The Nation Newspaper

Category: Infotech

NCC set to cap transmission cable price for operators

Worried by current regime of denial of access to viable routes, predatory pricing and discriminatory and arbitrary pricing in transmission cable sector of the telecoms sector, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) said it will set a cap on its cost.

It warned that it will not hesitate to sanction any operator that breaches the cap.

Its Executive Vice Chairman/Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Eugene Juwah who spoke in Lagos at the stakeholders consultative forum on the determination of cost based transmission cable pricing, said while it is the policy of government that appropriate prices be determined by market forces, it has recognised that in the transition from monopoly to full market competition, there would be periods market forces may be inadequate to bring about efficient market conduct and prices that are close to costs.

Represented by its Executive Commissioner, Stakeholder Management, Mr. Okechukwu Itanyi who spoke on the sideline after the meeting, he said after the consideration of the report of the study contracted to KPMG, it will develop “strong enforcement regulations and cap the cost price of transmission cable in the country.”

According to NCC, KPMG was contacted two years ago to carry out the study as part of its regulatory oversight function to address competitive dynamics, pricing and related matters in cable transmission pricing among operators.

“In the discharge of our regulatory and oversight functions, we are committed to participatory regulation and shall continue to ensure wide consultation before major decisions affecting the industry are taken,” Juwah said.

He said the commission engaged the services of KPMG to ensure that the execution of the project is guided by current realities in the sector.

He explained that presentation of findings from the study to stakeholders is to further prove the commission’s participatory regulation to gather opinions and inputs for best pricing regime in the sector’s cable transmission market.

The essence of determining a cost based transmission cable pricing and development is to enable a judicious use of spectrum with minimal frequency coordination. This allows links to be deployed close to one another without interference.

KPMG’s Partner, Management Consulting, Mr. Joseph Tegbe, explained that the primary objective of the project is to develop a cost based option for regulating the pricing of transmission cable in the telecoms industry.

According to him, the greatest challenge encountered in the project was access to data as it took a year before accessing data from the operators.

He said having followed international best practices in carrying out with the study, information given by the telecoms operators was used as benchmark in the proposed pricing regime, adding that it took cognisance of the falling value of the naira and interest rate which kept going up.

April 2, 2015
Spectranet, iROKOtv partner on free movies

Internet service provider, Spectranet 4G LTE has launched a partnership with iROKOtv.com to provide customers free movie.To celebrate this, Spectranet is giving the gift of 30 days free iROKOtv.com to existing customers who renew their Spectranet account.

The partnership will give Spectranet’s customers the opportunity to access a wide variety of movies and TV shows for free, including blockbusters such as ‘30 days in Atlanta’, ‘Festac Town’, ‘Poisoned Bait’ and ‘The Antique’, for 30 days. With iROKOtv.com, customers can instantly watch as many TV programmes and films as they want, as often as they want, and on the move.

Spectranet’s customers can access iROKOtv.com by visiting www.irokotv.com on a web browser, or downloading the Android app through the Google Play Store. They will be able to use their smartphones, tablets, laptops or smart TVs to watch an ever growing selection of titles, with new movies added weekly, and the flexibility to stream or download.

Head of Marketing, Spectranet, Mr Mike Ogor, said this is part of Spectranet4G LTE’s value-added-services mapped out to enable subscribers to enjoy its reliable, affordable and high speed internet service.

He said: “The partnership between Spectranet and iROKOtv.com gives Spectranet subscribers access to watch movies on iROKOtv.com for 30 days free. This is just one of the ways Spectranet is bringing more value to its customers. Once subscribers renew their accounts, a voucher that enables them watch all their movies free for 30 days is emailed to them. With the Voucher Code, subscribers just log onto irokotv.com, register their details and enter the code to enjoy 30 days unlimited access to watch new and interesting movies.”

April 2, 2015
Cisco unveils Mobility IQ

Cisco has introduced Mobility IQ, an innovative mobility software as a service (SaaS) analytics solution that unlocks the power of visual network knowledge and drives unparalleled business outcomes for service providers.

The market leading SaaS solution, hosted on Cisco Cloud Services, provides advanced insights and an unprecedented bird’s-eye view across Wi-Fi, 3G and LTE network activity – in real-time. Service providers can identify and capitalise on new business opportunities and deliver exciting new experiences to their customers using a flexible, as a Service consumption model.

According to the latest annual update of the Cisco Visual Networking Index, Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast for 2014 to 2019, global mobile data traffic will grow nearly 10-fold over the next five years, aided by the ongoing adoption of more powerful mobile devices and machine-to-machine (M2M) connections, combined with broader access to faster cellular networks. The forecast notes that global WiFi offload traffic will exceed global cellular traffic by 2019, which underscores the increasing importance of small cell technologies in many carriers’ mobile service delivery strategies.

General Manager, Cisco, Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone, Dare Ogunlade said: “Mobility IQ is a great example of Cisco executing on its service provider strategy in Nigeria enabling our customers to drive profitable business outcomes through transformation.

This powerful new solution helps service providers and their business customers understand their own networks better, optimize the delivery of their services, and ultimately increase revenue.”

April 2, 2015
Govt, OEMs to partner in bridging digital divide

The Federal Government has assured indigenous original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) that it would partner with them to bridge the digital divide in the country.

Communications Technology Minister, Dr. (Mrs) Omobola Johnson who spoke during the commissioning of the 50KVA 3 phase off-grid solar solution factory of Omatek Ventures at Oregun, Lagos, said the government would continue to support OEMs through the implementation of appropriate policies.

The factory will present the solar solution for factories, banks, telcos firms, government and other organisations that require big power installations.

She said: “I commend the management of Omatek for this initiative. We will continue to come up with policy that can help support your business through our local content initiative. More importantly, we urge Omatek to continue in its two lines of business of computer assembly and solar technology solutions as the two are key to bridging digital divide and ensuring energy consumption efficiency in the country respectively.”

Chief Executive Officer, Omatek, Mrs Florence Seriki, explained that there are both off-grid and on-grid solutions as well as LED bulbs, adding that there are solutions for the 12watts, 20 watts, 500 watts power that could replace the I better pass my neighbour generator for small homes, shops, small and medium enterprises (SMEs), churches, rural electrification and rural system, street lighting implementation, schools and so son for students, farmers among others.

She said: “These are all-in-one installations assembled locally and packed with Omatek’s solar, inverter, battery, controller in all-in-one carton and can be self-installed.

“Omatek Solar Solution, which is a hybrid solution that provides 24 hours lighting/power Solution by use of our solar-led bulb-inverter hybrid solution; whilst providing 70 – 90 per cent cut/deduction in power consumption and drastically reducing power consumption by an average of 85 per cent on the overall grid; thus enhancing growth in the real sector and general economic development.

“We have installed these solutions in schools, homes, offices and factories and proud to inform you that the education sector welcomed not just provision of power and green energy, the hostels and all reading areas have 24 hours lighting and this bridges the digital gap in our schooling system, as students had stopped reading in darkness.”

Speaking on the key benefits of the solar solutions, Seriki said the solutions provides 24-hours alternate power/green energy for businesses, homes; provides 24-hour lighting solution to all; provides 24 hour solar energy and lighting solution for students, hostels, among others.

“The Omatek LED bulbs will not require replacement for three to five years whilst the solar will last 25 years. Duration of the batteries are for five to 10 years,” Mrs Seriki said.

April 2, 2015
eProcurement portal makes debut

An indigenous information technology firm, Bids Online for You Limited (BOLFYNG) has launched a new electronic procurement solutions aimed at bridging the vast gap between purchasers and suppliers enabling the process of tendering, pre-qualification and contract bidding to be done electronically.

BOLFYNG operates as an e-procurement solution company, which provides web based portal enabling purchasing organisations manage and streamline procurement processes from bid creation, publishing, prequalification, submission and evaluation, document distribution and management to instant tender notification to interested bidders.

Speaking during the unveiling of the e-procurement solution, its Business Development Director, Mr. Yinka Sorinwa said the online portal connects suppliers providing various goods and services to purchasing organisations from the local, state and federal government, education, consulting, engineering, financial institutions, construction, healthcare sectors, public and private companies and many more across Nigeria and beyond.

Sorinwa said the main objective of BOLFYNG is to provide a platform where up-to-date information is made available to end users with the aim of becoming the most used and frequently visited web portal for bid publishing, e-prequalification and e-bidding.

“The traditional manual process of procurement is now obsolete, making the bid tendering and application process very slow, frustrating and time consuming with very tedious process for payment and bid document pick up. Many advanced countries have replaced this with e-procurement and this solution is what BOLFYNG offers.

March 19, 2015
Nigeria needs $3.7b to cover underserved areas

About $3.7billion is needed to bridge the digital divide existing in the country inspite of the progress recorded in the telecoms sector. Communication Technology Minister, Dr (Mrs) Omobola Johnson, who disclosed this, said the money would be needed to reach the various underserved people in different parts of the country.

Already, the government, through a study, has identified about 207 communities, which are yet to benefit from the telecoms revolution. These communities have been grouped into subsidy clusters across the six geo-political zones for the government to through the Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF) design projects and strategy to bridge the gaps and ensure that everyone, irrespective of locality, is connected.

According to her, each cluster has the requisite attributes of sizeable population, major towns, main economic activities, institutions and others, adding that these gaps are expected to be filled by 2018 and would allow about 40 million Nigerians to gain access to voice services.

On the challenges to government’s efforts at creating digital citizens through pervasive spread of broadband, Dr Johnson, who spoke during the presentation of the report of a study carried out by the USPF in Lagos, identified the challenge of right of way (RoW), multiple taxation/regulation, encouraging the demand side by ensuring that people adopt technology, cost of access to infrastructure, and the challenge of local content among others.

In her opening remarks during a sideline gathering facilitated by Ericson and a4ai at which a report was presented by Alliance for Affordable Internet (a4ai) during the Mobile World Congress, she said the $3.7billion funding will be required to provide the requisite infrastructure that will take services to the un-served and underserved areas of the country.

Dr Johnson said the Federal Government’s decision to create Communication Technology Ministry underscored the importance the administration placed on the ICT sector as a veritable driver of the economy.

Executive Director, a4ai, Sonia Jorge, said the success recorded in the country’s telecoms sector was driven by strong leadership and regulation of the industry, robust broadband strategy, effective competition, efficient spectrum allocation, 4niversal access to rural and underserved population, and infrastructure sharing, among others.

March 19, 2015
Etisalat urges public private partnerships in broadband devt

The Chief Executive Officer of Etisalat Group, Ahmad Julfar, has urged the adoption of public private partnership (PPP) approach to broadband development, arguing that access to broadband is a basic right for everyone who could be served smartly, where needed.

He lamented that artificial policies of long pay-back on infrastructure investments and diminishing returns impact ability of carriers to invest and innovate

Addressing global leading figures in telecoms at this year’s Mobile World Summit (MWS) by Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, Mr. Julfar said public internet needs to evolve further, stressing that it requires investment in capacity, new solutions, technologies and innovative business models.

He argued that the carriers will not be able to drive this alone, as they face the risk of a big disruption due to the shifts across the value chain, necessitating the PPP approach.

He said: “Etisalat believes that access to broadband is a basic right for everyone and it can be served smartly, where needed. But providing universal access to broadband poses a challenge for telcos because network investments not only have long pay-back periods and capex (capital expenditure) on infrastructure today yields diminishing returns.”

Mr. Julfar said “new investment models based on semi-public funding from governments or infrastructure-sharing models defined by regulators, are urgently needed and should be encouraged”.

Speaking on Connecting Billions Across the Developing World, Mr. Julfar said: “The benefits of increasing connectivity are clear to see in economic, social and environmental fields, but there is a clear digital gap. Some 60 per cent of the world’s population remains unconnected, the majority of which is in rural areas of the developing world.”

By 2020, approximately 3.8 billion men and women, or half of the world’s population will be connected to the internet through mobile and a vast majority of the new users will be in developing countries.

“Telecoms revolutionises everything we do; it is the industry that changes all other industries; governments know it. That is why, over the past 10 years, more than 150 governments have developed or are developing national broadband networks. The primary goal is to make the country benefit from the economic impact of broadband. And we share a common interest to keep investing in the future internet,” he said.

He proposed a number of changes in the telecoms ecosystem comprising governments, regulators, internet companies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). He urged all to embrace new competitive models to allow telcos focus on market value creation through collaboration between private and public sectors to distribute more choice, affordability and welfare to citizens.

“Some of the most innovative models today come from emerging countries. Etisalat Group takes a different approach in various developing countries that it operates in, and not one size fits all. Our ability to be flexible to meet individual market need drives our growth across the region. This flexible approach has enabled Etisalat Group to extend service provision for millions of people,” he said.

March 19, 2015
MTN launches proposition for Christian subscribers

As part of its effort to ensure that its Christian subscribers get connected to their faith on daily basis, especially during the Lenten period, MTN has rolled out various life-enriching and spirit-filled Christian Value Added Services (VAS) offerings.

These offerings according to MTN will enable Christian faithful have easy access to daily devotionals, Bible quotes, children prayers, sermons, songs, prayers, prayer points, hymns, callertunez and other spiritually uplifting content, that will keep them connected to their faith on a daily basis.

Its Chief Marketing Officer, Mr. Olubayo Adekanmbi, explained in a statement that the strategic crux of the initiative is aimed at uplifting and encouraging subscribers to get closer to God through the company’s bold new digital Christian VAS.

He said: “We are committed to the total well-being of our customers as we strive to make their lives better through our propositions, products and value-added services.

“The MTN Christian Service provides subscribers with life-changing prayers and prayer points from anointed men of God; prayers for children, inspirational messages from spiritual leaders, daily bible verses, praise and worship songs, hymns, Christian Callertunez and other spiritual-enriching contents to keep us in-tune with God every day. Subscribers can access these offerings by dialing 797 on their mobile phones and follow the voice prompt.”

On its importance, Adekanmbi said: “This is a way of showing our commitment to our esteemed customers of Christian faith, by connecting them at this period of spiritual reflection and appreciation for the sacrifice Jesus Christ made on the cross of Calvary (laying down his life for mankind).

He went further to state that the company will continue to go the extra mile in providing exciting innovative initiatives geared at enhancing its customers’ whole new digital experience, while encouraging them to be better in their various fields of human endeavour.

MTN Nigeria, last year sponsored 20 of its Christian subscribers across the country to Jerusalem on pilgrimage. This is as a result of their subscription to various MTN Christian services.

March 19, 2015
Unilag, Douala varsity best computer students honoured

Computer Warehouse Group has rewarded best graduating students of the Computer Science Department of the University of Lagos and the University of Douala, Cameroon, as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programme. At two different ceremonies, its representatives presented gifts to the students in furtherance of its bid to extol the essence of attaining academic excellence.

At the presentation ceremony in Lagos, UNILAG’s Vice Chancellor, Prof Rahman Bello observed that if the focus of CWG’s CSR initiative is sustained, it is capable of aiding universities in Nigeria to attain desired greatness.

He said: “This award presentation has been an annual event. Since inception, CWG has lived up to their promise of rewarding the best graduating student in Computer Science Department every year, for five years now. On behalf of the management of the university, I thank your organisation for your commitment to this partnership. Your commitment to promoting academic excellence will help us in going forward.

“I tell you that your contributions have been helpful. At the moment, University of Lagos is the 20th best school in Africa and the first in Nigeria, according to the 4icu rankings. Going by our consistent progressive performance, we look forward to being the first in Africa anytime soon. This is our target. And, we believe that the input of corporate partners like CWG will see us through to the point we aim to get to,” he said.

CWG’s Chief Operating Officer, Mr. Phillip Obioha, said the annual award presentation underscores CWG’s emphasis on hard-work and qualitative education. He said: “Our business scope covers a range of sectors; from banking to telecoms and recently SMEs. Our business is all about the quality of our workforce. We boast of an array of professionals whose expertise has formed the bedrock of service providers in the telecoms sector, for example. Our premium on quality workforce explains our emphasis on quality education.”

March 19, 2015
Nigeria needs $3.7b to cover underserved areas

About $3.7billion is needed to bridge the digital divide existing in the country inspite of the progress recorded in the telecoms sector. Communication Technology Minister, Dr (Mrs) Omobola Johnson, who disclosed this, said the money would be needed to reach the various underserved people in different parts of the country.

Already, the government, through a study, has identified about 207 communities, which are yet to benefit from the telecoms revolution. These communities have been grouped into subsidy clusters across the six geo-political zones for the government to through the Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF) design projects and strategy to bridge the gaps and ensure that everyone, irrespective of locality, is connected.

According to her, each cluster has the requisite attributes of sizeable population, major towns, main economic activities, institutions and others, adding that these gaps are expected to be filled by 2018 and would allow about 40 million Nigerians to gain access to voice services.

On the challenges to government’s efforts at creating digital citizens through pervasive spread of broadband, Dr Johnson, who spoke during the presentation of the report of a study carried out by the USPF in Lagos, identified the challenge of right of way (RoW), multiple taxation/regulation, encouraging the demand side by ensuring that people adopt technology, cost of access to infrastructure, and the challenge of local content among others.

In her opening remarks during a sideline gathering facilitated by Ericson and a4ai at which a report was presented by Alliance for Affordable Internet (a4ai) during the Mobile World Congress, she said the $3.7billion funding will be required to provide the requisite infrastructure that will take services to the un-served and underserved areas of the country.

Dr Johnson said the Federal Government’s decision to create Communication Technology Ministry underscored the importance the administration placed on the ICT sector as a veritable driver of the economy.

Executive Director, a4ai, Sonia Jorge, said the success recorded in the country’s telecoms sector was driven by strong leadership and regulation of the industry, robust broadband strategy, effective competition, efficient spectrum allocation, 4niversal access to rural and underserved population, and infrastructure sharing, among others.

March 18, 2015