Airtel scoops 2013 African operator award

BHARTI Airtel, one of the country’s leading telecommunications service providers with operations in 20 countries across South Asia and Africa, has been recognised as the African Operator for 2013 at the CommsMEA Awards.
Airtel out-shined strong shortlisted contenders, among others the MTN Group, Vodacom and Nedjma, at the eighth edition of the event held at Jumeirah Emirates Tower in Dubai.
The event was attended by over 300 executives from the telecommunications sector, vendors, ministers and regulators.
The award recognises excellence within the telecommunications sector across the Middle East and Africa.
This is according to a statement released in Lusaka yesterday.
The winners were picked from a record number of nominations by a judging panel.
Bharti Airtel managing director and chief executive officer (CEO) (international), Manoj Kohli is elated by the achievement.
“We are humbled by this recognition and the trust that the international industry panel, consumers and other stakeholders have placed on Airtel since our entry into Africa in 2010,” he said.
Mr Kohli said in the past three years, the company has succeeded in serving more communities within countries it operates.

source: www.daily-mail.co

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

Airtel invests Rs. 2bn in 3G

Bharti Airtel, a leading global telecommunications company with operations in 20 countries across Asia and Africa, today announced the launch of the initial phase of a comprehensive network expansion exercise across 250 plus sites in urban, sub-urban and rural pockets across all districts of the island.

This project would thereby see Airtel Lanka increasing its 3G presence beyond 1,000 towers and 2G presence beyond 1,800 towers across the island. As part of this extensive expansion project that includes the expansion of transmission network, Airtel will continue to deploy robust and world-class network infrastructure and equipment to strengthen its customers’ high speed data connectivity and mobile internet experience.

Commenting on this latest milestone, Bharti Airtel Lanka’s Chief Executive Officer/Managing Director Suren Goonewardene stated, “At Airtel, it is our ethos of changing Sri Lanka’s telecom landscape and in which businesses operate in Sri Lanka. While we have changed the way mobile communications work in the country through the introduction of several innovative services which includes the concept of no hidden costs, we are now geared to change the language of the telecom business – from a mobile to a mobile internet organization. With this in mind, we have now invested heavily in our 3G network.”

Along with the commitment towards enhancing Airtel’s network presence across Sri Lanka and continuing to work towards new ways of delivering a seamless network experience to customers, Goonewardene further stated, “When it comes to Mobile Internet, Airtel will be the brand loved by all Sri Lankans whether they are prepaid or post-paid customers residing in any part of the country. We have launched customized internet packages and tailor-made handset bundle offers (HBOs), which all Sri Lankans will have the propensity to use. We have also started increasing the number of customer touch points thus giving our customer accessibility to the range of data services which is fresh, youthful, current and innovative”.

Bharti Airtel Lanka commenced commercial operations of services in Sri Lanka on January 12, 2009, and was the fastest operator to reach one million customers in Sri Lanka.

source: www.nation.lk

Bharti and Reliance Jio announce comprehensive telecom infrastructure sharing arrangement

Bharti Airtel Limited (“Bharti”) and Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (“Reliance Jio”) today 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.

The arrangement could, in future, be extended to Roaming on 2G, 3G and 4G, and any other mutually benefiting areas relating to telecommunication, including but not limited to jointly laying optic fibre or other forms of infrastructure services. The pricing would be at ‘arm’s length’, based on the prevailing market rates.

airtel scoops 2013 African operator award

BHARTI Airtel, one of the country’s leading telecommunications service providers with operations in 20 countries across South Asia and Africa, has been recognised as the African Operator for 2013 at the CommsMEA Awards.
Airtel out-shined strong shortlisted contenders, among others the MTN Group, Vodacom and Nedjma, at the eighth edition of the event held at Jumeirah Emirates Tower in Dubai.
The event was attended by over 300 executives from the telecommunications sector, vendors, ministers and regulators.
The award recognises excellence within the telecommunications sector across the Middle East and Africa.
This is according to a statement released in Lusaka yesterday.
The winners were picked from a record number of nominations by a judging panel.
Bharti Airtel managing director and chief executive officer (CEO) (international), Manoj Kohli is elated by the achievement.
“We are humbled by this recognition and the trust that the international industry panel, consumers and other stakeholders have placed on Airtel since our entry into Africa in 2010,” he said.
Mr Kohli said in the past three years, the company has succeeded in serving more communities within countries it operates.
“We also hope to change their lives through not only the voice but also the data and mobile commerce services that we provide,” he said.
Airtel Africa is the largest third generation (3G) and mobile commerce country footprint in sub-Saharan Africa.
The telecommunications company provides 3G services in 14 African countries and Airtel Money services in 17 countries across the continent.
With coverage across Airtel Africa’s operations in the 17 countries, the mobile money platform is poised to serve more diverse communities than any other financial institution in Africa.
Currently leveraging a network of over 100,000 agent locations, Airtel Money facilitates access to financial services for the unbanked population.

source: www.daily-mail.co

Airtel Africa joins Bridge Alliance to help its enterprise customers

Bharti Airtel, a leading global telecommunications services provider with operations in 20 countries across Asia and Africa will join other major operators in Africa under Bridge Alliance to provide its enterprise customers the opportunity to improve their mobile business operations.
Airtel is the largest telecom service provider across the continent in terms of geographical reach and had over 66 million customers at the end of quarter ended September 30, 2013. Globally, Airtel is ranked as the 4th largest mobile operator in terms of subscribers.
Bridge Alliance is a leading mobile alliance that is made up of 14 operators, serving over 500 million customers.
The 17 Airtel operations across Africa will join the alliance and gain access to the latest Bridge Alliance enterprise and roaming services.
“It is important to be part of a strong alliance which can enable our enterprise customers to achieve full visibility of their regional mobile expenses for better check and control of corporate mobile spend. This gives our enterprise customers the opportunity to improve their mobile business operations at an international level” said Andre Beyers, Chief Marketing Officer at Airtel Africa.

 Alessandro Adriani, CEO of Bridge Alliance said, “Customers of Airtel Africa OpCos and of all Bridge Alliance members will enjoy geographically extended, simplified and competitive data roaming and voice services. Additionally, enterprise customers will achieve full control of their global mobile expenses and seamless mobile communications solutions.”

source: www.telecomtiger.com

Bharti Airtel gains after raising funds via over seas bound

The announcement was made after market hours on Wednesday, 4 December 2013.

Meanwhile, the S&P BSE Sensex was up 433.52 points or 2.09% at 21,142.23.

On BSE, 4,143 shares were traded in the counter as against average daily volume of 2.12 lakh shares in the past two weeks.

The stock hit a high of Rs 339.45 and a low of Rs 337.50 so far during the day.

Bharti Airtel said that the Notes will be fully and unconditionally guaranteed by Bharti Airtel. The Notes attracted huge investor interest with an order-book aggregating over euro 3.8 billion from high quality investor accounts, Bharti Airtel said in a statement. The Notes have been priced at 300 basis points over the 5-year EUR Mid Swap with a fixed coupon of 4% per annum to yield 4.055%. Bharti will apply the net proceeds to refinance its existing debt.

Commenting on the development, Mr. Harjeet Kohli, Group Treasurer of Bharti, said, "It is heartening to be the first Indian corporate to access the European IG credit market. The overwhelming response from investors across Europe for this inaugural issue highlights the strength of our credit. This transaction helps us continue to diversify sources of funding and the EUR financing also acts as a natural hedge to many of our African businesses where local currency is pegged to Euros".

Bharti Airtel's consolidated net profit declined 29% to Rs 512 crore on 9.9% growth in net sales to Rs 21324.40 crore in Q2 September 2013 over Q2 September 2012.

Bharti Airtel is a leading global telecommunications company with operations in 20 countries across Asia and Africa. Headquartered in New Delhi, India, the company ranks amongst the top 4 mobile service providers globally in terms of subscribers. In India, the company's product offerings include 2G, 3G and 4G wireless services, mobile commerce, fixed line services, high speed DSL broadband, IPTV, DTH, enterprise services including national & international long distance services to carriers. In the rest of the geographies, it offers 2G, 3G wireless services and mobile commerce. Bharti Airtel had nearly 280 million customers across its operations at the end of September 2013.

source:www.bussiness-standard.com

Airtel reaffirms commitment to chad

Bharti Airtel Limited (“Airtel”), a leading global telecommunications services provider with operations in 20 countries across Asia and Africa, today said that it is committed to continue investing in their operations in Chad and build world-class 3G and fibre optic networks that will support the country’s future economic growth. Airtel is the largest mobile operator in Chad, serving over 2 million customers with 2G and Airtel money services. 

Airtel’s Senior Management Executives, including Mr. Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman; Mr. Manoj Kohli, MD & CEO (International); and Tiemoko Coulibaly, CEO Africa Francophone Region, today called on the President H.E. Idriss Deby Itno and underlined their commitment to the country’s telecom sector and contributing to the ICT goals of the African nation. 

Airtel also announced that it plans to support a young ICT training and development program that will provide IT training to 6,000 youth in the country, enabling them find employment opportunities.

Mr. Manoj Kohli said, “Airtel will be an inherent part of the vision of the President for a modern and digital Chad. It has been our endeavor to provide world-class services to our customers and we will continue to invest in building 3G broadband networks that contribute to the digital revolution in Chad. The country’s young population is its biggest asset and we would be happy to support initiatives aimed at the development of the country’s youth. Our decision on the young ICT entrepreneurship program is a step in this direction.”

To underline the urgent need for integration of youth into the African growth strategy, it was reiterated that Chad’s population is young; an estimated 47.3% is under 15. Chad aims to have a countrywide digital infrastructure, enabling the development of a wide range of e-services, which will give rise to a major qualitative improvement in social services and create the strong foundations for the country. 

source: www.citifmonline.com

Airtel may exit from Sri lanka by selling telecom business to Etisalat

Telecom service provider Bharti Airtel is likely to exit from Sri Lankan mobile market by selling its business to Etisalat.

Hindu Business Line reported that negotiations between Bharti Airtel and Etisalat have advanced to final stages.

An announcement from Airtel is expected before the return of Manoj Kohli, managing director and chief executive officer (International) of the company, in January to India. Kohli is also in-charge of the company’s operations in Africa, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Bharti Airtel, which launched its Sri Lanka operations in 2009, has less than two million users in the country. Airtel has invested over $300 million to roll out services in Sri Lanka but continues to make losses.

In Sri Lanka, Airtel operates across 25 administrative districts with distribution network of over 41,400 retailers. Airtel, which did not bid for 4G spectrum, offers 3.5G services which are present across major towns in Sri Lanka.

source: www.telecomlead.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

Twitter to be available on entry level mobile phones without internet

Twitter Inc is tying up with a Singapore-based startup to make its 140-character messaging service available to users in emerging markets who have entry-level mobile phones which cannot access the Internet.

U2opia Mobile, which has a similar tie-up with Facebook Inc, will launch its Twitter service in the first quarter of next year, Chief Executive and Co-founder Sumesh Menon told Reuters.

Users will need to dial a simple code to get a feed of the popular trending topics on Twitter, 

More than 11 million people use U2opia's Fonetwish service, which helps access Facebook and Google Talk on mobile without a data connection.

Twitter, which boasts of about 230 million users, held a successful initial public offering last month that valued the company at around $25 billion.

U2opia uses a telecom protocol named USSD, or Unstructured Supplementary Service Data, which does not allow viewing of pictures, videos or other graphics.

"USSD as a vehicle for Twitter is almost hand in glove because Twitter has by design a character limit, it's a very text-driven social network," Menon said.

Eight out of 10 people in emerging markets are still not accessing data on their phone, he said.

U2opia, which is present in 30 countries in seven international languages, will localise the Twitter feed according to the location of the user.

"So somebody in Paraguay would definitely get content that would be very very localized to that market vis a vis somebody sitting in Mumbai or Bangalore," he said.

The company, whose biggest markets are Africa and South America, partners with telecom carriers such as Telenor, Vodafone and Bharti Airtel. U2opia usually gets 30 to 40 per cent of what users pay its telecom partners to access Fonetwish

source: www.ibnlive.in

Airtel Africa joins Bridge Alliance

Bharti Airtel, a leading global telecommunications services provider with operations in 20 countries across Asia and Africa, today announced that it will join Bridge Alliance, a leading mobile alliance that is made up of 14 operators, serving over 500 million customers.

The 17 Airtel operations across Africa will join the alliance and gain access to the latest Bridge Alliance enterprise and roaming services. “It is important to be part of a strong alliance which can enhance the efficiency of our business operations,” said Andre Beyers, Chief Marketing Officer at Airtel Africa. “Airtel Africa will benefit from joining the group as the alliance will enhance our provision of corporate solutions and forward-thinking roaming services.”

“We are very pleased to have all of Airtel Africa operations join us: this strategic partnership enables us to achieve another milestone” said Alessandro Adriani, CEO of Bridge Alliance.

“We are deeply committed to help Airtel Africa enhance its market position and gain competitive advantage. Our partnership will enable Airtel Africa to provide tailored solutions to serve enterprises wishing to procure mobile services regionally. Additionally, sharing our expertise, research and empirical evidence gathered from other markets within the Alliance, Airtel Africa will be able to deliver geographically extended, simplified and competitive data roaming and voice services.”

With a presence across 17 African countries, Airtel is the largest telecom service provider across the continent in terms of geographical reach and had over 66 million customers at the end of quarter ended September 30, 2013. Globally, Airtel is ranked as the 4th largest mobile operator in terms of subscribers.

source: www.biztechafrica.com

Airtel wins African operator of the year 2013 award

Bharti Airtel, a leading telecommunications service provider with operations in 20 countries across South Asia and Africa, was recognised as the African Operator of the Year at the CommsMEA Awards 2013.

Executives including telecoms CEOs, vendors, ministers and regulators attended the eighth edition of the event at a 300-strong gathering at the Awards gala dinner held at Jumeirah Emirates Towers in Dubai.

The award recognises excellence within the telecoms sector across the Middle East and Africa.

By beating some seriously strong contenders on the shortlist, which were the MTN Group, Vodacom and Nedjma, Airtel has consolidated its position as the best African Operator.

The winners were decided from a record number of nominations by a judging panel consisting of Akshay Lamba, chief architect and head of IT strategy at MTS; Milan Sallaba, managing director at Accenture Middle East; Erik Almqvist, partner and global head of operational consulting, Analysys Mason; Mark Kremers, partner, Oliver Wyman; Riad Hartani, partner at Xona, and Alan Horne, CEO Broadband Pioneer and Special Advisor to Global eHealth Foundation.

Commenting on the achievement, Manoj Kohli, the MD and CEO (International) at Bharti Airtel, said: “We are humbled by this recognition and the trust that the international industry panel, consumers and other stakeholders have placed on Airtel since our entry into Africa in 2010. During the past three years, we have managed to serve more communities within the countries that we operate in and hopefully change their lives through not only the voice but also the data and mobile commerce services that we provide. The latter are increasingly becoming essential in Africa.”

Airtel Africa now has the largest 3G and Mobile Commerce country footprint in sub Saharan Africa. The telecommunications company provides 3G services in 14 African countries and Airtel Money services in 17 countries across the continent.

Airtel Money is positioned to become Africa’s widest financial services provider. With a coverage across Airtel Africa’s operations in the 17 countries, the mobile money platform is poised to serve more diverse communities than any other financial institution in Africa. Currently leveraging a network of over 100,000 agent locations, Airtel Money facilitates access to financial services for the unbanked population.

A recent survey conducted by the African Business magazine indicates that despite only a 3 year presence in Africa, Airtel is one of Africa’s top ten most admired global brands.

source: www.capitalfm.co

Nairobi hosts East African telecom investment summit as sector enters critical phase

The TMT Finance East Africa 2013 Conference will be held in Nairobi amidst unprecedented fixed-line and mobile consolidation and increasing investment in new infrastructure and spectrum predicted for the next 12 months.

Leading executives from companies including Safaricom, Bharti Airtel, Orange Telkom, Eaton Towers, Helios Towers, Standard Bank, Citi and regional government representatives are meeting at the TMT Finance & Investment East Africa 2013 Conference (http://www.tmtfinance.com/eastafrica) on November 26 at the Inter Continental Nairobi to tackle the critical opportunities and challenges for the region.

"Investment opportunities in Africa are immediate, significant, diverse and potentially very lucrative," said Enda Hardiman, Managing Partner, Hardiman Telecommunications, who will be leading a session on infrastructure investment at the conference. "Consolidation is in prospect and the fixed-line vista has changed out of all recognition. Landing of new submarine cables has increased connectivity by several orders of magnitude, while deployment of fibre in access networks is now common."

The conference will also include sessions on Regional Telecom Growth Strategies, Regulating Telecoms, Mergers and Acquisitions, Datacentres and Cloud, Applications and Mobile Banking, and Mobile Infrastructure.

"This is a really critical time for the East Africa region as critical decisions about the framework for investment, particularly regulation and spectrum allocation for 3G and 4G, will have a fantastic impact on regional growth," said Chris Buist, Director, Coleago Consulting, who will be chairing the session on regulation at the conference. "There are a number of important spectrum auctions coming up across the region and operators are looking at how best to use spectrum, infrastructure sharing, new technologies and business models to meet the massive demand for data services."

Mobile tower management and investment will also be an important topic at the conference.

"Specialist tower companies are now active continent-wide – all of which have recently engaged in successful fund-raising. Selloff of towers numbering 80,000 by the five major pan-African operators is now also in prospect," said Hardiman. "The investment vista is developing rapidly. The traditional "Big Five" operators continue to have vibrant investment programmes in place. This is now being complemented by focused interest on the part of the specialist, multi-billion dollar Private Equity funds. Sovereign wealth funds and specialist investors also continue to be active."

source: www.prweb.com

Bharti Airtel caters to growing needs of mobile value added services

Bharti Airtel, a leading global telecommunications company with operations in 20 countries across Asia and Africa, will be further expanding its 3G foot print (3rd generation mobile telecommunication technology) countrywide to cater to the growing needs of Mobile Value Added Services (MVAS) among Sri Lankans specially the youth, a top official of the company revealed.

Mobile phones have transcended their basic function of providing voice communication to become a multimedia device that complements users’ personality and attitude. Mobile communication subscribers in addition to voice communication are increasingly subscribing to personalised services such as MMS (multimedia messaging service), unified messaging, voicemail, caller ring back tones (CRBT), push-to-talk, news alerts, and mobile Internet browsing, etc.

Airtel Lanka strives to deliver services that are robust, reliable and world class for our customers in Sri Lanka to leverage its 3G mobile broad band’s strong performance,” said Manoj Kohli, Managing Director and CEO (International) Bharti Airtel Ltd in an interview with the Business Times on the sidelines of the Commonwealth Business forum in Colombo last week.

The company also provides reliable island wide coverage via 1600 telecom towers covering all 25 districts. Of these, over 650 towers offer 3G services to each region.

The Airtel subscriber base has increased to 1.7 million active subscribers countrywide in a healthy competition adopting best and ethical practices to become one of the largest telecom operators in the island, Mr. Kohli said.
He paid a compliment to the country’s Telecom regulator, the Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (TRC) for arranging a level playing field for all telecom service providers controlling call charges.

Rejecting the claims of changes in Airtel ownership, he said that more value for the customers will be provided by his company in the form of affordable data and roaming tariffs, innovative products, world-class networks and customer care.

Mr. Kohli noted that the company has introduced a smart show room concept in Sri Lanka linking up with Samsung towards further enhancing Airtel’s market position in the island.

Answering a question on the viability of mobile phone number portability, he said that his company has no objection on allowing subscribers to switch networks while using the same number.

source: www.sundaytimes.lk

broadband vital for new sustainable development

Broadband infrastructure, applications and services have become critical to driving growth, delivering social services, improving environmental management, and transforming people’s lives, according to a new Manifesto released this week by the Broadband Commission for Digital Development and signed by 48 members of the Commission, along with other prominent figures from industry, civil society and the UN family.

“Overcoming the digital divide makes sense not only on the basis of principles of fairness and justice; connecting the world makes sound commercial sense,” the Manifesto reads. “The vital role of broadband needs to be acknowledged at the core of any post-2015 sustainable development framework, to ensure that all countries – developed and developing alike – are empowered to participate in the global digital economy.”

Signatories to the Manifesto include Commission Co-Chairs President Paul Kagame of Rwanda and business magnate Carlos Slim, co-Vice Chairs Dr Hamadoun I. Touré, ITU Secretary-General, and Irina Bokova, UNESCO Director-General, along with prominent members of the Commission including European Commission Vice-President Neelie Kroes, business leaders including Anne Bouverot (Director-General, GSMA), Michel Combes (CEO, Alcatel-Lucent), Sunil Bharti Mittal (CEO, Bharti Airtel), Denis O’Brien (CEO, Digicel), Hans Vestberg (CEO, Ericsson), and Sun Yafang (Chairwoman, Huawei), UN heads of agency including Kathy Calvin (CEO, UN Foundation), Helen Clark (Administrator, UNDP) and Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka (Executive Director, UN Women), and prominent technology advocates including Academy-Award winning actor Geena Davis, Mo Ibrahim (Chairman, Mo Ibrahim Foundation), Youssou N’Dour (musician and Minister for Tourism & Leisure, Senegal), Jeffrey Sachs (Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General for the Millennium Development Goals & Director, Earth Institute, Columbia University), Muhammad Yunus (Founder, Grameen Bank and Nobel Laureate), and many others.

The Manifesto will be presented at a side event of the 5th session of the United Nations Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals, to be held at UN headquarters in New York later today. It follows on the heels of a new report, Transformational Solutions for 2015 and Beyond, which was prepared by a Broadband Commission Task Force and launched at the 8th meeting of the Commission on 21 September 2013.

source: www.biztechafrica.com