The Nation Newspaper

Category: e-Business

  • Firm set to boost Internet service

    Wireless Internet operator, Ambion Wireless, said availability of fast and affordable Internet access will deepen its penetration in the country and bring to the people, the untapped potential of the Internet.

    Speaking with The Nation in Lagos, its Managing Director, Tolulope Buraimah said Ambion will increase Internet penetration through the provision of low cost Internet solutions for its clients. This would allow the country to tap into the many benefits of the Internet.

    Buraimah, who said the firm would leverage on the partnership it has with ATI Telecoms to deploy SuperWiFi, the latest technology in the world, to the country, also said the roll-out of its services would mark the end to the downtime usually associated with the services of Internet Service Providers (ISPs).

    “SuperWiFi uses the same signal that television sets use. That means that anywhere there is television signal, there will also be internet connection,” he said, adding that the technology has worked in Japan, the United States, Hong Kong and other parts of the developed world.

    He said the services of the firm would be in phases, adding that Lagos would be the city of first launch while other major cities in the country will follow suit.

    According to experts, the Internet, especially the World Wide Web, has not only created a global audience, it has also provided opportunities for e-commerce, product advertising, do online surveys, provide technical support and obtain customers’ feedback. The Internet also allows for immediate dissemination of information as well as initiate an online discussion.

     

  • Abuja hosts digital Africa confab, exhibition

    Federal Capital Territory has been selected to host the inaugural Digital Africa Conference & Exhibition, slated for April 23-25, this year.

    According to a statement by the organisers of the event, based on the latest statistics from the International Communications Union (ITU), Nigeria, has the largest telecoms market, and the highest number of internet users in the continent as at today.

    The three-day Digital Africa Conference & Exhibition will be held at Nicon Luxury Hotel, in Abuja, the capital city. Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja Sheraton Hotel, Bolingo Hotel, Protea Hotel Asokoro, Chelsea Hotel, Rockview Hotel, and Hampton Suites have been designated as official accommodation hotels for guests expected from around Nigeria, African countries, and the rest of the world.

     

  • Mobile apps challenge for girls

    As part of the International Telecommunications Union’s Girls in ICT project & Tech Needs Girls campaign, Women in Technology in Nigeria, has unveiled the Technovation Challenge to Nigeria to encourage young girls develop interest in the development of applications.

    A statement by WITIN noted that the Mobile App Challenge has been opened for secondary school girls (aged 13-18) who would work in teams of five to develop mobile apps, conduct market research, write business plans, and create a “pitch” for funding.

    According to the statement, each team is expected to work with both a classroom teacher at their school and a female mentor/role model from the technology industry, adding that WITIN will lead mentors in Nigeria who would guide teachers to train teams from now till April about how to build the apps. The training, it noted, will culminate in a global competition where teams compete for funding to launch their company and take their app to market.

    The goal of the programme is to promote women in technology by inspiring girls to see themselves not just as users of technology, but as inventors, designers, builders, and entrepreneurs in the technology industry.

     

  • MainOne, Kitskoo, others to hold confab

    A group of technology firms in Nigeria and their offshore technical partners are planning an ICT managers confab in Lagos. The parley is to address the challenges facing the industry and highlight the business benefit of network-based ICT services to managers drawn from different segments of the business community, a statement has announced.

    Gilbert Kimeng, the Service Manager of Kitskoo, said the forum would be organised in partnership with leading technology firms like MainOne Cable Company, Tech Mahindra and Resourcery to highlight the need for collaboration in the industry.

    Kimeng who spoke about its business offerings and benefits to the business community added the IT services company that offers end-to-end Business Services Platform that provides immediate business solutions on demand basis without capital investment taking advantage of cloud computing technologies.

    “There is no doubt that organisations’ IT needs are evolving rapidly and there is the need to take this burdenoff business organisations so that they can concentrate on their core business. That is why Kitskoo, in partnership with leading technology firms like MainOne Cable Company, Tech Mahindra and Resourcery, is responding by providing business focused ICT solutions in Nigeria,” Kimeng said.

    On the firm’s service offerings, he said, “We are an Information Technology services company focused on organisations’ most critical ICT requirements. Kitskoo’s Guardian range provides a fully managed backup, recovery and security services for mission critical data and applications. The Kitskoo Guardian backup and recovery solution is a unique disk-to-disk alternative to traditional backup methods, replacing conventional tape-based systems with a fully automated cloud solution.”

     

  • Konica unveils printing machines

    Monica Minolta, the world’s leading digital print solutions company, has introduced its new range of products and applications into the market.

    The new products were unveiled during the Konica Minolta Digital Print Solutions exhibition, which was held in Lagos.

    The two-day Digital Print Solutions Expo, the firm organised with Skysat Technologies Nigeria Ltd., the authorised distributor for Konica Minolta in Nigeria and Ghana, served as a platform through which products and applications were presented to the primary market.

    the Area Manager, Central Asia, Middle East & Africa for Konica Minolta, described the digital printing possibilities in Nigeria as endless. “Konica Minolta is here to stay. We have come to Nigeria because the digital way is the next big thing in this part of the world and Konica Minolta is proud to be a part of it. The relationship with Skysat Technologies will in no small way develop and boost the economy of Nigeria and for that we are most honoured to be a part of this ride,” Oldfield said, adding that the products would save users up to 70 per cent on printing expenses, quality print production, the highest colour accuracy and so much more.

    Abdusattar Debs, Chairman, Skysat Technologies Ltd., said the firm comes with a promise to help boost the country’s economy. “Regardless of the evident challenges in the Nigerian economy, Konica Minolta has a promise to deliver cost-effective machines, overly efficient after sales service and the cheapest consumables possible. It is surely going to boost the Nigerian economy,” Mr. Debs added.

     

  • Making rural telephony a reality

    Making rural telephony a reality

    Over a decade ago, the Federal Government embarked on rural telephony, a brainchild of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). After contracts were awarded for the project, the government suspended its implementation. With telecoms operators’ reluctance to roll-out services in rural areas, the need has risen for a rethink of the project, writes LUCAS AJANAKU.

     

    When she left Lagos for Obuno Village, near Igbo Ukwu in Aguata Local Government Area of Anambra State to celebrate the Yuletide, Omeihe Oluoma promised her friends and colleagues in school to keep in touch with them through the telephone.

    An undergraduate of Lagos State University (LASU), Ojo, Lagos, Oluoma was shocked when she got to the village and could neither make nor receive calls. “When I was leaving Lagos, I was full of excitement that I was going to spend the Yuletide with my people. I took my mobile phone along and made sure I did not forget the charger in Lagos. Since I was not going to be available, I felt I could keep in touch with my friends and colleagues in school both in Lagos and outside it. So, I made sure I had enough ‘credit’ on my phone,” she recalled.

    She was, however, disappointed when she got home, because she reach her friends.

    “After trying several times to make calls without success, I checked the screen of my mobile phone and discovered that there was no network signal at all on the phone. I asked my cousin who had earlier arrived ahead of me what the matter was. He was the one that told me that telephone services in the community still remain a luxury. He directed me to an uncompleted two-storey building where people queued up to make calls at a particular point where an operator’s network signal strayed into the community,” she said, adding that it was a nasty experience.

    Peter Okechukwu (not real name), a Lagos-based computer engineering technician based at Computer Village, Ikeja, had a similar experience to share. Like Oluoma, he had left Lagos for the Yuletide and had travelled with his three mobile phones. An indigene of Ikpa Eluama Village, Osina Town in Ideato Local Government Area of Imo State, he was shocked to find out that more than 10 years after the ‘telecoms’ revolution,’ his community was still living in the backwaters of civilisation.

    “I use virtually all the GSM service providers. When I got to the village, only one of the service providers was relatively constant. The others were flippant and very unreliable. As a matter of fact, the network signals of two of them (MTN and Etisalat) were only available about 1.00am. So, if any Short Message Service (SMS) was sent to you in the day, it will be delivered about that ungodly hour of the day (1.00am),” he said.

    According to him, MTN recently installed a Base Transmission Station (BTS) in the village, adding that the ability of MTN customers to enjoy the facility is contingent upon the contiguity of the customer to the Base Transmission Station (BTS). “You must walk close to the BTS before you can access the services of the firm. It is strange but it is just the truth,” he said.

    Even in Lagos, the commercial capital of Nigeria, some communities are either not served at all, or under-served. Olympic Agboola, a resident of Ajasa Community, a Lagos suburb, says telephone services in his community has been irregular. “It is magic to us in this community. Sometimes, there will be no signal at all. I think the capacity is still not sufficient. There is need for more investment on infrastructure,” he said.

    The experience of Oluoma, Okechukwu and Agboola are, but a few of what several thousands of rural dwellers pass through. For them, the telecoms revolution meant nothing as it has failed to bridge the digital divide.

    Nigeria is, no doubt, a huge country. According to recent figures from the National Population Commission (NPC), the country’s population stands at 167 million. It is against this backdrop and refusal of operators to invest in providing infrastructure to rural communities that the rural telephony initiative of the Federal Government becomes imperative.

    According to figures from the NCC, subscriber figures hit the 109 million mark at the twilight of last year. Majority of these subscribers live in the urban areas, while a huge number of the rural populace remains underserved, or not at all. Therefore, the next frontier for expansion is obviously the rural areas where there are still more than 58 million willing but unconnected potential subscribers.

    Executive Vice Chairman (EVC), Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Dr Eugene Juwah, said between 2001 and mid-2012, investment inflow into the nation’s telecoms industry increased from $.5million to over $25 billion.

    According to experts, community telephony will encourage the growth of the agricultural, extractive and manufacturing industries in the rural areas.

    Minister of Agriculture, Akinwumi Adesina, said the ministry is partnering with the Ministry of Communications Technology to make about 10 million mobile phones available to rural farmers in the country to boost food production. Through this initiative, tractors, fertiliser, seeds and other farming inputs will be transmitted to the farmers through an e-wallet.

    Launched in 2001, the first phase of the project was to cover 218 local government areas and provide over 636,256 Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) lines in all the council areas to bridge the digital divide.

    The project was divided into three phases, and was estimated to cost $200 million. Key Communications Limited, Suburban Broadband Limited, Voicewares Network Limited, Gicell Wireless Limited and Hezonic Limited, were involved in the project, while the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) concerning the project was signed with a Chinese firm.

    The implementation of the project would have complemented the ITU’s initiative to connect the world with technology by 2015. According to ITU, the Connect the World (Connecting the Unconnected) project by 2015 aims to mobilise human, financial, and technical resources for the implementation of the connectivity targets of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and the Regional Initiatives, adopted by member states at the ITU World Telecommunication Development Conference.

    The project was finally suspended in 2011. Aside the suspended rural telephony initiative, an intervention, like the Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF), established by the Communications Act of 2003, is geared towards promoting and facilitating ICT infrastructure in rural and under-served areas across the nation. It is expected to promote private sector investments, encourage competition, and give priority to self-sustaining programmes and projects. The USPF gets funding from the contribution of mobile operators who contribute 2.5 per cent of their profit to enable access to rural communities. With this kind of initiative, it is baffling why a large number of villages in the nation were yet to benefit from any form of telephony access.

    But the trend has been for telecoms operators and investors to put a higher rate of investments in the urban areas and a lower margin in the rural areas. To bridge this gap, telecommunications and Internet services need to be deployed more to the rural areas, since it’s certain that the next phase of the telecoms communications growth will come from the rural areas.

    Director, Regulatory Affairs, Etisalat Nigeria, Ibrahim Dikko, struck the right chord recently when he challenged the Federal Government to look for ways of funding the provision of telecoms infrastructure to rural areas as members of his constituency would not do that because of low returns on such investment

    “The government would have to find ways to subsidise rural infrastructure build, because operators most times, invest in areas that they consider commercially viable,” Dikko said.

    The Association of Telecoms Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) has urged the government to synergise with telecoms operators to resuscitate the moribund National Rural Telephony Project.

    Its President, Lanre Ajayi, said this was necessary since the government had been unable to implement the project while the rural communities had yet to feel the impact of the phenomenal growth in the telecoms sector.

    “The Federal Government should support telecommunications providers to reach the under-reached and unserved areas through the USPF. In the implementation of rural telephony, government should provide operators stable power supply, accessible roads and improved security of telecoms infrastructures.

    “Opening up the rural communities through integration into the national telephone networks will enhance exploitation of the economic potential of the communities and improve the standard of living of the rural dwellers,” Ajayi said.

    MTN, had in 2010, launched a rural telephony initiative in partnership with equipment vendor, Huawei, in Lagos. How this initiative has improved telephone penetration in the country is not clear.

  • How to stop capital flight, by Juwah, others

    Some telecommunications experts are canvassing the promotion of local content/patronage of indigenous original equipmentmanufacturers (OEMs), and domestication of infrastructure contracts to halt capital flight.

    The experts from the Nigerian CommunicationsCommission (NCC), Information Technology (Industry) Association of Nigeria (ITAN) and Nigeria Communication Satelite (NigComSat) said increasing local patronage would also halt capital flight, stimulate investments, create jobs and boost InformationCommunication Technology(ICT) sector’s contribution to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

    NCC’s Executive Vice Chairman/Chief Executive Officer, Dr Eugene Juwah, said the commission is pushing for indigenous companies to have significant role in the provision of services and supply of materials to the industry.

    Juwah, who spoke at a telecoms forum organised by the Association of Telecoms Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) in Lagos, said active participation of local companies in direct contract delivery to telecoms players had become a critical element to developing the telecoms industry on a sustainable basis.

    He said the telecoms industry has come a long way in the last decade, and that by allowing indigenous companies to have a space for active participation, would help in creating jobs as well as curbing yearly capital flight in the industry.

    “It is important for local companies to have significant role in the provision of services and supply of materials to telecommunications industry if we must develop the telecoms industry in Nigeria on a sustainable basis over the long term, and provide more employment opportunities for Nigerians,” he said.

    To Mrs Florence Seriki, Group Managing Director/Chief Executive, Omatek Ventures Plc, it is only when the Federal Government encourages local patronage of indigenous OEMs that production could be encouraged and jobs created for the citizens.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Ex-NCC chief seeks interconnection clearing house

    A FORMER Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC)Commssioner, Steven Bello, has suggested the setting up of an interconnect clearing house to stop further interconnection debts.

    The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) introduced the Nigeria Banks Clearing Houses (NBCH) to facilitate the implementation of an effective and efficient payment system in the banking industry.

    Bello, who spoke in Lagos, said the problem that made the debt serious is the absence of “basic interconnect offer, stipulating all areas that should be covered by interconnect agreement.”

    He said lawyers who are not technically biased are responsible for drafting interconnect agreements, adding that to solve the problem, a technically-biased lawyer should sit side by side the engineers to fine-tune interconnect agreements.

    The disagreement from interconnection debts complicate the issues, he said, urging operators to do their home works.

    He said it was either the regulator introduced prepaid billing interconnection, or a clearing house for the telecoms industry similar to the banking industry clearing house.

    Bello warned that the interconnect debt, if not addressed, could “introduce inefficiency into the telecoms industry.”

    Telcos are owing one another about N20 billion, which arose from the non-payment of interconnection fees.

    According to industry sources, the Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) segment for the telecoms industry accounts for the huge chunk of this debt.

    President, Association of Licensed Telecoms Companies of Nigeria (ALTON), Gbenga Adebayo, said the debts have added to the “distress” in the industry.

    He lamented that the debt crisis also contributed to service delivery.

     

  • Is Anti-Mobile Phone Theft Initiative dead?

    Is Anti-Mobile Phone Theft Initiative dead?

    Eight years ago, the Anti-Mobile Phone Theft Initiative (ANTI-MOPHTI) was born. It brought hope that with its coming, it will help in reducing theft of mobile phones. In the last two years, ANTI-MOPHTI has been inactive, provoking comments on what has become of it. Has it been abandoned by government or is it being tinkered with to strengthen it? LUCAS AJANAKU reports

    He was sleeping when they came in. Their mission, was not to kill or destory, if their victims cooperated. All they were interested in were their victims’ mobile phones. They were masked. In no time, they broke into the home of Austin Christopher, at Cement, in Dopemu, a Lagos suburb, holding everybody in the 12-room apartment (face-me-I-face-you) to ransom for about two hours.

    “They were many that came that night. They gained access to our building by pulling down the entrance door. They were armed to the teeth, but they were not very aggressive except for those who were not willing to cooperate by surrendering their mobile phones. They brought a bag into which everyone willingly dropped his/her mobile phone. After the operation, they fled,” he recalled.

    Kunle Akinwumi will not forget the experience he had two years ago when he went to buy a new mobile phone at the popular Computer Village, Ikeja, Lagos. He bought the phone for N55,000, brought it home, inserted the battery and started charging it in his bedroom. Time was about 7.30pm and he had slept off ostensibly because of the heavy traffic on his way back to his Akowonjo home in the suburb of Lagos.

    “I put the handset on top of my reading table in my bedroom, very close to the window. I plugged the charger to the socket very close to the table and slept off. When I woke up, the handset was nowhere to be found. I raised an alarm only for a neighbour who had had a similar experience to draw my attention to the mosquito net on my window. It had been skilfully torn and a long stick used to drive the handset to the window area where it was disengaged from the charger,” Akinwumi told The Nation.

    Austin and Akinwumi are examples of victims of mobile phone theft. While they are happy to tell their stories, not many are alive to tell theirs because the injuries sustained while being dispossessed of their phones led to their deaths. Most of these stolen phones were later traced to the second-hand mobile phones markets without justice being done to the victims.

    Though there are no official statistics, stolen mobile phones are estimated to run into millions of naira. This estimate is predicated upon the fact that, accordimg to figures from the Nigerian Commuications Commission (NCC), the total subscribers data released at the twilight of last year stood at 109million.

    Worried by the menace, the National Association of Telecoms Subscriber (NATCOMS), in 2005 sold the Anti-Mobile Phone Theft Initiative (ANTI-MOPHTI) idea to NCC at the Telecomms Consumer Parliament held in Lagos.

    NATCOMS National President, Deolu Ogunbanjo said: “It is to ensure that stolen phones are blocked/disabled, and are prevented from being used on any network in Nigeria, through the Central Equipment Identity Registry (CEIR) used in detecting the International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI)/Serial Number, through dialing the code *#06# on GSM Mobile Phones.”

    The NCC embraced the initiative and organised a forum about three years ago. The forum recommended that the Anti-Mobile Phone Theft Service must be free to subscribers/consumers.

    NCC also registered Messrs NetVisa Nigeria Limited as the company to run the Anti-Mobile Phone Theft Service. After dotting the lines with the stakeholders in telecoms industry, the initaive was endorsed by and launched by former Minister of Information and Communications, Prof. Dora Akunyili.

    But lack of equipment to identify fake mobile phones may have put this laudable project in the cooler. The registration system, known as IMEI, can only identify genuine phones from big manufacturers, such as Nokia, Samsung, LG and others.

    Globally, mobile phones are assigned a unique 15-digit IMEI code upon production, which is the backbone of genuine handsets.

    In Nigeria, mobile phone vendors are expected to register their handset models with the regulator. However, this has seen only big market players comply, while a significant number of traders operate without the due process.

    Major handset manufacturers selling in Nigeria include Nokia, Samsung, LG, Sony, and Ericsson. Mobile operators say genuine phones register both the IMEI code along with a caller’s number on their systems while fake gadgets record only the caller’s details.

    This made the plans by the NCC to bar the use of stolen phones in telecoms networks in Nigeria to crumble like a pack of cards.

    Executive Vice Chairman, NCC, Dr. Eugene Juwah, said most of the phones had only batch numbers that could make it impossible to disable just one phone. Every mobile phone is assigned an IMEI number that is unique to it.

    Thus, by supplying the IMEI of a stolen phone, an operator could easily block the use of the phone on the network and render the phone useless to the thief thereby serving as a disincentive to potential phone theives.

    Juwah said most of the phones that came into Nigeria had batch IMEI numbers, which is not unique to one phone but to as many as five million phones.

    According to him, the implication of this is that disabling one stolen phone from use in a network could also deny 4,999,999 other phones that are not stolen access to the networks.

    “Barring of stolen phones could not succeed in the country because of the problem of batch equipment identity registry. Sixty per cent of phones in Nigeria come from China. Many of the phones that come in here are fake.

    “If you bar one phone, you must have barred another five million phones. We are still looking at the issue with new technologies,” Juwah promised.

    He said the agency bore no resposibility for the preponderance of fake phones in the country, adding that different ports of entry had prototypes of phones approved for use in Nigeria.

    Under the agreement, anyone whose phone was stolen could report to Netvisa and submit the IMEI number so that the phone could be barred from use in all the networks.

    The rationale was that if stolen phones could not be used in any network, the motivation to steal would not exist, thus the high incidence of the stolen phones would be minimised, if not eliminated.

    The existence of a flourishing used phones market where stolen phones could easily be sold is also fuelling the predilection of mobile phones theives to keep doing the business..

    The Preponderance of fake/substandard mobile phones has become an issue in the telecoms sector. The NCC and Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) are said not to be doing enough in this respect. In some cases, both NCC and SON officials have at different times, stormed the shops where such phones are sold to effect seizures and at times, arrest the dealers. Despite this, importers and sellers of these substandard phones have remained undeterred as fake phones and accessories still flood the market.

    The Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) said the best way to eradicate them from circulation would be to compel the telecoms operators to switch off all fake and substandard mobile phones from their networks. The NCC, the body argues, must compel the telecos to switch off the fake phones to render them useless. Though reliable statistics are hard to come by, it is estimated that more than half of phones in the country are fake or sub-standard.

    ATCON President Lanre Ajayi said any device that is not type approved by the NCC should not be used on any network. He urged he Commission to ensure that such devices are not allowed on any network in the country.

    A security expert and coordinator, Crime Prevention Campaign Organisation of Nigeria, Temitope Akindele, said the NCC should urgently revisit the Anti-Mobile Phone Theft Initiative. “Every government agency saddled with curtailing the influx fake mobile phones into the country must rise up to the challenge. Aside the security threats, these phones are said to be injurious to health and even compound the poor service delivery issue in the telecoms sector. NCC should go back to the drawing board and revisit mobile phone registration.”

     

  • How to bridge digital divide

    The Federal Government has received tips on how to bridge the digital divide.

    The government was implored to look for funds and provide telecoms infrastructure in rural and under-served areas of the country.

    The Director of Regulatory Affairs, Etisalat Nigeria, Ibrahim Dikko, said this has become imperative as operators prefer to invest in infrastructure in communities which they consider viable.

    “The Government would have to find ways to subsidise rural infrastructure build because operators most times, invest in areas that they consider commercially viable,” he said.

    Dikko listed other factors hindering investment in telecoms infrastructure in the country, adding that a broadband strategy would go along way in luring investors into the sector.

    “The Government needs to develop right spectrum policy to encourage investors to come in. Issues around multiple taxation, right-of–way and power must be addressed to encourage operators make requisite investment in infrastructure. The NCC needs to continue to foster competition in the broadband industry,” he said.

    One way the government has been doing this is through the Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF). The Nigerian Communications Act 2003, that established the NCC mandated the Commission, “to establish USPF to promote the widespread availability and usage of network services and application services throughout Nigeria by encouraging the installation of network facilities and the provision for network services and application services to institutions and in un-served, under-served areas or for under-served groups within the community.”