Cameroonian Businessman To Launch First Indigenous Telecom

 Cameroonian businessman and owner of Seme New Beach Hotel, Semme Mineral Water and Climacam, Seme Noungon plans to launch Altylis Seme Telecom, a 7.6 million euro ($10.3 million) lowcost telephony company, into the “uncrowded” Central African market this month.

The first locally-owned telecom operator in the Cameroon, Altylis Seme Telecom said its objective is to “break mobile prices” in the country which has South African telecoms giant MTN and French multinational, Orange as its only mobile network service providers.

Both companies control a combined 11 million subscriber base, which is about half of the country’s population.

In 2012, Vietnamese firm Viettel obtained licences to operate 2G and 3G networks in Cameroon and announced it would go live to the public by March 2014.

According to a study by Pyramid Research, the introduction of 3G services and integrated data could attract more than six million new subscribers in Cameroon by 2017.

source:www.ventures-africa.com

Cameroonian Businessman To Launch First Indigenous Telecom

Cameroonian businessman and owner of Seme New Beach Hotel, Semme Mineral Water and Climacam, Seme Noungon plans to launch Altylis Seme Telecom, a 7.6 million euro ($10.3 million) lowcost telephony company, into the “uncrowded” Central African market this month.

The first locally-owned telecom operator in the Cameroon, Altylis Seme Telecom said its objective is to “break mobile prices” in the country which has South African telecoms giant MTN and French multinational, Orange as its only mobile network service providers.

Both companies control a combined 11 million subscriber base, which is about half of the country’s population.

In 2012, Vietnamese firm Viettel obtained licences to operate 2G and 3G networks in Cameroon and announced it would go live to the public by March 2014.

According to a study by Pyramid Research, the introduction of 3G services and integrated data could attract more than six million new subscribers in Cameroon by 2017.

source: www.cameroon-africa.com

Viettel postponed anticipated cameroon mobile service launch

 Vietnamese mobile telephone operator, Viettel, has postponed its launch into the Cameroonian market till “probably” March 2014.

Viettel, which was supposed to roll out operations in December, needs more time than the 12 months originally agreed with the government in December 2012 when it obtained an operating license.

The delay is due to uncompleted 2G and 3G service networks and instalment of infrastructure in the 10 stipulated in the contracts.

Reports have attributed the “remote” nature of some of the regions for the difficulty.

To favourably compete in the telecom market now dominated by MTN and ORANGE, Viettel wants everything set right. The Vietnamese company has signed-off on the use of 200 billion FCfa ($420 million) to cover the 81 percent launch of 2G and 3G services as well as to increase this coverage to 95 percent in three years.

Currently, Cameroon has some 11 million subscribers, representing a population penetration level of around 50 percent.

 source: www.ventures-africa.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 

LTE opens up African telecom markets

The introduction of long-term evolution (LTE), a next generation high-speed technology in telecommunications, has brought many new entrants into the market, which are expected to create additional pressure for existing cellular network operators, according to Daniel Jaeger, the vice-president for Alcatel-Lucent in Africa.

“The only difference is that they are not trying to be a full mobile operator. They are merely data players,” Jaeger said, adding: “It’s going to be a tough competition. The new operators focus specifically on the data niche.”

Existing wireless operators that include local telecoms giants Vodacom and MTN are shifting attention to monetising data traffic as voice revenues dwindle.

Jaeger was speaking on the sidelines of the AfricaCom conference in Cape Town, which started on Tuesday and ends today. The event is an aggregation of the communications and technology industry in Africa.

Alcatel-Lucent is currently rolling out LTE, which succeeds third-generation, or 3G technology, in partnership with operators on the continent. Yesterday, the global French telecoms equipment firm announced a new partnership with YooMee Africa, formerly 4G Africa, a privately held Swiss company that provides wireless broadband access in Cameroon.

YooMee holds licences in several countries on the continent and will use Alcatel-Lucent equipment as its main partner when it expands over the next six months.

According to Jaeger, the roll-out of LTE across the continent is, however, scattered. In South Africa, Vodacom was the first to launch LTE solutions for consumers last year. It was followed by MTN.

Cell C, Telkom Mobile and Neotel are also currently expanding their LTE sites.

LTE had become “a fundamental part of growth in Africa where there is no copper infrastructure” similar to Telkom’s in South Africa.

source: www.iol.co