the liberalisation of the telecoms sector more than a decade ago by former President Olusegun Obasanjo came the transformation of the telecoms sector. The number of telephone lines have shot up to over 100million from about 40,000 while teledensity is more than 90 per cent from less than 10 per cent. With this transformation have also come challenges, such as service quality, cybercrimes and near-extinction of small operators.

    Internet as a tool for job creation

    What I do know is that no nation can be stable if the unemployment level is high as  is in this country.

    We will not be able to have a stable nation and I look at the internet as a tool that can create these jobs because what the internet does is that it links people to the rest of the world, so it means that if we have a good internet infrastructure our youths, when the worst comes to the worst, can find employment abroad while being in Nigeria

    There are many opportunities and I think the most glaring case of a country that has population problem and has used the internet so effectively is India. Most of the software are developed in India, most of the value-added services, either phone answering and others come out of India.  Once the infrastructure is in place, it becomes independent of the government. So, it will even assist the government in job creation. As you know, there are some bad sides to that but there is a huge job title called Yahoo-yahoo, a lot of our young people and even older ones are involved in this, but of course, in any new innovation, there are always bad sides.When mobile phones came, I remember I had to caution people who said, ‘oh things will be fantastic, you can call the police,’ but the reverse is the case. The armed robber can use the phone to warn his people carrying out an operation that police are around. A corrupt bank official can call someone and say XYZ has just withdrawn N4million, meet him at such and such places. So, in any innovation, there is always the good and the bad side.

    Challenges

    What I believe our problems are with the internet are cost, speed, reliability and in some cases, the devices which involve awareness, education or whatever. Talking about what the problems with the use of the internet are, you don’t need any qualification to say what they are. The only qualification you need is that you are a user.

    We are going through all these noises about internet revolution, bandwidth revolution and others without results.

    There are, at least, four operators that already have the network that can deliver internet efficiently. In fact, I think two of them have the adequate frequency to deliver. So, what is stopping everybody adopting it?  What is stopping the kind of explosion we had with the mobile phone? We had 400,000 phones before now. The GSM at least solved one of the biggest problems we had with availability of phones. Now, if you want 100 phones today, you can get them immediately, that problem has been solved.

    One of the major problems is cost and that is why I have said if the government is going to help at all, generally, you will find out that when the government dabbles into this, they come in with good intention, but we know what generally happens, after that. I attribute a lot of the success of the communication system to the fact that the government put a person from the private sector in charge and this gentleman was a CEO in his own right in a private company. He was used to being in charge and as an operator, the first thing I noticed about the NCC at that time, was that if you apply for a licence, and you are qualified, it will be given to you.

    Fight against cybercrimes

    We are lucky yet that the hackers have not come. I think the first hacking I have seen was probably the stock exchange computers but when they do come, it will be disastrous. The first way to catch a criminal is find out what he does with the ill-gotten wealth. You see a person who was driving beetle and suddenly he is buying a fleet of 500 cars. In developed countries, immediately, they focus on him. They ask him: ‘Where did you get the money?  But here, we don’t have that. So, let us put it this way, 80 per cent of crime fighters try to know the source of suspect’s income,  which we don’t bother about here. So, we are in real trouble.

    You will agree with me that as of yet, we don’t really have much impact on cybercrime. Imagine a situation where somebody breaks into the computers of a bank and changes all the account balances and quickly rushes to withdraw as much as they can from a particular branch. When that becomes rampant, and when we do not see that person being caught or prosecuted, or when we see that person being caught and there is technical excuse as to why the person was not jailed, then there will be an avalanche; then there will be chaos and that’s why I think cyber security in all its aspects should be treated very seriously.

     Infracos not the answer to broadband

    Infrastructure  service providers (Infracos) for one zone is not good enough. It’s a fibre optic network so why do you want one? In fact, what even makes it worse is that this one operator is going to be financed by government to the tune of billions. Who is going to be number one on the list of benficiaries? Of course the president’s friends, senators and others. It will be number 50 before you get a real operator vying for that licence. Is that not a monopoly? Luckily, they will allow the people that already have the networks to continue to operate. Why the restriction? Let economics drive out the unserious people but that is the reality. If you tell me there is one licence in an area and you are going to pump money, we those who will get those licences.

    Another thing is, if these Infracos will get funding from the government, will government give the funding and remove its hands? Will the government not put in representation to secure their investment? We know what happened in NITEL.

     Sell NigComSat

    Look at what has happened with NigComSat. It’s a good idea, the essential thing that we need but what has happened? Is it servicing anybody? It has the power to reach any part of Nigeria. In short, government has created another NITEL. NigComSat should be sold to investors in the private sector. Again, selling must be done with caution because of real and unreal money.  I call it non-real money, I don’t want to call the money what it is but I give you an example, in Abuja, have you not noticed many big estates empty. All over the place, empty. Why are they empty? Because the landlords want a rent that is too high. Why can they afford to keep their estates empty? Because it is not real money. If it is money that somebody worked hard for, he cannot keep an estate empty for five years, he will reduce his rent.  It is the same thing with businesses. If non-real money is allowed to invest in businesses, they do not have the motivation to run it as it its real money. In most foreign countries, its not the case that you bringing money, its not the case of you coming to an auction, they will investigate where that money came from and they will be sure that it is proper investors’ money because they know investors will want return on their investment. They know the investors will make people running the business to account for their invetsemnt. It is not simple black and white that people are trying to make it appear; if I have unreal money, I happen to come across $10billion, I can invest in something else, it’s doing well, it’s not doing well. I buy a licence, I tie up a frequency. I know how I got the money. But if it’s real money, investor money, those investors will want a return on their investment or they will sell their shares or close the thing down or which ever.

    Mortality rate of local operators

    Where I think the government went wrong is realising that it is the small operator that is the most valuable. In my interaction with the NCC, they will say things, such as: ‘to enter telecoms, you must come with huge funds; IT business is expensive; you must come with your expertise and others. The biggest problem  is that you don’t understand anti-competitive behavior. This makes big people to sabotage small people. We have this in the non-telecoms world there are rumours about businessmen, particularly in sugar, rice, salt and whatever sabotaging other importers. As a result, all the small operators have vanished. The biggest ICT companies in the world, for very strange reasons, started from garage.  It is only Dell that started as a student, selling computers on campus. It grew to overpower Compac, IBM and others. So, the hallmark of any developing country, the first policy you must put above all other policies is to protect innovation. Without that, you cannot move forward. America went through this. Rockefeller had to introduce anti-trust laws but the point is this, if I am a big company, and I am happily making money with this technology and a new technology comes that will help the public, why will I adopt it? I want to maximise my investment on the old technology, so I will suppress the new technology. A small company can easily adapt to a new technology. For a big company that is covering the whole of Nigeria, to change technology will probably require a few billion dollars. His attitude will be to resist it. In fact, in many cases what you will see is that most of the big companies in Nigeria already have an internet network. They all have their internet network whether the last mile is WiFi or whether it is 3.5G. They all have a network yet the internet is not exploding.

    Operators not doing enough

    They are growing these networks as lip service because they will rather stick with the old technology, which is more profitable – you make your calls on your phone, I charge you per minute. On the new technology, you have a monthly fee and with that, you can talk as much as you can; you can text as much as you like. So, if I was a big operator, I will do all in my power to make sure that bandwidth does not come cheap and is not adopted by the general public. You must also remember that internet, technically is free but what you are paying for is the cost of the delivery. So, someone brings free internet from Europe down here, through submarine cable, he has invested billions on the submarine cable, he wants to get his money back. So, you are paying the cost of the delivery. Internet does not cost, it is the delivery that costs.

    One of the suggestions I make to government is that subsidise the delivery cost, bring the price down, do it like for three or four years because, we have a problem in this country where the figures of the internet subscribers are very low. You go to companies that are providing internet, they will say they have 6000 subscribers, 100000 subscribers whereas on the telephone, they have 62 million, 30 million. So, there is no incentive to invest because they cannit see the demand. They have put out the network, what is stopping it is cost. When government brings down the cost of the internet, then there will be an explosion in users coupled with awareness and education but the truth is this the internet has a dangerous possibility. The internet is all in all, it can be everything. It can attck the broadcast industry, it can wipe out the delivery system of the broadcast industry, I mean with good bandwidth, you can get all your films either as a stream or on demand. If you take out the phone network, people will be using things like skype which is free. So, you can imagine the threat, its something that the government has to attend to. I have always advocated that government try and influence through policy rather than getting involved.

  • ‘Dearth of infrastructure threat to e-payment

    Failure to fill the gap in the identity management infrastructure and solutions space can derail the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) efforts to put in place a cashless economy through use of alternative payments channels, Chairman, Chams, Ayo Richards, has warned.

    He said without filling the gap, the payments transaction industry and the economy cannot thrive.

    Richards said the firm’s identity assurance programmes being executed in the private and public sectors would strengthen its business, ensure future growth and fuel increased profitability in the long run.

    He spoke on the sideline at the firm’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Lagos, stressing that the  sector has become the driver of the  economy, arguing that the infrastructure deficit has to be fixed to move on.

    He said:  “ICT has become a key driver of economic activity in Nigeria and other developing markets. Remarkably, there is a huge gap to fill in the identity management infrastructure and solutions space which is our area of focus. Without filling this yawning gap, the payments transaction industry and economy at large cannot thrive.”

    According to the chair, the identity assurance needs of the financial services industry, state governments, tertiary institutions, and specialised government agencies are the catalyst of the rapid growth in the issuance of identity cards and registration of citizens for record-keeping purposes.

    He said: “There are many government-driven identity assurance programmes going on in Nigeria currently and they are with biometrics, one of our areas of specialty. We have the national identity programme by National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) and the Know-Your-Customer biometric registration programme for bank customers, as well as residency and smart identity card programmes being championed by some state governments.

    As a leading player in the identity assurance space, we are engaged with governments and relevant agencies to provide these identity management products and services. The demand for identity management services will continue to grow due increasing to financial inclusion, implementation of CBN’s cashlite policy and digitisation of commerce, presenting future growth opportunities for us as a business.”

    The firm’s Group Managing Director, Mr. Ademola Aladekomo, said despite its operational costs due to infrastructure challenge, the technology firm improved performance during the accounting year.

    He said: “In spite of cost pressures and infrastructure challenges, especially in the area of power, Chams improved its 2012 performance by focusing on the core business of identity management and payments solutions in the 2013 financial year. We streamlined our business operations by vesting non-core

  • Huawei to train 10,000 youths in Nigeria, others

    Chinese telecoms equipment vendor, Huawei, has promised to train 10,000 youths in Nigeria and other African countries over the next five years, saying the future of the continent lies in arming the youth with the requisite information communication technology (ICT) skills.

    Its Global Vice President, Mr. Charles Ding, said this is a further demonstration of the commitment of the firm to the continent and strengthening of the bond between China and Africa.

    He said: “Huawei is committed to developing its business in Africa where our commitment will create mutually beneficial opportunities and win-win outcomes. Africa and China have enjoyed a strong relationship that has seen extensive cooperation in political, economic, and cultural areas. Africa has an open and inclusive approach to international trade relations, which has created a sound business environment for Huawei’s development in the region.

    “Huawei considers Africa to be one of its most important strategic growth markets. By localising our operations, we can better understand the needs of the market and improve our overall capabilities. We’re proud to have an opportunity to play an important role in Africa’s modernisation. We are also committed to creating more jobs; promote ICT industry growth and development in Africa.”

    The presentation made by the firm at the The World Economic Forum (WEF) on Africa, on Forging inclusive growth, creating jobs  showed that the firm employs over 7,100 staff in Africa and also created 12,000 jobs through procurement and outsourcing services.

    Ding said the future development of ICT industry is predicated on factors such as planning and innovative technologies.

    He said: “The future development of the ICT industry is reliant, including, effective planning, innovative technologies, and sufficient investment. The successful implementation of these three strands will improve the competitiveness of the industry and promote the development of the digital economy.

    “Huawei is committed to our work in Africa and to our support of public and private stakeholders. We are confident that the future of the industry in Africa holds many opportunities and we will continue to increase our investment in the region and play a more active role in reshaping society through ICT.”

  • Glo votes $100m for service quality improvement

    National telecoms operator, Globacom, has voted $100 million for the upgrade of its switches  in its data network, adding that its equipment swapping project will see more than 60 per cent of its base transmission stations (BTS) across the country covered with third generation (3G) network facility.

    The telco is one of the three axed by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) over failure to meet key performance indicators (KPIs) set down by the regulator and agreed to by the operators.

    The others are MTN and Airtel. They were fined N647million and were barred from taking in new subscribers by activating new subscriber identity module (SIM) cards. It is not clear if the ban has been lifted.

    Speaking in Lagos, its Head, Operations, Kola Osho, said to address service quality problems, the telco has swapped Abuja, Oyo, Osun, Ogun, adding that Lagos is  being swapped and had already achieved 80 per cent equipment swapping.

    According to him, about 3000 BTS are involved in the deal, adding that Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital has also achieved 70 per cent equipment swapping.

    He said the swapping has not only increased high data use throughput, it has reduced network congestion and increased the number of internet protocol (IP) transmission.

    He assured that network coverage will be improved while the current 3G data network which is more than 43 per cent will be improved tremendously.

    “In addition to all these, we are also working on 1500 new sites all on 3G. We are deploying services to schools, highways, commercial hubs and other such important places,” Osho said.

    Group Chief Operating Officer, Glo, Mohamed Jameel, said the importance of telecoms cannot be overemphasised, adding that 95 per cent of things are possible the internet ranging from education, health, commerce, agriculture, telemedicine and several others.

    He said these developments underscore the need for service providers to develop broadband infrastructure, adding that for the opportunities available in the sector to be maximised, Glo will keep encouraging the development of relevant applications that will ride on the broadband infrastructure being developed.