Kasolo the ‘digital Strategist’

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) has come of age in SA, and local consumers and small businesses can enjoy a range of competitively priced and mature services from many of the country’s Internet service providers.

That’s according to Greg Massel, co-chair of ISPA. He said that VoIP providers in SA are coming to market with a selection of solutions that can allow consumers and businesses to drive down their telecom bills as well as benefit from advanced functionality not available on traditional PABXs.

VoIP solutions can allow companies to achieve significant cost-savings on outbound voice calls to national, mobile and international numbers, said Mr Massel.

Many VOIP providers are now offering calls to mobile, national and local numbers at lower rates than the incumbents – and these rates are likely to fall even further as a result of regulatory interventions in the interconnect environment.

Though lower voice tariffs are one well-known benefit of VoIP, the technology can also help companies to achieve significant savings on infrastructure and line rental costs, Mr Massel added. With a VoIP solution, a single broadband telephone line could be used to provision several VoIP lines, each with its own telephone number, allowing for dramatic cost-savings.

And rather than needing to enter a long-term lease or buy a traditional PABX that the firm might outgrow in a couple of years, a company can instead opt for a VOIP solution based on affordable, standards-based software and hardware.

“If the company needs to provision more lines, it can usually do so with a cheap and simple upgrade or by buying a few more software licences,” said Mr Massel.

“It also becomes a simple matter to move people around within one’s office or even to move offices since the number is not tied to a physical location.”

Companies can even opt for hosted switchboard solutions that can be rented by the month, rather than needing to invest their precious capex in a PABX solution. What’s more VoIP solutions often allow companies to easily and cheaply implement advanced functionality such as voice loggers without expensive additional hardware.

Mr Massel noted that VoIP operators now have access to geographic number ranges – for example, the Cape Town (021), Pretoria (012) and Durban (031) area codes – which means that they no longer need to use the 27 87 prefix for their numbers. As from next year, it is also expected that geographic number portability will come into effect, which means they will be able to change providers and keep their numbers.

“VoIP solutions are flexible, scalable and cost-effective replacements for legacy switched telephony solutions. The variety and affordability of the services available on the market today from ISPA’s members is testimony to how a more deregulated and equitable telecom environment promotes choice and lower costs for SA’s telecom users,” Mr Massel concluded.

Source: www.ispa.org.za

I sometimes wonder with whats the way froward with social networks…! I mean most of the internet junkies… are always on the internet either twittering, facebook chats, mixing it, my space and others.
I/m begining to dislike the social networks stuff because of the following things: invasion of privacy, farming of users’ data to advertisers, potential to lure child predators and other criminals, wasting time (often why schools/governments block access)

Vodacom Zambia has taken out an injunction against the country’s regulator CAZ over a trial 3G authorisation it gave two years ago to Zain. All this might be a storm in a tea cup were it not for changing attitudes to 3G and what it might be used for in Africa. Russell Southwood looks at why 3G matters to operators and why some countries will upgrade, whilst others may be left behind.

Two years ago the Communication Authority of Zambia (CAZ) issued a test authorisation to Zain Zambia to conduct trial 3G services. On hearing of this recently, Vodacom Zambia chairperson Enoch Kavindele issued an injunction against the regulator to try and stop Zain making use of the already issued test authorisation. Kavindele, a former Republican Vice President in the country is clearly a man of many opinions and enough lawyers standing by to try and enforce them. He is also threatening to sue the Government over the sale of a 75% shareholding in the financially distressed incumbent Zamtel (see On the Money below).

Both legal actions look like a bad case of bluster and if so, why is Vodcom Zambia so wary of either of these things coming to pass? The sale of Zamtel would see Vodacom, MTN and Zain getting more competition from Zamtel’s new owner, something it has clearly failed to give in Government hands. The granting of a 3G authorisation of no commercial value must surely be something that Vodacom could avail itself of rather than rushing off to the courts.

Like fixed broadband Internet, 3G (in either WCDMA or HSPA flavours) in Africa went from being something operators would say was “not wanted in my village” to becoming part of an upgrade arms race in a very short period of time. Once one operator started to install 3G, others felt they had to follow. Once one operator had got it in place at the airport and in the business district of the capital, others felt they had to follow. And before long, it began to be rolled out to a wider range of cities in some countries.

When 3G started in Europe, licences were sold for humungously large sums of money. Later some of this licence money was refunded when everyone realised that 3G services were not going to generate the kind of revenues required to pay back this kind of down-payment.

There are few precedent for valuing 3G licences in Africa. At one end of the continent, several of the North African countries have taken an almost European view and sought to extract the maximum operators will pay. At the other end of the scale, one large West African operator has been trying to persuade its regulator that 3G is simply a natural network transition and should not be licensed separately.

So where does the value of 3G lie for the operator? For the latest generation of operators – like QCel in Gambia which launched last week – it offers a way of differentiating themselves from the GSM pack and allowing them to extend their Internet role to offering mobile Internet. But mobile Internet is a comparatively modest part of any operator’s overall revenues. Indeed Vodacom has few countries where data revenues (including SMS) exceed 10% of overall revenues.

Nevertheless it has a key role to play in stemming falling ARPUs which will expand as the number of mobile Internet subscribers increases. It has also pitched mobile operators into becoming ISPs and where they have got the pricing right, they have seized the major market share.

3G also creates network efficiencies which are not much talked about but may be another good reason why 3G coverage is spreading. But the competing demands of voice and data on the mobile operator’s network do not make for good bedfellows. It only takes a few heavy Internet users to start eating into the bandwidth available for voice and mobile Internet users (particularly of the post-paid variety) are picky creatures who like to have the service they paid for.

So having just got 3G, a number of mobile operators started installing a workaround to this congestion problem, using various varieties of WiMAX which again required more spectrum and more base stations. The thin-pipe creation that is GSM was not designed to be the multi-lane highway for voice and data.

That said, it is the mobile operators who are steadily extending their data coverage (through 3G and GPRS/EDGE) and are actually putting in place the network coverage that will be able to offer Internet to a growing percentage of people in African countries.

It is not the traditional Government-owned incumbents who talk a good game on universal service but are usually so financially embarrassed that they are unable to match commitments by mouth with their cheque-writing hand. Sadly, it’s also not Africa’s ISPs who have almost without exception stayed put in the capital cities or urban areas. Arguably, mobile operators are the ones who are making this investment. Zain Zambia (see later in this newsletter) are investing in their own fibre network because it will be cheaper than Zamtel’s over-priced national network.

But it’s clear that 3G is not something that so far is likely to happen in every African country. If you have a particularly small middle class and/or literacy levels are very low, then there is not much of a case for rolling out 3G. The new smart phone users will be there in lower numbers and will not justify the costs involved. So as in so many fields, Africa is becoming a continent of two speeds: those in the fast lane with 3G (and WiMAX) connected to international fibre and a small number of countries in the slow lane with GPRS/EDGE and no early sign of an international fibre connection.

Therefore regulators and operators need to ponder the difficult question of what is a 3G licence actually worth? Those in the slow lane where market potential is low might up their chances of joining a faster lane by almost giving 3G licences away. Whilst those countries who are better favoured will be able to get revenues from one more licence category. However, in the long term, since a new operator would be unlikely to build just a GSM network any more, there is perhaps a grain of (inconvenient) truth in the argument that 3G is simply the natural upgrade transition.

Balancing Act

Kasese farmers have started marketing maize grain globally using computers. Starting this month, the farmers were directly linked to the buyers. With the Government’s assistance, Nyakatonzi Growers Co-operative Union constructed a modern warehouse equipped with all the necessary gadgets to make maize grain buying global.

“We have been licensed to establish an electronic warehouse through which the maize farmers will be linked to the buyers electronically,” Adam Bwambale, a union official, said recently. “Our job will be to weigh and grade the maize a farmer has brought to our warehouse and then give the farmer an electronic receipt.

Under a collateral arrangement, the banks can give cash to the owner of the electronic receipt,” Bwambale explained. He said all banks in the country had been informed about the new arrangement.

Bwambale said the arrangement was expected to save the farmer from wasting their produce and enable them get stable and higher prices. Maize production in the Rwenzori region this season is expected to double due to sufficient rains. Also, groundnut farmers expect a bumper harvest.

Cultivators from several parts of Kasese, Kabarole and Bunyaruguru in Bushenyi also expect a bumper harvest of maize and groundnuts. Earlier, a programme manager with Mubuku Women Savings and Credit Co-operative Society, Constantine Kisembo, who had been tipped about the modern maize marketing method, said: “No more waste of our maize. We shall avoid these cheap buyers.”

Kisembo said the society was going to buy the maize grain from individuals and take it to the co-operative union as a group in order to attract buyers who need big quantities.
(Source: New Vision)

By Timothy K Kasolo

A substantial portion of what the consumer pays for any voice telephone call, including VoIP (Voice over IP) calls, is the interconnect charge which each network operator levies against the sending network for enabling the call.

These crippling costs, set when the cellular networks first began rolling out across the country, are now inhibiting the growth of new services that could reduce the costs of telecoms to the benefit of businesses and consumers.

The mobile operators charge a fixed peak tariff of R1.25 per minute (excluding VAT) to the network provider of the caller to connect the call with a subscriber on their own mobile network.

The charge applies whether the call is initiated from another mobile network operator, fixed-line services such as Telkom, or IP-based VoIP services from one of South Africa’s Internet Service Providers.

This fee is largely responsible for the artificially high costs of making a call to any cellular network. Incoming calls to Telkom’s network, for instance, are charged at under 30 cents per minute, a figure much more in-line with the cost-to-revenue ratios of building and maintaining the supporting network.

The premium that the cellular networks claim on interconnect tariffs was based on the high costs of rolling-out GSM-based network infrastructure from scratch when the cellular market kicked off in the country.

It is also based on the costs operators would need to charge to achieve a profit on a pessimistically projected local mobile-user ceiling in the region of 500,000 users.

However, in reality, the actual infrastructure costs of building a GSM network lies at the comparatively reasonable level of US$300 per user, while fixed-line infrastructure carries a much steeper price point for the operator of US$1000 per user to establish and maintain.

Meanwhile, growth has continued well beyond that initially-projected market, with about 30-million active mobile users in the country.

How, then, can the astronomical interconnect fees still be applicable, beyond the sheer profiteering of the MNOs.

These outdated interconnect fees are dampening the potentially explosive growth of new VoIP circuits being rolled out by ISPA members.

VoIP users have to pay the exorbitant minimum fee to connect to a cellular user in the same city, making the customer’s communications costs a sum of broadband connectivity costs plus these inescapable interconnect tariffs, plus the small margins which the VoIP operators are able to squeeze out.

Ideally, the industry needs the regulator to take a tough stand on this barrier to entry. For inspiration, ICASA could look to an instruction OFCOM delivered to UK mobile operators at the turn of the 21st century demanding that they reduce interconnect fees by 75% as quickly as possible.

There was a lot of initial resistance to this decree by mobile operators, but in due course, they realised they were still allowed to charge a rate which would ensure their profitability and sustainability while opening up new opportunities and services for consumers and service providers, and growing the market to the benefit of all players.

With broadband penetration expected to grow rapidly in SA over the next year as the increased competition drives down costs, there is an excellent opportunity for service providers to deliver cost-effective VoIP services to consumers and businesses.

Unless action is taken about mobile interconnect tariffs, local consumers will not be able to enjoy the full savings potential. Only by negotiating these costs down to a more reasonable level can the industry move forward with rolling out universally-appealing IP-based value-oriented communications solutions.

Source: www.ispa.org.za

Rural areas that have often been marginalised and cut off from the usage of telecommunication facilities are now getting connected and opening up, thanks to a new project that uses satellite antennas to pick a signal. The project, currently running on a pilot basis in Mumbwa and Kaoma districts, is being implemented by a South African organisation, Connect Africa.

By providing satellite-networked phones, Connect Africa is empowering rural communities with cheaper communication alternatives which, in the long run, will enable poor communities to have a say in shaping poverty alleviation policies.

According to Dean Mulozi, the national coordinator for Connect Africa in Zambia, the introduction of the new technology has been necessitated by the limited capacity of the three mobile service providers to cover the entire country. The technology has been concentrated only in the cities and communities along the railway line.

“We still have so many people in this country who have no access to cheaper and affordable means of communication, especially in rural areas,” Mr Mulozi said. It is estimated that only about four million of Zambia’s over 11 million population are able to use cellular phones as a means of communication.

In the two districts where the project is running, demand for the service has already outstripped supply with thousands of people having to walk over 10 kilometres to the nearest point to make a phone call. There are only six telephone handsets catering for an average of 4,000 people per phone.

As a result, Connect Africa has had to increase the allocation of credit for some phones from US$50 per week which is often used up in less than a day to $135 for the same period.

To make a call, the beneficiaries of the new technology pay K2,000 per minute for all local calls and double the amount for the same duration for an international call, but they reckon it is far better and cheaper than having to scribble a letter.

Enock Kamwaya, 36, a peasant farmer at Kaoma’s TBZ farm bloc, said: “This amount is nothing compared to how we used to communicate in the past. We would write letters that would take over two months to be replied to, or we would not even receive a reply. But a phone call gives you an answer immediately, so we don’t write letters now.”

“We are benefitting from this programme. Now we can communicate with the outside world. As farmers, we connect with different organisations such as World Vision, Oxfam, and the World Wildlife Fund to help us with fertiliser or markets for our produce.

For the 10,000 peasant farmers at the TBZ farm bloc, communication comes at a high price. In the absence of the satellite phones, people are forced to travel a distance of 70 kilometres to Kaoma town centre to communicate with the outside world.

“Sometimes, when this phone is not working, and there is an emergency such as a funeral, we are forced to board a bus to Kaoma town. We pay K60,000 to go and make a call,” disclosed 52-year-old Mildred Muwanei, who was found in a group of people standing in disorderly manner in front of a pigeon-hole window with small pieces of paper in their hands.

According to sub-chieftainess Mulendema, a traditional leader in Mumbwa, the satellite phones could not have come at a better time.

Her chiefdom is located along the highway connecting Western Province to Lusaka, and both towns on her end – Mumbwa and Kaoma – are connected to the national telecommunications grid under Zain, MTN, and Cell Z.

At a time when the Government is striving to improve infrastructure, particularly in rural areas, sub-chieftainess Mulendema represents the plight of thousands of Zambians who are living within a reachable radius from the highways, yet are too far away from communication services.

In commenting on the impact of the innovation on rural communities, Lotty Kakubo, spokesperson of the Communications Authority of Zambia (CAZ), said the Government’s telecommunications regulatory body would soon issue a comprehensive statement after conducting a feasibility assessment of the installations.

“CAZ supports the efforts by other institutions to contribute to the extension of services in unserviced areas,” Mr Kakubo said.

The pilot project for the rural service delivery network is expected to close this month end after which the CAZ will assess its impact in benefitting communities and determine whether it should be rolled out across the country.

I guess bu now it is known that the next generation wireless technologies in Southern Africa conference will be held in Livingstone, Zambia at the Zambezi Sun hotel. This will be a highly technical conference as to find out what is the ‘next generation wireless technologies’ will bring to Southern Africa.

One of the topic to be discussed include regulation for Innovative wireless technologies, Impact of digital broadcasting migration on innovation in wireless technologies and innovative wireless technologies.

Lets just hope something new is going to come out …

By Timothy Kasolo

I was so supprised when I was was trying to check my gmail account and I was stunned just to find that there was an error …as all google servers were temporarily out of service….and this is took lots time as  Gmail went down for about 2 hours 30 minutes….

Indians may soon be able to buy the ultimate in credit-crunch computing – a laptop that costs only 500 rupees (£7). The government-developed laptop is the latest in ultra-cheap engineering to emerge from the sub-continent. It is also the most ambitious attempt yet to bring the internet to the developing world and bridge the “digital divide” between rich and poor.

India has already given the world the 100,000-rupee (£1,450) Tata Nano car and a no-frills mobile telephone that costs less than 800 rupees. The laptop that may be sold for less than the cost of a paperback book has been more than three years in the making.

It forms part of the National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology, India’s new scheme to boost learning in rural areas through the Internet.

Government officials said that a prototype of the rudimentary computer was expected within months. K. K. Pant, a government spokesman, said: “This basic computing and Internet access device will be an extremely powerful learning tool in the hands of the country’s youth.”

The machine is the country’s answer to the American One Laptop per Child project, which set out to produce a computer for $100 (£68). That high-profile venture led by MIT’s Nicholas Negroponte ran into problems after several companies, including the chip manufacturer Intel, refused to cooperate. The costing failed to take into account distribution and marketing so the final price was closer to US$200.

Technology experts, mindful of Mr Negroponte’s experiences, have suggested that India’s plans for an even cheaper machine are unrealistic. The respected website arstechnica.com said: “Can India do it? The inner-philanthropist hopes so but the realist who buys technology says ‘No way’. ”

The technology website said that the price of computer components was too high to make a 500-rupee laptop. Analysts at the financial management company Merrill Lynch estimated that the Negroponte laptop screen alone cost about £20. “India’s $10 price hopes appear to be nothing more than pure fantasy,” it concluded. And all this is before the costs of distribution and marketing are included.

A government official confirmed that plans for the laptop would be outlined last week but refused to give further details. Officials had put the cost of the machine previously at about 1,000 rupees but believed that the price would come down if it was mass produced. Some critics have branded the scheme a publicity stunt timed to coincide with the forthcoming general elections. Plans to cut the price to the bone appear to hinge on domestic technology that uses low levels of power.

The laptop is the result of cooperation between several of India’s elite technology institutions, including the Vellore Institute of Technology, the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore and the Semi-conductor Laboratory that forms part of India’s Space Department. Private companies are also taking part.  (Source: The Times)

ZAMNET- Zambia’s leading Internet Service Provider, http://www.zamnet.zm has been Hacked. The site was hacked Saturday afternoon and at the time of writing the site  had not been fixed. The Hackers who are calling themselves 3RqU (Turkish) have changed ZAMNETs landing page. 3RqU Turkish are a known notorious group of hackers.

The  hackers have gained unauthorised access to ZAMNET servers. According to the new landing page that has been put on ZAMNET, the hackers claim to have root access. Root access grants someone the ability to control all the resources on a server.With this access hackers can for example delete the whole server, read all confidential information on the server or make alterations to site.

Most of the websites hosted by ZAMNET have been affected by this security breach and these include sites like Times of Zambia, Daily mail, ZNBC.

A request for a random page that does not exist on the ZAMNET server showed that ZAMNET runs an old version of Apache web server(1.3.26). A web server is a computer program that accepts internet requests.

The Apache website shows that the up to date version is Apache 1.3.41 which is  more secure.

According to some experts the old Apache server ZAMNET uses might not necessarily be the cause of the breach but it points to the lax in ZAMNETs policy on applying security updates to the software on their servers.