Surging mobile internet demand straining African telecom networks

Telecom companies in the Middle East and Africa could face growing quality of service (QoS) issues in future because of a rise in internet usage fueled by more affordable smart mobile devices.

Mahmoud Samy -- area head Middle East, Pakistan and Afghanistan at Arbor Networks -- told the Trade Arabia publication that the Mideast and Africa could see a 31% traffic leap on consumer internet by 2017 from a 10% growth level in 2012.

Samy added that this could pile pressure on telecommunication companies on the continent to expand their networks and maintain quality services.

He said African telcos’ failure to improve QoS could result in service level agreement credits, damage to brand reputation and customer churn - all of which impact the bottom lines of their business

source: www.itwebafrica.com

onMobile bets on 3G boom for VAS push in India

OnMobile Global, one of the world’s largest mobile value-added services (VAS) companies with operations across 55 countries, had taken a beating in India after its CEO Arvind Rao was expelled last year. However, under Mouli Ramanan, its co-founder and managing director, the company has been able to rise again. Ramanan tells Beryl Menezes about OnMobile’s journey ahead. Excerpts from the interview:

OnMobile has been aggressively targeting emerging markets, including India. What is happening on this front?While caller tunes, which contribute about 70% to our overall revenues, are primary focus, we are now in the process of rolling out other services in the areas of music and sports as well. For example, we acquired Livewire, which offers high quality, personalised service at low cost, in the US in July. We also recently won a large deal with MTN, the largest operator in Middle East and Africa, with 200 million users, and we have a contract to roll out services in 22 countries where MTN is present. Latin America and Africa contributes 26% to revenues, and , in the last 1-1.5 years, besides emerging markets, we are also focusing on rolling out VAS services in Europe and North America.

How do you see growth in India in the coming years?Out of 120 million users globally, we have 45 million in India. While in the last 1-1.5 years, OnMobile has witnessed a de-growth of 20-22% in India, due to regulatory intervention for promotional services and the downturn in the telecom and VAS industry, this does not reflect the opportunities that lie ahead. With 800 million mobile users in the country, a lot of them first time mobile internet users, we are seeing a lot of demand for VAS services on the mobile in local languages. There are also enough developers who want to provide services to these customers.

The ecosystem being developed for anybody who wants to provide these services. In the next 2-3 years, we will see a lot more services on mobile.

Revenue sharing has always been a matter of concern between VAS players and telcos in India...Since the last one year, operators are beginning to realise the importance of getting more service providers and developers on board to provide services and so are open to giving more revenue share today. From 30-40% earlier, the revenue share is now moving up to 60-65% today. Service providers also have the freedom to provide and market the service themselves, while operators only provide the billing platform.

source: www.dndia.com

African telecom landscape looks towards high speeds

number of factors have contributed to Africa’s increasing adoption of mobile phones for internet use over PCs — cost and lack of ethernet infrastructure for two. The cost of computers versus the lower prices of mobile phones in addition to the lack of physical internet cable implementation has spurred the growth of mobile devices in Africa — a trend that is now of global proportion. But Africa’s mobile scene presents unique challenges, and the recently reported interest in the continent’s digital communications from Mideast and European telcos has spun a larger conversation over the future of the continent’s growth.

MidEast telcos have been developing their presence in North Africa for a while. Etisalat — an Emirates-based telco — took over France’s Vivendi’s stake in Maroc Telecom in July, heightening its presence in West Africa. ( Maroc Telecom was also Morocco’s largest operator, according to reports.) And European companies such as Orange have been increasing their investments in various countries to get a foothold in the developing markets. These growing investments from operators have accumulated throughout the year, and made for conversation at AfricaCom 2013 — a telecom conference held in Cape Town, South Africa earlier in November which calls together global technology leaders.

An executive from Gemalto — a digital security company — spoke after the conference and called for operators to take advantage of the unique communications landscape in Africa in order to bypass 3G implementation and escalate quickly to 4G. While attaining high speed wireless seems unlikely in regions that have barely reliable 2G, Sherry Zameer, head of Africa and Middle East telecommunications for the company, described the lack of regulation and restrictive platforms actually make Africa ripe for the buildout of 4G.

source: www.blouinnews.com

African telecom landscape looks towards landscape

number of factors have contributed to Africa’s increasing adoption of mobile phones for internet use over PCs — cost and lack of ethernet infrastructure for two. The cost of computers versus the lower prices of mobile phones in addition to the lack of physical internet cable implementation has spurred the growth of mobile devices in Africa — a trend that is now of global proportion. But Africa’s mobile scene presents unique challenges, and the recently reported interest in the continent’s digital communications from Mideast and European telcos has spun a larger conversation over the future of the continent’s growth.

MidEast telcos have been developing their presence in North Africa for a while. Etisalat — an Emirates-based telco — took over France’s Vivendi’s stake in Maroc Telecom in July, heightening its presence in West Africa. (Maroc Telecom was also Morocco’s largest operator, according to reports.) And European companies such as Orange have been increasing their investments in various countries to get a foothold in the developing markets. These growing investments from operators have accumulated throughout the year, and made for conversation at AfricaCom 2013 — a telecom conference held in Cape Town, South Africa earlier in November which calls together global technology leaders.

An executive from Gemalto — a digital security company — spoke after the conference and called for operators to take advantage of the unique communications landscape in Africa in order to bypass 3G implementation and escalate quickly to 4G. While attaining high speed wireless seems unlikely in regions that have barely reliable 2G, Sherry Zameer, head of Africa and Middle East telecommunications for the company, described the lack of regulation and restrictive platforms actually make Africa ripe for the buildout of 4G.

Naturally, this lofty goal still seems out of reach given the general lack of connectivity around the continent in the face of obstacles like cable theft and the availability of spectrum. But some regions have made more hefty moves in the 4G direction than others; Rwanda made significant progress in late October signing a deal with Korea Telecom to deliver 4G to its citizenry over the next three years. And Alcatel-Lucent just partnered with YooMee Africa to bring LTE to Cameroon and other countries.

As foreign investors and native companies alike band together to develop high-speed wireless in Africa — despite the tangible results from work in 2013 likely being years away — the continent will still see increasing web traffic as more mobile devices connect to the internet through these new, spreading networks.

blogs.bloiun.com