Ethiopia to get high speed 4G network

Ethiopia’s Ethio Telecom has revealed that Huawei Technologies Co Ltd as been contracted to launch a high-speed 4G network in the country, according to a report by Reuters.

This announcement comes following a deal between Ethio Telecom and China’s Huawei and ZTE earlier in the year to expand and improve the country’s information technology (IT) infrastructure.

The Ethiopian government’s ability to monitor the online activities of its citizens and intercept their digital communications has grown more “sophisticated” in the past year despite the fact the Ethiopia has one of the lowest information technology penetration in the world, according to a recent Freedom House Report.

The annual report, which evaluates the state of internet and digital media around the world, revealed that the Ethiopian government’s hawk-eye inspection over its citizens internet usage “is made possible by the state’s monopoly over the country’s only telecom company, Ethio Telecom”.

With the support of the China, the Ethiopian government is reported to have increased its surveillance abilities to be able to censor online political and social content as well as block advanced applications which could enable anonymous online communication.

“Ethiopia is the only country in Sub-Saharan Africa to implement nationwide internet filtering,” the report revealed, adding that the Ethiopian government’s censorship of online content intensified following speculative reports about the illness of the Late Prime Minster Meles Zenawi and Muslim protests in 2012 which was geared through the internet.

Mobile phones and internet were only introduced into Ethiopia during the twilight of the last decade. Despite several notable improvements in information technology (IT) across the world, the Ethiopian IT sector has grown at a slow pace. Currently, only an estimated 2.5% of the Ethiopian population are believed to have access to the internet. The Ethiopian government has noted that plans are underway to expand internet access to rural areas of the country where a majority of the nation’s population reside—thousands of kilometers of fiber-optic cables are reported to have been installed in the country and there are plans to connect Ethiopia to the East African Submarine Cable System (EASSy).

source: www.zegabi.com

NSN zain partnership shows leadership

Nokia Solutions and Networks and Zain Group have successfully partnered for nearly two decades with one sole objective - ensuring world-class service experience for Zain's customers. Marking this fruitful partnership, NSN demonstrated its advanced mobile broadband solutions at the Zain Technology Conference (ZTC) 2013 on Dec 1-3, 2013 in Dubai, UAE. NSN has been a main infrastructure supplier to buildZain Group's GSM, 3G and 4G network. Over the years NSN has evolved as the world's specialist in mobile broadband and continues to provide its superior mobile broadband infrastructure including its Customer Experience Management (CEM) and services to Zain Group. NSN's solutions demonstrated at the conference include its Liquid Applications, Active Antenna Systems, Voice over LTE (VoLTE), Congestion Aware Packet Core, CEM, NetAct, Service Quality Manager (SQM), Operations on Demand, and intelligent Self-Organizing Networks (iSON). In the longstanding partnership from 1994, when Zain's first GSM network in Kuwait was built, NSN continues to support Zain Group to be a market leader in the Middle East region. Throughout the long and successful partnership, NSN delivered its superior mobile broadband technologies to transform Zain Group's network cost-efficiently to ensure the best service experience for its customers. Among other important deployments, these technologies include the first CEM deployment for Zain Kuwait in 2011, unique operations support systems (OSS) portfolio deployed for touch Lebanon in 2013, for both of which NSN was awarded the prestigious Global Telecoms Business Innovation Awards 2013, and LTE network deployed for Zain Saudi Arabia (Zain KSA) in 2012. Also, for the last five years, NSN has been providing its Special Event Support Services (SESS) to Zain KSA's GSM, 3G, and 4G network during the Hajj event. NSN's SESS helps Zain KSA meet the increased demand for network capacity and avoid any degradation in network performance during the exceptional traffic and load conditions during the yearly mega event. "NSN has been one of the main pillars of our success stories in the region," saidScott Gegenheimer, CEO of Zain Group. "NSN has provided its superior mobile broadband network including radio and core networks to build a reliable GSM, 3G, and 4G network for us in the region. It's CEM platform is one of its innovative technologies that helped us transform the service experience of our customers cost-efficiently." "We are committed to helping Zain Group satisfy its customers and be a market leader by providing the best voice and data services and," Igor Leprince, Senior Vice-President, Middle East and Africa, NSN. "NSN will continue to support the operator with our latest mobile broadband innovations for radio and core network such as core virtualization including telco cloud innovations and enhanced voice call continuity for VoLTE. With our focus on innovations

source: www.hispanicbusiness.com

safaricom buys yu stake in fibre firm to launch 4g grid

Safaricom has acquired the full shareholding of rivalEssar in the undersea fibre optic The East Africa Marine system (TEAMs) for an undisclosed fee.

The Nairobi bourse-listed telecom confirmed it acquired the 10 per cent from Yu mobile to offer faster and more efficient Internet data services as well support the upgrade of its network to 4G.

The deal has pushed Safaricom's ownership of undersea fibre optic network to 32.5 per cent, a share that guarantees the operator additional capacity in Teams, which is offered based on shareholding.

Other shareholders are the Kenya government (20 per cent), Telkom Kenya (20 per cent), Kenya Data Networks (10 per cent) and Jamii Telecom (6.25 per cent).

Essar, which has been looking for a strategic investor to inject cash and stave off a liquidity crisis, says it used proceeds from the deal to sustain operations.

"The stake was sold to Safaricom in September at undisclosed figure. The finances from this sale went towards yuMobile's operations," said Madhur Taneja, the Essar Kenya CEO.

"It was an investment made by Essar, which was not being used for operations. This bandwidth had always been idle since we acquired it five years ago."

Teams, which began operations in 2008, offered bandwidth to telecom firms that feed their fibre optic cables that have been laid on land.

Yu, unlike Safaricom, is yet to lay down its own terrestrial fibre-optic cable, prompting the equity sale in Teams.

Safaricom said Friday it was the only shareholder in Teams that showed interest in snapping the Essar share.

"The additional shareholding in Teams entitles Safaricom to have increased capacity on the 1.28 TB/s international cable," said Safaricom.

"It is an integral part of our data strategy to have sufficient international capacity to feed the demands of our growing customer base and to support our terrestrial fibre strategy and LTE (4G network) plans. 

The firm said earlier it was going to spend about Sh8 billion over the next four years to lay down 2,300km of inland fibre-optic cable and support a rising customer base.

source: www. hispanicbussiness.com

addiis ababa eagerly awaits for 4G rollout

A high speed 4G network, scheduled to be implemented by Huawei, forms a crucial part of the joint venture to expand mobile phone infrastructure nationally.

Abdurahim Ahmed, head of communications at Ethio Telecom, has been quoted as saying, “In terms of allocation, Huawei will be responsible for the expansion of 4G in Addis Ababa, including other mobile services the 2G, 3G, IP and the like.”

Among the expected outcomes of the project are that some 400,000 subscribers stand to benefit, that the country will increase the total number of subscribers and there will be an enhancement of existing 3G services.

In August the acting CEO of Ethio Telecom, Andualem Admassie, was quoted by Ethiopian Radio and Television Agency as saying the Project is important in contributing to efforts to increase telecommunications service access and coverage nationally.

source: www.itnewsafrica.com

vodacom seeks entry into ethiopia's telecom sector

South Africa’s Vodacom Group has opened its first office in Ethiopia in an attempt to establish its presence in the country.

The company, which has a strong presence in several African countries including Lesotho, Mozambique, Tanzania, DRC, Nigeria, and of course South Africa, has described Ethiopia as the “most fantastic telecoms market on the continent.”

“We would invest here tomorrow… One operator, 80 million people, the economy growing at 7% – it’s a great market,” Vodacom Group chief executive officer, Romeo Kumalo told Reuters.

The Telecoms firm says it will soon apply for a license to offer value-added services – all other services aside from standard voice calls. This is seen as an attempt to position itself in anticipation of the government’s opening of the country’s telecommunications sector to private investors.

More than 200 Telecoms companies have applied for similar licenses from Ethiopia’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, but only MTN group has been granted the authority to offer value-added services. But MTN is yet to set up shop in the country.

Ethiopia’s state-run Ethio Telecom continues to maintain a monopoly in telecoms and refuses to liberalize the sector saying the USD 321 million generated by the company every year is used to finance infrastructure projects. Foreign investors continue to show great interest in the sector, which Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn has described as a “cash cow”.

Ethio Telecom recently made deals with Huawei and ZTE to expand the mobile phone infrastructure throughout the country. The two deals will see the introduction of a 4G network in Addis Ababa and expansion of mobile phone and 3G internet access throughout the rest of the country.

source : www.zegabi.com

Africa's mobile subscription predicted to surpass 1.2 bn in 2018

Informa Telecoms and Media, organisers of the on-going AfricaCom conference in Cape Town, South Africa, has said the mobile subscriptions in Africa will surpass 1.2 billion by the end of 2018.

The forecast, according to Informa Telecoms and Media, is based on the continued increasing growth of mobile subscriptions in Africa, even though its penetration level among major world regions, which is currently put at 68.81 per cent, is still low, when compared with the global average of 90.48 per cent.

Principal Analyst, Middle East and Africa (MEA) at Informa Telecoms and Media, Mr. Matthew Reed, who gave the prediction during a keynote address on Tuesday at the opening session of the 2013 AfricaCom conference, said: "Africa had 745.34 million mobile subscriptions at the end of 2012, representing 15.24 per cent year-on-year increase, the highest rate of growth among major world regions.

Corroborating Informa Telecoms and Media’s prediction, Chairman, Mobile Monday, Mr. Richard Walton, said the Africa mobile subscription growth rate was amazing and encouraging.
According to him, mobile subscriptions in the sub-Saharan Africa, contributed immensely to the Africa's mobile subscription number, attributing the growth to Apps culture, especially in the area mobile banking applications, he said, would be propelled by the adoption of Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology that is gradually spreading across the globe.

He however challenged telecoms operators to turn data growth into revenue growth, while still maintaining cost efficiency in mobile broadband in Africa.

Speaking on some of the challenges on mobile subscriptions, some of the telecoms operators that spoke, identified size of their business, connectivity issues and the drive to discover more markets and business opportunities, using new brands, as some of their major challenges.

According to Reed, "The number of mobile subscriptions in Africa is still growing at a higher rate than in any other major Wot prod region. Mobile data subscriptions and  revenues are rising strongly on the continent, albeit from a low base. The rollout of 3G and 4G networks combined with expanded back haul and submarine capacity, should enable further growth in Africa's data sector."

He explained that big international information technology (IT) companies such as Google, Intel and Microsoft, are targeting Africa's telecoms market because of its growth potential, particularly in data services.

"The story of Africa's telecoms market continues to be about growth, but the emphasis is shifting from basic mobile services to data and internet services, even though the basic mobile services like voice telephony still dominate the market," Reed said.

Giving details of the growth rate, he said Africa's mobile subscriptions as at October 2013 was 800 million but predicted that in 2014, it would rise to 900 million, and at the end of 2015, it would further increase to 1 billion. He also predicted that by the end of 2016, the figure would increase to 1.1 billion and at the end of 2017, it would further rise to 1.18 billion, before surpassing the 1.2 billion mark in 2018.

source: www.thisdaylive.com

China's Huawei to roll out 4G service in Ethopian capital

Ethiopia's state-run Ethio Telecom  had picked Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, the world's second largest telecom equipment maker, to roll out a high-speed 4G network across the capital Addis Ababa.

The introduction of the service is part of a $1.6 billion deal signed in July and August between the Ethiopian firm, Huawei and ZTE, China's second-biggest telecoms equipment maker, to expand mobile phone infrastructure throughout the Horn of Africa country.

"In terms of allocation, Huawei will be responsible for the expansion of 4G in Addis Ababa, including other mobile services - the 2G, 3G, IP and the like," Abdurahim Ahmed, Ethio Telecom's head of communications, told Reuters.

Abdurahim said the allocation plan was finalized on Wednesday.

"It is expected to benefit more than 400,000 subscribers. Within an eight-month period, the expansion project of Addis Ababa, including 4G, will be completed."

The deal, signed by ZTE in August and Huawei a month before, will enable Ethiopia to double subscribers to more than 50 million by 2015 and expand 3G service throughout the country.

Both firms will split their work along 13 expansion areas.

The contract was awarded under a long-term loan package to be paid over a 13-year period with an interest rate of "less than 1 percent", Abdurahim said.

Africa's rapidly expanding telecoms industry has come to symbolize its economic growth, with subscribers across the continent totaling almost 650 million last year, up from just 25 million in 2001, according to the World Bank.

Ethio Telecom is the only mobile operator in the country of more than 80 million people, among the last remaining countries on the continent to maintain a state monopoly in telecoms.

The government has ruled out liberalizing its telecoms sector, saying the 6 billion birr ($321 million) it generates each year is being spent on railway projects. Ethiopia plans to build 5,000 km of railway lines by 2020.