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

NSA spying on Africa-Asia-Europe undersea telecommunications cables

The US National Security Agency has collected sensitive data on key telecommunications cables between Europe, north Africa and Asia, German news magazine Der Spiegel reported Sunday citing classified documents.

Spiegel quoted NSA papers dating from February and labelled "top secret" and "not for foreigners" describing the agency's success in spying on the so-called Sea-Me-We 4 undersea cable system.

The massive bundle of fibre optic cables originates near the southern French city of Marseille and links Europe with north Africa and the Gulf states, continuing through Pakistan and India to Malaysia and Thailand.

"Among the companies that hold ownership stakes in it are France Telecom, now known as Orange and still partly government-owned, and Telecom Italia Sparkle," Spiegel said.

It said NSA specialists had hacked an internal website belonging to the operator consortium to mine documents about technical infrastructure including circuit mapping and network management information.

"More operations are planned in the future to collect more information about this and other cable systems," Spiegel quoted the NSA documents as saying.

Der Spiegel has over the last several months reported on mass NSA spying on targets in the United States and abroad using documents provided by fugitive intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.

A White House-picked panel this month recommended curbing the secretive powers of the NSA, warning that its spying sweeps in the "war on terror" had gone too far.

source: www.gadgets.ndtv.com

NSA spying on Africa-Asia-Europe undersea telecommunications cables

The US National Security Agency has collected sensitive data on key telecommunications cables between Europe, north Africa and Asia, German news magazine Der Spiegel reported Sunday citing classified documents.

Spiegel quoted NSA papers dating from February and labelled "top secret" and "not for foreigners" describing the agency's success in spying on the so-called Sea-Me-We 4 undersea cable system.

The massive bundle of fibre optic cables originates near the southern French city of Marseille and links Europe with north Africa and the Gulf states, continuing through Pakistan and India to Malaysia and Thailand.

"Among the companies that hold ownership stakes in it are France Telecom, now known as Orange and still partly government-owned, and Telecom Italia Sparkle," Spiegel said.

It said NSA specialists had hacked an internal website belonging to the operator consortium to mine documents about technical infrastructure including circuit mapping and network management information.

"More operations are planned in the future to collect more information about this and other cable systems," Spiegel quoted the NSA documents as saying.

Der Spiegel has over the last several months reported on mass NSA spying on targets in the United States and abroad using documents provided by fugitive intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.

A White House-picked panel this month recommended curbing the secretive powers of the NSA, warning that its spying sweeps in the "war on terror" had gone too far.

source: www.gadgets.ndtv.in

Orange - Dragged Again Into A Mobile Price War

Orange (ORAN) is the largest telecommunications group in France, and one of the largest in the world, with more than 232 million customers (a year-on-year increase of 2.1% at the end of September 2013) located in roughly 32 countries. The group's 3rd quarter results were announced on October 23, 2013. These results were less bad than previous quarters, confirming the slow stabilization of the company.

On the Road to Recovery?

Orange gained 1.1 million customers during the 3rd quarter, its revenues dropped by "only" 4% year-on-year (compared to 4.3% during 2nd quarter), and the EBITDA margin remained a healthy 33.1% (only 1.1% below the margin of 3rd quarter 2012). Compared to the record 50.4% EBITDA margin reported by Verizon Wireless in April 2013, this might sound tame, but it compares favorably to the 30% reported at the end of September by giant Vodafone. Revenues of Orange increased in Spain, Africa and the Middle-East. The ARPU --- average revenues per user --- continued its drop, at -12% year-on-year in France, but this was in line with expectations. No surprise here. The group headcount was decreased by 2.8% over 9 months, which helped reduce costs. Additionally, Orange pursued its 4G deployment, with 40% of French population expected to be covered by 4G wireless service before the end of this year. In short, 3rd quarter results were far from stellar, but they confirmed the slow improvement started during the 2nd quarter. That positive trend, and the hope that Orange will benefit from an improvement in the European Union economy, conspired to raise the share price by 32% (at the close of December 18), from its trough of July 2013, as can be seen in the following chart 

source: www.seekingalpha.com

orange-dragged again into a mobile price war

Orange (ORAN) is the largest telecommunications group in France, and one of the largest in the world, with more than 232 million customers (a year-on-year increase of 2.1% at the end of September 2013) located in roughly 32 countries. The group's 3rd quarter results were announced on October 23, 2013. These results were less bad than previous quarters, confirming the slow stabilization of the company.

On the Road to Recovery?

Orange gained 1.1 million customers during the 3rd quarter, its revenues dropped by "only" 4% year-on-year (compared to 4.3% during 2nd quarter), and the EBITDA margin remained a healthy 33.1% (only 1.1% below the margin of 3rd quarter 2012). Compared to the record 50.4% EBITDA margin reported by Verizon Wireless in April 2013, this might sound tame, but it compares favorably to the 30% reported at the end of September by giant Vodafone. Revenues of Orange increased in Spain, Africa and the Middle-East. The ARPU --- average revenues per user --- continued its drop, at -12% year-on-year in France, but this was in line with expectations. No surprise here. The group headcount was decreased by 2.8% over 9 months, which helped reduce costs. Additionally, Orange pursued its 4G deployment, with 40% of French population expected to be covered by 4G wireless service before the end of this year. In short, 3rd quarter results were far from stellar, but they confirmed the slow improvement started during the 2nd quarter. That positive trend, and the hope that Orange will benefit from an improvement in the European Union economy, conspired to raise the share price by 32% (at the close of December 18), from its trough of July 2013, as can be seen in the following chart (from Google):

source:www.speekingalpha.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

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 

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

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

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

orange seeks 3G licence for Iraqi affiliate korex

Orange is preparing for 3G at its affiliate in Irak, Korek Telecom, a regional mobile operator in which it holds a 20 percents stake. The group's executive director for Africa, the Near East and Asia, Marc Rennard, told Reuters on the margins of a conference in Cape Town that Korek signed its 5 millionth customer at the start of the month and that the operator's next step would be to obtain a 3G licence. Irak has 33 million inhabitants and a 78 percent mobile penetration rate, but only 2 percent have broadband internet access, according to analysts. Currently, most people depend on 2G mobile or on costly and unreliable fixed-line internet connectivity. Of the 3G licence, Rennard said, "This will depend on the government and regulatory authorities, but we hope that it will be in early 2014".

source: www.telecompaper.com

investment opportunities in sub saharan African telecoms

 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. This view is supported by the first ever quarterly contraction in the country's mobile market during Q113 following the deactivation of unregistered lines, a development that underscores sluggish new subscriber acquisition.

Business Monitor expect Orange's tower deal with Eaton to open the market for tower sharing services, which should benefit from operators' need to improve cost efficiencies.

Intense competition in South Africa's mobile market due to increasing market saturation and cuts to the mobile termination rate (MTR) is taking its toll on mobile ARPUs, with available data showing a sharp decline in ARPUs in H113.

As there is no end in sight to the ongoing price competition in the basic voice segment, Business Monitor expect mobile network operators to increase their focus on non-voice services, including mobile data and corporate solutions, in order to sustain revenue growth.

The continued delay in the implementation of local loop unbundling (LLU) in the fixed-line sector poses a downside risk to investment and growth fixed voice and data services.

source: www.ciol.com

local telecom industry abuzz with number of deals

The amount involved in the deal has not been revealed yet, but it is said to be between R5-billion and R10-billion. Another thing that has come into notice is that AT&T is quite interested in taking over Vodafone.

Experts were of the view that Vodafone has been trying hard to establish itself in Europe and they are getting successful as well in the task. If the deal takes place then Vodafone will not be able to achieve its goal.

Vodafone owns 65% of Vodacom, which will also be a massive deal. Speculations have already started, as per which, Orange is considered to be the most likely bidder for Vodacom. It has been said so as Vodacom's operations are well established in Botswana, Tanzania, Mozambique and South Africa.

But when asked from Orange, they have affirmed that no discussion of such sort has taken place. Sebastien Crozier, CEO of Orange subsidiary Orange Horizons, has affirmed that a number of things depend on Vodacom's deal with Neotal.