Unitel and Ericsson Demo LTE-Advanced Technology in Angola

Ericsson has partnered with Angola's telecoms service provider Unitel, to demonstrate LTE Advanced (LTE-A) Carrier Aggregation technology.

The demonstration was done on both 1800MHz and 900MHz spectrum bands on a commercial network, using a commercial terminal in mid December 2013 when Unitel transferred data across its live network in Luanda, Angola, carrying commercial traffic.

LTE Carrier Aggregation is the next step in the evolution of high-speed mobile broadband services, enabling operators to make the most of their existing spectrum assets by combining multiple spectrum bands to enable higher mobile broadband download speeds.

Amilcar Safeca, deputy CEO, Unitel, said: "Unitel is always innovating to enhance the customer experience. With the global leap toward higher data access speeds for sophisticated video and mobility services, we are enhancing our network to ensure we continually provide high-quality services to our high-demanding subscriber base. With this demo, we are well on the way to launching the most advanced mobile network in Angola and perhaps Africa in the near future. We are working with Ericsson to make this happen."

Magnus Mchunguzi, VP, Ericsson sub-Saharan Africa, commneted: "Using LTE-A technology, operators can increase their network capacity and enhance the mobile broadband user experience, enabling up to 1Gbps data rates in the future. This demo places Unitel on the very limited list of operators in the world to demonstrate LTE-A in a live network using a commercial terminal. We are very proud to have partnered with Unitel in this achievement, further extending our long-standing relationship with Unitel."

source: www.allafrica.com

Unitel and Ericsson demo Africa’s first LTE-Advanced technology

Ericsson and Angola's leading telecommunications provider Unitel, successfully demonstrated LTE Advanced (LTE-A) Carrier Aggregation technology for the first time in Africa.

The demonstration was made on both 1800MHz and 900MHz spectrum bands on a commercial network, using a commercial terminal, and took place on December 18, when Unitel transferred data across its live network in Luanda, Angola carrying commercial traffic.

LTE Carrier Aggregation is the next step in the evolution of high-speed mobile broadband services, enabling operators to make the most of their existing spectrum assets by combining multiple spectrum bands to enable higher mobile broadband download speeds.

Amilcar Safeca, Deputy CEO of Unitel says: “Unitel is always innovating to enhance the customer experience. With the global leap towards higher data access speeds for sophisticated video and mobility services, we are enhancing our network to ensure we continually provide high-quality services to our high demanding subscriber base. With this demo we are well on the way to launching in the near future the most advanced mobile network in Angola and perhaps Africa. We are working with Ericsson to make this happen.”

source: www.telecomtiger.com

Global Connected Car Market Report 2013-2018

The market presents direct revenue channel from applications, services, and content. Industry experts believe that if it is done right, software updates will become the major revenue generator since people are willing to pay for them if they are reasonably priced. Software can keep the car up-to-date even if it is not the latest model anymore and essentially tied to the regular maintenance of the vehicle.

The future remains to be seen and will depend on how much the automotive companies open up their systems for third party developers. However, car manufacturers need to standardize on common solutions to drive the market and open systems to create the necessary critical mass among app developers.

Key Take-Aways

• The total shipments of connected car in 2012 are expected to grow at an estimated CAGR of 41.2% from 2013 to 2018. This would account for more than 50.0% of total global car shipments by 2018.
• Various connectivity solutions such as LTE, 3G, Wi-Fi, and HSPA are being bundled with OEM manufactured cars, apart from the existing traditional connectivity such as Bluetooth and 2G.
• North America and China would lead the way in LTE adoption, while 3G would get a boost from European countries andIndia.
• Middle East, North Africa, and emerging economies in countries such as Indonesia offer a better opportunity for traditional connectivity solutions.
• Automotive Semiconductor Industry to reach $18 billion by 2018
• The growth of end product market such as display and screen is directly linked to the OEM shipment of the connected car market.
• Aftermarket service is likely to witness the highest CAGR from 2013 to 2018.

source: www.prnewswire.com

Bharti Airtel bucks trend after brokerage upgrade

 the BSE Sensex was down 135.85 points, or 0.65%, to 20,789.76.

On BSE, so far 77,000 shares were traded in the counter, compared with an average volume of 3.61 lakh shares in the past one quarter.

The stock hit a high of Rs 329.50 and a low of Rs 324.50 so far during the day. The stock hit a 52-week high of Rs 373.50 on 1 November 2013. The stock hit a 52-week low of Rs 266.95 on 5 April 2013.

The stock had underperformed the market over the past one month till 12 December 2013, sliding 4.15% compared with the Sensex's 3.17% rise. The scrip had also underperformed the market in past one quarter, falling 1.67% as against Sensex's 5.78% rise.

The large-cap company has an equity capital of Rs 1998.70 crore. Face value per share is Rs 5.

The foreign brokerage also raised its target price on the stock to Rs 375 per share. According to the brokerage house, risk reward in case of Bharti Airtel (Airtel) has turned favourable, India pricing pressures have abated, data ramp-up is at inflection point and Africa operations have stabilised.

Airtel and Reliance Jio Infocomm (Reliance Jio) on 10 December 2013, announced a comprehensive telecom infrastructure sharing arrangement under which they will share infrastructure created by both parties. This will include optic fibre network - inter and intra city, submarine cable networks, towers and internet broadband services and other such opportunities identified in the future. The cooperation is aimed at avoiding duplication of infrastructure, wherever possible, and to preserve capital and the environment. This will also provide redundancy in order to ensure seamless services to customers of the respective parties.

On 9 December 2011, the company announced partnership with Government of Punjab to expand high speed 4G LTE services across the state. The company will invest over Rs 4000 crore in the Indian State of Punjab over the next 5 years to expand services and contribute to the Government of Punjab's digital inclusion agenda. Airtel and the Government of Punjab signed an agreement on the sidelines of the Progressive Punjab Investors Summit, under which Airtel will take its high speed 4G LTE services to all towns and villages across Punjab.

source: www.business-standard.com

Latest Sub-Saharan Africa Telecoms Investment Opportunities – Business Monitor Release Brand New Whitepaper

Business Monitor has just released its latest analysis on Sub-Saharan Africa Telecoms Investment Opportunities in their new whitepaper ‘Sub-Saharan Investment Opportunities in Telecommunications: Risk/Reward Analysis’. The whitepaper includes Business Monitor’s country comparative risks and rewards ratings tables for the telecoms industry in each country, as well as specific analysis on three countries of interest within the region - Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa - including key data and the latest trends and developments.

After a wave of regulatory penalties, including fines and a ban on promotions, Nigeria's mobile operators have announced plans to expand and upgrade their networks to cope with strong subscriptions growth and increasing data usage. Business Monitor expects this trend to continue over the medium term as the market is forecast to add around 45mn new subscribers in the five years to 2017. Meanwhile, consolidation and, subsequently, transition to LTE technology appears to be a growing trend among tier two telecoms service providers in Nigeria. Business Monitor sees this as a positive development as, through consolidation, tier-two operators are able to gain scale for bigger network deployments while the transition to LTE should enable them to compete better with 3G HSPA+ offerings from the GSM operators.

Kenya's mobile operators will prioritise high value services over aggressive network expansion into underserved areas to improve their profit margins. 

source: www.prweb.com

Africa can take advantage of LTE leapfrog

Zameer was speaking after AfricaCom 2013, held in Cape Town earlier this month, and he said depending on how well telecommunications regulators use spectrum, the high-speed mobile data technology could be rolled out quickly and effectively, despite Africa’s LTE penetration rate currently only standing at 0.003 per cent.

“Africa is largely unrestricted by legacy platforms and onerous regulations, and so has the capacity to leapfrog standard 3G migrations, to embrace LTE and all the benefits of better quality service and content possibilities that the next generation platform provides,” Zameer said.

“Africa has a track record of innovation and being first to market in many instances (e.g. M-Pesa and dynamic tariffing) and I expect that the implementation of 4G LTE will be no different.”

HumanIPO reported in July Huawei alone had already built 44 LTE networks across the continent, although the majority were yet to go live as network operators wait for the opportune moment for it to be economically viable.

Many operators point to the unavailability of affordable LTE-enabled devices in the African market, meaning even if the infrastructure and technology is deployed, very few people will be able to access the services.

Dave Geary, president of wireless at Alcatel-Lucent, told HumanIPO earlier this month they were focussing their attention on deploying LTE networks with plans already announced for data-only networks with partners in Ghana andCameroon.

MTC Namibia have already launched its LTE network in the country, while Smile Communications is already live in Uganda and Tanzania, with a network in Nigeria expected in the next few months.

MTN Nigeria should also be going live with LTE in the West African country during the first quarter of 2014.

source: www.humanipo.com

Key Telecom Trends for Africa, Middle East Revealed in Upcoming Webinar

he Africa and Middle East region offers enormous potential for operators, vendors and investors alike as it reaches a new stage in its growth, according to Kerem Arsal, Africa and Middle East Manager and Presenter of Pyramid's upcoming webinar: Telecommunications in Africa and the Middle East: Unique Opportunities in Diverse Markets.

• Mobile Internet revenue will maintain an explosive growth rate in the AME region and it will double in size to represent a$25bn opportunity by 2018.
• Today, there are slightly more than 5 million households with FTTH broadband in AME. By 2018, this figure will have risen to more than 16 million.
• In 2018, one in every two subscriptions will be running either on LTE or on 3G networks. Today, it is one in every four subscriptions.
• Thanks to relatively liberal licensing regimes that partly offset the economic uncertainties of the region, commercial LTE services can be found in close to 10 sub-Saharan countries already.

source: www.prnewswire.com

ISPs beat mobile operators to LTE in Africa

WiMAX used to be the technology of choice for data insurgent challengers but now they seem to be shifting to LTE.

West African ISPs Surfline (in Ghana) and YooMee (Cote d’Ivoire) both look like stealing a march on the mobile operators with LTE roll-outs early next year.

Russell Southwood spoke to YooMe Africa’s CEO Dov Bar Gera about what the company is looking at doing.

YooMe is a privately held Swiss company that has two African ISP operations, one in Cameroon and the other to open shortly in Cote d’Ivoire. In the past CEO Dov Bar Gera has set up and sold ISP operations in Eastern Europe before moving his focus to Africa.

Its Cameroon operation has deployed WiMAX 16e and it claims to have covered 85% of the population in the country’s two main cities, Douala and Yaounde with 20 base stations. Its main competitors are the two mobile operators (MTN and Orange) and a handful of smaller ISPs.

It has taken significant market share, having around 20,000 out of the 50,000 broadband subscribers in the country if you define broadband as over 512 kbps download speed. Overall Bar Gera estimates that there are probably around a million Cameroonians who use the Internet at least once a week.

But there is a cap on growth as the monopoly international bandwidth provider Camtel has not yet reduced its wholesale prices:”Because of this monopoly, international bandwidth is 5-7 times more expansive (than in other more competitive countries)”. Obviously higher wholesale prices lead to more expensive retail prices, which in turn means a smaller market.

source: www. bussinesstech.co

Pyramid Research Doubles Telecom Coverage in Africa/Middle East, Strengthening its Commitment to Region

The Africa and Middle East region offers enormous potential for operators, vendors and investors alike as it reaches a new stage in its growth. According to Pyramid Research, mobile Internet revenue will maintain an explosive growth rate in the AME region and it will double in size to represent a $25 billion opportunity by 2018. Today, there are slightly more than 5 million households with FTTH broadband in AME. By 2018, this figure will have risen to more than 16 million. In 2018, one in every two subscriptions will be running either on LTE or on 3G networks. Today, it is one in every four subscriptions.

"Given the market trends occurring in the region, we are anticipating the demands of our growing client base by now offering 33 countries in Africa spanning the fixed, mobile, media and devices sectors and tracking 150+ operators," says Arathoon. "In theMiddle East, Pyramid now covers 11 countries and tracks 50+ operators, while having contacts with hundreds of regulators, operators and vendors across the region."

"Through our regional research and strategic consulting services, we help our clients enhance their knowledge of their industries, enabling them to create sustainable market-entry strategy and investment decisions while assessing true revenue-generating opportunities," Arathoon explains. "Our membership as well as our consulting services will become even more robust as a result of this continued commitment to one of the industry's most dynamic regions."

source:www.prnewswire.com

eight regions to get fast ethernet services

AS Tanzania becomes the first country in Africa to roll out the high-speed 4th Generation (4G) internet services, the company behind this data-specific advanced coverage, intends to link six more regions within second quarter of 2014.

Speaking at the launch of the Smile Communications' 4G internet services in Arusha on the backbone of the Long Term Evolution (LTE), Ms Fiona McGloin, the company's country manager for Tanzania and Uganda said the firm will also offer free such services to public schools in each and every region under their coverage.

Before the Arusha launch, Smile Communications dished out a whopping 20 gigabytes of free data to the Arusha Secondary School's computer laboratory with promise to include a few more education institutions in their free service gifts listing.

After Dar-es-Salaam and Arusha, six more regions (those linked with fiber-optic cabling network) will be included in the Smile high-speed internet network before next June, thus making the number to reach eight and counting.

Speaking via LTE enabled 'Skype' from Dar-es-salaam, Mr Innocent Mungy, the communications manager with the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) said the country is proving to be a leader in innovative technology around the region and Smile's endeavors complements TCRA's ten years of achievements.

Official figures indicate that Arusha, the hub of Tanzania's tourism industry, ranks second after Nairobi when it comes to highest usage of internet services in East and Central African region, beating even Dar-es-Salaam and Kampala.

Arusha City was the first to offer its residents with email services back in 1994 when the concept was still a mystery to most parts of East Africa.

Before Smile Communications Tanzania (Smile) introduced Africa's first high-speed data in Dar-es-Salaam City, back in May, the country's fastest data offering fell back on the regular, but often limited, Third-Generation (3G or 3.5G) being offered by existing telecommunications' companies such as Airtel, Tigo and Vodacom whose data streams have to share with their respective voice channeling.

"But as far as Smile-4G is concerned we are specifically targeting data (internet) services only though in future we plan to roll-out trials for voice calling services," explained the firm's country manager, adding that, the LTE high speed connections will enable online business, video conferencing and faster downloading reaching 60 megabytes per second which is six-times faster 

source:www.alafrica.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

Africa well positioned for leap to 4G LTE

With its capacity for innovation, Africa’s mobile network sector is well positioned to drive the explosion in service offerings on the back of 4G LTE implementations.  This is the view of Sherry Zameer, Africa and Middle East Head of telecommunication solutions for Gemalto, world leader in digital security.   Zameer’s comments follow the AfricaCom conference held in Cape Town last week, which was attended by some 8000 delegates from over 100 different countries.

“Africa is largely unrestricted by legacy platforms and onerous regulations, and so has the capacity to leapfrog standard 3G migrations, to embrace LTE and all the benefits of better quality service and content possibilities that the next generation platform provides,” Zameer continued.

While LTE penetration stands at less than 0.003 percent of the market in Africa, Rwanda, for example, is poised to implement LTE from the get go.

“Successful LTE implementations in Africa will depend on how well the issue of spectrum is addressed and how well wireless services (radio) work with LTE to deliver the quality of service required,” Zameer added.

“Africa has a track record of innovation and being first to market in many instances (e.g. M-Pesa and dynamic tariffing) and I expect that the implementation of 4G LTE will be no different,” he said.

While the continent is poised to take telecoms growth to a whole new level, questions among attendees at the conference remain as to how generate profits on new service options, once LTE is deployed

source: www.biztechafrica.com

African ISPs steal march on LTE

YooMe is a privately held Swiss company that has two African Internet service provider (ISP) businesses, one in Cameroon and the other to open soon in Côte d’Ivoire. Its CEO, Dov Bar Gera, has set up and sold ISPs in Eastern Europe, but his focus now is Africa.

YooMe’s Cameroon operation has deployed WiMax and it claims to have covered 85% of the population in the country’s two main cities, Douala and Yaounde, with 20 base stations. Its main competitors are the two mobile operators, MTN and Orange, and a handful of smaller ISPs.

It has taken significant market share, having about 20 000 of the 50 000 broadband subscribers in the country if you define broadband as 512kbit/s or faster. Overall, Bar Gera estimates that there are probably around a million Cameroonians who use the Internet at least once a week.

But there is a cap on growth as the monopoly international bandwidth provider, Camtel, has not reduced its wholesale prices. “Because of this monopoly, international bandwidth is five to seven times more expansive [than in other more competitive countries].” Obviously, higher wholesale prices lead to more expensive retail prices, which in turn means a smaller market.

YooMee’s next move is to roll out a time-division duplexing long-term evolution (LTE) network in Côte d’Ivoire’s capital, Abidjan. It will launch a network of 35 base stations from Alcatel Lucent in the second half of February, which, according to Bar Gera, will provide “good coverage in populated areas. We will also be looking at the lower income segments.”

He’s quite dismissive of WiMax vs LTE comparisons: “Subscribers don’t care whether it’s WiMax or LTE. They want to know the speed and price of the service. In Côte d’Ivoire, we will be delivering up to 2Mbit/s.” This speed is significantly less than Smile Telecom’s 6Mbit/s service. Prices have not been finalised yet but are likely to be in the US$32-51/month range, which seems competitive.

source: www.techcentral.co

ISPs beat mobile operators to LTE in Africa

WiMAX used to be the technology of choice for data insurgent challengers but now they seem to be shifting to LTE.

West African ISPs Surfline (in Ghana) and YooMee (Cote d’Ivoire) both look like stealing a march on the mobile operators with LTE roll-outs early next year.

Russell Southwood spoke to YooMe Africa’s CEO Dov Bar Gera about what the company is looking at doing.

YooMe is a privately held Swiss company that has two African ISP operations, one in Cameroon and the other to open shortly in Cote d’Ivoire. In the past CEO Dov Bar Gera has set up and sold ISP operations in Eastern Europe before moving his focus to Africa.

Its Cameroon operation has deployed WiMAX 16e and it claims to have covered 85% of the population in the country’s two main cities, Douala and Yaounde with 20 base stations. Its main competitors are the two mobile operators (MTN and Orange) and a handful of smaller ISPs.

It has taken significant market share, having around 20,000 out of the 50,000 broadband subscribers in the country if you define broadband as over 512 kbps download speed. Overall Bar Gera estimates that there are probably around a million Cameroonians who use the Internet at least once a week.

source: www.bussinesstech.co 

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

Africans will benefit from global technology

The 2013 AfricaCom conference and technology exhibition in Cape Town, South Africa, focused on new technologies that will drive development in Africa. It equally uncovered new ways of managing customer experience and how they will benefit from the evolving technologies. Emma Okonji writes
Technology companies from across the globe, last week, gathered in Cape Town, South Africa for the 2013 AfricaCom event to discuss new technologies that will speed up development among African countries.

At the conference, which was organised by Informa Telecoms had Nigeria fully represented at the 2013 conference and exhibition, through Information and Communications Technology  (ICT) companies like Etisalat, MTN, Cisco, Qualcomm, Ericsson, among others that have presence and are currently operating in Nigeria.
Paramount among the new technologies that were discussed and exhibited, were the Long Term Evolution (LTE), including evolving technologies that will drive big data penetration, enhance voice telephony, speed up mobile money penetration, as well as enrich customer experience across African countries.
Etisalat Nigeria used the occasion to announce winners of the software application competition it organised in Nigeria. It presented the winners during the AfricaCom Awards Night, which it co-sponsored with other ICT companies like PCCW Global, MTN, Mahindra Comviva, and Orange.
The LTE Technology
Technology has over time, evolved from 2G, 2.5G, 3G, 3.5G, to the Long Term Evolution technology, otherwise known as 4G LTE technology.
The 4G LTE technology, which is currently being adopted globally, is designed to speed up the broadband technology. The conference advised ICT companies operating in Africa to begin investments in LTE technology, since it is the emerging technology that will drive fast broadband penetration even in remote communities across Africa.

source:www.thisdaylive.com

bharti, reliance jio to share telecom infra

The Mukesh Ambani-controlled Reliance Jio Infocomm and the Sunil Mittal-led Bharti Airtel — two players that could soon be seen locking horns in the 4G long-term evolution (LTE) space — on Tuesday signed an agreement to share telecom infrastructure.

This includes sharing of inter- and intra-city fibre-optic networks, submarine cable networks, towers and internet broadband services, besides other opportunities identified later. In a joint statement, the two said the cooperation was aimed at avoiding duplication of infrastructure, wherever possible, and to preserve capital and the environment.

“This will... ensure seamless services to customers of both parties. The arrangement could, in future, be extended to roaming on 2G, 3G and 4G, and other mutually-benefitting areas relating to telecommunication, including, but not limited to, jointly laying fibre-optic or other forms of infrastructure services. The pricing would be at ‘arm’s length’, based on prevailing market rates,”
source: www. bussiness-standard.com

Tanzania : why internet users in Arusha are smiling

LTE (Long Term Evolution) also known as 4G LTE enables ultra-high-speed internet access because it is the cutting-edge fourth-generation (4G) mobile technology standard and represents a step change in evolution from existing wireless technologies such as GSM-2G/GPRS/EDGE and UMTS-3G/3.75G.

4G LTE is the future platform of all online as well as voice and data communication, and its inherently flexible and constantly evolving nature guarantees that it will remain the superior standard in mobile data and voice services for years to come.

“Smile launched in Dar es Salaam on May 16 2013, making Tanzania the first country in Africa to access this revolutionary technology. We are very excited about bringing this technology to Arusha. As a notable international hub that has vast, thriving and dynamic service and tourism sectors and a range of learning institutions, Arusha has so many businesses, organisations and people that will benefit from high speed internet,” said Fiona McGloin, Smile Country Manager for Tanzania and Uganda.

“We at Smile are confident that providing reliable, high speed internet will significantly contribute to the success of Arusha based businesses and also give the people in Arusha a faster, more reliable and cost effective service,” McGloin said.

In Tanzania’s vibrant communications sector, 4G LTE internet now leads the race being six-times faster than 3G and four-times faster than 3.75G. Smile provides an average speed of 6Mbps download and 3Mbps upload.

source: www.itnewsafrica.com

Africans benefit from Global technology

The 2013 AfricaCom conference and technology exhibition in Cape Town, South Africa, focused on new technologies that will drive development in Africa. It equally uncovered new ways of managing customer experience and how they will benefit from the evolving technologies. Emma Okonji writes
Technology companies from across the globe, last week, gathered in Cape Town, South Africa for the 2013 AfricaCom event to discuss new technologies that will speed up development among African countries.

At the conference, which was organised by Informa Telecoms had Nigeria fully represented at the 2013 conference and exhibition, through Information and Communications Technology (ICT) companies like Etisalat, MTN, Cisco, Qualcomm, Ericsson, among others that have presence and are currently operating in Nigeria.
Paramount among the new technologies that were discussed and exhibited, were the Long Term Evolution (LTE), including evolving technologies that will drive big data penetration, enhance voice telephony, speed up mobile money penetration, as well as enrich customer experience across African countries.
Etisalat Nigeria used the occasion to announce winners of the software application competition it organised in Nigeria. It presented the winners during the AfricaCom Awards Night, which it co-sponsored with other ICT companies like PCCW Global, MTN, Mahindra Comviva, and Orange.
The LTE Technology
Technology has over time, evolved from 2G, 2.5G, 3G, 3.5G, to the Long Term Evolution technology, otherwise known as 4G LTE technology.
The 4G LTE technology, which is currently being adopted globally, is designed to speed up the broadband technology. The conference advised ICT companies operating in Africa to begin investments in LTE technology, since it is the emerging technology that will drive fast broadband penetration even in remote communities across Africa.

source: www.thisdaylive.com

bharti, Reliance jio to share telecom infra

The Mukesh Ambani-controlled Reliance Jio Infocomm and the Sunil Mittal-led Bharti Airtel — two players that could soon be seen locking horns in the 4G long-term evolution (LTE) space — on Tuesday signed an agreement to share telecom infrastructure.

This includes sharing of inter- and intra-city fibre-optic networks, submarine cable networks, towers and internet broadband services, besides other opportunities identified later. In a joint statement, the two said the cooperation was aimed at avoiding duplication of infrastructure, wherever possible, and to preserve capital and the environment.

“This will... ensure seamless services to customers of both parties. The arrangement could, in future, be extended to roaming on 2G, 3G and 4G, and other mutually-benefitting areas relating to telecommunication, including, but not limited to, jointly laying fibre-optic or other forms of infrastructure services. The pricing would be at ‘arm’s length’, based on prevailing market rates,” the joint statement said.

source: www.bussiness-standard.com