The widest 3G network in South Africa battle

The Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa (ASA) has ruled that Vodacom may not claim to have the “widest 3G network” in South Africa. This followed a complaint by MTN.

A Vodacom print advertisement stated that “Get extra data on the widest 3G network … surf more, download more and stay connected 24/7”.

MTN lodged a complaint with the ASA against Vodacom’s “widest 3G network” statement, arguing that the claim is unsubstantiated and misleading.

MTN said that Vodacom may have the widest coverage in some regions, but it does not have the widest coverage across all regions.

MTN further said that coverage methodology needs to be considered when assessing such claims.

Vodacom responded, saying that it has a substantially wider network than MTN. This, the company said, is evident from the published coverage numbers by all networks, and the actual number of towers deployed by each network.

Vodacom showed that it deployed 6,649 3G towers, whereas MTN has 4,768 3G towers. “These published figures also support the published claims of 90.1% (Vodacom) and 67.7% (MTN) 3G coverage respectively,” Vodacom said.

The ASA was not convinced that a higher number of 3G towers automatically translates into wider coverage.

source:mybroadband.co

voice calls are dying in South Africa

A report on the state of the mobile ecosystem in South Africa has found that voice is in decline, especially among younger demographics.

According to the Mobility 2014 research study, conducted by World Wide Worx with the backing of First National Bank, people in the 19 - 24 age group are abandoning spending on voice calls in favour of data.

The results show that voice declined to 56% of the group's cellphone expense, down around 10% from 2012, while spending on data increased from 17% to 24%.

But it's not only young people: Spending on voice calls declined to 65% as a share of mobile expense across all demographics, down from 77% in 2010.

Data spend, on the other hand increased from 12% to 16%.

Spectrum

"Older users continue to spend far more overall, but the powerful shift in spend from voice to data will work its way up the age segments in the coming years," said Arthur Goldstuck, managing director of World Wide Worx.

Mobile operators have noticed the shift and there have been a variety of data offers to encourage consumers to utilise the service.

source: www.news24.com

Samasource wins google grant

Samasource has announced that it has been granted a $2 million Google Global Impact Award. This funding will be used to create technology-enabled jobs for thousands of youth and women globally, to enhance Samasource's robust technology platform, the SamaHub, and to support expansion of the organization's microwork model by licensing and scaling Samasource's proven approach to poverty alleviation.

"We are grateful to receive this investment from such a forward thinking and leading organization as Google," said Leila Janah, founder & CEO of Samasource. "Being able to benefit from Google's engineering support enables us to effectively and efficiently serve more marginalized women and youth than ever before while also delivering high quality, affordable services to our clients. With this generous support, we will dramatically change the lives of thousands of poor women and youth by providing them with what they want most: fairly-paid work."

To date, Samasource has connected more than 4,000 marginalized people in Africa, India, Haiti and the U.S. to paying work, totaling over $2 million in wages paid out. Samasource's award-winning microwork model brings free, specialized technology training and fairly-compensated digital work to poor women and youth around the world. This approach enables people to gain skills, earn a fair living wage and break the cycle of poverty for themselves and their families. Almost 90% of Samasource workers move up to higher-paying work or higher education.

This award will help Samasource scale its technology platform and operations.  It funds a new initiative to license key parts of Samasource's proven model for job creation to other organizations, including large outsourcing companies and enterprise customers. As a result, they can participate in the growth of the impact sourcing field while delivering high-quality results for their customers and stakeholders.  Thanks to this project, the dynamics of the outsourced job market are poised to fundamentally change since entities with digital outsourcing needs will be able to effectively access and utilize new pools of talent, drawing from the least developed and most impoverished populations globally.  Using this approach, these historically-disadvantaged populations will have access to jobs in the digital economy and can provide business value to those with digital outsourcing needs.

"We are excited about Samasource's unique combination of technology, operations and mission to help reduce poverty around the world," said Chris Busselle, principal of Google.org. "We look forward to supporting Samasource's mission to make an even greater impact on those in need by offering them a sustainable gateway into the digital economy."

source:www.biztechafrica.com

Hot topics headline agenda at ITU telecom world 2013

ITU Telecom World 2013, the leading networking, knowledge sharing and industry showcasing event took place recent in Bangkok, Thailand. The event welcomed some 6000 participants from across the industry for a packed programme of far-reaching debate.

Discussions at the event spanned a diverse range of topics from social and mobile apps to the transformative impact of the Internet in Africa.

Here we explore just some of the conversations headlining the event agenda:

Visions of the future

Inspirational futurist Gerd Leonhard, CEO, Futures Agency, speaking at ITU Telecom World 2013, delivered a compelling, challenging, and at times chilling glimpse into a possible near future dominated by data, digital dependence and dramatic sociological changes.

Over the next ten years, human-to-machine interfaces will take us far beyond connected fridges, self-parking cars and intelligent wristwatches – and at an unbelievable pace, as real life begins to outstrip fiction.

Artificial intelligence will augment our bodies and extend our personalities into devices, as chips as small as 5 nanometres across become fast, cheap and embedded in everything.

This is the new version of the Internet: the Internet of everything with up to 100 billion connected devices. We will be living inside a computer – and our mobile phones will function as an external brain. Used responsibly, this can bring unprecedented benefits, increased efficiency, vastly more comfortable and convenient lifestyles. But there is an equally huge associated risk of unintended consequences in an age of exponential expansion in connectivity.

source: www.itnewsafrica.com

the widest 3G network in South Africa battle

The Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa (ASA) has ruled that Vodacom may not claim to have the “widest 3G network” in South Africa. This followed a complaint by MTN.

A Vodacom print advertisement stated that “Get extra data on the widest 3G network … surf more, download more and stay connected 24/7”.

MTN lodged a complaint with the ASA against Vodacom’s “widest 3G network” statement, arguing that the claim is unsubstantiated and misleading.

MTN said that Vodacom may have the widest coverage in some regions, but it does not have the widest coverage across all regions.

MTN further said that coverage methodology needs to be considered when assessing such claims.

Vodacom responded, saying that it has a substantially wider network than MTN. This, the company said, is evident from the published coverage numbers by all networks, and the actual number of towers deployed by each network.

Vodacom showed that it deployed 6,649 3G towers, whereas MTN has 4,768 3G towers. “These published figures also support the published claims of 90.1% (Vodacom) and 67.7% (MTN) 3G coverage respectively,” Vodacom said.

The ASA was not convinced that a higher number of 3G towers automatically translates into wider coverage.

source: www.mybroadband.co

Telkom to release spectrum

Telkom has confirmed that will return spectrum to the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa, Icasa, as it migrates its legacy services to next generation technologies.

South Africa is currently embroiled in a escalating battle for spectrum, as dominant and minor operators claw at Icasa for a piece of the frequency pie – as demand for data and expanding networks push currently-help spectrum capabilities to their limits.

In April, state-owned enterprise Sentech said it would return its 2.6GHz and 3.5GHz spectrum to the regulator for the South African communications sector.

Sentech CEO, Setumo Mohapi, said that fact that the cost of spectrum had grown tenfold was a big consideration in returning the spectrum to Icasa. The telco noted that it is licensed to use the 2.4 GHz band (i.e. 2.3-2.5 GHz) and is using this band to provide FWA services, in particular in rural areas.

“Whereas Telkom has identified these technologies for migration (due also to the negative effect of harmful interference in the ISM band (i.e. 2.4-2.5 GHz)), such migration is complex due to, amongst others, lack of suitable sub-1 GHz spectrum to be used in the rural areas.”

source: www.bussinesstech.co

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

Telkom mobile breaks barriers to internet access

Telkom Mobile is championing internet access for all in South Africa with the launch of the Prepaid SIM Only Internet Starter Pack. This offer provides first time Internet users the opportunity to start their online journey with South Africa's best Mobile Broadband provider. To kick-start the online journey, Telkom Mobile will provide customers with a SIM card and 2.4 GB of data, allocated as 200 MB per month over 12 months for a once off fee of R49.

"The Internet has become a way of life, and it is our goal to make it accessible and affordable to all," says KG Moncho, Executive of Product Development. Moncho believes that the Internet provides a wealth of information and resources that can aid in elevating gaps in education, employment and self-development.

"Many South Africans have unfortunately not been able to access information and resources on the World Wide Web due to the high cost of data, however Telkom Mobile is breaking that barrier by providing high quality and affordable data," he continues.

The SIM only internet starter pack can be used on most devices including tablets, smart phones or it can be inserted in a data modem to be used on a laptop or desktop.

Telkom Mobile will also provide technical support for the first time Internet user. "We understand that starting your online journey can be challenging. That is why we provide customers with a user-guide that gives them information they may need when setting up including how to purchase data bundles, viewing and managing data bundle balances and support contact details," concludes Moncho.

Data allocation is done on the first of every month and will be valid until the end of the current calendar month. In addition, customers can buy additional data bundles once they have depleted their monthly data allocation.

source: www.4-traders.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

IBM research lab oficially opened in kenya

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta has officially opened the first commercial technology research facility in Africa at an inauguration ceremony in Nairobi. The facility is IBM's 12th global research lab, and is supported in Kenya by the Ministry of Information, Communication and Technology through the Kenya ICT Authority and located at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa.  

The research lab will conduct applied and far-reaching exploratory research into the grand challenges of the African continent by delivering commercially-viable innovations that impact people's lives.

The 2000m2 facility features one of Africa's most powerful, cloud-enabled computing hubs, giving researchers the ability to analyse and draw insight from vast amounts of data in the search for solutions to Africa's most pressing challenges such as energy, water, transportation, agriculture, healthcare, financial inclusion and public safety.

The lab's research agenda will include the development of cognitive computing technologies which integrate learning and reasoning capabilities, enabling experts to make better decisions in areas such as healthcare delivery and financial services. In the new era of computing, IBM believes that Africa has a strategic opportunity to become an early adopter of cognitive systems.

“The establishment of this research laboratory underpins the government’s commitment to innovation ecosystems that are already available in Kenya,” said Kenyatta. “Using innovation to drive homegrown solutions, Kenya continues to lead the continent in ICT. My government is proud that Kenya, and indeed Africa, will benefit from the presence of one of the most advanced research facilities, with some of the world’s most talented people, using some of the most powerful technologies to develop solutions for some of Africa's most intractable problems.”

The lab brings together some of the best technology talent globally. Highly educated young Kenyans – many PhDs who were previously living in the diaspora, have been deployed at the lab, building a critical mass of Kenyan experts. Many more Kenyans are working in supporting roles.

source: biztechafrica.com

voice calls are dying in south africa

 A report on the state of the mobile ecosystem in South Africa has found that voice is in decline, especially among younger demographics.

According to the Mobility 2014 research study, conducted by World Wide Worx with the backing of First National Bank, people in the 19 - 24 age group are abandoning spending on voice calls in favour of data.

The results show that voice declined to 56% of the group's cellphone expense, down around 10% from 2012, while spending on data increased from 17% to 24%.

But it's not only young people: Spending on voice calls declined to 65% as a share of mobile expense across all demographics, down from 77% in 2010.

Data spend, on the other hand increased from 12% to 16%.

Spectrum

"Older users continue to spend far more overall, but the powerful shift in spend from voice to data will work its way up the age segments in the coming years," said Arthur Goldstuck, managing director of World Wide Worx.

Mobile operators have noticed the shift and there have been a variety of data offers to encourage consumers to utilise the service.

source: news24.com

Etisalat to buy Vivendi 53% stake in Maroc telecom

The cash transaction also includes 7.4 Moroccan dirhams per share paid by Maroc Telecom to the French company. The purchase will give the UAE telecom operator control over the largest carrier in Morocco.

“It is a perfect bit for etisalat and they are in the right direction. They can use their products and services which are highly acceptable in this part of the world. Africa is a prefect building ground for etisalat,” Bhanu Chaddha, senior telecom analyst at research firm International Data Corporation, told Gulf News.

Since the UAE market is getting saturated, he said etisalat needs to look at diversification. The international operations are now delivering the benefits for etisalat and that strategy is moving in the right direction.

Etisalat, which is present in 15 countries across the Middle East, Africa and Asia, recorded a revenue of Dh699 million from its Africa cluster in the third quarter, up one per cent in comparison to the same period last year.

“Going forward, it is more important for etisalat. The recent regulatory changes in the UAE are expected to increase the competitive dynamics. But etisalat is more carefully evaluating the market,” Chaddha said.

“Closing of the acquisition of Vivendi’s stake in Maroc Telecom by etisalat is subject to a number of conditions,” etisalat said in an emailed statement.

These include, among others, the execution of a shareholders’ agreement with the Kingdom of Morocco regarding Maroc Telecom, securing competition and regulatory and approvals in the Kingdom of Morocco and certain other relevant jurisdictions in Maroc Telecom’s footprint.

Maroc has minority stakes in other African markets — Burkina Faso, Gabon, Mali and Mauritania.

These are emerging markets and there are “opportunities for expansion

vodafone to spend more on networks as revenue drops

Investments in "Project Spring," the network-improvement project announced in September, will expand to £7 billion ($11.2 billion) by March 2016 - a year ahead of schedule and £1 billion extra - Vodafone. Service revenue, excluding currency swings and acquisitions, fell 4.9 per cent in the quarter ended September 30, missing analysts' estimates for a 4.6 per cent decline, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

CEO Vittorio Colao is betting that Vodafone can benefit from investing ahead of a recovery in European markets, expanding the reach of faster mobile and fibre broadband services. Including Project Spring, Vodafone will spend more than £19 billion on its network by 2016, Colao said on a conference call . It may be difficult for competitors to keep pace with the Newbury, England-based company's spending, according to a report from Moody's Investors Service.

"The clear, underlying message is that most companies in Europe are going to have to step up their capex in order to accelerate convergence to set off the challenges coming from Vodafone," said Carlos Winzer, senior vice president of corporate finance at Moody's.