NDUSTRYWATCH
NiRA, Visafone,
potential vistas for growth in awareness, access and business

Africa has not had the best of numbers to show when it comes to Internet usage, but that picture is changing. Internet usage is on the rise. Even with the poor state of internet access on the continent, usage, in absolute numbers, has been highest in Nigeria.

Internetworldstats.com which rates internet usage world wide published that 8 million Nigerians were using the internet as at December 2007. Telecom Answers Associates which conducted an industry audit for Nigeria in 2006 reports that the figure for Nigeria was slightly above 7.7 million mid 2006.

In the Telecom Answers Associates report, awareness had been rated as very high in Nigeria. It was also reported that 115 Internet Service Providers, ISP’s, in Nigeria (representing only 20% of the total number of licenses issued for internet service provision) were operating and that significant access was derived from servers based outside Nigeria. 65 ISP’s had opened and closed shops within the four-year period between 2002 and 2006. The reports says ‘There is a huge gap between demand and supply of bandwidth. The gap is brought about by consumers’ inability to buy bandwidth and this inability is accentuated by an indescribable and worsening access to basic public electricity supply across the entire country...’

With these findings, what remains important, however, is the fact that while access has been low, more than 8 million users have been recorded in Nigeria and there is high potential for the figure to grow rapidly in the foreseeable future.

The reasons for this positive outlook include two industry events : revival of the Nigerian Internet Registration Association, NiRA, and a 2007 promising upstart, Visafone. NiRA, which was raised after a long wait, has now published a compass for its performance and it has mounted invitation for registration of registrars and partners. Hence, awareness which has been a high point for Nigeria may be on the rise again. In addition to this, Visafone is deploying a low-investment-high-yield technology option, and may sprout in 36 states with wireless access to voice and internet the way no one ever did. If Visafone, few years down the road, is then taken to the capital market (a very high probability considering the business temperament of its promoter), it may just be open sesame for Nigeria.

What do all these point to?

That there is business to do and there is potential for growth. Push that into the continent and consider the more than half a dozen private sector initiative projects which are broadband focused.

These come with potential challenges including the need to liberalize the energy sector. If government does not sincerely liberalize the energy industry but continues to throw money into the problem, poor public power supply may still taunt the economy and slow down the unstoppable march. What is more, if government does not truly divest itself from involvement in telecommunications business, wastes and market summersaults may continue. A clear example is NigComSat which presents a fine concept except that NigComSat should rightfully be competing with NASA, and not with PTO’s.

There is a choice to make between preferring a government that had a bad thrust and one that has no thrust.
 

Above text is excerpted from two recent presentations:
one to graduating students of electrical/ electronic engineering, Unilag,
and the other to Board of Directors of a telecom firm at Nicon Transcorp Hotel, Abuja.
The presentation were by Mr. Titi Omo-Ettu, a Lagos based telecommunications Consultant.

NiRA is shopping for Registrars

Board of Directors, the Nigeria Internet Registration Association, NiRA, has adopted the Registry/Registrar mode of operation in the Registration of the .ng ccTLD in the country. NiRA is therefore, calling for interested companies to send in applications to become accredited and certified Registrars.

Applicants for accreditation as Registrar must satisfy NiRA that:
The applicant possesses and can show adequate knowledge of the Domain Name System and NiRA's Policies, Procedures and Guidelines, Registration Policies and Operations sufficient in NIRA's view to provide good service to Registrants and potential Registrants;
The applicant has the capability to electronically interact with Registrants, NiRA and NiRA's systems in accordance with the Registrar Policies, Procedures and Guidelines;
The applicant is capable of providing Registrar Services in accordance with the Registrar Agreement and in compliance with the applicable Registrar Policies, Procedures and Guidelines; etc.
For the full details of the qualifications of Registrars please visit www.nira.org.ng  and read the NiRA Registrar Accreditation Policy.

AfriISPA says broadband will boom in Africa

AfriSPA’s executive Secretary Eric Osiakwan said a number of public-private partnerships are working on about a dozen credible broadband infrastructure projects on the continent.
Some of them Include Baharicom (Nepad's broadband infrastructure project), East Africa Submarine Cable System (Eassy), Infinity Telecom, Infraco's cable system, Main Street Technologies' Main One, Nigeria's Glo-1, and Seacom, . As time goes on, and very shortly too cost for broadband may move down in Africa.

Mr. Osiakwam was speaking at the completion of Broadband Summit, in Sandton, last week. He did a detailed analysis of almost all the projects and concluded that the progress is good for Africa's development.

AfriSPA is African Internet Service Providers Association.

For Telecommunications,
President Yar ‘Adua’s visit to China is rated low on content

The joint communiqué which Presidents of Nigeria and China [Umar Yar 'Adua/Hu Jintao] endorsed last week shows the visit to be a mere stow away trip with very little to show. That is if diplomatic niceties count little. Although major meat was made of President Yar ‘Adua's invitation to his host on telecommunications and energy, the fact that not much is known to have been thought through at home on energy explains why no concrete issues could be discussed. Senior officials who were on the trip and who laboured to justify the President’s invitation to the Chinese on telecommunications support also did not display evidence of any useful input to the President's thought process.

Yes, China was given the Railway to restore, with little to show. Yes, China launched a satellite on behalf of Nigeria 2007 on an agenda that is very low on putting Nigeria properly in cyberspace. Yes, China has built some hydroelectric dams which Nigerians cannot point at to have solved any problem. Telecom projects in which Nigerian government and Chinese have joint hands have all failed to deliver. Others are those that provide something for Chinese and nothing for Nigerians. So what else is there to gain from all these junketing which add no value to standard of living? Ok if things are being refashioned to make Nigerians truly benefit from such bilateral relationships.

Please click here for the Communiqué
 

CyberschuulNews 274

Now that the digital future is here
Broadcasters must play lead role in Digitisation and Convergence

 Dr Ekwow Spio-Garbrah, CEO of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation, a few weeks ago, invited Commonwealth broadcasting professionals to play their part in preparing for convergence in the information and communications technology industry by promoting various public-private partnerships.

 He counselled that broadcasting corporations in the developing world must prepare to enter into other industries, such as telecommunications and the Internet, just as companies in those fields in the industrialised world are already acquiring and/or merging with broadcasting companies in an era of increasing policy, regulatory and technological convergence. He noted that advances, in particular in mobile and Internet technology and access, as well as in computer software, and the increasing desire of consumers to enjoy the benefits of television and broadcasting on mobile platforms and terminals, should make it imperative for broadcasters to monitor more intensely what was going on in those fields and deepen their engagement with institutions such as the CTO.

OPINION
Nigeria, NITEL/MTel, Transcorp and the rest of us:
Commencement of a wild-goose chase

One unique thing about us, Nigerians is our smartness at turning every problem into business. When Mr. John Odeh, Federal Minister of information and communications announced the adjustment in NITEl’s sale to Transcorp, the issue quickly rose to become business. The guy probably made a mistake to have thought that his message would sale through smoothly since all the events leading to the decision were already very widely reported  and therefore in the public domain. He probably goofed to have thought that he did not need to repeat the story that there had been several and long discussions between government, the National Assembly, Transcorp executives, NITEL’s workers since all these had been widely reported in newspapers, on radio, on TV and widely on the internet. He also, rightly or wrongly, must have thought he as minister should not  go restating the ugly stories of how Transcorp was established by baba  and all the zigzag stories relating to the issue since all these had been widely reported. He probably left all that to analysts to worry their heads about and get something to analyse especially now that not much is happening in the telecom industry.

 But no sooner than he made the announcement than business began. Predictably so. And some were bizarre. A newspaper whose reporters had constantly fed the public with closeup stories on the various discussions and the fact that both Government and Transcorp had virtually agreed to trim the shareholding of Transcorp downwards to safe face wrote an editorial to say the decision of government was arbitrary.  

Arbitrary?

Taken along with Mr. President’s understandable unstable mind in these days when judgment in his matter with Atiku/Buhari election challenge was just few days away and knowing that the judiciary of today is not the type we had yesterday, the confusion that the reactions generated almost extracted a reversal of the decision but somehow things coasted home safely and several writers and TV analysts who had invited and invented one-way [the other way] opinions to feed to the public eventually said ‘Transcorp, Government agree on sale of NITEL’ as if that was news. Nobody reported the amount of business that had been done across Nigeria.

An editorial downplayed all the persistent and widely reported cry of NITEL's workers since Transcorp took over the affairs of the companies that their companies were dieing fast calling for a decisive action. Rather the editorial said NITEL's workers position was unimportant since, after all, workers nowhere would ever agree to privatisation of their companies. Haba!

 What is important for now is that Government has set itself on another wild goose chase for a core investor to buy into NITEL. That, bet you, has started another round of business. Those Nigerians who ingeniously assembled the letters P E N T A S C O P  and E to make it sound like something that was real should be on the field now doing business and since no one had ever unmasked them, it is going to be business as usual. 

When will all these jokes stop? Someone should tell these guys upstairs that Nigeria wont succeed with the chase of core investor in the mode of how ‘core’ is being defined. What will save NITEL is that Government should sell it 100% and a buyer will come.  Selling 99% of it and government retaining 1 % will not attract a good so-called core investor.

 No consultant who knows the track record of Nigeria will advise his client to put money into 99% of NITEL.  

100%, Yes.

 SUMMIT
Technology Times Outlook 2008 looks ahead ICT Nigeriana 

The management of Skylark Communications Limited, publishers of Technology Times, has announced it would hold the maiden edition of Technology Times Outlook 2008, its flagship business summit that will appraise ICT developments that will shape and define the Nigerian economy in 2008 and beyond.  

The Event is scheduled for Wednesday February 27, 2008 at the MUSON Centre, Onikan Lagos.

A key highlight of the event will also be the unveiling of the new-look edition of Technology Times Newspaper, the weekly newspaper on the Nigerian ICT sector as well as announcement of the proposed launch of Technology Times Annual.