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

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.

YooMee’s next move is to roll out an TDD LTE network in Cote 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 give “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 Cote d’Ivoire we will be delivering up to 2 mbps.”

source: www.bussinesstech.co

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 

east African broadband market

This research service encompasses an analysis of East African broadband market focusing on Ethiopia, Sudan, and Rwanda. The study includes an analysis of key market developments and trends, the market size in terms of revenue and subscribers, demand and competition, and drivers and restraints. It also investigates the deployment of new technologies in East Africa. This study identifies the market forces in the 3 countries and determines the potential growth of these countries. Three big predictions and strategic recommendations are included. The base year used for this research study is 2011 and the forecast period is from 2012 to 2017.

• The combined broadband market revenue in Ethiopia, Sudan, and Rwanda is expected to reach $X million in 2017, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of X% between 2011 and 2017. The combined revenue will derive from X, X broadband subscribers.
• The combined revenue growths will be mainly driven by the increasing uptake of broadband services and the entry of new Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in these countries. Ethiopia is likely to open up its telecommunications sector in the short term and this will certainly have a huge impact on the uptake of broadband services in the country.
• Sudan accounted for X% of the combined broadband services market in the X countries.
• In 2011, the combined broadband revenue was $X million, generated by X broadband subscribers.
• In 2011, there were X broadband providers in the X countries. However, there was only Xbroadband provider in Ethiopia.
• Broadband providers have been deploying wireless networks such as worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX) and Third Generation (3G) to serve end users in the respective countries. This has enormously contributed to the increase in broadband subscriptions.
• For example, Rwanda has had significant changes in terms of broadband services with the entry of several ISPs and the issuance of 3G licenses to mobile operators.
• Moreover, as a result of the multiple government-led initiatives, Rwanda has improved the Internet penetration rates from X% in 2009 to X% in 2011.
• Broadband network coverage is still relatively low across all countries, with an average X% geographic coverage.
• This is indicative of a large under-serviced market and the existence of high growth potential in the X countries.
• Consequently, new market participants might target areas without broadband services in the Xcountries by providing affordable tariffs to both consumers and businesses.

source: www.prnewswire.com

Nawras launches state of the art network operation centre in Bausher

Greg Young, Nawras CEO, said, "We would like to extend our gratitude to the Ministry of Communication and Transport and the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) for their support and guidance during this process. The launch of the NOC is a major step forward in the evolution of telecommunications in the Sultanate. It also underpins the huge investment in our newly Turbocharged network."

The new Nawras NOC controls the nationwide network from Musandam to Salalah. The NOC control spans all sites and technologies, mobile and fixed, 2G, 3G, 4G, WiMAX and FTTX. Every single piece of technology in each site (totalling more than 4500) is controlled from the NOC. This extensive network management is mainly undertaken by Huawei our managed service partner. The NOC is situated on top of our Main Data Centre, which is one of our five such centres, which ensure full geographical redundancy. We have invested in the most advanced testing systems, including test robots from Keynote SiGOS. In addition, probing systems from Nexus and Netscout are deployed across our network and systems that perform hourly health checks of all our main services. These best in class systems enable us to conduct extensive root cause investigations for any service impacting, ensuring swift restoration of the impacted service.

Elaborating on the benefits of the new Main Data Centre, Wolfgang Wemhoff, Nawras Chief Technology Officer, said, "The new data centre provides a state-of-the-art home for our business critical systems. It is a technology masterpiece. It meets all international standards and is future-proof. Out of this building we monitor the quality we provide to our customers and can identify issues even before a customer faces a problem. Here, you feel the heartbeat of our Turbocharging programme."

Also speaking, Ahmed Al Abri, Director - Information and Infrastructure at Nawras , commented on some of the impressive technical features of the Data Centre. "The technical specifications and capabilities are very impressive and include things such as having 7 back-up generators, a 4-chiller cooling system, total commercial power of 6 MVA, and separate back-up systems for the telecoms and IT racks. The facility has a total space of 650 square metres for servers."

source: zawya.com

Packet data network gateway

The PGW is the gateway which terminates the SGi interface towards PDN. If UE is accessing multiple PDNs, there may be more than one PGW for that UE, however a mix of S5/S8 connectivity and Gn/Gp connectivity is not supported for that UE simultaneously.

PGW is responsible to act as an "anchor" of mobility between 3GPP and non-3GPP technologies. PGW provides connectivity from the UE to external PDN by being the point of entry or exit of traffic for the UE. The PGW manages policy enforcement, packet filtration for users, charging support and LI.

Possible to use non-3GPP technologies are: WiMAX, CDMA 1X and EvDO.

                                                                               

PGW functions include:                                          

1.       Per-user based packet filtering (by e.g. deep packet inspection);

2.       Lawful Interception;

3.       UE IP address allocation;

4.       Transport level packet marking in the uplink and downlink, e.g. setting the DiffServ Code Point, based on the QCI of the associated EPS bearer;

5.       Accounting for inter-operator charging;

WIFI technology

WIMAX stands for Worldwide Interoperatibility for internet access. It is a wireless communication standards designed to provide data rates of 30-40 mbps. For  fixed  stations providing a speed of 1gbps. Mobile wimax was a replacement to GSM and CDMA in order to increase  the capacity.

The name WIMAX was created by Wimax forum. This forum describes Wimax as a standards based technology enabling the delivery of last mile wireless broadband access which provide an alternative to cable and DSL. Wimax is sometimes referred as “Wi-FI on steroids” and can be used for a number of applications including broadband connections, cellular backhaul, hotspots etc. This technology is similar to WI-FI , but it can enable usage at much greater distances. It is suitable in providing portable mobile broadband connectivity across cities and countries through a varity of devices. It provides a wireless alternative to cable and digital subscribers line for last mile broadband access. It provides data, VOIP, IPTV services. Wimax provides low costs associated with the deployment of a wimax network in comparison to 3G, HSDPA, it is now economically viable to provide last mile broadband internet access in remote locations.

In North America backhaul for urban operations is typically provided via one or more copper wire line connections, where as remote cellular operations are sometimes backhauled via satellite.Wimax has more substantial backhaul bandwidth requirements than legacy cellular applications. Wimax in this application competes with microwave, E-line and simple extension of the fiber network itself. Wimax directly supports the technologies that make triple play  service offering quality of service and multicasting. The cable companies will provide media services to other partners while gaining access to the wireless network as a mobile virtual network operator to provide triple play services. Devices that provide connectivity to a wimax network are known as subscribers stations. Portable units include handsets, PC peripherals and embeded devices in laptops which are now available for wifi services.