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Executive Movement in MTN
	Mr. Akinwale Goodluck has been appointed Corporate Services Executive for MTN Nigeria, a position he takes over from Mrs. Amina Oyagbola who now becomes Human Resources Executive of the Company

NATCOMS  reacts to ALTON’s Threat

World class wireless Vendor, Nortel may open an office in Lagos in the new year to meet the increasing demand for wireless services. It will be the first in West Africa and fifth in Africa after Johannesburg, Algiers, Tunis and Cairo. Nortel has been active in Africa since the 1980's, working with carriers, service providers, governments and enterprises to deliver services and solutions, designed to reduce the complexity of communications.


NEWS
Verizon apologises to Obama

US Telecom giant, Verizon, had to apologi to President-elect Barack Obama over a security breach involving his phone bill records. Some employees have, without authorisation, accessed and viewed president-elect Barack Obama's personal cell phone account and all employees who accessed the account, whether authorised or not, have been put on immediate paid leave pending an inquiry.
Verizon has yet to establish why some of their employees allegedly sought access but Employees with legitimate business needs for access will be returned to their positions, while employees who have accessed the account improperly and without legitimate business justification will face appropriate disciplinary action.


OPINION
November is here! Who picks the NITEL Card?
by
titi omo-ettu

The month of November held so much hope when it was still being looked up to. But it came and started recording excitements. November 4, Barrack Obama, someone who can go for an African grass root guy became the first black man to occupy the White House. Adams Aliu Oshiomhole also, midmonth, went ahead to become the first Nigerian grassroot guy to occupy a Government House. It is the month that Kevin Caruso the guy who Transcorp hired to fix NITEL promised he would turn the truly comatose First National Operator 180 degrees to the path of profit. In August 2008, Caruso told an audience of media men that in three months he would have finished with the reform of NITEL. 'We have studied the network extensively. We know what needs to be fixed. And it is not just a matter of fixing it but sustaining the tempo. We have identified the black spots on the network, in the switches, in the transmission and in the billing. Within three to four months, we will get the network running.' CyberschuulNews 170808 - Edition 301. One trusts our writers that they are waiting for end of November to go asking Caruso for a SITREP, Situation Report, on NITEL. After all if Nigerians forget easily, reporters and writers should not.

Going by what BPE is and judging my its double speak in recent time, the chance that a core-investor may emerge in February does not seem an idea that may fly. But then Vittorio Colao, the new CEO of Vodafone, world’s largest Mobile operator by revenue, told a European audience last week that he has his eyes on Nigeria.

What exactly does that mean?

Could be he was saying his company would bid to buy NITEL if it is put up for sale or that it would scramble for a new license if Nigeria decides to put any on float.

The Nigerians who chose to send NITEL into eternal sleep because they wanted to corner the commonwealth to themselves are hardly smiling any longer and since the evil that men do lives after them, they may just not be showing face now that it is clear
Had we been in another clime, this month of November is one when telcos such as Etisalat, Vodafone and may be any of the big guys who would rather be an FNO would have been vying for the FNO license which NITEL is holding and which, God forbid, some guys are praying we should allow to be buried along with it.

Somebody please wake somebody up before it is too late.


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2009: Stress in the Horizon
Operators warn Consumers; NCC warns Operators

There are clear indications that the Nigerian Communications Commission may be warming up to biting harder on misdemeanors of telecom service providers and operators in the coming year.
Only last Tuesday, Ernest Ndukwe, the Commission’s Chief Executive, used the chance of a lecture he delivered in Lagos to warn operators against making bogus promises to the consumers during the festive seasons, as sanctions will be visited by the Commission on erring service providers. He said his Commission is already taking an assessment of the various incentives coming from the operators by way of promotions and consumer focused offers to ensure that they are delivered in the best interest of the consumer and without compromising the quality of service.

In recent time, the Commission is also known to have spread its operational monitoring farther into the country by establishing new administrative zones, posted new executives to superintend them and about to provide information systems infrastructure to upgrade quality of control. Analysts appear uniform in their endorsement of the need for re-invigoration of the Commission’s energy in view of the mantra of poor quality of service which is yet to go away.

On the other hand, telephone operators under the auspices of the Association of Licensed Telecom Operators, ALTON, warned last Thursday in Lagos that they would unilaterally effect tariff hike and evoke direct sanctions to offending communities if the practice by some State Governments, Local Governments and other Government agencies in the imposition of indiscriminate levies and charges on telecommunications operators and their operations within their localities continues.

ALTON’s President Gbenga Adebayo, said in a statement in Lagos that the danger which lives of Operators’ personnel are subjected to in many localities in the countries have become intolerable. He said members of his Association have decided that tariff for telecommunications services shall hence be increased to, and maintained at the maximum tariff/rates allowed under the relevant approvals of the NCC in any State of the Federation where the aforementioned activities remain uncurbed. The tariff shall remain in effect until such activities are controlled and totally eradicated and subscribers within the affected States, during this period of increase, shall not benefit from any service rate discount or bonus applied in other areas of the country.

It is not known how NCC has reacted to the latest warning by the operators.

A Black man in the White House:
Obama shall be a truly Hi-Tech President

Words sneaked out of President-elect Barrack Obama’s camp during the week that the future of White House in USA will be more wired than before. Those who prepared the internet application ground for Barrack Obama electioneering campaign have said that the administration will use hi-tech more than it has ever been known in America's governance.
Infact the President-elect has already confirmed he will appoint a Chief Technical Officer and a name has been penciled.
According to some sources, Obama aides and allies are preparing a major expansion of the White House communications operation; enabling them to reach out directly to the massive supporters they have collected over 21 months without having to go through the legacy (mainstream) media.


Setback for NIGCOMSAT-1 as authorities alert on Satellite tracking challenge

The Nigerian Communications Satellite, NIGCOMSAT-1 was declared untraceable in orbit on Wednesday November 12, 2008 according to Nigerian authorities. It was not immediately clear what the remote cause was but bits of information which reached government and got refurbished for onward transmission to public showed that the handlers apparently lost control of its tracking due to insufficient maintenance skills. There were indications that technical support was already being sought to resolve the issues involved.

Minister of State for Science and Technology, Alhassan Zaku, said there was a problem of low power and it was being addressed.

Initial indication of trouble was received Saturday November 8, when an overseas associate of CyberschuulNews sought clarification on some unusual observation but contact with official sources at NigComsat in Abuja denied knowledge of any trouble. Inside sources however indicated there could be one. Four days after, the officials buckled and the Minister spoke.

Nigcomsat has an official website http://www.nigcomsat.com which might have remained dormant since April 2006 and no information on the current impasse has been posted on the site as at early hours of Sunday November 16, 2008. Ditto for the websites of the Federal Government whose minister actually spoke. Other sites on the web have been writing various accounts.

Top officials of Nigcomsat Ltd. showed unveiled immaturity almost as soon as the company was established against competent advice in April 2006. A ring of Obasanjo-Chinese-Unesco cartel provided adequate cover until the exit of President Obasanjo when it occurred to them that the operation of a telecom company without an operating license was a criminal offence which though might be tolerated by an Obasanjo-government but would run the company into troubled waters with world class investors with whom Nigcomsat must have to do business. True to type, they adopted combat to straighten out the licensing issue with NCC after failing to get an accelerated endorsement of Obasanjo's illegality by the succeeding regime of President Yar' Adua. For their stuff, the little energy in the team was dissipated in squabble management and they shifted attention to image management which again was poorly handled. They paid bills mainly to fight NCC and to polish a non existing image. And the current regime is slow in everything including supply of cheap subsidy funds. Something had to give and the Nigerian component of active maintenance of the satellite had to.

Alhassan Zaku almost said that Nigeria transferred its 'power failure' record from land to space. He told bewildered media men that his officials 'park(ed) it (the satellite), as you park your car'

The Chinese are waiting for Nigeria to pay a heavy fine before they would come in to solve the problem. In fact the 'park it as you pack your car' vocabulary is a Chinese creation, not Zaku's. A Voice of America account however claimed that the satellite was already on a loose travel back to earth. That if is true may mean disaster of monumental dimension.

The satellite was put in space in May 2007 and experts in the subject say it is strange for such a trouble to happen so early.

Technical maintenance quite apart, Nigcomsat officials invited the Nigerian media on August 8, 2008 to raise an alert which in summary showed that the business had failed. Chances are that government did not understand the body-talk as it did not seem anything was done to conduct a necessary investigation and arrest the drift. Newspaper version of what Nigcomsat said at its Media conference was helped by a CyberschuulNews Edition 301 of August 17, 2008 (re-posted below) version which almost called for a probe as it used the report as NEWS re-used under a FOR THE RECORD reporting. It was not enough to call for action.
And few days after the Media show, Managing Director of Nigcomsat was quoted to have been boasting of a plan for Nigcomsat -2 and even Nigcomsat-3. thus turning Nigeria into one huge joke.


SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
Business of Government is to build & serve society through Research and Development
by
Chris Uwaje

First, let me point out the difference between indigenous software and foreign (local) software. The former are those that are created, developed and politically managed and supported by Nigerians, for Nigerians without the transfer of foreign exchange. Whereas foreign software is one hundred percent transfer of our local currency,. In other words, this transfer does not have the potential of capacity building. We are not only a guinea-pig test-bed to mature those application software in the Nigeria environment, but also creating jobs and labour for other people externally. It is the duty of every nation to protect its indigenous software. Its her heritage and survival live-line.  I can put it to you that there is no software that is developed for exclusively for external use from its origin; they are developed for resolving the challenges in their immediate environment.

It is indeed technophobia and a fallacy to say that foreign software is better than indigenous one. It is sheer ignorance and a lot of people do not understand software because it is an intangible thing that one cannot see. But they buy computer; now they are saturated with hardware and they then see that the hardware itself has not solved their problems - realising that they are still where they are. There is a difference between computerization and automation. They must automate and that is when the software starts to drive the process and services. When we say foreign software, we are talking about application software and services; not system software and Databases because that is still far away.

There are lots of services that Nigerians can render as outsourcing entities to fellow Nigerians and other African countries, much better than people from elsewhere. An example is our payroll – our payroll was based on our state and national governance structure and foreigners from India and the U.K are finding it difficult to sell payroll here because their own governance structure had informed the development of their software. They were developing for their region. Digital colonies would be built this century and the way they are going to build it is to take control of the application software processes engines that run the lives of the entire people of a community, nation or sub-region. That is why we are passionate when we say that the Institute of Software practitioners of Nigeria (ISPON) needs grants – Government grants, individual grants, if you take about, ten Software companies today and mandate them to give us a software that can run in Nigerian banks in about three years from now, I can assure you that that can be done. That is what other countries do; they consciously create what is called 'failed projects' in software development and when these projects are done, people learn from them because they can always experiment. We shy away from research and development in software because nobody is ready to invest. It is high time our Governments understand the imperative of indigenous software and also know that Nigerians are capable of producing world-class software.

In fact, a lot of Nigerians are working in software laboratories abroad. If they can do that there, why can't they not do same here? ISPON has been campaigning and of course, it has yielded a little result by ensuring that we created IT departments in the ministries as a pilot - thanks to the former President Olusegun Obasanjo. We have gotten a circular from the last regime that indigenous software should be considered before any foreign one for use within government departments. We have an agreement with Government that 50% of the cost of every foreign software imported into this country should be charged as a tariff to check their influx into the country - this is yet to be implemented! Unknown to many of us, there are a lot of software – including the core banking applications, among others, that have failed in this country - at great cost to national development. Nobody talks about them and Nigeria is losing money in billions with magnifying risks to the survivability of our collective future! The cost of these failed software is enough to build software institutes, is enough to provide millions of superlative employment for software code warriors all over the country. I therefore recommend that the National IT Development Policy should be refocused on Software Engineering Development and accelerated Research and development.

Chris Uwaje, a senior Nigerian techie, responded to a question on the subject

Footprints: Ibrahim Nakande was here!
by
titi omo-ettu

Alhaji Ibrahim Dasuki Nakande, until recently Minister of State for Information and Communications has stepped out.
Good for him he stepped out to be counted. That is to say among the thirty-one Ministers of Communications who held office since independence in 1960, he counts as one of those whose times the industry will remember with commendation. No plebiscite conducted or intended, chances are that the news of Nakande’s removal from office in the recent federal cabinet shakeup must have shocked many keen watchers of the industry. That is, of course, because people are usually unable to separate the rating of public opinion from the realities of political permutations of those who manage politics.

There was Murtala Mohammed of blessed memory. There was Audu Ogbe. There was Olawale Ige. There was Cornelius Adebayo and there was Ibrahim Nakande.
One thing that runs common about those fellows is that they showed almost uncommon interest, commitment and passion for their job when they occupied the office of Minister of Communications. They all left huge footprints and leave no one in doubt of their place in the history of the ministry. Granted, apart from Olawale Ige who mid-wifed the liberalization of the industry and actually commenced the process of installing the first Telecommunications Policy, all the others may not be assigned with notable transformation accomplishment which their assignment demanded but there was no doubt they had the right temperament and made sensible use of the chance to serve. In particular, all of them showed exemplary leadership for the industry when it mattered. It is easy to recall that all the five came to industry events so punctually that there was no one of them who did not record at least an occasion when they arrived ahead of their hosts.

While all the five could rightly be regarded as radical minds, it was only Murtala Mohammed and Audu Ogbe who showed it also in their public posturing. Murtala was visibly impatient, brooked little nonsense but was genuine and sincere. Audu Ogbe was a rebel within the NPN fold and it would have been surprising if he was not removed by President Shehu Shagari at the time the latter did so. Audu Ogbe, although a politician, talked not as a politician but as a professional in government. He probably got used to paying for it by always getting removed or redeployed. Ige, to repeat, mid-wifed liberalization through and thorough just as he also started the ground work for the first Telecommunications Policy, albeit without raising much voice. Like Ige who also emerged from within the industry, Nakande showed a clear knowledge of his subject. Nakande spent a good deal of his time trying to get industry stakeholders to believe that the speed at which government as a whole did business was right while many thought otherwise. Murtala was also an insider being an expert from the military stock. The other two who came from outside learnt very fast and showed good understanding and handling of their subject. They all respected the mood of the people and none exhibited undue opportunism.

It is not known how much attention Nakande paid to producing a revised Communications Policy in a converged environment which really is the primary business of the Ministry. Nevertheless, he should be congratulated for the respect he commanded while the journey lasted. The whole vehicle was cruising at narrowband while he drove as though broadband was the requirement. Something had to disconnect and it probably did.
titi omo-ettu, a Lagos based telecom consultant and trainer, responded to a question on recent federal cabinet reshuffle in Nigeria
 

Spammers exploit Obama's victory to load computer Trojans 

'Area boys' (a Lagos' slang for miscreants) of the cyberspace have taken advantage of the global 'Barrack-Obama-jubilation' to flood the internet with malware and spam. A concerned CyberschuulNews valued friend sent in the following alert during the week:

 ‘…Hoping it is not already late to run the alert, I am just wondering if you may mention the following to my co-readers on the Mailing List of your e-magazine:

The links below are reports of a computer Trojan horse [a form of computer virus], which is capable of stealing personal data such as credit card numbers and passwords.  If infected by the virus, computers send information on all data entered into the keyboard as well as screenshots and passwords back to the hackers' web server located in Kiev, Ukraine. 

-- http://www.theage.com.au/news/technology/security/spammers-use-obama-emails-to-load-trojans/2008/11/06/1225561002481.html

-- http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00001530.html

-- http://www.govtech.com/428384  

More than 10 million copies of the Obama Trojan were reported to be in circulation within hours of its release, so make sure you check that your anti-virus program is updated to the latest version.  Better still; use a more secure operating system such as Linux or Apple Mac OS X

Regards,

Muyiwa Taiwo...…’

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MTN now has 80million subscribers, 20 million in Nigeria

Words came from the MTN Group during the week that it has increased its subscriber base to 80.7million in all its 21 operations in Africa and the Middle East at end of third quarter of 2008.

In Nigeria, it crossed the 20 million lines mark to retain its leading position in the local market and may resume its high-beat media presence after just returning from a ban imposed by the regulator.

MTN Group President and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Phuthuma Nhleko, said during the week that "We are satisfied with the subscriber growth across our operations and we will continue to explore value enhancing opportunities."

Starcomms upgrades to 29 cities, 2 million lines

Starcomms, leading CDMA operator in Nigeria is in a celebration mood of sorts. It announced during the week that it connected its 2 millionth line just at a time when internet access via its lines has been receiving a boost. At last count it has network presence in Aba, Abeokuta, Abuja, Asaba, Awka, Benin, Calabar, Enugu, Ibadan, Ijebu Ode, Ilorin, Kaduna, Kano, Lagos, Maiduguri, Nnewi, Ogbomosho, Onitsha, Otta, Owerri, Oyo, Port Harcourt, Rano, Sapele, Shagamu, Umuahia, Uyo, Warri, and Zaria.

Milestones read like: 2006, it was granted a Unified License to provide countrywide fixed, mobile and internet services; February 2008 (1 million); June 2008 (1.5million); July 24, 2008 (N64billion raked in from the Capital Market on Nigerian Stock Exchange listing); October 24, 2008 (2 million lines).

On its way to the Capital Market in July 2008, Maher Qubain, the company’s CEO had said ‘The overall objective is to ensure that the spread of ICT goes a long way in empowering users through access to livelihoods, critical market information and capacity-building, and in the process creating wealth to the benefit of subscribers, telecommunications players and the nation.’

Between July and now, it introduced a couple of internet speed-enhancing products such as "iZAP”, a superfast internet service, with ability to achieve an average speed of up 3.1mbps in Lagos, Port Harcourt and Abuja and iBOOST Internet accelerator. The iBoost software is an exclusive offering for all existing and new Starcomms data subscribers at no cost. The company says subscribers can download iBOOST client from Starcomms website. All they have to do is to visit – www.starcomms.com click on the iBOOST icon on the home page and start downloading for free. There is nothing additional that the Starcomms customer has to pay for getting it installed beyond following the installation instructions.

Much earlier in May, 2008 Starcomms launched the 3G EVDO Mobile Broadband internet service, with ability to achieve an average speed of 300-600 kbps, and capable of speeds up 2.4mbps.

The rapid flow of events did not come by accident. When the company was investing in its Unified License frequency bid, it was almost clear that the three years following its allocation of the license would be busy going by information coming out of its staple. That much was confirmed last week by Manoj Vashisht. Starcomms’ Marketing Director when he said “We have planned for this for about three years because we realized long ago that this day will come; we are set to match our pedigree in the business. We are excited to pull this through,”

Little wonder local analysts said in a 2007 year-end review that Starcomms would be an operator to watch in 2008.

For full literature on the Starcomms’ recent growth literature Please Click here


NCC hands over Internet facility to Galaxy Backbone

An internet facility which was provided in 2006 by the Nigerian Communications Commission for use of the Federal Secretariat in Abuja was handed over to Galaxy Backbone in Abuja recently.

Galaxy Backbone is a public enterprise of the Federal Government of Nigeria established to operate a single nation-wide infrastructure platform to provide network and other transversal services to all Federal Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs). It was incorporated after the Secretariat's internet infrastructure had been conceived, financed and implemented by NCC.


An Unusual Challenge
Vodafone-Telkom-Vodacom restructuring gets a Seal

Up till last Thursday, ownership of Vodacom was Vodafone (UK) 50% and Telkom (SA) 50%.
That became history as Vodafone got the deal signed that it acquired 15% more into its holding while the Government of South Africa and other shareholders have to make do with reduced shares.

On the flip side, government got the deal signed on the following conditions: That
• Government shares in Vodacom will be locked up for only one year;
• No retrenchments of staff would take place;
• Telkom does not outsource its core labour force;
• Vodacom Group's CEO should be a black person;
• The CEO of the operating entity should be a South African;
• Vodacom has exclusivity over Vodafone's sub-Saharan markets;
• Vodacom retains its South African tax residency ;
• Vodacom's primary listing will be on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.

Tall as the order appears to be, the deal was reported to have been signed in Johannesburg last Thursday. It remains to be seen how meeting the conditions imposed by government will play out.
 

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Consumer Associations Spread

There is notable increase in the spread of activism among telephone consumers who constitute themselves into pressure groups to advance the cause of good service and fair pricing. Many activists across emerging and developing markets have emerged in groups especially taking advantage of the internet and blog facilities to spread their ideas and concerns.

In Nigeria there is the National Association of Telecommunications Subscribers, NATCOMS which recently commenced circulation of an e-bulleting to spread its agenda and achievements. An Association described as the Africa Network of Consumer Associations of Information Communication Technologies (ANCA-ICT) is also reported to have been formed recently at a gathering in Cotonou on the initiative of The League Pour la Defense du Consommateur au Benin (LDCB).

It is not unusual for such initiatives to have long gestation as they run on few shoulders and lean budgets until when they constitute enough nuisance to challenge dominant provider intimidation and put operators and service providers under check extra to the efforts of industry regulatory bureaucracies.

NigComSat fills seat on NITEL’s Board 

The position reserved for NigComsat Ltd. on the Board of Directors of NITEL was effectively occupied during the week as there is a Punch Newspaper report that Nigcomsat’s Managing Director, Engr. Ahmed Rufai, was received into the Board meeting as member. The Federal Government is known to have, working on an ad-hoc committee’s advice, diffused some of its share in NITEL to Nigcomsat.  

Government’s privatization Agency, BPE (Bureau of Public Enterprises), is at the moment in search of a core-investor for the troubled NITEL and first quarter of 2009 is the latest information on when BPE says it will announce the choice bidder.
 

Good news as Regional Trade blocks with strong ICT base may soon emerge in Africa

26 countries within the east and southern African belt have agreed to have a harmonized policy and regulatory framework to govern ICT and infrastructure development in the hope to have a free trade area. This was the main agenda of a tripartite summit of the three organizations in Kampala, Uganda recently.

Also in West Africa, Nigerian officials are known to have commenced work to route for such a regional initiative within the Ecowas family. 

Already, African governments are working to develop a US$2 billion undersea and terrestrial cable under the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) e-Africa Commission. Upon completion, the NEPAD cable will serve the entire continent, including all members of the planned African Economic Community. This is apart from other private sector optic fibre initiatives which crisscross the continent. All these will hopefully bring the cost of bandwidth to affordable level all through the continent.

Airtime 'gift' for received calls in Uganda

A surprise conversion of incoming traffic to airtime for its subscribers has been announced by Warid Telecom of Uganda. That is to say its own subscribers who received call from other competing networks will be credited with air time which they can re-use within the Warid network or even for calls to other networks. 

One interesting marketing manaouvre there. 

Ndukwe gets NSE’s thumb up

Kashim Abdul Ali, President of the Nigerian Society of Engineers, NSE, at the weekend lead a team of top members of the association to the Nigerian Communications Commission  where he told the NCC’s Executive Vice Chairman,  Engr Ernest Ndukwe that his association is impressed by the Commission’s antecedents and achievements.

The NSE has all-week been celebrating 50 years of its birth and 13 of its past 25 Presidents were present at the Distinguished October Lecture delivered by Engr Mustapha Bulama on ‘Bridging the infrastructure deficit in Nigeria’. On telecommunications, Bulama called for the enactment of anti-trust law and effective utilization of the Universal Access Fund.

Present at the lecture were two founding members of the association in the persons of  Engr. G. O Aiwerioba and Engr. Teju Oyeleye. Aiwerioba and Oyeleye and five other engineers commenced the Nigerian Society of Engineers in London in 1958. 

At 50, NSE also commissioned its National Engineering Centre in Abuja, moved its administration from Lagos to the Federal Capital Abuja and named several floors and spaces of the new multi-story edifice after its founding fathers and past leaders.

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Telephone Service Rollout
Etisalat targets 7 cities at startup.

Etisalat finally announced rollout of commercial services in Nigeria on Wednesday October 22, 2008. Local newspapers quoted the company’s Vice President, Marketing Mr. Wael Ammar as saying that services would be rolled out progressively in seven Nigerian cities of Abuja, Ibadan, Kaduna, Kano, Lagos, Ogbomoso, and Port Harcourt.

What was surprising was that the launch brought no major surprises. Perhaps the inclusion of Ogbomoso in its list of first phase of rollout locations and the fact that the rollout came to be at all caught industry watchers unaware. The announcement also mentioned the launch Easy Starter - a tariff feature called ‘Homezone’ which enables subscribers to choose the zone where they spend most of their time in order to enjoy lower call tariffs. What is defined as lower call tariff is yet to be clear. Easy Starter also offers ‘call-collect’ - a feature that enables the receiver to pay for the call. Nothing earthshaking really!

With this development, Etisalat has executed the GSM license which Government of President Obasanjo offered Mubadala outside of due process in 2006. Mubadala which paid $400million for the GSM license spent over 13 months thinking of what to do with the license and eventually signed on Etisalat, its UAR relation, to do the business in Nigeria on 30% stake holding.

Etisalat is opening shop in Nigeria at a time when challenges for new operators are daunting in the face of entrenchment of three mobile operators, namely: Globacom, MTN and Zain, whose services, on cost and quality, have not met the expectation of consumers. Prior to commercial launch of last week, Etisalat made its first connection call in March 2008 and for eight months took advantage of slack law which permits for a massive media advertisement of a product that did not exist.

The Etisalat brand serves 74 million customers in 17 countries across Africa, Asia and the Middle East, many of them acquired via buy-over of existing operators. The company is rated to have a unique business model in which it does not seem bottom line is the major motive of their usually huge investments.

The Good and The Bad:
Indices of Nigeria’s telecommunications revolution re-examined in Lagos

A critical analysis of the good and the bad of Nigeria’s telecommunications development was recently undertaken in Lagos and an overall verdict of good performance was returned. The good performance would only be improved upon if two unfinished businesses of privatization of NITEL and resolution of energy paralysis in the country are speedily attended to.

Titi Omo-Ettu, a Telecommunications Consultant addressed the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry in a paper titled ‘The good and the bad of Nigeria’s telecommunications “revolution”’ during the week. Omo-Ettu who believes ‘revolution’ is still a distance away in describing the modest achievement so far said the best decision of the Babaginda’s regime to have liberalized the industry on the eve of his departure from government in 1992 did not go down well with his military co-travelers who surreptitiously suspended the newly created Nigerian Communications Commission in 1994 under the Abacha Regime. According to him, NCC did not exist technically from 1994 to 1999 when another regime, apparently submitting to pressure, revived the Commission. Abacha ensured that he thwarted liberalization effectively by ‘sending an unbeliever to NITEL’ and the result was unchecked demoralisation of genuine investors and an unbridled looting of the resources of NITEL just as those in power made unsuccessful attempt to make themselves the only service providers Nigeria would have to contend with if liberalization was to be.

He reviewed the good of the development to include the appointment of a second national operator, which effect is yet to be enjoyed up till today; the passage of the National Communications Act 2003 which gives more strength to regulation; the regulator’s adoption of the acclaimed ‘study-discuss-consult-pronounce’ model of industry regulation; the launch of Nigcomsat which is yet to make meaning; and the expressed desire of government to adopt convergence as strategy of industry regulation, which the current regime is still to implement.

There were however amidst all these a recurrent insincerity of purpose in government’s implementation of all those laudable strategic policy pronouncements which made Nigerians one of the highest payers of telecom tariff in our region of the world vis-a vis the income level of the average citizen.

According to him, government still continued to create bureaucracies in telecommunications business just as it went on dolling out licenses with no regard to its own professed regime of due process thus making it unattractive for world class operators to feel good playing in the industry.

Omo-Ettu feels that Nigeria’s government took advantage of the peoples’ complacency to truly and thoroughly short-change them as consumers look more up to God than to themselves in redressing the situation.

He listed two unfinished businesses which must be resolved for any meaningful progress to be made in furthering the achievement made so far. These include the privatisation of NITEL and the resolution of Energy crisis. He used several industry study data researched and published by his firm to show that those two problems must be resolved for Nigeria to record true revolution in its telecom development.

He suggested that the business of NITEL in its present form should be wound down while the First National Operator License it is holding should be placed on Auction ‘rather than searching for an elusive core-investor’.

For energy, he suggested that the liberalisation of the industry must be genuine and sincere, stressing that there were enough to learn from what Nigeria has gone through in reaching the present commendable status in telecommunications..

India goes to the Moon

India has blast off its maiden unmanned mission to the moon. That is to say Chandrayaan-1, the lunar orbiting spacecraft flew out to go to lunar on Wednesday, October 22, 2008.

It will be India’s first 100% locally built rocket launching into space from its own ground at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota on India's southeastern coast.
It was in 1980 that India first launched a successful domestic satellite by a home-built rocket and if this particular launch is successful, India would have moved up the ladder to the space occupied by Japan and China on the space technology chart.

The mission includes five Indian Space Research Organization, ISRO, payloads and six payloads from other international space agencies such as NASA and ESA, and the Bulgarian Aerospace Agency .

Cost of the project is estimated  to be INR 3.8 billion (US$ 83 million).

Federal Government Clears Siemens

The Nigerian Government which suspended business relationship with Siemens in 2007 but restored same a few months ago has confirmed that it has cleared Siemens of all misdemeanour.

The company executives also wrote the President on the issue and following that commitment, the suspension order was lifted. Siemens can continue to do business in Nigeria. Siemens is known to have got contracts in the power sector since restoration of the relationship.

THE CYBERSCHUUL, Lagos
announces
1st Quarter 2009 sessions of
Training/Certification Programs in Telecommunications

All Trainings hold in Lagos

Registration enquiries to  tec@cyberschuul.com; 0802 322 4572

Please visit www.cyberschuulnews.com/prof_dev.html for further details

• Basic Communication Concepts; Analog & Digital technologies; Networks, Networking, & Interconnections ; Fixed: Wired/wireless technologies ; Mobile and Cellular Networks ; Internet Applications, Role of IP ; Technology Standards TDMA[GSM]• CDMA• WCDMA ; Mobile Technologies in their generations 2G, 2.5G, 3G, 3.5G, 4G.; Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) ; Communications Media Options ; Infrastructure Management ; Satellite Communications Basic, VSAT, GPS ; Internet Applications and Multimedia Services ; Emerging Technologies and Standards ; The Nigerian Telecom Network ; Telecom Vocabulary

 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.

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

 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