Africa Telecoms Issue 24

issue 24 ZAR 29.95 us$ 3.50 uk£ 2.25 EU€ 2.95 rest of africa us$ 2.95

www.africatelecomsonline.com

Satellite & Fibre

[ 04 ] guest ed Steve Rich of Newsat

[ 06 ] news

The latest local and global telecoms news

Contents 24

Thought Leadership

An exclusive interview with Mark Simpson, Chief Executive Officer, of Seacom

[ 22 ] gadgets

Want the next big thing in portable devices? Our gadget review is here to help you choose

[ 26 ] stats

Africa Telecoms presents statistics and data relating to the African telecoms market

[ 64 ] q&a

With Tareq Al Hosani, Chief Executive Officer of the Abu Dhabi-based Yahsat

in 34 Progress Sight

Far-sighted investors and governments are determined that asmany Africans as possible will benefitfrom international capacity and access to data services, writes Lesley Stones.

[ 68 ] calendar

Upcoming events, shows and conferences you can’t afford to miss

[ 70 ] jobs

A list of the latest telecoms vacancies from across Africa.

[ 72 ] lastword Instagram

2 AFRICA TELECOMS Issue 24

40

Driving Digital Advancement on the African Continent Ibrahima Guimba Saidou contends that the business landscape is rapidly changing in Africa, and atthe forefront of this change is increasing access to broadbandInternet and mobile telecommunications.

Issue 24

Regulars

44

The Connected Continent

Chris Wood, CEO of Africa’s carriers’ carrier WIOCC, discusses Africa’s changing international submarine cable landscape and explores the impacts and remaining challenges.

48

Yesterday, Today or Tomorrow Is growth in Eastern Africa leading the way for the continent, asks Will Hahn.

for the mag

62

Innovation is key to success in Africa

Bradley Shaw writes exclusively for Africa Telecoms after attending the Samsung Africa Forum held in Cape Town.

[ Publisher ] Mohammed Khan mkhan@3ipublishing.co.za [ Managing Editor ] Bradley Shaw bshaw@3ipublishing.co.za [ Sales Director ] Sarah Theron stheron@3ipublishing.co.za [ Art Director ] Hayley Davis hdavis@3ipublishing.co.za [ Sub-Editor ] Niki Sampson [ Printing ] Tandym Press

[ Contributors ] Steven Ambrose, Simon Dingle, Brett Haggard, Mike Haugh, Stuart Little, Selina Lo, Iyemba Nkanza, Bradley Shaw and Mike van den Bergh.

Africa Telecoms and Africa Telecoms Online are published by: 3i Publishing Unit 6, Planet Art, 32 Jamieson Street, Cape Town 8001 T: +27 21 426 5590 | E: info@3ipublishing.co.za www.3ipublishing.co.za www.africatelecomsonline.com

Issue 24 AFRICA TELECOMS 3

Guest Ed With Steve Rich, Newsat

Satellites Ever Changing Role in Africa The debate continues as to whether the proliferation of fibre bandwidth in Africa is going to cause the displacement of satellite services. Both fibre and satellite operators have to deal with relatively long and costly planning and implementation cycles, and ultimately deliver services into a market they may, or may not have been correctly predicted. In Africa, this may sound worse than it actually is, as there is at this time, an ongoing need for communications services of all kinds. The challenge is to deliver products that the market needs.

The benefits of additional international bandwidth are filtering through to the markets offering an improvement in data speed and pricing. Terrestrial wireless technologies in their “last mile” role however, close their business cases on subscriber densities to warrant the cost of installing wireless infrastructure. So where does that leave fringe and rural areas who cannot and will not meet the case requirements?

Next generation satellites are coming There has always been a strong case for the use of satellite communications, it provided services that were not available terrestrially, or were unreliable. Africa is also starting to reap the benefits of the second generation of fully commercialised satellites, with the first generation currently nearing or at the end of an approximate 15 year service life. The new satellites are more focused on relevant markets, improving bandwidth and the quality of signals and thus decreasing the end users cost of ground equipment. The Broadcasters’ very successful use of Ku-band, despite Africa’s rather unique weather conditions, has helped make Ku-band the band of choice for many services. Innovative new satellites such as those being launched by NewSat accommodate the best of all worlds, Kaband bandwidth volumes, with most of the advantages of Kuband.

Broadcast market to undergo significant change It is perhaps more pertinent to look into the future and ask who will be using the bandwidth. What is clear is that smaller broadcasters cannot afford to access satellite services via the classical acquisition of bandwidth, uplink technology and set top boxes. Access by broadcasters to a distribution platform on a “per channel” basis where all technical and hardware services have been taken care of, is eminently more affordable.

These distribution platforms can aggregate the services of many broadcasters over the continent, providing independent access control, low channel costs, rights management, a high

4 AFRICA TELECOMS Issue 24

quality signal and more importantly proof of viewership for mass market advertising. Given the hundreds of free to air channels currently fighting for survival over the continent, these platforms will be a welcome change to all. For success however, there needs to be cooperation between the technical service providers and commitment that platform operators will not compete with the broadcasters. My belief is that this will become a reality within the next five years and will revolutionise TV viewing over the continent to the benefit of viewers, pay TV and Free-To-Air operators, channel providers and mass market advertisers alike.

“Last mile” demand to drive broadband market Looking at broadband, with terrabytes of fibre bandwidth coming online, how will it reach the end user? Satellite is the only technology available at present that is distance and subscriber density independent. But this is not new, satellite services once again morph to fill the gap in terrestrial connectivity, in this case, the “last mile”. What needs to said though, is that there will need to be greater cooperation between the technology operators to ensure that they provide solutions that generate revenue.

Satellite adapting to new growth So will fibre displace satellite services in the near future? Given Africa’s insatiable need for communications, cooperation between technology operators is necessary to break the classical product silos and allow innovation to provide products and services that closer match the needs of the African market.

Satellite operators will adapt to their ever-changing role and continue to fill the technology gaps that prevent the delivery of suitable solutions to the market. Ka-band in particular is a very exciting development in the market, providing much needed bandwidth, improved connectivity to rural communities and assist in the delivery of video content. There is room for all to share in this exciting market, but take care not to go it alone. AT

By Steve Rich NewSat

News

Africa Telecoms brings you all the latest telecoms news from Africa and around the world.

Motorola Mobility Brings Motorola DEFY+ to South Africa.

Touted as “the life-proof device that can keep up with your toughest demands and wildest adventures”, Motorola Mobility has introduced to South Africa the DEFY+ smartphone, now equipped with faster web-browsing and social networking tools.

Water resistant, scratch resistant, dust proof and with a pre-loaded CardioTrainer application that serves as a running mate, it has a 1GHz processor that runs 25% faster, with Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) delivering a smarter operating system and improved battery life.

The 3.7-inch high-resolution touch-screen display enables easy viewing and workout progress tracking.

Other attractions the Motorola DEFY+ boasts include a more intuitive user interface and enhanced calendar, email features and home screen options; application trays can be organised and personalised for quick and easy access to tools, games and content used most.

The Music Player allows access to and sharing of favoured music, which can also be synched to music straight from desktops at home or work; built-in apps like the Zinio e-magazine service enables access to favourite publications; and an Adobe Flash 10-enabled browser accesses movies and videos on the web.

Kinect for Windows ‘to change face of computing’ If the latest word from the industry is to be believed, then the future of computing is on the verge of revolutionary change that will create “entirely new ways of working with computers”.

In the eye of this promised vortex is Microsoft’s Kinect motion sensor, which in itself changed the way people play and interact with video games with its movement and speech recognition capability. That innovation is now upped several notches with the release of “Kinect for Windows” in South Africa in June this year. The move is in line with an international release that will include Hong Kong, Taiwan, India, Russia and Austria, and could fundamentally redefine the way in which we interact with computers.

Caren Crous, product and marketing manager: Xbox 360 South Africa, describes the development as “a game-changer for Microsoft and the industry”.

“This isn’t about video games or Windows. This is about the future of computing, and will create entirely new ways of working with computers.”

The Kinect for Windows device is already being used in a variety of work settings:

6 AFRICA TELECOMS Issue 24

• Car manufacturers are using the technology to enable virtual tours for customers; • Hospitals are using its gesture recognition feature to view CT scans ¬without touching a keyboard or mouse; and • At a Los Angeles clothing store, a pod housing eight Kinect devices in a circle scans a customer’s physique, takes measurements - and recommends a suitable pair of jeans.

The device is also able to track the head, neck and arms of a user either seated or standing, allowing its functionality to be significantly broadened.

The introduction of “Seated” or “10-joint” skeletal tracking working in both “default” and “near” mode is also imminent, says Crous; and other numerous applications for the device in the field of education include those with special needs.

In addition, the technology would address four new languages for speech recognition, viz. French, Spanish, Italian and Japanese, while language packs enabling speech recognition for regionally spoken languages would also be released via Xbox.

N

News

Social Media: Measure What Matters Companies need to tie social media measurement to business metrics that really matter to their organisations instead of getting caught up in buzzwords such as “engagement”, “sentiment” and “reach”.

That’s the word from Richard Mullins, director at Acceleration.

“It is good to see that many South African companies are looking more carefully at measuring social media metrics as they roll out their social campaigns,” he says. “But they also need to think carefully about what it is that they are measuring and how it relates to their business goals.”

Many companies were measuring the performance of their social media campaigns using a range of analytics and online reputation management (ORM) tools, with which they were able to measure their social media reach and influence, and gauge marketplace sentiment. They may even be able to identify brand advocates and detractors, or identify the extent to which people were talking about their products or sharing their content.

“It’s nice to know, for example,” says Mullens, “that sentiment

about your product is largely positive. But it is somewhat meaningless unless you can understand how that translates into visits to your website, customer conversions or increases in customer web searches for your products.”

The challenge that most companies faced in digging deeper into social media data for answers to “really important business questions” was that their marketing data existed in silos spread throughout the enterprise – CRM systems, email databases, web analytics tools, social platforms and more.

“This means you’ll start out asking very different questions.

Rather than asking about Klout scores or followers, you’ll be asking how customers interact with you in social environments and how these translate into the actions you desire from them.

“You’ll start asking how social media acts as a branding vehicle, a direct marketing tool, or a combination of both. Each of these strategies may have value, but the question is which of them is right for your business and its desired outcomes. You will look at social media measurement tools and technologies in a completely different way and begin to harness them to make social media work for your business.”

Issue 24 AFRICA TELECOMS 7

N

News

MTN TO OPPOSE TURKCELL CLAIM; REAFFIRMS COMMITMENT TO INDEPENDENT HOFFMANN INVESTIGATION MTN Group Limited (MTN) has alerted its shareholders to the possibility of a claim being filed against it by the Turkish mobile phone operator Turkcell Iletisim AS (Turkcell) in the U.S. federal courts.

While the claim has not been served on MTN, the company says it understood that a claim had now been filed by Turkcell in the U.S. courts against MTN and its wholly-owned subsidiary, MTN International (Mauritius) Limited. Turkcell is claiming US$4.2 billion, plus interest and punitive, consequential and other damages in connection with the awarding of the second GSM licence in Iran to Irancell.

Opposing the claim, MTN holds that there is no legal merit to Turkcell’s claim and no basis for it to be brought before a U.S. court. It noted the South African government’s denial of allegations that MTN had exercised influence over it in the matter. The company announced that an independent committee under the chairmanship of the internationally renowned jurist, Lord Hoffmann, had started to investigate Turkcell’s allegations in advance of the latter’s filing of its claim. MTN said Turkcell had yet to respond to an invitation to participate in the investigation, whose findings would be reported to the MTN board, along with any recommendations, including any relating to their publication.

Vodacom Customers to Enjoy Free Incoming Calls while Roaming in East Africa and South Africa Vodacom Tanzania customers can expect welcome savings on the data roaming service – usually an expensive affair - when travelling to 9 African countries where the company and its various partners operate.

These countries include South Africa (Vodacom), Mozambique (Vodacom), Lesotho (Vodacom), DRC Congo (Vodacom), Ghana (Vodafone), Kenya (Safaricom), Rwanda (MTN), Uganda (MTN), Uganda (UTL) and Burundi (UCOM); post- and pre-paid customers can now receive free incoming calls, free incoming SMSs, lower calls and data rates while roaming on these .

Commenting on the new Africa roaming service, Rene Meza, Managing Director at Vodacom Tanzania, said: “We know that people want to remain connected at an affordable rate whether they are at home or on holiday in South Africa or travelling for work in Ghana and that nobody likes the headache of worrying about roaming bills. (This) is a solution to (provide) peace of mind when travelling.”

8 AFRICA TELECOMS Issue 24

N

News

Airtel launches mobile services in Rwanda Rwanda’s dream of bridging the digital divide has been brought a significant step closer with the launch by Airtel of its mobile service in the country, in the fastest joint greenfield launch in history in sub-Saharan Africa.

Rwanda is among the fastest growing telecom markets in Africa and, according to the National Statistics Institute of Rwanda, mobile penetration in the country was at 38.4% as of July last year. The rapidly growing private sector – which includes telecommunications infrastructure and ICT – presents many opportunities for the development of the industry and the country’s economy. According to World Bank figures, each 10% of broadband penetration results in a 1.3% increase in per capita GDP growth in developing countries.

In launching its operation in Rwanda, Airtel has committed to investing over US$100 million in its operations over the next three years; it will generate direct and indirect employment opportunities, thereby expanding its footprint on the African continent to 17 countries.

Welcoming Airtel’s entry into the country, Rwandan Prime Minister the Right Honourable Dr. Pierre Damien Habumuremyi said the government was looking to partner with the private sector to provide good quality, accessible and affordable telecommunications services.

“We are especially excited about the prospect of connecting Rwanda with the rest of the East African region and, indeed, with the rest of Africa.

As Rwandans begin engaging in business ventures and looking for regional partners, telecommunications companies like Airtel, that are able to provide access to a pan-African wireless network, become a crucial part of expansion.”

Bharti Airtel CEO (International) and Joint MD Manoj Kohli said the company believed Rwanda was an “extremely promising market”; the launch further strengthened its footprint in eastern Africa.

“It will be our endeavour to bring world-class and affordable services to our customers in Rwanda and add value to the economy ... and we are committed to contributing to their aim of bridging the digital divide in the country.”

Airtel has also partnered with IBM in a move that will see IBM deploy and manage the information technology (IT) infrastructure and applications to support Airtel’s goal of providing innovative mobile services.

Steve Martin, IBM Vice President and Senior Project Executive, Airtel Africa, said Rwanda was an important market for IBM “and we are actively strengthening our local presence and increasing our ability to serve our customers and partners in the country”.

Ericsson, the world’s leading provider of services and technology to telecom operators, was selected to manage the network from end-to-end, including OSS/BSS solutions and managed services.

Lars Lindén, head of Region Sub-Saharan Africa for Ericsson, noted that the launch had set a record for the fastest greenfield launch in history in subSaharan Africa: “The inaugural call was placed on the system on March 7. It took just 83 days to build this network from the start.”

The project was using the latest Ericsson portfolio, and would be the first Airtel network designed as an all-IP solution. “That means Airtel will be able to provide advanced services to its subscribers, expand quickly to accommodate quick growth, and keep operating expenses down.”

Issue 24 AFRICA TELECOMS 9

N

News

Jasco bolsters customer base, annuity business with ARC Telecoms acquisition Jasco Electronics Holdings (The Jasco Group) has completed - for an undisclosed amount - the acquisition of ARC Telecoms, a converged voice and IP data telecommunications service provider specialising in the small medium enterprise (SME) sector of South Africa.

The acquisition will bolster Jasco’s customer base and annuity business, enabling the company to take its end-to-end offering to a broader local market. The entire ARC Telecoms entity will be incorporated into Jasco ICT Solutions.

CEO of The Jasco Group Pete da Silva said the purchase followed the group’s strategic intent of growth through “bolt-on” acquisitions.

“ARC Telecoms provides an offering that is complementary to the solutions and services already offered by The Jasco Group. We will now have access to ARC Telecoms’ customer base, which affords us the opportunity to take the entire Jasco portfolio spanning ICT Solutions, Industry Solutions and Energy Solutions to this base.”

Jasco appreciated that World of Avatar took on board the risk and incubated the start-up business from an entrepreneurial idea into an organisation of great interest to corporate South Africa. This type of growth was highly beneficial to the local economy, said Da Silva.

World of Avatar CEO Knott-Craig, Jr., said it had taken two years to help grow ARC Telecoms from a business plan into a fully-fledged mid-market converged telecoms and ISP business.

“Given the highly competitive industry the company operates in, it was the sensible option for shareholders to seek a large player in the telecoms market to partner with.”

10 AFRICA TELECOMS Issue 24

To this end, shareholders identified Jasco as an “excellent potential fit”.

Talks culminated in The Jasco Group acquiring 100% of the business.

According to Jasco ICT Solutions MD Mark van Vuuren there were “great synergies” between the existing Jasco ICT Solutions business and the offering delivered by ARC Telecoms.

“We…look forward to taking the integrated, end-to-end Jasco offering to ARC’s mid-market customer base.” ARC Telecoms boasts a business model that is entirely annuity revenue driven, in an area The Jasco Group has identified as one of strategic importance.

By becoming part of The Jasco Group, ARC Telecoms will benefit from the critical mass that a large, JSE-listed company delivers, providing ARC Telecoms’ customers with a sense of assurance. It will also enable them to leverage the high levels of skill the Group can offer as an established player in the telecoms market.

ARC Telecoms CEO Steve Briggs said the acquisition was the next logical step for the company, and was “a good fit” in terms of strategy, operations and infrastructure.

Briggs will step down as CEO, but will take up a strategic role within Jasco ICT Solutions in order to ensure continuity and assist to embed the acquisition. Paven Chetty will retain his position as ARC Telecoms MD. • ARC Telecoms was originally formed in April 2010 as a full Internet Service Provider (ISP) and telecoms provider to the South African mid-market. It was funded by majority shareholders World of Avatar venture capitalists, the brainchild of Knott-Craig, Jr., with additional shares owned by the management team.

N

System Integrator Kapsch enables Operators to Prevent Spam Attacks

News

Telekom Austria Group has selected Kapsch CarrierCom to integrate the Openet Policy Manager across six operating companies in Eastern Europe, allowing the six network operators to benefit from spam attack detection.

The deal was primed by Kapsch, and the company will serve as the system integrator and provide regional complementary services and support for the solution.

The six networks will, in addition, benefit from flexible bill shock prevention, as well as the implementation of requirements related to roaming regulation.

As the leading PCRF (Policy Control and Charging Rules Function) vendor, Openet offers Telekom Austria Group existing-use cases, cutting down on development effort and time. The deployment of Openet’s Policy Manager product will go live this year and makes it possible for approximately 19 million mobile subscribers to benefit from enriched and innovative services that will enhance customer experience.

Kapsch CarrierCom’s COO Thomas Schöpf explained that the company and Telekom Austria Group had been co-operating for several years: “The knowledge we have gained through providing regional services and support within our co-operation with Telekom Austria Group is crucial for the integration.”

Openet’s Policy Manager delivered “exceptional performance and flexibility” and was an ideal solution to enable a safe mobile experience for Telekom Austria Group’s operating companies. As the power of mobile devices and their data usage grew, it had become increasingly important for consumers to remain secure while using mobile services.

Ovum Sees Signs of Recovery as Telco Service Provider Revenues hit US$1.9 trillion in 2011 Thanks to a recovery in both fixed and mobile sectors, service provider revenues passed the US$1.91 trillion mark in 2011, compared to US$1.79 trillion in 2010, according to Ovum, a leading telecoms analyst firm. Carrier capex also rose in 2011, but late-year economic jitters depressed growth rates.

In a new Ovum report, Matt Walker, a principal analyst in Ovum’s Networks practice, said that economic worries had caused budget cuts late in the year, hitting SP capex. “Overall for 2011, capex grew 9% to US$306 billion, due to double-digit percentage growth in the first three quarters; capex declined 1% year-over-year (YoY) in 4Q11. Among the top 10 capex spenders were two from North America (AT&T, Verizon), China’s three big carriers, NTT, and four European operators with multinational operations (DT, Telefonica, Vodafone, and FT).”

Both revenues and capex for 2011 were in line with Ovum’s most recent forecast, “Service Provider Revenues and Capex Forecast Spreadsheet: 2011–17” (Dec 2011). Global SP capital intensity – or capex divided by revenues – was 16.0% for 2011, “also in line with our forecast”. Ovum expected the rate to eventually edge towards 15% over the next 5 years.

While the forecast was on target globally, some regions did underperform. Walker commented: “The only sizable 2011 surprise came in MEA, where actual revenues and capex were 10 and 7% lower than expected, respectively.”

This was due partly to political volatility at year-end which affected some carriers’ expansion plans. “On the other side, North America’s revenues were 2% above forecast, though weak 4Q capex by Verizon and Sprint pushed 2011 capex down 4% below forecast,” commented Walker.

He said signs had emerged in 2012 of a slowly improving economy, “and further improvement should help reach the revenue goal and capex growth targets of 3 and 6% respectively”.

Issue 24 AFRICA TELECOMS 11

N

News

TomTom Releases New Navigation app for iPhone and iPad Need an app that will lead you to the bakery and not give you a recipe for “bread”? The latest version has been released of TomTom’s app for iPhone and iPad, which helps drivers find nearby shops and restaurants.

In addition, “TomTom Places” will choose for you the best places to go.

“Searching with TomTom Places whilst on the move is a big time saver,” offered Gerard Hinds, Director: Mobile at TomTom. “For example, if you searched for ‘bread’ via a normal search engine, you’d be given recipes.

However, search with TomTom Places, and you’ll find a variety of places in the local area where you can actually buy bread. So there’s no need to sift through all that irrelevant information when you’re trying to find a place to go.”

The TomTom navigation app for iPhone and iPad fully supports social networks as a source for turn-by-turn navigation. The new version automatically plans routes based on information from Facebook events and places. Additionally, drivers can use the app to share their destination and arrival time on Twitter, Facebook, by email and by SMS text.

RAD Unveils Carrier Ethernet Service Aggregation Platform Conforming to Emerging CE 2.0 Specifications Operators can now substantially reduce their operational costs per Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) link, thanks to the launch of the ETX-5300A Ethernet Service Aggregation Platform, which grooms Ethernet and TDM traffic from the access network to the provider’s edge (PE).

Conforming to emerging Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) CE 2.0 specifications, the new device launched by RAD Data Communications offers a complete Carrier Ethernet ecosystem in combination with RAD’s popular demarcation NTUs (NIDs).

“It’s almost magic what our engineers were able to do with this device,” enthused Amir Karo, Vice-President of Marketing at RAD Data Communications.

“RAD has applied its wide experience and technological expertise in access networks to design a central-site Carrier Ethernet solution tailor-made for pre-aggregation in larger networks but equally able to be deployed as a service hub in smaller operations or private networks,” he said. “And we’ve addressed the ‘sweet spot’ for operators requiring full-blown functionality and high-port capacity but packaged in a small-form factor box that uses less than half the

12 AFRICA TELECOMS Issue 24

power consumption than any competitive product in the market.”

Heavy Reading senior analyst Stan Hubbard explained that RAD’s ETX-5300A was the type of solution “that defines a next-generation Carrier Ethernet access/ aggregation platform optimized for converging business, wholesale and mobile backhaul services onto a single, operationally efficient network infrastructure”.

Its high port density, hierarchical traffic management features, synchronization solution set, 10GE ring support, and smooth service and network management integration with other ethernet access platforms in RAD’s portfolio should resonate well with network operators looking to address a variety of applications, he said.

“Service providers are looking to minimize costs and accomplish as much as possible with minimal equipment, in order to address current market pressures, according to Erin Dunne, Director of Research Services at Vertical Systems Group. “With that in mind, their needs are best addressed by systems that intelligently aggregate and manage the most ethernet traffic at the lowest cost and smallest footprint.”

N

News

Movius to Unveil Global Solution for Service Providers Searching for Fast, Innovative Telecom 2.0 Applications.

CTIA Wireless in New Orleans will be the setting for next month’s unveiling of a new Communication Applications Framework Engine (CAFÉ) that enables service providers to offer a constant flow of new, relevant applications to their end-users in an affordable, rapid and Cloud-ready environment.

A product of Movius Interactive Corporation, a communication applications player, CAFÉ, which also acts as a social media interface, represents a breakthrough for operators looking to harness the power of the converging world of telecommunications and the internet by generating revenues from new applications that can be delivered quickly, to worldclass standards of performance and reliability, and that are also scalable, according to Movius. “They can utilise either the service provider’s own network, or Cloud.”

Dominic Gomez, Movius President and CEO, said that what was being unveiled at CTIA publicly for the first time was “a real game-changer” for service providers. “CAFÉ … will put them back in the driver’s seat with their application-hungry customers and give them the chance to truly significantly boost their revenue and increase customer satisfaction.”

The company had drawn on its many years of experience – involving the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia – to design and develop the product.

CAFÉ’s software-based architecture is designed to effectively handle real-time communications while reducing the cost and time needed to create, deploy and monetize new applications.

Designed for adaptability, the Applications Development Kit (ADK) on CAFÉ supports emerging and existing specifications and interfaces as well as easy integration to a service provider’s infrastructure.

Amit Modi, Senior Vice-President and General Manager: Products, Services and Technology at Movius, said that with the growing demand for personalization and in an era where messaging was more relevant than ever, the CAFÉ multimodal multimedia messaging architecture enabled service providers to give the end-user greater command and control.

CAFÉ’s high port density, scalable and multi-tenanted architecture allows for significant OPEX savings, helps to reduce carbon footprinting and provide a greener deployment, he said. The combination of Cloud technology and virtualization available through CAFÉ drastically changed the application lifecycle by allowing service providers to quickly create and teardown applications depending on market fit.

A single window for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and email information, and two phone personas on a single mobile phone - one for personal calls and one for business calls – are among CAFÉ’s features.

Issue 24 AFRICA TELECOMS 13

N

News

WD Gives MAC Users the First 2 TB Portable Hard Drive for all Their Digital Content The first 2 TB capacity portable drive dedicated to Mac customers - that allows users one drive for the protection and transport of virtually all their digital content everywhere - has been released by Western Digital.

My Passport Studio sets a new standard in high storage capacity and sports Apple Time Machine compatibility for quick and easy automatic backup of Mac hard drives.

It maintains its elegant and protective all-metal casing to complement the MacBook Pro or MacBook Air, providing the attractive aesthetic that Mac users have come to expect, while increasing storage capacity to 2 TB - enough space for approximately 400 000 photos, 240 hours of video or 500 000 songs.

“In addition to the USB 2.0 interface,” said Anamika Budree, WD Country Manager, SA, “My Passport Studio’s two high-performance FireWire 800 ports makes it perfect for active and mobile creative professionals - including photographers,

14 AFRICA TELECOMS Issue 24

videographers, graphic artists and others who need the speed, capacity and flexibility - to access content anytime or anywhere. The dual FireWire ports provide blazing fast upload and transfer speeds while also allowing users to daisy chain additional drives or other peripherals such as HD camcorders.”

Other features include hardware-based encryption and password protection software, scratch resistance and an all-metal design constructed for a sturdy feel.

Jody Bradshaw, senior director and general manager of WD’s consumer storage products group, said the portable drive was a perfect companion for the MacBook Pro and for creative professionals on the go. “For those who create large content files such as photographers and videographers, they will now be able to carry it with them wherever they go, as well as create a backup copy of everything they produce without fear of running out of additional storage while on location.”

N

News

New Broadband Commission Climate Report Confirms Technology is the Key to a Low-Carbon Future Broadband can help transition the world towards a low-carbon economy and address the causes and effects of climate change, according to a new report just released by the Broadband Commission for Digital Development.

The Broadband Bridge: Linking ICT with Climate Action is the result of work conducted by the Broadband Commission Working Group on Climate Change chaired by Hans Vestberg, President and CEO of Ericsson, and comprising several members of the Commission, representing industry, international organisations, and NGOs. The report aims to raise awareness of the pivotal role information and communication technology (ICT), and particularly broadband networks, can play in helping to create a low-carbon economy of the future, and highlights the importance of public-private partnerships in accelerating change. It is based on interviews, case studies and supporting material from more than 20 leaders and experts in the field.

Building on the agreements achieved at the 2011 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP-17), the report emphasizes the kind of transformative solutions enabled by broadband. It provides practical examples of how broadband can contribute to reducing greenhouse gasses (GHGs), mitigating and adapting to the effects of climate change, and promoting resource efficiency, while simultaneously building more prosperous and inclusive societies.

Commenting in the wake of the report, ITU Secretary-General Dr Hamadoun Touré observed that addressing climate change “implies completely transforming our way of life, the way we work, the way we travel, shifting our model of development to a fairer, more sustainable model to ensure our survival. We need to put at stake all the resources available to us, and mobilize the political will to turn discussions and negotiations into agreements and actions.”

An earnest Hans Vestberg said that the understanding of the benefits of broadband was at a global tipping point.

“Its role in GDP growth, in enabling the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and offsetting the effects of climate change is just now starting to be understood, because finally the deployment is there and the benefits can be realized.

“In today’s economic climate, societies need to develop, and with a solutions-driven approach to climate change, we can accelerate a new type of green growth while supporting global sustainable development goals.”

In the lead-up to the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in June, the report presents 10 recommendations

from the Broadband Commission for policymakers and global leaders to hasten and strengthen the power of ICT and broadband to accelerate global progress towards a low-carbon economy: 1. Lead with vision: Adopt a long-term National Broadband Plan/Strategy based on universal affordability and accessibility, open markets and innovation, and consciously connect this to climate goals.

2. Bring convergence: Bring convergence to ICT policy formulation so that it aligns with other policy areas such as energy, health, education and climate in order to maximize impact.

3. Ensure regulatory certainty: Ensure clear regulatory rules and regulations on climate and broadband to create a framework of investment certainty.

4. Be an example: Drive cross-ministry collaboration and integrated decision-making to align climate and digital goals, and use government procurement to send the right market signals.

5. Foster flexibility: Identify and remove the regulatory and policy barriers currently hindering research and investment in 21st century ICT-based broadband-enabled infrastructure and low-carbon solutions.

6. Provide incentives: Encourage uptake of low-carbon solutions and support market change by rewarding or incentivizing desired consumer behaviours. Spur innovation among individuals, companies and sectors.

7. Build the market: Fund and facilitate scalable pilots to demonstrate feasibility and effectiveness of broadband as an enabler of low-carbon solutions and build a strong business case to attract private investment.

8. Form partnerships: Cultivate connectivity and “co-creativity” across public, private and non-governmental sectors and industries to help to develop a collaborative mindset, shared goals and a common language, and to help break down silos.

9. Measure and standardize: Develop harmonized metrics and measurements and common standards for calculating both the environmental impacts of ICTs and the positive contribution technology can make to other sectors – from individual products to systems, and from individual households to the city and/or national levels.

10. Share knowledge and raise awareness: Actively disseminate project findings, share best practice and learn from mistakes to identify success factors and facilitate leapfrogging, especially among less developed markets. Communicate the opportunities and synergies that can be achieved through an integrated, trans-sector approach to digital development infrastructure and low-carbon solutions.

Issue 24 AFRICA TELECOMS 15

N

News

Orange Launches @first, the First Comprehensive Anti-fraud Offer to Protect Operators’ Revenues The first fully-integrated wholesale offer providing extensive protection for telecoms operators against fraudulent interconnect and revenue leakage has been launched by Orange.

The global network operator with broad-ranging expertise in telecommunication security calls the offer @first, which it said is an acronym for Anti Fraud Interconnect Roaming and Security of Transactions.

It is designed to provide operators with protection against fraudulent interaction with networks for on-net and off-net calls, as well as additional services such as revenue assurance and security of transactions.

The company said the telecom industry had become a prime target of criminal organisations due to the complexity of network infrastructure, and in particular the way in which different networks interacted with each other. “Indeed, the wide range of interconnection equipment between different operators’ networks and the lack of visibility over the exact route that calls take has made it possible for criminals to exploit weaknesses in the system,” it said.

A particularly well-known example was SIM-box fraud in which international calls are filtered through national SIM cards, allowing companies to illegally bypass the call termination charges.

“This has now become a global issue that costs the industry billions of dollars every year as increasingly sophisticated techniques are used.

But in addition to threatening operator’s revenue streams, fraud is also

16 AFRICA TELECOMS Issue 24

causing considerable damage to operators’ reputations by degrading quality of service.” This was a particular challenge in a context where the quality of service is a crucial factor in increasing customer loyalty regarding traditional services as well as new ones, including payment services.

Alexandre Pébereau, Executive Vice-President for International Carriers at Orange, noted that , due to the highly interdependent nature of operators in the wholesale market, operators needed to work closely together to end the growing fraud phenomenon. “Operators need to take collective action to develop both technical and legal means to protect their interconnect revenue,” he said.

The flexibility of the @first solution allowed operators to build the customized protection they need, based on four modules offering various combinations for an optimal level of protection: • Bypass detection - against fraudulent interconnect; • Quality of service - traffic analysis and interconnect monitoring; • Revenue assurance - securing revenue from leakage and monitoring billing errors; and • Security of transactions - controlling mobile airtime’s integrity and money transfers.

The product further allowed end-to-end monitoring of rating or billing errors through smart and powerful reconciliation tools, and could be combined with operators’ existing anti-fraud solutions.

N

News

MasterCard Introduces Secure and Convenient Mobile Payment Platform – MasterCard Mobile Online shoppers stand to gain greater access, convenience and security from the recent collaboration between MasterCard and local mobile-centric payments and financial services company Oltio.

The two have introduced MasterCard Mobile, a payment platform that will enable MasterCard and Maestro cardholders to use their PIN-based debit, cheque or credit cards issued

by Absa, Nedbank and Standard Bank, and payment by mobile phone, for online purchases.

It will enable Maestro cardholders to make secure online purchases for the first time.

“It’s a convenient and cost-effective payment mechanism that doesn’t require customers to open yet another bank account,” according to Terry Timson, CEO of Oltio.

The results of the latest MasterCard Worldwide Online Shopping Survey showed that online shopping had increased significantly in South Africa. Fifty-eight percent of respondents said they used the Internet for shopping, with price, convenience and security being the key factors considered when an online purchasing decision was made, said Timson.

Gartner says Worldwide Software-as-a-Service Revenue to Reach $14.5 Billion in 2012 Worldwide software-as-a-service (SaaS) revenue is forecast to reach $14.5 billion in 2012, a 17.9% increase from 2011 revenue of $12.3 billion, according to Gartner, Inc. SaaS-based delivery will experience healthy growth to 2015, when worldwide revenue is projected to reach $22.1 billion.

“After more than a decade of use, adoption of SaaS continues to grow and evolve regionally within the enterprise application markets,” said Sharon Mertz, Research Director at Gartner. “Increasing familiarity with the SaaS model, continued oversight on IT budgets, the growth of platform as a service (PaaS) developer communities and interest in cloud computing are now driving adoption forward.”

Gartner defines total software revenue as revenue from new licenses, subscriptions, and software maintenance and technical support services that include license sales to update/upgrade an existing license to a new version, telephone support and on-site remedial support. SaaS is primarily a software delivery and management approach that exists in established markets, such as CRM or ERP. Although growing interest has been observed in vertical-specific software, the most widespread use is still characterised by horizontal applications with common processes, among distributed virtual workforces and within web 2.0 activities.

“The top issues encountered when deploying SaaS vary by region,” Mertz said, adding that “limited flexibility of customization” and “limited integration to existing systems” were the primary reasons in North America. “In EMEA,

network instability is the issue most frequently encountered, whereas longerthan-expected deployments are the top issue in Asia/Pacific. Vendors are more aggressively pursuing SaaS buyers outside traditional markets by offering local-language availability, forming alliances and constructing data centres to accommodate local requirements.”

North America, specifically the U.S., currently represents the largest opportunity for SaaS, and it is the most mature of the regional markets. SaaS software revenue is forecast to total US$9.1 billion in 2012, up from US$7.8 billion in 2011. Consistent with other regions, North America shows the highest SaaS deployments in expense management, financials, email and office suites.

Use of web conferencing is higher in North America than in other regions, in part because of a highly distributed workforce.

SaaS revenue in Asia/Pacific is on track to reach US$934.1 million in 2012, up from US$730.9 million in 2011. But overall, SaaS adoption in Asia/Pacific has been fragmented. Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) is a combination of mature markets, such as Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan, and emerging markets, including China, India, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines. SaaS financial (accounting) applications are most popular, particularly in China and India. The next-highest SaaS usage is for enterprise resource planning (ERP) functions - such as expense management and employee performance management - followed by office suites, email and the customer relationship management (CRM) sales function.

Issue 24 AFRICA TELECOMS 17

Gadgets Africa Telecoms is always in the know when it comes to the hottest gadgets and devices.

Apple’s new iPad Rating: hhh Price: From R 4 999 NEED TO KNOW: • • • •

The third generation of Apple’s market-leading tablet Faster graphics processor, higher resolution screen and camera LTE option Same battery life as iPad 2 Apple’s iPad has been the proverbial benchmark in the tablet market for some time now. But, with the arrival of the new iPad (yes, seriously, that’s what Apple’s official name for the device is) some chinks are showing in the seemingly impenetrable armour. While the new iPad is a great device, commentary from the market is that it may not be enough for Apple to maintain its lead.

18 AFRICA TELECOMS Issue 24

If you think about it, Apple’s only made three real changes to its previous design, namely a higher resolution screen (and accompanying improvements to the graphics processor), the addition of an LTE modem and a higher resolution camera. And we’d argue that the last of these is a non-entity, since few people make use of the iPad’s camera; chances are they’d have a smartphone (with a pretty decent camera) if they owned a tablet. As in most cases, there’s very little correlation between market sentiment and the performance of Apple’s product sales/share price.

In the first weekend it was available, the new iPad ‘s sales outperformed the previous generations of iPad, and it just keeps on going. With arguably better devices available now, there’s bound to be a shake-up sooner or later and it will be worthwhile watching the market, if for no other reason.

Nike+ Fuelband Rating: hhhh Price: From US$ 149 NEED TO KNOW: • • • •

The new must-have fitness gadget Tracks movement, calculates steps/calories Driven by cloud services An open API means tons of new features coming soon Wearable sensor technology is still in its infancy, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun with it while it evolves. And perfect testimony to this is borne out

by Nike’s latest innovation, a good-looking, wearable and water-resistant pedometer called the Fuelband.

People who have experimented with the Fuelband (it’s still a pretty rare commodity item, due to its limited availability) will tell you it’s so much more than a pedometer.

Hardware-wise it’s nothing more than a well-connected motion sensor. The real magic comes through the close integration Nike has created between the hardware and the cloud.

When you set your Fuelband up, you tell the cloud service (nikeplus.com) all about your weight, height, gender, etc and define an ideal activity level.

That detail is then downloaded onto the Fuelband and used to calculate your daily ability to accumulate ‘Fuel’ – the interlingua Nike has invented to allow people with different preferred exercise types (walking, running, basketball, skateboarding) to compare their performance level.

Because the Fuelband charges over USB, you have to plug it into a computer regularly. And that’s when the collected movement data is uploaded into the cloud and used to give you some insight into your activities and reward you for reaching your goals.

Things get really interesting when you mash this functionality up with Facebook, where you can face-off with your Fuelband-equipped friends and challenge each other.

Incredibly fun and addictive, the Fuelband is just the start. Nike has opened the API to the Fuelband up to third-party developers, so how it develops in future is really in the community’s hands.

Native Union POP Phone Rating: hhhh Price: From US$ 40 NEED TO KNOW: • • • •

Retro-style handsfree kit Available in a range of eye-catching colours High-quality mic/speaker make call quality great Ergonomically designed for maximum comfort

Hipster culture is taking the world by storm. But, just because things look cool and ironic, doesn’t mean they have to be without function.

Take the Native Union POP Phone, for example.

Yes, it’s ironic and retro.

But, it’s also one of the most comfortable ways to use your smartphone while simultaneously protecting yo u from the harmful radiation these devices are said to emit. The sound quality on both ends is also astounding.

The POP phone incorporates a high-quality microphone and speaker.

Cool-in more ways than one. The POP turns heads while turning up the functionality.

Issue 24 AFRICA TELECOMS 19

iPhone Lens kit Rating: hhhhh Price: US$ 50 NEED TO KNOW: • Choice of lenses adds fun/function • High quality glass makes for great results • Sturdy construction adds durability They say the best camera in the world is the one you have with you at the time. And the new range of add-on iPhone lenses from Photojojo (photojojo.com) endorses that idea wholeheartedly.

After all, there’s only so much one person can do with software before there are just not enough pixels to go round. Photojojo’s lenses natively give ‘iPhoneographers’ a range of cool effects while ensuring there’s no shortage of pixels in the image recorded.

Easily snapped on and off an iPhone 4 or 4S, the results are really astounding.

Choose from a Telephoto, Wide-angle/Macro or Fisheye lens at between US$20 and US$25 each, or buy the lot for US$49.00.

Nokia Lumia 610 Rating: hhh Price: R 4 999 NEED TO KNOW: • • • •

First of the ‘cheaper’ Windows Phone 7.5 ‘devices’ Legendary Nokia build quality Navigation and Music features included Funky colour schemes designed to appeal to youth market

The world’s skeptics raised an interested eyebrow when Nokia unveiled its first two Windows Phone devices, namely the Lumia 800 and 710 at Nokia World in London during September last year.

They lifted another eyebrow in January this year when the company showed off the Lumia 900 to the US market at CES, the world’s biggest electronics show.

And a couple of weeks ago, they truly began taking notice when the fourth device, Nokia’s Lumia 610, which is designed for the emerging market, made its debut at Mobile World in Barcelona.

While the 900 is the flagship model that’s crammed with features, the 610 is the model that’s going to give Nokia the numbers to make Windows Phone a success.

Subscribing to Microsoft’s newer, less demanding system requirements for Windows Phone, the 610 has a scaled down memory volume of 256MB of RAM; a 480 x 800 pixel, 3.7-inch screen that’s not the brightest (but more than adequate) and a 5MP camera (capable of 720p video recording).

Those scaled down specifications allow Nokia to make the price for this device extremely aggressive (under US$200).

Those hardware limitations also don’t matter a bit, since the 610 manages to remain snappy, responsive and quite competent in everyday use. This leads us to believe it will be a firm favourite with the youth segment and the lower-end market, where the real numbers are.

20 AFRICA TELECOMS Issue 24

Samsung GalaxyNote Rating: hhhh Price: R 5799 NEED TO KNOW: • • • • •

Cross between a smartphone and a tablet’s form factor Stunning 5.3-inch screen Included stylus for easy note-taking Full suite of stylus-based applications Crammed with top-end features

Challenging the conventional wisdom on what size a smartphone and tablet should be, the Galaxynote is designed to offer the best of both worlds.

On the one hand, it’s a fantastically well-specified Android 2.3 smartphone with a 1.4GHz dual core processor, 21Mbps data capability, 8MP camera and 16GB of built-in Flash storage.

On the other hand, its 5.3-inch HD Super AMOLED screen with 1280 x 800 pixel resolution makes it a worthy replacement for some entry-level tablets on the market.

Throw into the mix the Smart Pen stylus it developed with Wacom and the number of purpose-built stylus-centric applications and you have a somewhat unique device that shouldn’t really have a place in the market, but somehow does.

Business people enjoy the increased screen real estate when it comes to viewing and interacting with rich data sources in the form of presentations, PDF documents and web pages, without having to carry a larger form factor device around.

For multimedia fanatics, it’s all about the size and vibrancy of the device’s screen.

For some users, however, the fact that the 5.3-inch screen is just too big to be used with one hand is a dealbreaker.

Largely, however, opinions on the device are positive.

Samsung is taking the usefulness of the Note a step further by encouraging developers to build third-party applications that make use of the unique combination of larger screen and stylus.

The results are proving quite interesting. And with the touch screen and stylus combination making its way onto Samsung’s 10.1-inch devices, the incentive for developers is indeed strong.

Issue 24 AFRICA TELECOMS 21

Statistics Stats relating to Satellite and Fibre in Africa

Total Cellular Connections across Africa in Q2 2012 Source: Wireless Intelligence

western Africa

209 000connections 000

northern Africa

66%

215 000connections 000

17%

penetration

penetration

100%

annual growth

14%

annual growth middle Africa

55 000connections 000

eastern Africa

144 000 000

41%

connections

penetration

25%

42%

penetration

southern Africa

annual growth

77 000connections 000 131%

penetration

26%

annual growth

21%

annual growth

Submarine Cable Construction Costs by Region, 2010-2013 Source: TeleGeography

Construction Costs(USD billions)

Africa Asia Europe-Asia Latin America & Caribbean Mediterranean Middle-East LOceania Other Trans-Atlantic Trans-Pacific 22 AFRICA TELECOMS Issue 24

2010-2011 2012-2013

700,000,000

Median STM-1 Monthly Lease Prices in Africa, Q4 2011 Source: TeleGeography

19% 26m

Abidjan-London

Lagos-London

Johannesburg-London

0

total cellular connections across Africa in Q2 2012

London-Nairobi

Median Monthly Lease Price (USD)

$ 80 000

International Bandwidthe Usage (Gbps)

Middle East and North Africa International Bandwidth Usage, 2007-2011 (Gbps) Source: TeleGeography 3 000 Northern Africa Middle East

2008

2009

2010

$8 66% Penetration

Monthly ARPU

96% Prepaid

Total Market

0 2007

Quarterly Additions

Annual Growth

3G 12%

2011

Sub-Saharan International Bandwidth Usage, 2007-2011 (Gbps) Source: TeleGeography

200

2G 88%

International Bandwidth Usage Annual Growth

lte <1% Annual Growth

Used International Bandwidth (Gbps)

120%

3G Market

ev-do 8% 12% cdma2000 1x

wcdma hspa 45%

wcdma 35% 0

0% 2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

Source: Wireless Intelligence Issue 24 AFRICA TELECOMS 23

TL

Thought Leadership

24 AFRICA TELECOMS Issue 24

TL

Thought Leadership

An African

Lifeline

By Brett Haggard An undersea cable carrying packets of data traffic between Africa and the rest of the world sounds like something that would excite only telcos, Internet service providers and possibly the technology heads of the largest enterprises on the continent.

Ironically, though, mention the word “Seacom” to anyone anywhere in Africa with an Internet connection, and there’s a good chance faces will light up with joy.

That’s not a normal reaction.

Considering how dire the connectivity situation was from both a price and a quality of service perspective before it arrived in Africa, it’s really no wonder that Seacom has a brand that’s so well known at grass-roots level.

At its core, Seacom’s mass appeal lies in the fact that it was the first open-access cable the continent had seen.

Prior to its arrival, only companies investing in an undersea cable project could derive benefits from it, and were at liberty to charge exorbitant prices to third parties for the use of that cable.

For the average man in the street, this meant that there was virtually no hope for more cost-effective (and speedy) Internet connectivity.

And, what’s more worrying, for the business sector it meant the receding likelihood of foreign investment, outsourcing to Africa and the ability to make use of opportunities available in the international market.

Issue 24 AFRICA TELECOMS 25

TL

Thought Leadership Immediate impact

When it launched, Seacom’s presence was felt immediately.

It allowed for uncapped Internet services to be launched where there was no such service previously.

It also allowed for foreign companies to explore their expansion into one of the most exciting emerging market regions in the world.And it allowed for the landscape to become more competitive.

One would think that in the years that have passed since Seacom came online, a string of similar projects would have followed. But, even though new cables have been laid, none of them have been as open - and therefore as impactful - as Seacom.

To this day, each time a hiccup is experienced on Seacom, the effects are felt throughout the continent. Thankfully, those hiccups are becoming less commonplace.

Seacom’s goals, are about more than delivering shortterm gains.

The next phase

Mark Simpson, who was appointed Seacom CEO in August last year, says the real challenges lie in building out the terrestrial infrastructure required to extend the positive impact of Seacom inland, both to the countries it touches and those neighbouring, landlocked countries that are bandwidth-starved.

“The situation is improving, however, and there’s a great deal of investment going into the fibre builds that deliver on this goal, in South Africa and other African countries.

“And this can only improve over the next couple of years,” he says.

Along with the maturation of the technology, Simpson says that the parties involved were doing a better job at figuring out what’s involved in these kinds of projects and how best to make the technology work for them and their customers.

“Infrastructure needs to be built up piece by piece and, while we’re getting a good chunk of international capacity through Seacom, we can’t focus on the quality of the undersea network alone.”

To supplement the experience, caching solutions for content, localised datacentres and other solutions were key.

“But these also depend on the quality of the network,” he admits, and says that many of the plans to get fibre backbones and this kind of infrastructure in place are going well.

The good thing is that the ICT industry is considering things from an IP-enablement perspective and when that’s the plan, it makes little difference what technology – fibre, satellite and others – the backbone is running on.

26 AFRICA TELECOMS Issue 24

Active across the value chain

Because it’s constantly evolving, Seacom is an exciting megaproject to be involved with at present, says Simpson.

“As the first new cable system in a while, and a privately owned one at that, Seacom was a game-changer when it first arrived. Now, as we look at how we can participate in the development of the Internet in Africa and its ICT industry, we’re keen to play a role in the rest of the infrastructure the continent needs.

“We don’t just want to be defined by a single asset.”

For this reason, he says he sees Seacom taking stronger positions on a pan-African basis when it comes to other cable systems and building out the core international network.

“We’re also doing work on contributing to and building out the rest of the infrastructure required to deliver a great experience. That means terrestrial fibre projects, datacentre participation and driving more content into Africa.

“We’re also doing what we can to enable small-to-mediumsized businesses spring up and grow around this environment and, more specifically, to get them the tools – virtual servers, storage and processing power – they need in order to develop the way they should.”

While Simpson doesn’t speak about specific brands Seacom is working with, he does confirm that the company recently started putting in place a new service offering that delivers some virtualised, cloud-based service.

“We’re trying these with some key customers and, if successful, will be looking towards putting more of that in place.

“It will not only enable offshore content providers to get into Africa, but also enable African content to be distributed and pushed upstream.”

While he says Seacom will continue doing all of this at a wholesale level – dealing with businesses that on sell services to customers – he emphasises that it’s important to develop the ecosystem.

Africa has its own challenges

Before taking up his role at Seacom, Simpson was in charge of operating a cable system that crossed the Pacific, from Japan to the United States.

While he says that many elements of the technology were the same, from a markets and geography perspective things were quite different.

“There’s an obvious difference from a market maturity perspective,” he says, “but also challenges like having to deal with the issues faced by landlocked countries.”

However, Africa’s current situation was similar to where Asia was 12 years ago, where the job focused very heavily on

TL

Thought Leadership introducing infrastructure and then implementing it.

“The difference is that with Africa there are many more borders to cross and a very different regulatory environment to deal with.”

Apart from the regulatory challenges, Simpson says there are varying degrees of understanding and commitment to deal with.

“Generally speaking, however, things are very impressive.

I’ve been surprised by some governments’ level of understanding and commitment to getting the infrastructure in,” he says.

Something he says Seacom has had to contend with quite often is the debate between whether fibre or satellite should be utilized for the laying of backbone infrastructure.

“And quite frankly, it’s not an apples versus apples comparison. As a carrier providing large capacity, we obviously look more towards doing that with fibre. But it would be silly to ignore the capabilities of satellite when it comes to more quickly servicing the inland areas where connectivity doesn’t exist right now, or provide reach to customers for private links.

In Asia, we often ended up providing blended services to customers, or, where resilience and diversity of technology is important, making use of a combination of fibre and satellite, especially when it comes to backup connectivity, last mile connectivity, IP VPNs or similar services.

“We continue to work with satellite providers on how better we can integrate with them, and how we can create better connectivity together. These efforts are ongoing and we think wireless is useful, especially for the last mile.

“You really can’t cut any particular technology out of the mix when you look at some of the geographies we’re trying to service in Africa.”

“The answer is yes for both,” Simpson says.

“We’re constantly looking at our upgrade cycle and matching that up to some of the demands in the market. We have some inventory left, but we’re also finalising some upgrades.

“Right now, some of the newer technology – 40Gbps and 100Gbps, respectively – are more stable and make more sense with the length and complexity of the cable system. Those technologies change some of the economics which, in turn, change some of the services we can add in.”

With the newer technologies, Seacom can accommodate more in a smaller space, with better value and reliability.

“It’s the nature of the subsea and fibre industry.

“When you first instal it, you have a notional idea of how much you can light. As you upgrade it, you realise you can do so much more with it,” Simpson adds.

And what of 100Gbps?

The issues exist on the customer end of the equation, he says.

“One needs to separate what’s happening on the network from what customers want. There aren’t many customers looking for 100Gbps right now.

“Currently, we tend to use 40Gbps and 100Gbps for the undersea portion of the network and break it out to 10Gbps for the terrestrial portion of the network.

“But, in the coming years, this will almost certainly change.

“What Seacom will ensure is that it can cater for those customer demands and use the underlying technology to deliver.

It’s going to be a few years before anyone really needs 100GBps directly.”

The question of capacity

With the impact Seacom has made on the African market thus far, the question everyone seems to be asking is whether it has capacity in reserve at present and whether it’s actively working on securing more capacity.

‘‘

‘‘

40Gbps and100Gbps, respectively – are more stable and make more sensewith the length and complexity of the cable system

Issue 24 AFRICA TELECOMS 27

TL

Thought Leadership

Market expansion

Market expansion is an “obvious” given, according to Simpson.

“As we look to take a broader position to serve some of the West coast markets, we’ve been doing a great deal of work to continually enhance our IP network.

“Our experience has been that it’s increasingly an IP world,” he says, “and this realisation will enable so much growth in the future. We can provide a lot of flexibility on ethernet instead of having to change interfaces.”

Another area of market expansion will involve the kind of services Seacom will offer in the long-term - and that means its infrastructure platform and software as a service.

“If we want to push networks more inland and be closer to customers, we will need data datacentres, Internet Exchanges and to encourage the big content players to make a move into Africa.

“We will continue to do some things that have made us successful, like leveraging our ability to move faster as a private operator, build out diversity of the network and improve the quality of service.

“But this also includes how we support our customers, and not just in what happens when something breaks, but how we can help them do what they want to do better, helping them plan better and configure their solutions better.”

Managing expectations

So, does Simpson think it’s possible for every African to have full broadband connectivity to the tune of the more developed world?

Surprisingly, his answer is a sobering “no”.

“There are, quite frankly, too many issues outside of what carriers like Seacom can have influence over.

“There are too many geopolitical issues and the broadband that’s available today is not the same as what’s available in the rest of the world.

“I think we will see a large uptake in Internet penetration and we will see an improvement in the amount of bandwidth people can get their hands on in the home data and mobile voice space.”

Simpson says that, as we see better 3G networks being introduced, there was a question about who, from a socio-economic challenges point of view, gained access.

And, as usual, critical factors included the type of mobile devices, their price point and capabilities.

From a corporate social responsibility perspective, says Simpson, Seacom wanted to do more to drive Internet adoption and broadband penetration, but to do so in kind and not simply with funding.

“Much of the funding we currently contribute centres on ICT development and skills creation.

“Sometimes this is done through subsidised high-speed connectivity into innovation hubs, which are growing quickly in Africa. We also offer heavily discounted capacity where it will be used for government education facilities, university networks and the like.

“Right now there are some wonderful things being done with minimal bandwidth and little resource. And we want to help alleviate some of that pain, so that a lack of connectivity isn’t a burden AT

‘‘

Simpson says that, as we see better 3G networks being introduced,there was a question about who, from a socioeconomicchallenges point of view, gained access.

‘‘

28 AFRICA TELECOMS Issue 24

MIDDLE EAST

ASIA

AFRICA

Jabiru-1

“New” capacity to

high demand regions

high powered Ka-band coverage “raw” capacity and flexible payloads multi-spot, regional and steerable beams

For more information Telephone +61 3 9674 4688

Email sales@newsat.com

Website newsat.com

All images are for illustration purposes only. Satellite coverage zones and technical specifications are subject to change and are for general guidance only. Terms and conditions apply. For more information go to newsat.com or call +61 3 9674 4688. ©2012 NewSat Ltd ABN 12 003 237 303.

Connecting the Unconnected

30 AFRICA TELECOMS Issue 24

by Chipo Ngongoni African ICT Research Analyst for Frost & Sullivan

Through Space: Using Satellite Technology for Rural Expansion.

Over the last few years, the drastic decline in voice revenues has spurred service providers to look into data offerings to increase revenues. When it comes to broadband connectivity, Africa is still lagging behind, with the sub-Saharan market accounting for less than a cumulative 1.9% of broadband penetration in terms of subscriptions. A 2010 World Bank study by the Global Information and Communication Technologies (GICT) Department found that for every 10% increase in broadband connectivity, there is a 1.3% increase in GDP. Over 70% of the African population are located in rural areas, making the expansion and connectivity of broadband technologies cumbersome for service providers. The African terrain is diverse and mountainous; great strides in broadband expansion ideally requires collaboration between different backhaul technologies.

Political instability also affects terrestrial infrastructure expansion.

The use of satellite technology as a last-mile technology is still prevalent, due to its versatility. Satellite connectivity is important, due to the continentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s size making it impossible to cover vast areas through the use of fibre technology. Fibre is well covered in the urban population; therefore expansion of network services in the rural areas provides a business opportunity for network operators and backhaul connectivity providers.

Satellite technology is currently more expensive than terrestrial wireless access, but it is easier to deploy over widespread and remote areas and far cheaper to maintain than other technologies.

There are a number of geostationary satellites currently serving the African continent. Very Small Aperture Terminals (VSATs) serve rural business areas through ATMs that deliver banking services to rural areas. A classic example is the Nigerian market, which is one of the largest telecommunications markets in Africa. The country still presents huge opportunities for mobile operators, with further growth envisaged. Etisalat has about 74 million subscribers across 18 countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. It serves Africa with more than 47 transponders and carries more satellite cellular backhaul in Africa than any other operator.

Generally, it may seem that satellite connectivity is lagging behind, compared to other backhaul technologies like fibre, but

the inverse is actually true. Satellite dishes have become more compact and powerful in recent years. Thus, more households in rural areas are installing satellite dishes to access television programming. Furthermore, there is still massive investment in satellite technology, with service providers and technology vendors looking for satellite-related opportunities.

In 2011, the New Dawn satellite project, born through a joint venture between Intelsat and Convergence Partners consortium, had over 60% of its transmission capacity already sold. Companies such as Vodacom, Gateway Communications Africa, Bharti Airtel Nigeria and Gilat Satcom have bought satellite capacity from the New Dawn satellite. Econet wireless has even gone a step further and has a subsidiary called Liquid Telecom, a data, voice and IP provider making great strides in utilising satellite and fibre technology as last-mile technologies. Liquid Telecom utilises the Viasat Linkastar satellite hub architecture. Capacity is maintained on Intelesat W2A for coverage over Southern Africa. The company owns and operates multiple satellite ground facilities in the United Kingdom, Botswana, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Somalia, Burundi, Niger and Kenya through three satellite transponders.

Nevertheless, all this connectivity does not necessarily mean that cheaper bandwidth prices are on the way, though competition is set to be stimulated.

The aim of such projects is to ensure that dedicated satellites catering for Africa are accessible to service providers and network operators. This assists in the delivery of wireless backhaul services, broadband and television programming through satellites. What makes this fundamentally important is when a satellite is launched into space; the orbit is clearly laid out for the particular purpose.

Satellites with orbits dedicated to Africa greatly reduce the rate of latency that has always been associated with satellite connectivity, increasing the reliability of the technology. Of course, it is difficult to eliminate latency with geostationary satellites, but mitigation can be achieved through internet communications that aim to shorten the round trip time of a packet of data. Nigeria, Algeria and South Africa are some of the African countries that have made great strides in launching satellites into orbit. Investing in satellite Issue 24 AFRICA TELECOMS 31

‘‘

‘‘

Satellites with orbits dedicated to Africa greatly reduce the rate oflatency that has always been associated with satellite connectivity,increasing the reliability of the technology.

technology and expertise enables countries to ensure that factors such as cost are greatly reduced through maintenance and expertise.

Furthermore, South Africa is bidding against Australia to host the Square Kilometre Array (also known as SKA) radio telescope. For this bid, South Africa is partnering with Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia and Zambia. If South Africa wins the bid, African countries will have the opportunity of hosting the world’s most powerful radio telescope in Southern Africa with baselines extending out to 3 000 km. What has made this initiative unique is the level of human capital development the African community has obtained from the project. Since its inception in 2003, the SKA project has funded 398 postdoctoral fellows, and postgraduate and undergraduate students completing science and engineering degrees and research, with 70 going to Africans outside South Africa. Astronomy is taught in five of these countries, with the rest launching undergraduate programmes in 2012. Not only has this reinforced the world-class education found in Africa, it has also enhanced collaboration with renowned techno-progressive institutions such as the universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Manchester, the University of California at Berkeley and Caltech, as well as with the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) in the US. The drive has seen Africa expand and progress in terms of physical, infrastructure and intellectual requirements. The project also requires a large amount of data to be transmitted and processed, requiring state of the art correlators and back-ends which have been populated throughout the past 9 years. Africa is proving to be a destination for ground based astronomy, space science and geodesy instruments.

Usage of satellites The importance of satellite in everyday life is seen in various ways. Earth observation satellites ensure that weather is monitored in various countries to observe and warn of natural disasters in disaster-prone areas. They assist meteorologists to make sound weather predictions and pending disasters. The ability of satellites having unlimited capacity to view the entire globe and take pictures of any position on earth is an additional advantage. Used in an agricultural context, it provides farmers with information about when to plant and what to plant. With increasing global warming, seasons are shifting slightly, thus disrupting planting times. By utilising this knowledge, countries are assured of food security even in times of drought.

Urban planning is necessary to enable urban migration.

32 AFRICA TELECOMS Issue 24

Satellite images provide good estimates of population densities by determining the parts of a region that are inhabited. Proper city planning results in less strain on natural resources. Additionally, the technical capability and competency levels of scarce skills is increased on the continent due to the fact that the engineers working on these satellites are African citizens.

Intelligence gathering and reconnaissance are other areas that satellites have been utilized, leading to the development of navigation satellites. This navigation technology led to global positioning system (GPS), now commonly installed in cars and devices, assisting motorists with directions to instructed destinations.

The most progressive way satellites are currently being implemented is in the education sector. Schools need to have connectivity to ensure that scholars receive educational material enabing them to be connected to the internet and knowledge portals. Other satellite-based stations offer educational tutorials through channels like Mindset, providing students with access to learning materials through tutors presenting concepts on a television channel. Newcom International provides a “Rural education solution” that runs on an iDirect evolution platform. The solution incorporates video meetings, customised online learning material and curriculum. Other companies which have been part of such education initiatives include Vodacom, through the e-tutor initiative.

Ideally, this is the future of satellite connectivity, believes Frost & Sullivan. However, the progression is slow due to a number of problems plaguing African countries. The sub-Saharan African region is underdeveloped when it comes to socio-economic development. The Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) observed that more than 60 million of the people in the region do not have access to electricity, and 300 million require access to clean drinking water. With the mobile penetration rate increasing, governments should concentrate on building Public Private People’s Partnerships which encourage technological advances, while at the same time addressing the Millennium Development Goals.

As long as service providers and governments look at the African landscape and consider which technology is applicable to its diverse nature, satellites will continue to play a crucial role in bridging the digital divide and linking disadvantaged communities on the African continent. AT

Far-sighted investors and governments are determined that as many Africans as possible will benefit from international capacity and access to data services, writes Lesley Stones.

Progress in sight 34 AFRICA TELECOMS Issue 24

A second wave of price cuts is essential before a significant number of Africans will finally be able to afford the internet access that many of us take for granted.

The prices fell from ludicrous to merely expensive two or three years ago thanks to Seacom, the first submarine telecom cable to serve Africaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s east coast.

But more dramatic cuts are crucial to boost the take-up of internet services beyond the current pan-African average of 13.5%, according to InternetWorldStats.com The good news is that those cuts are on their way, as a mass of terrestrial infrastructure is finally being built to carry international bandwidth from its landing points to the cities, towns and rural communities where people are eagerly waiting to use it.

Issue 24 AFRICA TELECOMS 35

Tanzania is spending US$189 million on a national fibre optic Overcoming backhaul blockage network, with the government contributing US$170 million and It’s happening reasonably quickly, says Aidan Herlihy, an executive China supplying US$18 million. The aim is to connect the entire director of Seacom. But there is a lag, as it took the operators time country by the end of this year, almost trebling the existing 3 674 to establish that affordable bandwidth hitting the coastline needed km of national cable. to be distributed more cost effectively.

The Rwandan government is also creating a national fibre Some East African countries saw a 5 000% increase in available backbone, albeit more slowly. So far, it has laid 2 300km of bandwidth capacity. Yet in many countries the terrestrial backhaul fibre to connect to the coastal cables in a US$95 million, 20-year facilities to take that inland are old, incapable of handling high project. Only about 7.2% of Rwandans currently have access to the speeds, owned by profiteering monopolies, or simply non-existent. internet, while about 35% have cellphone subscriptions.

When Seacom went live, the cost of wholesale bandwidth “A lot of terrestrial fibre will go into the ground between now tumbled by around 85%, says Herlihy. But many consumers barely and 2013, when we will see new initiatives all over Africa lighting noticed. Herlihy himself was disappointed that the average African up more bandwidth,” says Herlihy. “We will have another price didn’t see such major reductions, since many operators leasing its improvement in about a year when the terrestrial networks start to bandwidth didn’t, or couldn’t, pass the savings on. catch up with the submarine cables.”

“We didn’t realise the extent of the terrestrial backhaul blockage that was going to stop it getting to consumers,” says Herlihy.

In South Africa, the only way into someone’s home is through Damaging price wars Telkom, and Telkom still has ownership of the last mile. So, A related revolution is hitting Africa as smartphones fall in price, whatever price we arrive at in Johannesburg, Telkom still charges which is just as vital as cheaper bandwidth since end users need an what it wants to get it to end users.” affordable device to get online.

Before the Seacom, EASSy and As internet-enabled handsets replace basic Teams cables landed, East Africa was models, user familiarity grows and the cost reliant on satellite bandwidth that was of data drops, the take-up of data services extremely expensive, slow and heavily will spread throughout Africa. influenced by the weather. That satellite That has already started, but on a limited model of low volumes and high prices was scale. In 2011, the volume of SMS messages Tanzania is spending disrupted by the cables with a business declined for the first time in some countries US$189 million on a case of high volumes at low prices. as users with smartphones discovered a more national fibre optic Their arrival saw demand skyrocket, enticing range of services. network, with the and allowed mobile operators to push However, operators will be wary not to government contributing bandwidth as a product with data bundles. pitch their data prices too aggressively, US$170 million and “Bandwidth is an addictive substance,” because many are already suffering from China supplying US$18 Herlihy says. fierce price wars in the cost of voice call. million.

One encouraging fact is that operators In some countries, the tariffs have dropped and other investors have pumped an to such a degree that operators are warning astonishing US$6 billion into new telecoms they can no longer afford to expand their facilities in Africa as a direct result of the infrastructure to rural areas. cables slashing wholesale bandwidth fees.

Confirming how damaging the price war With companies laying fibre and constructing networks is, Pyramid Research has warned that it could result in “a chronic throughout the continent, it’s just a matter of time before consumers inability” for East African operators to generate revenue. To avoid benefit from that additional backhaul capacity. that, operators must invest quickly in new services and technologies “In South Africa you pay more to go from Cape Town to while voice services are still generating some revenue, says Kerem Johannesburg than you pay from Johannesburg to London. But we Arsal, a senior analyst with Pyramid. have seen several initiatives in the last year investing in terrestrial This is especially critical for smaller operators or new players fibre,” Herlihy says. struggling to keep afloat without the benefits of economies of scale.

Secondly, regulators in the region that have focused on encouraging competition and lower prices may now need to take Government support proactive steps to ensure that markets do not overheat from too Herlihy believes governments must support those initiatives, much competition. because often the biggest challenge of laying fibre is getting Thirdly, Arsal says, operators need to realise that while users environmental approval and right of way clearing. respond to lower prices by increased usage, it will not lead to “One view is that governments should provide a core level of unlimited consumption. Even when calls are cheaper, people with fibre connectivity between major cities as a service by investing low disposable incomes still run out of money. government money, or by subsidising or incentivising private Analysts at Balancing Act say price wars are a fact of life in companies to take the initiative,” he says.

36 AFRICA TELECOMS Issue 24

Africa’s competitive mobile markets, and East Africa is among the most competitive. Yet the results are modest. “Lower prices are putting even established dominant mobile players like Safaricom under enormous pressure,” says analyst Russell Southwood.

Minimum rates Kenya’s price wars have inflicted wounds the operators are now trying to recover from. At one stage, the cost of a call fell from KES8 to KES1 per minute on Airtel. But customers complained about poor quality due to congestion.

Safaricom even warned Parliament that the threat to its profits would damage its ability to expand its network.

CEO Bob Collymore told Kenya’s Energy and Communication Committee that similar price wars in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) had forced operators to cut costs in other ways, by switching off the networks in less profitable areas, letting the quality of service deteriorate and ending network expansion.

Collymore urged the government to establish a base price below which rates could not be reduced. That is a tactic already adopted in the DRC, where the regulator set a minimum price for voice calls and text messages.

Then, in October last year, Collymore said its voice call fees had to be increased as its operational costs had escalated. “This is the first time in Safaricom’s 11-year history that we have had to effect a price increase on our retail voice tariffs,” he said.

Access to mobile data The Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) has taken note, and is slashing the regulatory fees it charges the operators to make communications more affordable, without hurting the industry.

The cuts come into effect this July, and include wireless access fees reduced by up to 75%. Operators are expected to pass the savings on to consumers.

Kenya’s mobile industry generated $1.5 billion in 2011, mostly

from voice calls. Yet the fastest growth is in mobile data, due to the huge success of mobile money services and the increase of 3G-based services.

Pyramid Research expects mobile data revenue to jump from $457 million in 2011 to $751 million in 2016, contributing almost 44% of total revenue, thanks to the undersea cables making mobile data and broadband internet cheaper.

Despite the price war pressures, Balancing Act still rates Safaricom as one of the main innovators in the market, with household internet and Triple Play on its radar.

Safaricom also wants to generate local internet content in partnership with developers and musicians, and will open an app store at some stage, Collymore says.

Issue 24 AFRICA TELECOMS 37

The problem is often the lingering control that monopoly Selling below cost operators have over international and cross-border traffic, and the Uganda’s price war started when Warid Telecom halved the cost of lack of competition to keep them performing in terms of service off-net calls after the industry regulator, Uganda Communications and maintenance.

Commission (UCC), forced down interconnection fees.

Southwood also points out that with more submarine cables MTN followed suit, and figures from the UCC showed that 1.5 being commissioned this year, Africa should million new subscribers signed up during in theory have more international capacity the next three months. The UCC says there than it knows what to do with. are now 16 million users in Uganda, up by “In reality, however, this is only true three million since the price war started. for coastal countries, and even here, the However, the loss in revenue from the distribution network often goes no further lower fees was not compensated for by a Balancing Act’s Russell than the capital city,” he says. significant growth in talk minutes. Orange Southwood says the “The cheap wholesale prices are at the Uganda CEO Phillipe Luxcey described reach of Africa’s fibre landing station, but in most places they have the battle as “really crazy”. networks is extending yet to be passed on to the end user. Bandwidth “We don’t have enough margin to cover relentlessly and their is overpriced on national fibre networks and our network costs. All off-net calls are speed and capacity have local access is still nowhere near as prevalent losing money,” he said. made them essential as it should be.”

A year later, MTN doubled its on-net for both businesses and Infrastructure providers must accelerate tariffs and Airtel immediately did likewise. individuals. the rollout of national backbones and crossIndustry analysts said the price war was border links to landlocked countries to ensure something no player could afford, and the as many Africans as possible share in the UCC agreed. benefits of international capacity and access Its director, Godfrey Mutabazi told, The to data services, according to Balancing Act. Daily Monitor newspaper: “We believe the lower prices are unsustainable and this has been proved by recent price increases. You cannot sell below cost.

Progress in sight It only causes poor quality of service through congested networks Progress is visible around the region, however. In Botswana and generally destabilises the industry.” the cost of calls and internet access tumbled after the Botswana Telecommunications Authority (BTA) ordered operators to reduce their fees. The new rates were a result of government’s investment Expansion and maintenance in the EASSy cable, the BTA said.

Balancing Act’s Russell Southwood says the reach of Africa’s fibre The 10 000 km-long EASSy cable links South Africa with Sudan networks is extending relentlessly and their speed and capacity have via landing points in Mozambique, Madagascar, the Comoros, made them essential for both businesses and individuals. Africa has Tanzania, Kenya, Somalia and Djibouti. gone from having hardly any cables in 2000 to having nine that will Its investors, which include 16 African operators, are now connect almost all countries by 2012. building more terrestrial fibre backhauls to land-locked countries But he warns that the lack of maintenance is worrying and leads in the region. to needless downtime. “The problem for customers and operators And with far-sighted governments subsidising such activities, it in Africa’s new and shiny fibre future is that, unlike with roads, you should not be long before Africa’s internet standard achieves a level cannot simply leave the potholes there for another day. Everybody for higher than it has produced to date. AT on the network is affected by the weakest link,” he says.

38 AFRICA TELECOMS Issue 24

AMOS-5 WAS SUCCESSFULLY LAUNCHED

The AMOS-5 satellite, successfully launched to the 17°E orbital location, provides a full range of satcom services with high-power Pan-African C-band and Ku-band beams.

With AMOS-2 and AMOS-3 serving Europe and the Middle East, AMOS-4 scheduled to commence operations in 2013 and AMOS-6 in 2014, Spacecom offers its vast experience to DTH operators, TV broadcasters, ISPs, VSAT broadband providers and telcos throughout Africa.

Premium capacity over Africa is now available, contact us to find out more.

E-mail: amos-info@amos-spacecom.com â&#x20AC;˘ Website: www.amos-spacecom.com

40 AFRICA TELECOMS Issue 24

Driving Digital Advancement on the African Continent As the growth of Africa’s ICT (Information and Communications Technology) infrastructure proceeds, industry players are placing greater emphasis on mobile data and other value added services such as mobile banking and funds transfer. As a result of these innovations, African countries (particularly Kenya) are extending ICT services to both urban and rural populations on the continent. And satellite distribution has a key role to play in this process.

The business landscape is rapidly changing in Africa, and at the forefront of this change is increasing access to broadband Internet and mobile telecommunications. From a broadcasting perspective, 2015 is the year in which the world and Africa will officially migrate to digital TV and it is anticipated that this will ultimately have the ‘domino effect’ of improving technological sophistication in the region.

Yet, in a continent that, in the next ten years, requires in the region of US$63 billion in infrastructure development, digitalisation has its challenges. These include the ability to reach a maximum number of homes in the shortest possible time frame at reasonable costs.

“Through the use of satellite transmissions, existing technologies will be able to connect the unconnected in remote communities and close the digital divide,” comments Ibrahima Guimba-Saidou, recently appointed head of Africa for SES, leading global satellite operator.

“We are seeing more and more African countries investigating ‘satellite support’ in order to reach those areas with poor infrastructure. This will allow countries to reduce their Issue 24 AFRICA TELECOMS 41

42 AFRICA TELECOMS Issue 24

‘‘

study showed that in those, for every ten percentage points ofbroadband penetration, their economies grew by 1.38 percent

by Ibrahima Guimba Saidou Head of Africa SES

‘‘

infrastructure investment costs while providing consumers with high quality broadcast signal.”

By complementing land networks and offering African nations nationwide coverage and independence from existing infrastructure, SES believes that many African countries can reach the 2015 deadline for analogue signal switch-off.

Creating broadband access is a further area where satellite support facilitates economic growth. In 2009, the World Bank released its ‘Information and Communications for Development’ report which showed that access to broadband Internet boosts economic growth in all countries, but more particularly in developing economies.

The study showed that in those, for every ten percentage points of broadband penetration, their economies grew by 1.38 percent. In contrast, the research - conducted in 120 countries between 1980 and 2006 - showed that developed countries’ economies grew by 1.21 percent. This shows that access to broadband is even more vital in developing countries than their First World counterparts.

Africans are now seizing this opportunity to grow their various economies and take advantage of the opportunities offered by technology.

And what happens to demand for satellite connectivity when more terrestrial capacity is delivered to Africa’s shores? Surprisingly, perhaps, it shoots up. That’s because the challenges of geography and the low rate of penetration of land-based networks into the interior means there are limitations to the ability to distribute that connectivity far and wide. And once people are connected, they want to stay connected no matter where they are.

Agreeing that this is perhaps a counter-intuitive result, GuimbaSaidou explains that it must be seen in the context of the increased demand for communications which characterises the modern world. “Looking across Africa today and into the future, there is massive demand for connecting people. That demand will continue to grow; with more than a billion people and the fundamental appeal of being connected,” he says.

The submarine cables which are increasingly hooking Africa up to the rest of the world present an opportunity, not threat, for the satellite operator, continues Guimba-Saidou. “The strength of satellite lies in point to multipoint servicing; point to point is also feasible. And where optical networks and those submarine cables are making a big difference is in the coastal areas – for landlocked countries or the vast interior of Africa, signal distribution is a challenge characterised by enormous cost and lengthy timeframes required for deployment.”

More simply put, Guimba-Saidou is pointing to the ability of satellite to efficiently reach a multitude of consumers, either home or business users, with the unrivalled capability of a low-earth orbiting bit of space machinery to target any spot on the planet; remarkably, the SES fleet of 49 satellites covers 99% of the world’s population.

Most African countries have a sizeable chunk of their population in rural areas covering vast distances across uneven geographic features. Satellite certainly has an important role to play in bringing the myriad benefits of broadband to the majority of the population. AT

the

connected continent

Chris Wood, CEO of Africa’s carriers’ carrier WIOCC, discusses Africa’s changing international submarine cable landscape and explores the impacts and remaining challenges.

The face of Africa’s telecommunications environment has changed dramatically and irreversibly in recent times. Since 2009, international submarine network connectivity into the world’s second largest and third most populous continent has improved beyond recognition - not just in terms of geographic reach and capacity, but also in bringing greater reliability, diversity and affordability.

At the beginning of 2009, only two international cables served sub-Saharan Africa: SAT3/SAFE, connecting west and southern Africa; and Atlantis-2, linking Senegal and Cape Verde to South America and Europe. Most international links used expensive, low capacity satellite circuits, with the high costs severely restricting internet uptake and inhibiting rollout of broadband services.

Since 2009, six new cables have come on stream – Main One and Glo-1 serving the west African region; and on the east coast Seacom, TEAMS (The East African Marine System), LION2 (Lower Indian Ocean Network) and EASSy (East African Submarine System), at 4.72 Terabits per second (Tbps) the largest of all.

More connectivity is due this year, with the West Africa Cable System (WACS) expected to go live in May, linking many west African countries to Europe and South Africa. This will be closely followed in June, on the east coast, by the Seychelles East Africa System (SEAS). The northern half of ACE (Africa Coast to Europe), on the west coast, is also due to go live later in the year. This will bring to eleven the number of cables serving sub-Saharan Africa, with a total design capacity exceeding 22Tbps.

44 AFRICA TELECOMS Issue 24

Issue 24 AFRICA TELECOMS 45

WIOCC service desk Reduced costs, new commercial opportunities & more diversity So what are the impacts of this surge in availability of international capacity?

The arrival of new international submarine systems has significantly reduced the unit cost of international connectivity in markets served by more than one cable. Lower bandwidth prices are allowing telcos and internet service providers (ISPs) to invest in ever-larger amounts of capacity - needed to meet the growing demands of their consumer, enterprise and wholesale customers.

Many have recognised the importance of developing and maintaining a strong portfolio of data services, with the resulting revenue streams critical for survival as voice revenues continue to fall. As a result, most operators have launched a range of new, bandwidth-intensive, mobile, internet and broadband services.

New wholesale markets are also being created across the continent, further fuelling demand for international bandwidth.

As competitive pressures continue to increase, differentiation is becoming ever-more important. Whilst price reductions were the most commonly applied competitive weapon in 2010-2011, the more mature African markets (typically those benefitting from access to two or more submarine cables) are starting to see an additional focus on quality. Service related factors, such as network uptime, performance, routing and end-to-end service management are becoming key selling points in 2012. As a result, service providers are increasingly looking to improve resilience and uptime by purchasing capacity on multiple submarine cables. This is now both practical and affordable, not just in coastal countries, but also in an increasing number of landlocked ones too. Adding diversity to their international networks reduces the impact of individual cable cuts and other service-affecting disruptions, enabling operators to deliver the high-quality services increasingly demanded by customers. In the most competitive markets, the discussion is no longer simply about having diversity (i.e. capacity on two cables) but is now about having sufficient diversity – truly redundant capacity on multiple cables.

deployment of new and upgraded national and local fibre networks and other supporting infrastructure. Eliminating bottlenecks in cross-border, national and ‘last mile’ networks, is critical in making the most of the improved international connectivity, and ensuring that businesses and individuals in Africa benefit. As a result, the business case for national telcos and private operators to build has never been stronger.

Tens of thousands of kilometres of new fibre-optic cable are being laid across the continent each year - an average of 138km a day during 2011. Fibre deployment is being supplemented by the rollout of wireless technologies such as WiMAX and WiFi, to extend local reach. This combination is bringing significant improvements in the accessibility, affordability and reliability of mobile and fixed-line services, and is a key enabler for uptake of internet and broadband services.

Cross-border links are also becoming more numerous – indeed it is expected that there will soon be continuous fibre between Cape Town and Cairo. As a result of these improvements, many of Africa’s landlocked countries are now connected to at least one submarine system at the coast. WIOCC is at the forefront of this activity, linking our shareholder and partner networks to create a unique 50,000km fibre footprint spanning 20 African countries. As a result, our customers in landlocked countries such as Botswana, Burundi, Lesotho, Malawi, Uganda and Zimbabwe now have access to international submarine capacity.

What does improved connectivity mean for businesses and individuals?

Terrestrial connectivity improving, but not keeping pace

Better international links and improved access to fixed and mobile broadband services are bringing multiple benefits to Africa.

Businesses are improving efficiency and productivity in a variety of ways – including enhanced inter-office communications, remote workers accessing corporate information and email ‘on the road’, home working, and increased use of ‘cloud’ services. The enhanced connectivity is also improving access to other African and international markets, creating opportunities to extend business reach and increase revenues.

For individuals, mobile broadband services in particular offer greatly improved access to online information and internet services, including entertainment and social media offerings. Smartphone user numbers in Africa are rising sharply, giving access to services such as music and video streaming, online gaming and popular applications such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

Improved healthcare and e-Government services are also becoming available in many countries.

However, with terrestrial fibre or high-speed wireless networks still limited in rural or remote areas, many in Africa remain unable to realise the full potential offered by the improved international connectivity. Additional investment in terrestrial networks (both fibre and wireless) is therefore essential.

The arrival of high-capacity international submarine connectivity has also been a catalyst for numerous terrestrial fibre-optic network builds. Across Africa, governments, incumbent telcos, challengers, mobile operators and “carriers’ carriers” are all investing in the

Despite these localised limitations, smartphone uptake and mobile broadband usage across Africa are set to grow at an even faster

46 AFRICA TELECOMS Issue 24

International bandwidth take-up exceeding expectations

rate over the coming years, driving further demand for bandwidth, greater accessibility and improved reliability. Business requirements for international connectivity will also continue to increase.

These demands are already leading carriers, ISPs and large enterprises to bring forward and increase their international capacity purchases into/out of Africa. This has seen lit capacity on EASSy, for example, increased six-fold in the 18 months since the system became operational. Some of this growth is driven by the need for additional diversity, and some by faster-than-expected growth in internet and broadband service uptake and usage.

WIOCC’s footprint

More cables coming?

Addressing the challenges...

The proliferation of international and terrestrial links offers carriers and ISPs considerable opportunity to improve resilience and performance by building diversity into their networks. However, managing the provision of such diversity over the growing number of terrestrial and submarine cables threatens to increase network complexity and complicate carrier relationships. Africa’s carriers’ carrier WIOCC is leading the way in addressing these challenges, offering its customers an end-to-end managed service solution that includes diversity options. This shields its customers from much of the complexity associated with delivering high-performance international connections into and out of Africa and minimises the overheads and delays typically associated with working through multiple suppliers. Small to mid-sized operators, and larger carriers too, are already taking advantage of cost and efficiency savings delivered by WIOCC. With African and international operators looking for the most efficient means to meet ongoing demand for reliable, affordable connectivity into and out of Africa, specialist capacity wholesalers - such as Africa’s carriers’ carrier WIOCC - are well positioned to deliver the scalable, diversity-rich, seamless international connectivity solutions they increasingly need. AT

‘‘

‘‘

As bandwidth demand continues unabated, indications are that submarine cable rollout to Africa may not yet be complete. Recent months have been punctuated with announcements of more new cable systems which would, were they all to progress from concept to deployment, result in no less than four new high-capacity submarine cable systems linking Africa and South America: 1. BRICS - a 34,000km cable designed to link the BRICS countries, extending from Vladivostok in the east of Russia, to China, Singapore, India and South Africa, across the Atlantic to Brazil, and then to North America.

2. SAex (South Atlantic Express) – a 12.8Tbps system planned to connect South Africa and Angola with Fortaleza in Brazil.

3. WASACE – proposes to provide links across the North and South Atlantic between Africa, South America, North America and Europe.

4. Brazil-Angola cable – Brazil’s state-owned telecoms company, Telebrás, is proposing to build a 6,000km system with Angola Cables, connecting Fortaleza, Brazil with Angolan capital, Luanda.

This has seen lit capacity on EASSy, for example, increased six-fold in the 18 months since the system became operational.

Issue 24 AFRICA TELECOMS 47

Yesterday, today or tomorrow?

48 AFRICA TELECOMS Issue 24

Is growth in Eastern Africa leading the way for the continent, asks Will Hahn.

Issue 24 AFRICA TELECOMS 49

Table 1: Size and growth of telecom market in sub-saharan Africa compared with that in the Middle East and Africa, 2010 Source: Gartner, ITU, IHS Global insight and the World Bank

Population (Thousands)

Total Telecom Connections (Fixed & Mobile)

Total Retail Telecom Revenue (Millions of Dollars)

Sub-Saharan Africa

849 925.0

398 222.6

60 612.0

Middle East & Africa

1 148 620.0

902 378.0

158 160.0

74,0 %

44,1 %

38,3 %

Percentage of the total

As the market for global telecom services continues to mature, global communications service providers (CSPs) are looking to invest in emerging markets for greater growth and to secure future opportunity. Sub-Saharan Africa, which excludes the five African countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea, will be the final frontier of this investment, some of which has already begun.

The region is characterized by 48 nations with a high population, relatively low telecom penetration and significant dispersal of opportunity, lacking the presence of an emerging telecom giant as in Brazil, India or China. Yet Sub-Saharan Africa is home to nearly 850 million people, more than Western and Eastern Europe combined.

Through 2010, Sub-Saharan Africa’s population as a percentage of the Middle East and Africa was much higher than its share of the communications market (see Table 1). Growth of Sub-Saharan Africa compared with that of the Middle East and Africa in total has been higher for total connections than for total telecom services revenue.

In plain terms, the population of the region is still underserved by communications infrastructure, and those networks are not earning as much as they do to the north. This discrepancy points to greater opportunity for new services and applications, but also higher risk for CSPs and other providers seeking to invest.

Investment in emerging markets is complicated by many factors.

Individual CSPs are influenced by existing ties and alliances, common language and culture, regulations, available cash and the current strength or weakness of their own financial performance.

Several of the world’s largest multinational CSPs have committed

50 AFRICA TELECOMS Issue 24

substantial investment across Sub-Saharan Africa to date and this trend will continue.

Ranking the opportunity Gartner analyzed the telecom markets of Sub-Saharan Africa and portrayed its ranking of the markets through a bubble chart that measures three attributes. The size of the bubbles is determined using population and GDP figures.

Maturity scores along the horizontal axis depend on total penetration of telecom connections weighed against recent growth in penetration, and attraction scores along the vertical axis are determined through a weighted set of metrics both within communications and across the general economy.

Telecom maturity segments market opportunities in the region into three groups, as shown in Figure 1.

Over half the national markets of the entire region are still “tomorrow” opportunities for investment, with the bulk of penetration ahead of them and significant barriers to entry having prevented faster growth to date. Seven “yesterday” markets have already achieved high levels of maturity and are generally seeing strong competition, with weaker prospects of return on CSP investment.

Gartner segments Eastern Africa into two sub-regions, East Africa and the Horn. The thirteen nations covered here could not vary more in telecom development, and between them show the range of investment interest and near-term growth the region will experience.

Figure 1: The sub-regions of sub-Saharan Africa Source: Gartner (Dec 2011) Tunisia Morocco Algeria

Mauritania

Mali

Chad Sudan

Burkina Faso

Guinea

Sierra Leone Liberia

Niger

Egypt

Eritrea

Senegal Gambia Guinea-Bissau

Libya

Benin

Cote Ghana d’Ivoire Togo

Djibouti

Nigeria Cameroon

Ethiopia

Central African Republic Uganda

Equatorial Guinea Congo

Gabon

Tanzania

Angola Malawi

Zambia

North Africa Zimbabwe

Namibia

West Africa

Kenya

Burundi Rwanda

East Africa Horn of Africa

Somalia

Mozambique

Madagascar

Botswana Swaziland

Inland Africa South Africa Lesotho

Southern Africa

East Africa The eight nations of East Africa are characterized by relatively stable government and regulation, moderately mature markets and improving opportunity for telecom investment. This last factor is driven by increased access to international bandwidth due to the recent completion of submarine cables such as Seacom, EASSy and Main One. The three largest nations in East Africa – Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda – are receiving significant attention now, and inland fibre connections to Burundi and Rwanda are planned. All three are seeing investment from major international players.

Comoros, Seychelles and Mauritius are island nations with much

smaller populations, more mature telecom markets, and a very different economic and social profile.

The bubble chart of current telecom investment opportunity for East Africa is shown in Figure 2.

Horn of Africa The five nations of the Horn of Africa include some of the poorest and least stable nations in the world. Some have seen virtually no foreign investment of any kind, and for others public metrics pertaining to attraction cannot be obtained. Sudan underwent separation into two nations in July 2011, but no reliable metrics on South Sudan can be derived. The figures shown here are for the

Issue 24 AFRICA TELECOMS 51

Figure 2: Telecom market opportunity in the East Africa sub-region Source: Gartner (Dec 2011)

Figure 3: Telecom market opportunity in the Horn of Africa sub-region Source: Gartner (Dec 2011)

12

12 Mauritius Rwanda

Seychelles

Uganda Kenya

Burundi

Attraction Score

Attraction Score

Tanzania

Sudan

Ethiopia Djibouti Eritrea

Comoros

Somalia

0

Tomorrow

Today Maturity Score

Yesterday 16

combined, previous entity.

Despite extreme poverty and disarray, it is possible that these countries will see investment ahead of the Inland sub-region, though still firmly in the “tomorrow” category by comparison with other African markets. The critical question is whether submarine cable projects and upgrades will extend to the Horn before inland fibre – or possibly more affordable satellite – reaches Inland Africa.

Sudan, as the most attractive market in the Horn of Africa and among the largest, has seen investment from MTN, a cross-regional player, but its split into two countries clouds the investment opportunity.

The bubble chart of current telecom investment opportunity for the Horn of Africa is shown in Figure 3.In conclusion, we see that East Africa has been a hot spot of investment and for good reason.

Providers seeking to measure the opportunity for return on their investment in Sub-Saharan Africa should look to the current state

52 AFRICA TELECOMS Issue 24

0

Tomorrow

Today Maturity Score

Yesterday 16

of markets such as Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda for reference. But the form of that investment will likely need to be moved elsewhere.

Major international CSPs such as Vodafone, Airtel and Orange have already taken positions in those markets.

By contrast, the Horn of Africa has seen significant outside investment only in Sudan (by MTN), and again the reasoning is sound. These are markets deeply set in the “tomorrow” category, and critical factors including civil order, the dearth of international bandwidth and more will inhibit growth in the sub-region until those are resolved. Yet with the ferment of growth in the nearby Middle East as well as from the East sub-region on both sides, the potential for growth in these markets exists.

CSPs influenced by the factors mentioned in this article may well be incentivised to roll the dice and take a position in one or more of these markets. Those doing so must be prepared to take the long view, as return will be neither immediate nor easy. AT

54 AFRICA TELECOMS Issue 24

by Tareq Al Hosani Chief Executive Officer Yahsat

Yahsat brings Africa Yahclick After extensive market research, Yahsat, a satellite communications company offering multipurpose (government and commercial) satellite services in Africa, the Middle East and Southwest Asia, launched the Y1B satellite in April this year to provide South Africa and 27 other countries with satellite broadband services.

This will be done through the “YahClick” offering, the endservice product through which customers will receive their broadband service transmitted via the Y1B satellite. Its core advantage over any other broadband service is that it provides connectivity to remote and underserved areas. It also delivers affordable, high bandwidth and easily accessible broadband services that take minimal time to set up.

We are confident that now is the right time to bring such services to the underserved communities identified in Africa, the Middle East and Southwest Asia in order to help raise their standard of living, stimulate business and enhance education.

Conceived by Mubadala, the Abu Dhabi government’s strategic investment and development vehicle, Yahsat was formed to meet the unfulfilled demand in those regions for multi-purpose satellite services that offer advanced satellite solutions. It became fully incorporated in 2007.

We offer uninterrupted and high-speed broadband internet service to our 28 markets where the installation of

physical cable infrastructure in remote communities is not economically viable.

In South Africa, Yahsat is working with Vox Telecom, a reputable company that understands the local market and can effectively install and support the YahClick service for customers. As Yahsat’s service partner, Vox Telecom will be responsible for bundling hardware and services, offering different packages to business and customer groups. We will be partnering with suitable service partners, similar to Vox Telecoms, in its 28 markets.

Our offerings from YahClick will be available to customers throughout rural and urban areas, making it a perfect costeffective and reliable broadband service for South Africa’s communities.

In each country, we have established similar partnerships with in-market providers so that our business and home users can purchase our reliable broadband internet service from their local retailers. The service plans will be tailored to suit each market and its specific connectivity requirements.

Yahsat’s business strategy, while focused on pioneering emerging satellite technologies in Africa, the Middle East and Southwest Asia, is to provide the complete range of satellite services in these regions for home consumers and businesses. AT

Issue 24 AFRICA TELECOMS 55

By Lynette Gordon business development director and global account manager for Emerson Network Power

Life support

for remote networks 58 AFRICA TELECOMS Issue 24

Africa is a dynamic continent with over 40 unique countries and one billion inhabitants. From governments to language to culture to landscape to purchasing power, differences abound. For telecom operators looking to invest or expand on the continent, growth is abundant, but the differences pose many challenges to establishing a dependable network infrastructure in the region.

Potential network concerns include the vast size and remoteness of the terrain, desert to tropical weather conditions, irregular or non-existent grid power supply, a lack of existing infrastructure, unreliable fuel supplies, recruiting trained personnel, political instability, corruption, and maintenance for remote locations where no, or a limited, transport network exists.

To better comprehend the scale of this predicament, consider that despite its 30 million square kilometres and one billion inhabitants, Africa generates only four percent of global electricity, with most of that in the northern and southern countries (“Electricity in Africa”, The Economist [Dar es Salaam], August 16, 2007.)

So where does one begin to tackle these network challenges?

Some things are universal: whether you operate an established network in the heart of London or are racing to reach customers in remote corners of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, network reliability is paramount. Dropped calls, lost data and power outages mean lost customers. That reality should influence every choice you make when it comes to your network infrastructure.

If you are setting up a network in Africa, start with the basics: power, fuel, logistics, maintenance and cost.

theft is widespread in many areas. Installing advanced monitoring equipment helps providers protect supply volumes and fuel quality in these areas.

Implementing a hybrid solution that integrates cyclic batteries and diesel generators at sites with unreliable or no AC power, as pioneered by Emerson Network Power, reduces OPEX for network providers. By running the generator at full capacity for a limited time to power the BTS and charge long-life, multiplecycle batteries, and then turning off the generator and powering the site from the batteries, fuel cost and generator maintenance can be reduced significantly.

Additional operational savings and site reliability can be achieved through installation of “smart hybrids” that come equipped with advanced monitoring algorithms and services to track diesel use and quality, manage equipment life based on load, and reduce maintenance dispatches for the BTS site.

Deploying a hybrid solution with supplemental renewable energy sources such as solar and wind is another viable option – they reduce OPEX costs to minimal levels and help reduce a site’s carbon footprint. In general, Africa is well suited for solar power.

The trade-off is that CAPEX can be higher and one must manage the risk of theft. In the proper location and with proper engineering, though, both challenges can be overcome to the clear benefit of the operator.

Once you’ve determined how you wish to fuel your remote site, logistics and maintenance must also be considered.

Power

Logistics

Many countries in Africa struggle with unreliable, poor quality, or no electricity grid power supply. Quality issues can be resolved using automatic voltage regulators or energy-efficient DC power systems that offer a wider input voltage range. Reliability can be managed by leveraging hybrid energy solutions that blend primary power sources.

For areas with no or poor electric grid connectivity, fixing the power availability issue is not easy. This is where fuel, hybrid and alternative energy solutions come into play.

Fuel

The availability of transport into and around Africa can be extremely difficult at times. Advanced planning and expert partners are required. In general, getting equipment to coastline countries is made easier by using established shipping lines and a trusted partner who knows the safest navigational routes. Customs clearance can be time-consuming and challenging, and some smaller countries limit the number of ships into port.

Transportation routes within countries and to neighbouring countries can also be challenging and can damage equipment, or cause it to be lost en route. If an operator needs something urgently, airfreight is possible only in some areas, at a cost premium.

Running dual generators on a 24-hour basis is expensive. Often remote sites bring low average revenue per user (ARPU), making it difficult to justify investment. To make matters worse, diesel fuel

Due to the high demand for skilled technicians and the challenges of

Maintenance

‘‘

‘‘

30 million square kilometres and one billion inhabitants, Africa generates only four percent of global electricity

Issue 24 AFRICA TELECOMS 59

‘‘

‘‘

an independent ecosystem that can save up to 30 percent intime and costs compared with building an on-site telecoms stationor data centre

Cost Finally, regardless of location, cost matters. Today’s telecom companies are searching for ways to deliver services and maintain reliable networks, while reducing operating expenses by being more efficient. In some cases, that means reducing energy consumption and/or increasing energy efficiency. In others, it means extending equipment life and reducing service costs as a way to reduce total cost of ownership. Understanding an operator’s priorities ensures the optimal cost is achieved for the desired network outcome.

Innovative remote deployment solutions In contemplating the above, with so many obstacles to overcome, setting up your remote site – particularly a core or key node location – needs to be as streamlined and reliable as possible. One of the best ways to manage unknowns and speed up site delivery is through the use of containerised infrastructure solutions: ready-to-deploy solutions tailored for an operator’s precise needs in any location.

Prefabricated containerised infrastructure solutions, or engineered shelters, are housing units designed to protect sensitive electronic equipment and provide power supply and climate controls. They include everything you need to set up your business, and can be designed and engineered even before you decide where this solution will be installed.

Built in easy-to-transport, pre-assembled modules, shelters offer an independent ecosystem that can save up to 30 percent in time and costs compared with building an on-site telecoms station or data centre, which makes them very suitable for remote sites.

Furthermore, all systems are produced in a controlled environment and fully factory tested for faster rollout and consistent quality, reducing the need for experts at the remote deployment site.

Containerised solutions have successfully been implemented in Africa by some of the largest telecom operators. In Nigeria, for example, Emerson Network Power has worked with customers to deploy a vast number of solutions, including cable-landing stations, energy centres, containerised switch and OMC equipment rooms 60 AFRICA TELECOMS Issue 24

with AC systems, inverters, battery backup, fire extinguishers, supervision systems and climate and cable management systems.

Small power stations with high capacity for critical infrastructures were also deployed to complement the out-of-the-box energy centre solution. These fully redundant stations provide energy for various applications through power sources such as mains, gensets, UPSs, batteries and DC systems. DC power systems can be complemented with DC-AC inverters. Usually, energy centres house several UPSs, batteries and cooling equipment, in addition to critical customer equipment.

Engineered shelters can be used for a variety of applications in industries such as oil and gas, mining, military, optical networks, telecommunications, signalling, and data networks. They can be configured to site needs and built into different types of bodies, accounting for environmental, logistical and transportation concerns.

Despite the challenges, Africa remains an exciting and attractive opportunity to telecom operators – a growth market where consumers are hungry for telecommunications and broadband connectivity. As a result, this market has attracted more and more investors with ambitious deployment plans based on low cost and low pricing. But, while cost is always a concern, compromising on quality is not an option.

Remote solutions must be able to adapt to all types of environmental and geographic conditions – like keeping electronics cool in the Saharan sun, or providing stable backup power solutions for remote regions with unreliable energy sources. This is why you need a partner you can trust, and one that remains engaged for the long-run. AT

‘‘

Despite the challenges, Africa remains an exciting and attractive opportunity to telecom operators

‘‘

remote or rugged site access, robust, simple site solutions must be designed to ensure they can be easily maintained. Many of the bigger telecoms players have instituted strict maintenance programmes, but problems resulting directly from poor maintenance plans do occur. Establishing a proper service and maintenance strategy must be a top priority. This can be aided through the installation of additional site technologies, such as smart hybrids, that can provide dispatch only when maintenance is required.

62 AFRICA TELECOMS Issue 24

is Key

Innovation

to

by Bradley Shaw

Success

in

Africa When the Samsung Africa Forum was held recently, Africa Telecoms had an exclusive opportunity to get up close and personal with senior executives on the reasons behind the electronics giant’s increasing market dominance.

The forum, now in its third year - was first held in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2010, then moved to Nairobi, Kenya, in 2011, and was hosted in March this year in Cape Town, South Africa.

KK Park, President and CEO of Samsung Electronics SA, kicked off proceedings revealing that the company had an ambitious retail strategy to increase its market penetration in Africa, by increasing retail presence with more branded shops, mobile plazas and service centres.

“Through this strategic approach, we will look to fast-track growth across the continent, and is yet another step in our approach to delivering innovation on the African continent – displayed through our key technologies and product portfolio.”

In his address, Paulo Ferreira, Head of Mobile Product and Business Solutions at Samsung SA, discussed Samsung’s latest victories internationally, and reiterated Samsung’s pride on winning the Best Mobile Phone of the Year award, for the Samsung Galaxy S2, at the recently-held Global Mobile Awards in Barcelona, Spain, in February.

A recent Reuters analyst poll also shows the strength of Samsung’s mobile division, with some analysts predicting a change at the top of the handset vendor list by shipments, while the majority of analysts predicted Samsung would take the lead from Nokia for the first time ever. This, after Nokia held the position for eight years since wresting it from Motorola.

Amid much speculation prior to the event about the possible announcement of the Galaxy S3 smartphone, Samsung representatives were, yet again, silent on the matter. So, we still await final confirmation on what is being deemed the most important smartphone launch for 2012.

Issue 24 AFRICA TELECOMS 63

Built for Africa What Samsung did manage to portray in buckets at this event was the impressive scale and variety of its operations in Africa – from mobile phones, to “air scrubbing air conditioning” technologies and imaginative self-powered school containers.

What this allows the company to do is develop an entire range of products with the African market in mind. This is how its “Built for Africa” strategy came about.

The exhibition dedicated to this strategy featured a huge array of products and technologies:

Samsung Galaxy Pocket The Samsung Galaxy Pocket is clearly part of Samsung’s über-successful Galaxy series of devices. The Pocket fits at the bottom of the pyramid in terms of cost, being the most cost-effective Android smartphone in its ever-growing portfolio of devices. The Pocket will launch with a free music service called Samsung Pocket Music and will only be available in Africa, to launch initially in South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria, with later launches in other countries.

With the extent of the love of music across our vibrant continent, the success of such a product venture is virtually assured – as long as the music service caters to the local music needs of the countries where the service is being launched, and not to commercial American and European tastes.

Classbook 100N The Classbook 100N is lightweight (1.3kg), rugged (can resist a fall up to 70cm) and spill-resistant (200cc of liquid), which enables the cost per unit to be significantly lower, as the need for replacement units are lowered. Furthermore, it has a 10-hour battery life, which means the laptop can last for an entire school day, avoiding the need for children to carry a charger. The netbook features Fast Boot, enabling students to get on with their work in just 30 seconds, or two seconds if the computer is hibernating. This means that students no longer need to waste precious time and can focus on learning, which is the very motivation for this product line.

The Classbook 100N comes in a stylish blue finish, with white keyboard and a built-in retractable handle for easy carrying.

Overall, with its fall-resistant nature and great build quality, this is easily a product that can have a major impact on education in Africa. Although there was no discussion on the pricing for this netbook, we hope that it will be reasonably priced to really make a difference.

64 AFRICA TELECOMS Issue 24

Ch@t222 Samsung’s Ch@t222 is specifically designed for the African market. Ch@t222 comes with DUOS so that users can access dual SIM cards for more convenient calling, better savings and better network coverage. It comes with all the social tools to connect with friends, including the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Push IM and email.

“Dual-SIM handsets provide the convenience of two cellphones with a one-mobile solution,” says George Ferreira, VP and COO of Samsung Electronics SA. “This feature is especially convenient for those who wish to separate business and personal calls using two separate phone numbers, as well as those who travel frequently and want a local number for each location. What’s more, users can switch between SIM cards easily and without needing to reboot the mobile device. Switching SIM card commands are obeyed with a tap of the finger – the use of dual SIM cards has never been easier or more intuitive.”

Solar-Powered Internet School At the Samsung Africa Forum, the Solar-Powered Internet School was showcased to assist students with their studies, without having to worry about electricity or Internet connectivity. The environmentally friendly, transportable classroom is a perfect fit for Africa as it addresses one of the region’s biggest challenges – providing a stable supply of electricity in rural areas.

The 12m, renovated container has solar panels installed on its roof that can generate nine hours of electricity a day, powering the electronic equipment inside the classroom. And, with battery support requiring no sunlight, can run the classroom for up to five days. The classroom is equipped with a 50-inch electronic board, Internet-enabled solar-powered notebooks, Samsung’s Galaxy tablet computers, as well as Wi-Fi cameras – all of which help to enhance and enrich the learning experience.

Up to 21 students are able to use the classroom, and the entire curriculum up to Grade 12 is stored in a central computer server, enabling two-way learning via connection to the Internet. The school can also be moved easily by truck, so that students in even the remotest areas can continue their education.

“We believe young students should not be deprived of the learning opportunity just because the lack of electricity limits access to schools and the Internet,” said Park. The Solar-Powered Internet School was just one of Samsung’s efforts to contribute to the local community with its innovative technologies and the company planned to expand these

‘‘

The new family of products offers more content, smarter interfaces, intuitive controls, excellent picture quality and impressive design.

‘‘

schools to other regions throughout Africa.

“Part of this effort was also possible because of the fact that (we) produce competitive solar panels that are efficient and have high sunlight conversion rates. Samsung last year identified solar as one of its new growth businesses, aiming to invest 6 trillion (US$5.4 billion) until 2020 to generate 10 trillion (US$8.8 billion) won in annual revenue by that year.”

Samsung was hoping to conclude agreements with the likes of the African Development Bank, the World Bank and other similar organisations to assist with funding a rollout of these classrooms across the continent.

What Next?

Smart TV and AV: Ultimate Quality The company is also pushing the boundaries of home entertainment to meet the needs and challenges of its consumers, and unveiled its 2012 international product innovations under three guiding pillars: Smart Interaction, Smart Content, and Smart Evolution. The new family of products offers more content, smarter interfaces, intuitive controls, excellent picture quality and impressive design. All this is coupled with a unique African offering as Samsung has considerably increased year-on-year salesin the African market through leading retailers in the region. This kind of growth would continue to be demonstrated on the continent, not only through the provision of affordable, quality offerings aligned to the broader brand, but also by bringing key features into the African product portfolio. These include Free Satellite TV, and “SurgeSafe+” for humidity, energy efficiency and lightening protection.

Smart Camera Technology The shift from analogue to digital imaging has never been as

evident with today’s culture of instantly capturing, uploading and sharing photos with friends and family. To make this process more accessible, convenient and fast, Samsung introduced a full line of Smart cameras and camcorders with the new Smart technology. “It’s more than just smart technology, said Park, “it’s about inspiring a simpler and more enjoyable camera experience that opens up completely new photographic possibilities to Samsung’s customers – those that are tailored to the African market.”

Powerful Technology Enhanced security, accessibility, flexibility and efficiency are all aspects that businesses require from their core technology today.

“In line with the brand’s focus on the business-to-business segment, Samsung is the ideal resource for corporate mobile solutions, offering comprehensive enterprise devices that deliver capabilities above and beyond standard platform features,” according to Park.

“Putting our African customers’ requirements first means taking relevant steps – even if it’s just one at a time – to ensure the highest level of product compatibility and service is maintained. This is a key business imperative for us and one we will continue to drive into 2012 and beyond.”

He reiterated the company’s commitment and belief in the African market. “It is this kind of passion which recently led to Samsung being named the most valuable electronics brand in Africa by Brand Africa. The Samsung brand is all about leadership, innovation, relationships and integrity, and we are committed to driving each of these pillars into our African outreach, inspiring new directions.”

He noted that the company had a long history of doing business in Africa, and planned on having an even longer future presence on the continent.

Concluded Park: “Let’s work together, to make this future as inspired as possible.” AT Issue 24 AFRICA TELECOMS 65

Q&A with Tareq Al Hosani, CEO of the Abu Dhabi-based Yahsat satellite communications company

‘‘

‘‘

Yahsat successfully launched its first satellite, Y1A, in April 2011. The second satellite, Y1B, which has the commercial Ka payload for YahClick, was successfully launched in April 2012.

This issue of Africa Telecoms focuses on satellite and fibre services. We chat to Tareq Al Hosani, CEO of the Abu Dhabibased Yahsat satellite communications company, elaborates on pioneering efforts to build out its service in Africa, the Middle East and Southwest Asia.

To start off, could you give us a brief introduction to Yahsat and the background of the company?

Yahsat is a satellite communications company initiated and wholly owned by Mubadala, the Abu Dhabi government’s strategic investment and development vehicle, which undertook feasibility studies in 2005. A detailed market assessment was completed in March 2006. Yahsat is the first company in the Middle East and Africa to offer multipurpose (government and commercial) satellite services to the region.

Officially incorporated in January 2007, Yahsat was formed to meet the unfulfilled demand in the region for multipurpose satellite services that offer advanced satellite solutions.

It is focused on pioneering emerging satellite technologies in the Middle East, Africa and Southwest Asia, optimising communications and costs for end-users. Yahsat’s business strategy is to provide the complete range of satellite services in the region, becoming the crucial link in the virtuous circle between business and consumers.

What is (worldwide satellite operator) SES’s involvement in YahClick?

SES has no involvement with YahClick. However, Yahsat has entered into a partnership with SES to create YahLive, which offers state-of-the-art broadcasting, newsgathering, distribution and contribution feed capacities. This brings about a new era of high-definition (HD) and 3D TV services from our Y1A satellite launched last year and positioned at 52.5 degrees East. It covers the Middle East, Africa and Southwest Asia.

What is Yahsat’s strategic differentiator between Yahsat and its competitors, specifically if one looks at O3B that is being seen as a low-cost satellite offering?

66 AFRICA TELECOMS Issue 24

YahClick is a complete end-to-end broadband solution that can be made available to an end-user directly to his home or office anywhere in the coverage area; in case of other solutions you need to have an additional access system for the last mile delivery of broadband to the end-user.

What is the current progress of Yahsat and how many satellites does Yahsat have in the sky?

Yahsat successfully launched its first satellite, Y1A, in April 2011. The second satellite, Y1B, which has the commercial Ka payload for YahClick, was successfully launched in April 2012.

Recently, Yahsat announced its first commercial offering in South Africa through its partner, Vox Telecom. Can you tell us more about this offering and how it will work?

Yahsat’s satellite capacity will be sold to in-market service partners, who will then resell the capacity to customers. Vox Telecoms will be our in-market service partner for South Africa. We chose to partner with Vox as a reputable company that understands the local market and can effectively provide, install and support the YahClick service for customers. As our service partner, Vox will be responsible for in-country distribution, installation, customer support and marketing of the service to end-users.

Has the pricing for the service in South Africa been released already by Vox? Or is Yahsat taking an active role in setting prices in the various markets?

Yahsat will work with the service partners in making the best pricing decisions for each respective market.

What is the cost of the hardware needed to gain access to the service?

This information will be available from our in-country partners in due course.

Does Yahsat have similar partnerships in other African countries to resell YahClick? If so, where?

YahClick’s broadband service will cover the following countries in Africa, the Middle East and Southwest Asia: • Africa: Angola, Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Sudan,

South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda.

• Middle East: Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, UAE, Yemen.

• Southwest Asia: Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Pakistan.

• Other: Armenia, Cyprus, Turkey.

In each country, we have established similar partnership agreements with in-market providers so that our business and home users can purchase affordable, high-speed and reliable broadband internet from their local retailer.

What speeds are you expecting the end-user to receive from the YahClick service? And on what satellite band is this offering running?

Yahsat will offer a range of different uplink and downlink speeds in each target market, depending on that market’s requirements.

The service plans will be developed in conjunction with the service partners to meet the market’s needs in a cost-effective manner.

Yahsat has 23Ka band transponders. The Ka-band broadband service will offer affordable, uninterrupted and high-speed satellite broadband internet service for communities in 28 countries across the Middle East, Africa and Southwest Asia.

Why has it taken so long for satellite broadband to become commercially available in South Africa?

Satellite broadband is available with KU-band and C-band technology, but, due to high bandwidth and technical costs, it is not a viable option. With the new Ka-band multispot technology, the price points have dropped significantly, enabling Yahsat to offer affordable, wide-reaching and reliable satellite broadband in South Africa.

What are the future markets where YahClick will be rolled out in?

And how long until we see the service available in these markets?

YahClick is rolling out across 28 countries throughout the Middle East, Africa and Southwest Asia region in the second half of this year.

Is this an urban or a rural broadband solution?

A key advantage of satellite broadband communications is that it can reach remote areas that are not economically viable for physical cable infrastructure, or feature challenging terrain. The solution offered by YahClick will therefore be available to customers throughout rural and urban areas.

Is this a replacement solution for ADSL in Africa?

The main difference between YahClick and DSL is that YahClick has a much wider reach and a lesser time-frame to roll

‘‘

‘‘

YahClick is rolling out across 28 countries throughout the MiddleEast, Africa and Southwest Asia region in the second half of thisyear.

out than DSL. The coverage area in the case of DSL is limited to high population density centres while satellite-based services like YahClick provide coverage over remote areas as well. With a satellite receiver, businesses, schools and homes anywhere in the region have an opportunity to benefit from high-speed, highbandwidth connectivity at an affordable price.

Does Yahsat have a specific subscriber number identified to make YahClick profitable? And how long will it take to be achieved?

Unfortunately, this information is not something we will make public; however, we believe we have a strong business model in place that maps our predicted subscriber and revenue growth to the wider satellite industry. Our parent company, Mubadala, has made a significant investment in the satellite and our business, and our planned return matches its strategic investment profile.

What is the expansion plan for the YahClick service? And how many more satellites will be launched to supplement the current service?

Our focus now is very much on the successful launch of our second satellite, Y1B, and the roll-out of the YahClick service across the expansive Africa, Middle East and Southwest Asia geography.

Future plans and projects will be announced at the appropriate time, but for now we have enough to keep us busy! AT

Yahsat1b, packing astrium

Issue 24 AFRICA TELECOMS 67

Calendar Africa Telecoms Events Calendar April 2012 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; November 2012

may 15-16 North Africa Com Tunis, Tunisia

Louisa Rogers: +44 (0)20 7017 51575

www.comworldseries.com

21-24 Telecoms World Africa

Johannesburg, South Africa Tarryn Volkwyn: +27 (0)11 516 4000

www.terrapinn.com

21-24 satcom africa Johannesburg, South Africa

Tarryn Volkwyn: +27 (0)11 516 4000

www.terrapinn.com

21-24 the tv show africa Johannesburg, South Africa

Tarryn Volkwyn: +27 (0)11 516 4000

www.terrapinn.com

21-24 submarine networks world africa Johannesburg, South Africa

Tarryn Volkwyn: +27 (0)11 516 4000

www.terrapinn.com

21-24 TM Forum Management World 2012 Dublin, Ireland

www.tmforum.org

23-24 CLOUD AFRICA

Johannesburg, South Africa Louisa Rogers: +44 (0)20 7017 51575

www.comworldseries.com

june 06-07 aitec banking & mobile money west africa 2012 Lagos, Nigeria

Helen Moroney: +44 148 088 0774

www.aitecafrica.com

13-14 west & central Africa Com Dakar, senegal

Louisa Rogers: +44 (0)20 7017 51575

www.comworldseries.com

26-27 Data centre africa Johannesburg, South Africa 68 AFRICA TELECOMS Issue 24

Amanda Crabtree: +27 73 095 5682

www.datacentres.com

july 03-04 vas Africa

Johannesburg, South Africa Louisa Rogers: +44 (0)20 7017 51575

www.comworldseries.com

10-11 Aitec Africa - Broadcast & Film Africa Nairobi, Kenya

Helen Moroney: +44 148 088 0774

www.aitecafrica.com

september 10-13 Internet Show Africa 2012 Johannesburg, South Africa

Tarryn Volkwyn: +27 (0)11 516 4000

www.terrapinn.com

10-13 The Mobile Show Africa 2012 Johannesburg, South Africa

Tarryn Volkwyn: +27 (0)11 516 4000

www.terrapinn.com

11-12 mnvo industry summit Cape Town, South africa

Denise Duffy: +44 20 3377 3136

informa

18-19 Tm forumâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s africa summit Johannesburg, South Africa

www.tmforum.org

18-19 nigeria com Lagos, Nigeria

Louisa Rogers: +44 (0)20 7017 51575

www.terrapinn.com

19-20 aitec mozambique ict congress Maputo, Mozambique

Helen Moroney: +44 148 088 0774

www.aitecafrica.com

october

If you would like Africa Telecoms to add an event to the calendar, please contact Mr. Bradley Shaw at bshaw@3ipublishing.co.za

24-25 Aitec east africa ict summit Nairobi, kenya

Helen Moroney: +44 148 088 0774

www.aitecafrica.com

november 13-15 africa com Cape Town, South africa

Louisa Rogers: +44 (0)20 7017 51575

informa

Issue 24 AFRICA TELECOMS 69

ICT Jobs at your fingertips How To Apply Step 1: Visit www.careerjunction.co.za Step 2: Type the CJ Ref# in this box on the CareerJunction site and search.

Register free at www.careerjunction.co.za and create a professional online Resume!

Web Ref.

* Please note that Recruiters may expire/delete Job Ads at any time.

Access Network Engineer

RNO Engineer

Customer Support Services Manager

Johannesburg, South Africa (Gauteng)

Johannesburg, South Africa (Gauteng)

Midrand, South Africa (Gauteng)

Market Related CTC

Market Related CTC

Market Related CTC

Permanent skilled level position at Huawei Technologies in the Telecommunication industry.

Permanent skilled level position at Huawei Technologies in the Telecommunication industry.

Permanent management level position in the Telecommunication industry.

CJ Ref# 1368843

CJ Ref# 1368467

CJ Ref# 1368844

Project Manager / IT Infrastructure

Supply Chain Specialist

Field Maintenance

Centurion, South Africa (Gauteng)

Johannesburg, South Africa (Gauteng)

Cape Town, South Africa (Western Cape)

Market Related Salary

Market Related CTC

Market Related CTC

Contract senior level position at Telkom SA Limited in the Telecommunication industry.

Permanent skilled level position at Huawei Technologies in the Telecommunication industry.

Permanent skilled level position at Huawei Technologies in the Telecommunication industry.

CJ Ref# 1368910

CJ Ref# 1368782

CJ Ref# 1368818

Logistics Engineer

IP MW Engneer

Procurement Specialist

Johannesburg, South Africa (Gauteng)

South Africa (Limpopo)

Johannesburg, South Africa (Gauteng)

Market Related CTC

Market Related CTC

Market Related CTC

Permanent skilled level position at Huawei Technologies in the Telecommunication industry.

Permanent skilled level position at Huawei Technologies in the Telecommunication industry.

Permanent skilled level position at Huawei Technologies in the Telecommunication industry.

CJ Ref# 1368822

CJ Ref# 1368833

CJ Ref# 1368838

CTN Field Maintenance

CTN Field Maintenance

Sourcing Specialist

South Africa (Free State)

Cape Town (Royal Cape), South Africa (Western Cape)

Johannesburg, South Africa (Gauteng)

Market Related CTC

Market Related CTC

Up To R550,000 Per Annum CTC

Permanent skilled level position at Huawei Technologies in the Telecommunication industry.

Permanent skilled level position at Huawei Technologies in the Telecommunication industry.

Permanent management level position at OutGrow Professional Placements Group in the Telecommunication industry.

CJ Ref# 1368756

CJ Ref# 1369036

CJ Ref# 1368751

Fibre Maintenance

Subcontractor Manager

Core Network Engineer

Port Elizabeth, South Africa (Eastern Cape)

Johannesburg, South Africa (Gauteng)

Johannesburg, South Africa (Gauteng)

Market Related CTC

Market Related CTC

Market Related CTC

Permanent skilled level position at Huawei Technologies in the Telecommunication industry.

Permanent management level position at Huawei Technologies in the Telecommunication industry.

Permanent skilled level position at Huawei Technologies in the Telecommunication industry.

CJ Ref# 1368744

CJ Ref# 1368869

for more jobs visit www.careerjunction.co.za

CJ Ref# 1368730

Datacom Engineer

General Manager / Business Sales

Front Office / Back office

Johannesburg, South Africa (Gauteng)

Midrand, South Africa (Gauteng)

Johannesburg, South Africa (Gauteng)

Market Related CTC

Market Related Basic Salary Plus Benefits

Market Related CTC

Permanent skilled level position at Huawei Technologies in the Telecommunication industry.

Permanent executive level position at a market leader in the Telecommunication industry.

Permanent skilled level position at Huawei Technologies in the Telecommunication industry.

CJ Ref# 1368842

CJ Ref# 1368839

CJ Ref# 1368716

Senior Datacom Engineer

Core Network Engineer

Quality Controller

Johannesburg, South Africa (Gauteng)

Sandton, South Africa (Gauteng)

Cape Town, South Africa (Western Cape)

Market Related CTC

Market Related CTC

Market Related CTC

Permanent senior level position at Huawei Technologies in the Telecommunication industry.

Permanent skilled level position at Huawei Technologies in the Telecommunication industry.

Permanent skilled level position at Huawei Technologies in the Telecommunication industry.

CJ Ref# 1368853

CJ Ref# 1368725

CJ Ref# 1368860

Fibre Maintenance

Quality Controller

Service & Operations Coordinator

South Africa (KwaZulu-Natal)

Durban (Durban Harbour), South Africa (KwaZulu-Natal)

Pretoria (Faerie Glen), South Africa (Gauteng)

Market Related CTC

Market Related CTC

R120,000 - R180,000 Per Annum Basic Salary Neg

Permanent skilled level position at Huawei Technologies in the Telecommunication industry.

Permanent skilled level position at Huawei Technologies in the Telecommunication industry.

Permanent skilled level position at KNEKT Telecoms in the Telecommunication industry.

CJ Ref# 1368861

CJ Ref# 1368748

CJ Ref# 1368471

Senior IP & Transmission Planner

Sun Certified Java Developer

Key Account Manager

Randburg ( Johannesburg-North), South Africa (Gauteng)

Johannesburg, South Africa (Gauteng)

Johannesburg, South Africa (Gauteng)

Up To R900,000 Per Annum CTC

R360,000 - R720,000 Per Annum Basic Salary

R350,000 - R450,000 Per Annum CTC

Permanent skilled level position in the Telecommunication industry.

Permanent skilled level position in the Telecommunication industry.

Permanent senior level position in the Telecommunication industry.

CJ Ref# 1369250

CJ Ref# 1369220

CJ Ref# 1369081

Web Portal & Reporting

Sales Consultant

Credit Management

Sandton, South Africa (Gauteng)

Randburg ( Johannesburg-North), South Africa (Gauteng)

Gauteng, South Africa (Gauteng)

R15,000 - R30,000 Per Month Basic Salary

R420,000 Per Annum CTC Neg

Market Related Salary

Permanent skilled level position in the Telecommunication industry.

Permanent senior level position in the Telecommunication industry.

Permanent junior level position at Telkom SA Limited in the Telecommunication industry.

CJ Ref# 1368954

CJ Ref# 1369281

CJ Ref# 1369318

Senior .NET C# Developer

EE Network Planning & Optimization Engineer

Product Manager / VC & AV

Midrand, South Africa (Gauteng)

South Africa (Eastern Cape)

Centurion, South Africa (Gauteng)

R360,000 - R600,000 Per Annum Basic Salary

Market Related Basic Salary Neg

Up To R540,000 Per Annum On Target Earnings Plus Benefits

Permanent senior level position in the Telecommunication industry.

Contract skilled level position at ZTE Corporation in the Telecommunication industry.

Permanent skilled level position in the Telecommunication industry.

CJ Ref# 1300059

CJ Ref# 1369267

CJ Ref# 1369585

Senior Datacom Engineer

Mobile Account Manager

Johannesburg, South Africa (Gauteng)

South Africa (Gauteng)

Port Elizabeth, South Africa (Eastern Cape)

R600,000 - R750,000 Per Annum Basic Salary

Market Related Basic Salary Plus Benefits

R350,000 - R400,000 Per Annum CTC

Permanent position in the Telecommunication industry.

Permanent senior level position at Huawei technologies in the Telecommunication industry.

Permanent management level position at Telecommunications company in the Telecommunication industry.

Customer Operations Manager

CJ Ref# 1369215

CJ Ref# 1368276

for more fmcg jobs visit www.careerjunction.co.za

CJ Ref# 1368143

Last Word Bradley Shaw writes exclusively for Africa Telecoms Magazine

Photo My0pia and the lack of vision

Theodore Levitt’s seminal piece in 1960 titled: “Marketing Myopia”; looked at what railroads had done incorrectly and how they lost marketing share. Levitt further looked at the decline of Hollywood and also what petroleum companies needed to do to ensure their success. After more than 50 years, we can see how Levitt’s views were indeed spot on, with Hollywood needing to embrace entertainment and petroleum companies needing to power consumers, not sell oil, whether by solar or other means. The developments around Kodak and Instagram are probably quite similar in nature.

Kodak failed to capitlise on its market dominance in the photographic market by not fully embracing what technology was offering, whereas a small startup like Instagram did. The results speak for themselves. The photographic industry has certainly taken a turn from the traditional to the social. We all know that social media is taking the world by storm, but not even the most forward-thinking analysts would have seen the current turn of events in the photography sector. Clearly, none of these analysts spent much time pondering Levitt’s work.

Kodak declared bankruptcy back in January 2012, with a vertible treasure-trove of patents on hand. In the weeks before Kodak announced its bankruptcy it filed patent suits against Apple, RIM, HTC and Samsung Electronics for alleged infringements on how images are sent from a mobile device and how images are viewed on a digital camera. This showed yet again, how desperate Kodak was at trying to hold on to

72 AFRICA TELECOMS Issue 24

what it thought was its own instead of trying to innovate and embrace the change that was coming.

This all changed with recent news of the buyout of Instagram. This happened when Facebook shocked us all with the purchase of Instagram for USD$1billion, yes that is “b” for billion. There is clearly still money to be made in the photographic industry; it is just that the way this money is made and the way people embrace photography has changed. There is no longer a need to print pictures, to create physical photo albums. This is now all done digitally and shared socially.

Instagram has a huge staff complement of 13, whereas Kodak is now bankrupt and had 64,000 employees in 2003, with now only 17,000 staff members. It paints a rather dire picture of the rise and fall of companies, although the interesting question here is why Facebook would have paid a billion dollars for a company that has yet to earn any revenue at all. But a visionary like Mark Zuckerberg (love him or hate him, he is a visionary), the founder of Facebook, certainly sees the billion-dollar potential of strengthening Facebook’s photographic portfolio.

With this turn of events, questions have been bandied about including: “Does Instagram owe Kodak a billion-dollar thank you?” And the simple answer is a resounding “yes”. Without the Kodak forerunner,s none of the original photo effects would be around. And Instragram would not have been able to take advantage of the hipsters’ love of the “classic” photo. AT

E1655 - IKINEO 457 SES AFRICA TELECOMS p.indd 1

2012/04/19 3:42 PM