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CyberschuulNews 310
Senior IT Techies worry over Government’s
overall direction
Very senior IT practitioners in Nigeria have expressed serious concern
about the direction, or lack of it, that government has been going in
the past one year. It is widely believed that just as many are
clamouring that IT be raised to the level of a Ministry in a converged
regime for regulation and project implementation, there are indications
that the IT sections of Federal Ministries are about being merged with
the Departments of Planning and Statistics.
It is open information in the industry that despite the decision of the
Federal Executive Council under the past administration to establish
Information Technology department in every ministry, government agency
and parastatal, there has been an effort to renege on that decision.
Such retrogressive development is coming at a time when other
governments have elevated IT to the level of ministerial establishment.
Infact some countries are already thinking of naming Ministers for
Internet.
Recession: Telcos boast immunity
Although stocks of several major telecom companies across the world are
fluctuating here and there, a majority of them are boasting that the
crunch in America and Europe may not affect them adversely. Somebody in
Europe said recently that ‘in telecommunications our products are
nondiscretionary’ suggesting that they are therefore on the sidelines.
Even BT which posted poor results said there is little to worry about.
Last Tuesday, Ivan Seidenberg, CEO of Verizon poo-pooed any expression
of concern that the credit crisis and an impending recession will have a
big effect on Verizon's bottom line. He said his company hasn't seen a
significant drop in subscriptions or revenue.
In Nigeria, it is neither here nor there yet as eggheads of the
financial sector bother more about the worsening systemic corruption
whose effect may be worse than the crisis triggered by the global
recession. In any case, Nigeria’s own recession in the capital market
actually preceded the overseas crunch in a manner that caught the
regulators napping. According to Femi Pedro, a finance specialist and
‘returnee’ from politics, the global crisis started with the banks and
mortgage lenders who threw caution to the wind and rather than follow
the usual traditional rule of lending, were consumed by greed. The
scenario is playing itself out resulting in bank collapse world-wide and
economic disaster in several countries.
Pedro argues that ‘In Nigeria, the current crisis in the capital market
is traceable in part to the banks aggressive entering into the capital
market. The banking consolidation resulted in 21 out of the 24 banks
listed in the NSE. The race for higher capitalisation led to several
IPOs which boosted NSE market capitalisation to an unprecedented level.
Indeed, banks account for over 65 per cent market capitalisation at the
NSE. Hence, bank shares became actively traded and some brokers in
connivance with some banks became greedy and decided to exploit the
market through market making. Their action coupled with the influx of
foreign hedge funds lured by prospect of huge capital gains fuelled the
market and stock prices shot up to levels unseen before. All this while,
our regulators were asleep not realising the volcano that was about to
erupt. Indeed, many publicly proclaimed that the NSE was outperforming
other stock exchanges and raised the hopes of investors when the
economic and financial fundamentals did not support such assertions.
Indeed it was obvious that the bullish market was unsustainable. Soon as
the CBN released the directive to harmonise banks’ year-end, the bubble
burst. Banks went on aggressive process of generating liquidity to shore
up their balance sheet, interest rates shot up sporadically and the
brokers’ credit lines more or less dried up. Panic set in and brokers
and some investors who joined in the madness started dumping their
shares to cut their losses thereby depressing the market. This scenario
confirms that banking sector liquidity is at the centre of the stock
market plunge, which is similar to the causes of the current global
financial crisis’.
From South Africa came a report early in the week that although the Rand
took a downward sail, quoted telcos appear to believe that they merely
have to be cautious of internal instabilities rather than worry about
pressure from international moneytrics.
Ndukwe calls for a shift to thinking ICT
The Executive Vice-Chairman of NCC, Engr. Ernest Ndukwe told a gathering
of Arewa Youth Forum at the weekend in Kaduna that it is time for
society to define human progress in terms of ICT capabilities and access
of citizens to its resources.
According to Ndukwe, ‘human progress is often defined in economic terms
such as per capita income, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Gross National
Product (GNP), among other indices. Unfortunately, not enough attention
is paid to indices such as level of literacy, social development, human
capital development, cultural innovation and technological preparedness.
In Nigeria, it is time for a paradigm shift in our thinking. In today’s
world, information and communications technologies provide, more than
ever before, the potential for leapfrogging in terms of socio-economic
development. In the information age, ICTs have eliminated the barriers
usually imposed by time and space. Technology has revolutionized our
world and young companies like Google, valued at $18bn and Facebook, now
valued at $10bn, have emerged virtually from nowhere and are creating
new value based on a very different kind of capital: the human person.
Nigeria is privileged to have an abundance of human capital that can be
developed for higher productivity. With our teeming population of highly
entrepreneurial youth, the wide availability of access to ICTs
represents a huge potential for employment creation and wealth
generation for our country. We must tap into this potential’.
Nigerian Society of Engineers, NSE, is 50 :
Engineers to roll out the drums
Nigerian engineers have made plans for several activities in
celebration of 50 years of their umbrella Association for all
professional engineers in Nigeria, the NSE.
According to an announcement from the Association’s headquarters in
Abuja, there will be a distinguished October Lecture to be delivered by
Engr. Mustapha Bulama, who was President of NSE from 2003 to 2005. He
will speak on the subject ‘Bridging Infrastructure deficit in Nigeria’
on Wednesday, 29th October 2008 at the Shehu Musa Yar’ Adua Centre,
Abuja at 4.00pm.
The President of NSE, Engr. Kashim Abdul Ali will also pay visits to top
government officials, traditional rulers and engineering students during
the week of 27th October 2008.
CyberschuulNews 309
South Korea set to
gag the Internet
South Korea is almost completing
work on putting a policing law on internet usage to curb slanderous
e-publications, online anonymity and debate the way newspapers, TV and
radios are currently being made accountable. South Korea has 97% of all
its households wired for broadband internet access. Compare that with
UK’s figure of 65%. No country in Africa has anything near 30%
It is common understanding that
internet culture is rather pervasive in South Korea and internet usage
may require some moderation, but whether Government can succeed in
getting a law on libel, slander, and scandal through without attracting
an online rebellion is an issue to watch.
Some think Government is being
insincere but merely taking advantage of the acclaimed laxity as reason
for its purported plan to hold the internet to account. Its actual
problem, many say, was the widespread usage of internet by citizens who
passed information to upgrade the effect of recent rebellion in the
country as the actual motivating factor for the government’s decision.
Reports suggest that if government
works as fast as it is seen to be pushing, the law may be out this
November. Under the proposed law, all websites that publish news will be
liable to the same restrictions as newspapers, TV and radio, and they
will be answerable to a government regulatory body - the Korean
Communications Standards Commission. Fine, if the objective is do what
they have said. But the issue may be more than that. A leak to this
effect was contained in a recent statement of President Myung-bak Lee
when he said "We have to guard against 'infodemics,' a phenomenon in
which inaccurate, false information is disseminated; prompting social
unrest that spreads like an epidemic." to justify government’s intension
to gag internet users.
That speech followed
internet-orchestrated protests last August that spilled over into big rallies and vigils in protest at government’s decision to
restart beef imports from the US. Composed mostly of the youths, the
protests emptied schools and colleges and brought cities to a standstill
and many ended in violence.
Will the attempt to gag the citizens
through the peg on use of internet succeed? And will primitive
governments across the developing economies, especially in Africa, not
work to reduce the growth of internet access to their citizens since it
has been said that the fastest way to keep a people down to autocracy is
to deny them access to information and education?
Etisalat buys
Swan Telecom to enter India
Emirates Telecommunications (a.k.a
Etisalat) is confirmed to have purchased 45% of Swan Telecom in India
for $900million. By stopping at 45%, the deal takes less rigour to go
through government’s approval which taking very high stakes demands.
In Nigeria, Etisalat is executing a
Mobile license which government unilaterally allocated to Mubadala in
2006 for $400million. It is about to roll out services there and has
offered a package of juices, upfront, to customers in a market where the
challenge to attract new customers is daunting for new entrants.
Etisalat faces similar challenges in India and in Nigeria since there
are about three operators which are already entrenched in each market.
MTN, Globacom and Zain are Nigeria’s major mobile operators with claims
of 51million lines among them while Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Reliance
Communications are the operators to beat in India. India an average of 9
million lines add evrymonth compared with Nigeria’s 500,000.
The Nigerian market presents as a
lucrative but difficult one where there is indescribable poor access to
basic public electricity supply across the entire country.
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IT education gets a boost as
National Information
Technology Education
Framework emerges
Computer Professionals
Registration Council of
Nigeria, CPN, rose from its
recent Council Meeting to
announce that the
collaboration between it and
the Federal Ministry of
Education has produced a new
framework under which
computer and InfoTech
education will be
implemented and supervised
for constructive monitoring.
It is called the National
Information Technology
Education Framework, NITEF.
CPN’s
President and Chairman of
Council, Prof. Adenike
Osofisan said it is designed
to be the first attempt to
provide a roadmap for the
development of IT education
and targeted at ensuring
that appropriate skills,
competencies and attitudes
are imparted to enable
Nigeria take advantage of
the global opportunities in
Information Technology.
Under the NITEF, InfoTech
education and training
programs in all its
ramifications will be
streamlined to ensure
quality and compliance with
global standards.
DAARSAT takes off in Abuja
DAAR Communications’ Digital
Multi-channel Direct-to-Home
Pay TV kicked off with a
commissioning ceremony on
October 7, 2008 at the
broadcasters' Kpaduma Hill
corporate headquarters,
located at Asokoro, Abuja.
40 channels covering a wide
range of broadcast interests
are provided for by the
afro-centric media
conglomerate.
Chairman of DAAR
Communications Plc., Aleogho
Dokpesi took the chance of
his welcome address to
unmask those who were behind
the travails of his
broadcasting business since
the journey started 15 years
ago and named a few of the
facilities in the station
after some of his mentors.
Those who got facilities
named after them include
Alhaji Bamanga Tukur,
Senator Ken Nnamani and Mr.
James Ibori.
FGN’s indecision on
Ministry of ICT worries
Telecom/IT Industry players
Confusion turned to worries
during the week as the
much-talk about issue of a
converged ICT industry
remains unclear and several
industry players read the
trend as exemplifying
government’s lack of a clear
focus in information
technology as a tool for
development.
Several participants at the
just concluded CTO's Summit
looked forward to
government’s statement on
the long awaited emergence
of the Ministry of
Information Communications
Technology. Even Alhaji
Ibrahim Nakande, Minister of
State for Information and
Communications who in the
past few months had hinted
on the emergence of such a
Ministry avoided discussing
the issue. Delegates at the
IT Professionals Assembly
also talked in groups on the
fact that IT is not on the 7
point agenda of the present
government neither has the
Ministry been mentioned in
recent government
restructuring of the federal
bureaucracy and creation of
new Ministries.
Minister of Education, Dr.
Igwe Aja-Nwachukwu who
declared the IT
Professionals Assembly open
told the Conference
delegates that Government
decided to jettison the One
LapTop Per Child project
because the OLPC OS
computers are nothing but
mere toys. ‘Negroponte’s
laptops are mere toys, come
to look at it’. he said and
‘Our children don’t have
laps yet so the issue of
their using those laptops
does not arise’.
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ComBIT2008
is for October 20 - 22
ComBIT Expo is a
product of ATCON’s strategic re-branding of NICOMM Exhibitions &
Conferences organised annually by ATCON in collaboration with the
Ministry of Information & Communications, Nigerian Communications
Commission (NCC) as well as other industry stakeholders since 1995.
ATCON says ComBIT expo is designed to provide a veritable platform for
stimulating commercial partnerships between foreign principals and local
representatives, dealers, distributors and resellers of ICT and allied
products and services in Nigeria. It will further offer ample
opportunities for investors to explore and exploit the abundant market
opportunities in the very vibrant ICT sector in Nigeria and Africa. It
is a good platform for advanced markets to display its cutting edge
technologies, especially in the mobile communications sector to the
African market which will, for a long time, present the highest market
potentials for new technologies.
For contact:
secretariat@atcononline.org
CyberschuulNews 308
Vodacom’s
CEO retires:
Says Nigeria was his greatest challenge.
The man who found it difficult to but had to remove his
stakes from the
Nigerian telecommunications market has just gone into
retirement.
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Alan Knott-Craig as CEO of Vodacom paid several visits and concerted
attention to making investment in Nigeria. Vodacom landed in Nigeria (
It was the V- in VNetworks operating as VMobile) but
had to go when the terrain became tough and complex. At his retirement
last week in Johannesburg, Alan Knott-Craig, 56, confessed that . “One
of the toughest things I faced at the company was having to exit Nigeria
after our shareholders lost their appetite for investing in that
country.”
Vodacom was part of the ‘EconetWireless-VNetworks(VMobile)-Celtel-Zain’ story and
for the man who was CEO of Vodacom for 15 years, taking the company from
cradle to being a continental leader, Alan Knott-Craig saw it all.
Chances are that he will eventually mention ‘a few new things’ in his
memoir when he eventually puts one together. |
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He will be remembered as one of the earliest mobile managers, the
architect of mobile industry in South Africa and certainly one of the
most professional of CEO’s of mobile operating companies in the
continent.
He is handing over to Pieter Uys, Chief Operating Officer until
September 30 when Alan left, first into a Consultant’s position but
finally into full retirement.
CyberschuulNews wishes him well.
BT and MTN
synergise on enterprise solutions
BT Telconsult announced two weeks ago that it has gone into
partnership with MTN to design and deliver enterprise services and
solutions across Nigeria. The arrangement hopes to take advantage of
MTN’s fixed network assets to develop ‘high-value high-margin’
enterprise services for corporate application.
BT is known to have been involved in solution consultancies in Nigeria
since its emergence in early eighties largely serving the public sector
but with this arrangement, it may well be finding root within the
private sector where the assets of service providers are expanding and
showing promise.
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MTN is the leading mobile telecom operator, by subscriber base, in
Nigeria.
CyberschuulNews 307
Sale of NITEL:
BPE sets early February 2009
Bureau of Public Enterprises, BPE,
in Nigeria has promised that it will complete the search for a core
investor for former state telecoms monopoly, NITEL, in early February
2009.
Nigeria began the privatization of
NITEL exercise in year 2000 shortly after privatization became a policy
of the immediate past regime. Poor handling of the process however ended
damaging the company’s infrastructure, physical assets, and even the
brand. Today, the once inefficient cash cow of government hardly boasts
of any subscribers.
Mrs. Irene Chigbue, Director General
of the Bureau said technical and financial bids to buy a controlling
stake in the firm must be submitted in January for approval in the first
week of February. Such relay-race type of timelines had been
characteristic of the process only for things to either go zig-zag or
completely fade into silence.
Mrs. Chigbue did not say whether there had been any expressions of
interest from potential investors but newspaper reports have mentioned
various interests some of who disclosed their intension to the country’s
leaders during courtesy meetings. It is a known industry secret that
such endeavours are packages of smart Nigerians who speak using the face
and voice of nomadic international investors.
A local conglomerate, Transcorp
which was roundly regarded as a creation of former President Obasanjo’s
business associates bought 51% of the company for $500 million in 2006
but failed to improve the fortunes of the company. Now government and
Transcorp have agreed to re-arrange the shareholding and bring in a
core-investor to manage the enterprise. The core-investor model has been
a repeatedly failed model in Nigeria’s privatization process but it
seems it is the bride of the political masters of every moment.
A local analyst said recently that
the new journey of BPE might just be to nowhere and he suggested it was
time that Government and Transcorp should agree to wind down the
business called NITEL while its License as Nigeria’s FNO ( First
National Operator) be auctioned. He said he believes that the license is
worth $2.2billion.
NCC
Curtails Products Promotion
The Nigerian Communications
Commission, NCC has directed that before embarking on any major
promotions, all telephone operators would now be required to submit an
impact analysis of such promotions on their networks with respect to
compliance with Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) as set by the
Commission. They will also be required to state the duration of such
promotions.
The announcement came along with a statement by the Commission that it
has lifted the June 14, 2007 ban placed on MTN and Celtel (now Zain) for
unacceptable level of compliance to the Key Performance Indicators on
quality of service at the time.
The Commission said while it is not its intention to micro-manage any
operator’s business, it is its primary responsibility to protect the
consumer and ensure that services are provided at optimum quality.
Starcomms
introduces iZAP Express Card - an Internet Enhancer to its subscribers
A complement to the speed of the 3G
EVDO Mobile Internet systems in the form of an enhancement data card has
been introduced into the Nigerian market by Starcomms. It is called the
iZAP Express Card.
Proprietary to Starcomms in Nigeria, iZAP Express Card is also being
launched at this time in a few countries in South America and Asia.
Starcomms is marketing it in five packages with varying access and
validity periods. Mr. Maher Qubain, CEO of Starcomms said midweek in
Lagos that the activation packs come in various packages including a 100
hours subscription package valid for one month.
Starcomms Plc, is Nigeria’s first publicly quoted telephone provider and
largest deployer of CDMA standard of digital mobile telephony. It is
spreading service across the country complete on triple-play doing
mobile, fixed and internet with optimum quality that makes the spread
regarded as steady and assuring. It is present in 17 major locations
with signal flow into another 19 on stone-throw access.
It was forecast by local analysts in December 2007 as one of the
operators to watch in 2008 and it must have proved the forecast right
several times over.
Mobile
phone now an automobile intelligent key
A mobile phone capable of
functioning as an intelligent key for automobiles has been launched by
joint research efforts of Nissan Motor Company, Sharp Corporation and
NTT Docomo. Various Nissan vehicles already have intelligent key systems
but the joker now is the use of a mobile phone to do this.
As mobile phones increasingly become a daily necessity, the integration
of these technologies and the potential to further expand related
functionality helped to bring together the three companies which expect
users to appreciate the seamlessly integrated features of their new
handset.
LEVERAGING
TECHNOLOGY FOR LEADERSHIP & DEVELOPMENT
Electoral Reforms Taxation Public Utilities and Infrastructure, Good
Customer Service in Governance, The Private Sector Imperative and
Citizen Journalism as a Driver of Transparency and Accountability in
Governance, Corruption and Crime
by
Abi Bilesanmi
aabile@essex.ac.uk
Technology specifically information
technology has taken centre stage in the twenty-first century. It has
largely filled the void of human incapability hitherto occupied by the
irrationality of structured religion playing a prominent role in every
facet of human existence and interaction. The enormous advantages it has
in easing the delivery of information around the world, as well as the
central role of information in the new global economy, means that
information technology will undoubtedly shape the dynamics of this
millennium in the way that capitalism shaped the past.
Although technology for industry
grew at a remarkable pace in the the late 19th and early 20th centuries,
it is pretty pedestrian in comparison to growth of information
technology in the last 20years. Coupled with innovation, the "success"
stories of new start-up companies who had little money but with
significant support from hitherto risk averse venture capitalists,
launched several Internet and content companies which mushroomed into
the aptly called dot.com era. This era was akin the Californian gold
rush in the mid 19th century in that some people did make a fortune and
a whole load lost all they had. But more importantly the genie was out
of the bottle. What happened attests the speed and spread of a
technological revolution and despite the premonition of its demise, has
persisted if anything it is stronger, higher, bigger, longer and faster.
However, for most Third World
countries like Nigeria, faced with structural problems of illiteracy,
poverty, corruption and a lack of basic infrastructure, information
technology is acutely underutilised. Although it is central in
burgeoning industries of telecoms news and reviews, forms the theme of
discussion in symposiums and conferences, as well as provide training,
jobs and investment opportunities in a globalized economy information
and technology need to be portrayed, understood and implemented in the
contextual conception of a cultural change. This paper discusses the
role of information and information technology in structuring the
pillars of underdevelopment and recommends that such development should
be implemented and perceived within a socio-political and cultural
context to maximise its benefits.
Underdeveloped countries would
always be at a huge technological disadvantage in the global high tech
economy because we inevitably and immeasurably fall behind developed
countries in both acquired and domestically developed technology.
Furthermore, the lack of protection of Intellectual Property (IP) falls
very low on a priority list which governments of developing countries
who are still comprehensively failing to bring their economy and social
infrastructure and welfare provision up to basic standards. Such failure
is at great odds with the goals and conviction which has overseen the
information technological revolution of the developed countries. This
chasm means that while the industrial world think it is at the final
frontier of cyberspace where the challenge about how we will conduct our
lives, from doing business through ordering pizza to language
translation, there is ample scope in countries like ours to adopt new
technological innovations to improve our political culture and civil
society’s understanding of Electoral Reforms Taxation Public Utilities
and Infrastructure, Good Customer Service in Governance The Private
Sector Imperative and Citizen Journalism as a Driver of Transparency and
Accountability in Governance, Corruption and Crime Control
“Always tell only the truth, and all the truth, and do so promptly –
right now.” —Buckminster Fuller
Let us take a simple example of a database of electoral voters and and
imagine if we held a near accurate one. Elections – an integral part of
our political system – would be freer and fairer. Rather than a dubious
mechanism for the generation of popular support for the government and
its policies through manipulation, whose dubious results exacerbate
tensions amongst the populace, we will have a more reconstructive
perception of (and respect for) elections as legitimizing institutions
and a genuine apparatus of real representation thus improving our
democracy.
Such a comprehensive database could
for example serve as hub for all the sub themes highlighted above such
as progressive taxation to finance a public infrastructure and reduce
societal inequality. Importantly technology must engender a culture of a
Freedom of Information which promotes greater openness and
accountability across the public sector by requiring all public
authorities to make information available proactively. Such culture
should afford everyone the right to access information held by the
public authorities - tax records, registration of births and deaths; to
be produced at an instant - the creation of the post of Information Tsar
and an independent public body who are responsible for overseeing the
operation but also promotes compliance and has powers of enforcement.
The availability of information
about public funding, procedures and government expenditure encourages
transparency and accountability; Such transparency could be transferred
to the private via a proper register of business and companies – with
their mission statements and balance sheets to serve as a basis of
business ethics and regulation; local government holding records of
births, deaths, crime, business taxation etc. This information and its
availability form the building blocks of societal ethics which seeks to
apply diverse ideas about right and wrong, fines and rewards to the
decisions, attitudes and behaviour of people and institutions in both
profit and non-profit sectors for the purposes of understanding,
evaluation and improvement.
It is at this most basic end that
technology would be most meaningful and have a positive impact on
peoples lives. Never mind broadband we need to have basic service level
agreement with broadcasters to inform, educate as well as entertain the
populace. For all the technological revolution that is going on in
Nigeria (and there is a lot of it from what I read), it is meaningless
if it excludes more than 75% of the population. It is time to go back to
basics and the IT industry stopped preaching to the converted and took
its message to the people and explain, in their language what benefits
this will bring to them and to us all.
Is it reasonable to argue that these are too broad themes and ask what
have they to do with technology? But these themes coalesce to form a
contextual framework of a political culture where transparency,
accountability, electoral Reforms, taxation, the provision of public
utilities and infrastructure, good governance are propagated and
perpetuated.
With the right level of technology accessible to a wider cross section
we can begin to see our political system as
• a set of morals law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits
acquired by people as members of society internalized in the cognitions,
feelings and evaluations into which people are induced and socialized
• Encompassing knowledge and beliefs about its operation and leaders;
• An affective orientation and evaluation which would preferably and
average be attachment rather than alienation
This is important in that where the above are largely negative, it
engenders a political culture which is parochial – where individuals are
apathetic with low expectations and awareness of government; aware of
outcomes of government but do not participate in the process that result
in policy decisions.
In a political system which is participatory, expectations are high and
people make demands on their politicians and public servants. They in
turn respond thus augmenting transparency and accountability. The price
of failure hangs on non-delivery and the prize is being kicked out of
office. That keeps the electorate at the forefront of their minds
Political parties would no longer rely on manipulating the electorate at
elections but rather a hard sell of ideas directed at shifting voter
allegiance. Legitimacy emboldens the government to govern with better
regulatory powers. They can set better regulatory framework in which
business can be competitive as well as meeting its corporate
responsibilities. These are all areas where technology would constitute
an integral an aid in the reconstruction of political and socio-economic
architecture brought about by real change in culture.
Finally consider this
‘Mohammed Abbas stares into a cooler case in his small grocery store and
says the electricity to run it eats up half his profits. That means his
wife and four children must sweat out another summer with a ceiling fan.
There isn't enough power or money to run an air conditioner. Everyone
gets heat rashes, headaches and mosquito bites from windows left open to
catch a breeze, he says.’
Mohammed is actually in Baghdad. Despite being in the middle of a full
scale war, Mohammed’s situation is not dissimilar from those who live in
Lagos
The State Department says. Iraq averages 15 hours a day of electricity,
while Baghdad gets 12 hours. That is significantly more than people and
businesses get in Lagos. The commitment of the Ministry of Electricity
to ‘only want to be provided with power for 24 hours’ is beyond any
expectation, commitment and will that NEPA can ever aspire to.
The question is if there hardly
electricity to meet peoples’ basic needs, where would the electricity to
power a technological revolution come from? Certainly not from candles,
lanterns or generators.
NTA goes
on Full Commercialisation
31 year old Nigerian Television
Authority, NTA, which has 42 broadcasting stations nationwide, is
already announced by the Bureau of Public Enterprises, BPE, to be
heading for commercial restructuring. It is slated for Full
Commercialisation.
According to information posted on BPE’s website, NTA has current staff
strength of 3,715 and a nineteen-member Board of Directors. The
Authority has fresh hopes to experience a positive turn-around in its
revenue generation. This hope is generated by the goodwill from
international community coupled with the proposed restructuring and
diversification of the economy and enhancement of purchasing power. This
will go a long way in reversing the negative trend that has persisted in
the economy for so long. NTA is looking forward to fully digital TV
broadcasting.
Starcomms
introduces iZAP Express Card - an Internet Enhancer to its subscribers
A
complement to the speed of the 3G EVDO Mobile Internet systems in the
form of an enhancement data card has been introduced into the Nigerian
market by Starcomms. It is called the iZAP Express Card.
Proprietary to Starcomms in Nigeria, iZAP Express Card is also being
launched at this time in a few countries in South America and Asia.
Starcomms is marketing it in five packages with varying access and
validity periods. Mr. Maher Qubain, CEO of Starcomms said midweek in
Lagos that the activation packs come in various packages including a 100
hours subscription package valid for one month.
Starcomms Plc, is Nigeria’s first publicly quoted telephone provider and
largest deployer of CDMA standard of digital mobile telephony. It is
spreading service across the country complete on triple-play doing
mobile, fixed and internet with optimum quality that makes the spread
regarded as steady and assuring. It is present in 17 major locations
with signal flow into another 19 on stone-throw access.
It was forecast by
local analysts
in December 2007 as one of the operators to watch in 2008 and it must
have proved the forecast right several times over.
Another notch for improved access to bandwidth in Africa as Google backs
O3b Networks
O3b Networks
stands for ‘other 3 billion’ (people to receive internet access by
satellites) Networks. There are indications that O3b Networks is making
plan to provide cheap, high-speed Web access to 3 billion people in
emerging markets of Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East
using satellite. Target take off date: 2010.
News emerged
from Europe last week that Google, HSBC Principal
Investments, and cable operator Liberty Global have joined forces and
thrown their weight behind the rather ambitious plan.
In spite of the
latency which satellite communications is susceptible to, bandwidth
costs for telecommunication operators and Internet service providers
should be reduced if the dream comes through.
Poor power supply hinders telecom business
Two years after
receiving operating licenses, 210 ISPs (Internet service providers) have
yet to launch services in Nigeria,
Telecom Answers Associates’ CEO, Titi Omo-Ettu said recently. The statistics is derived from the Industry
report of ISP Audit of 2006, commissioned by the Nigerian Communications
Commission and carried out by Omo-Ettu's firm. The study included all
528 ISP licensees issued from 1996 to 2006. In addition to those who
have failed to launch service, another 96 licensees went out of business
prematurely due to poor public power supply, Omo-Ettu said. Eighty
percent of ISPs that went out of business linked their misfortunes to
the power crisis, he noted.
There is a huge
gap between demand and supply of bandwidth in Nigeria, according to
Omo-Ettu. "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," he said. Excerpts from the ISP Audit Report placed the number
of operating ISPs at 117; an additional 99 licensees were in business at
the time of the report but not operating as internet providers, he
noted. "If power problems are resolved, many ISPs would thrive in spite
of the high cost of bandwidth," he said. "Power is the only problem, so
to say." Changing the name of the present government-owned Power Holding
Company from the National Electric Power Authority is not enough to
change the sector, Omo-Ettu said. He charged the engineering society
members with taking a position on the power crisis.
Culled from
NIGERIA TODAY ONLINE
NEWS REVIEW
Nigeria to host Commonwealth ICT Summit: What gains to Nigeria?
ICT Summit 2008
of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organization, CTO, will hold in
Abuja, Nigeria on October 6 – 10, 2008.
The summit is one of the International talkshops which rotate among and
within regions of the world with the objective to further the reach of
ICT resources to all peoples of the commonwealth.
Although a CTO summit in particular may not be one of the big deals of
ICT global events, it makes significant meaning for a country like
Nigeria to host such gathering of world players now that the country is
announcing nominal figures in excess of 50million of telephone lines.
Nigeria’s regulatory regime, on its own merit, has in a few ways become
a model that earns it attention and therefore instant endorsement should
it request for a hosting right. So, it should sound right that Nigeria
begins to count as endorseable host of these telecommunication events.
Like in many spheres of world economics, developing countries are not
known to derive optimum advantage from hosting global events beyond the
level of participating officials improving their education and little
perquisites of office by attending the meetings. Until recently, older
generation of officials merely went on those pilgrimages without
contributing anything to the decision of those world bodies. So nobody
would ever endorse their countries for hosting rights. While some went
out primarily to make estacode-inspired private shopping, a good number
are known to even sleep on their chairs when others talked. But that is
now changing with the coming of liberalization when players in both
government and the private sector started making a combined impact here
and there.
In other climes, it is not unusual for hosts of such events to count a few major sectoral advantages that the hosting rights fetched their markets beyond
the ordinary personal gains of participating delegates. It is in that
regard that the world may be expecting what Nigeria would be counting at
the end of this high level discussion forum holding on its ground.
Should any be counted, it would have raised Nigeria’s rating, once
again, in global reckoning. For example, there is no reason why our organizing
officials cannot begin to use the opportunity of hosting ICT summit XYZ to
champion discussion which will make the world body to motivate operators
to include provision of special assistive technologies to our people who have
disabilities? It is not too early to ask that the GSM guys in Nigeria
subsidize the production of assistive technologies which can make access
affordable to visually impaired persons just as Vodacome did a few days
ago in South Africa?
An international forum which we are hosting is a good platform to use in
making inroad into such major industry leap, beyond rhetoric, and
Nigerians have the right to ask what the forum will leave behind when
the delegates leave. The GSM guys would, very rightly, subsidize sports,
music, and maybe, very soon, religion crusades since that is what would
sell their products, ours being a developing economy. They will not
normally go out of their way to subsidize developmental projects which
do not increase their
profit. And it is not their business to originate the ideas of how to
truly develop our people. Our people love entertainment and hype.
Yes. But that is sympthomic of underdevelopment and what investors
do is to latch into it and do business.
It is the
business of our officials to do that, not by wanting to participate in
business but by goading business people towards true development using a
forum like ICT Summit 2008.
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