Africa Telecoms - Issue 11

CONTENTS ISSUE 11 2010

22 Thought Leadership

An exclusive interview with Steve Song, Communicatoins Fellow,

REGULARS

2 AFRICA TELECOMS Issue 11 2010

04

06

16

18

36

Guest Editorial

News

Calendar

Gadgets

Statistics

The latest local and global telecoms news.

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

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

Africa Telecoms presents statistics and data relating to New Technologies.

Jing Wang, Senior Vice President and Chairman, Qualcomm Asia Pacific.

40AuGmENTEd REALiTyFake has never been so real. Lesley Stones examines augmented reality innovation.

REGULARS

50Seacom - An Essential Link in the African Network Chain

The Shuttleworth Foundation.

Issue 11 2010 AFRICA TELECOMS 3

Executive EditorMohammed [email protected] EditorBradley [email protected] DirectorSarah [email protected]

Design Team:Alexander [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Sub-EditorNiki SampsonPrintingTandym Press

Contributors: Lesley Stones, Brett Haggard, Mohammed Khan, Arthur Goldstruck, Bradley Shaw, Richard Smuts-Steyn, Jing Wang.

Africa Telecoms and Africa Telecoms Online are published by:3i PublishingUnit 9 & 10, Planet Art 2, 32 Jamieson Street,Cape Town 8001T: +27 21 426 5590E: info@3ipublishing.co.zawww.3ipublishing.co.zawww.africatelecomsonline.comBPA Worldwide Business Publication Audit, Membership Applied for – October 2009.

FOR AFRICA TELECOMS

72 Last WordWhere’s Karl? The last great idealogue certainly did not see the technological revolution coming!

70 Job ListingA list of the latest telecoms positions from across Africa.

60 Q&AWith Nick Jones, VP, Distinguished Analyst, Gartner Research, UK.

54Fabulous darlingBrett Haggard looks at 5 red hot fab finds in 2010. What has worked and what hasn’t.

68 The iPad is not the Future,

66 The Emergence of the compact Superpico Base Station

Richard Smuts-Steyn, CEO of Multisource, puts the case forward for compact, environmentally friendly base station architecture.

but What a great signpost, argues Arthur Goldstruck.

Guest Editorial

Growth opportunity on the “plateau continent”These are exciting times for the mobile industry. Estimates at the time of this writing indicate that the industry is currently adding one billion mobile connections every 18 months worldwide, 40% of which are 3G; meaning that total connections are on track to reach six billion in the first half of 2012.

Emerging markets such as Africa – often referred to as the plateau continent – represent a tremendous growth opportunity as they transition from 2G to 3G (EV-DO and UMTS900/HSPA+), which offers voice and data services at lower cost and with better performance. In the first quarter of 2010, Informa Telecoms & Media reported that by 2012, emerging markets are expected to represent 50% of 3G handset shipments worldwide.

Growth of the African mobile market has been driven by the continent’s historical lack of fixed-line infrastructure for voice or data, essentially making mobile service the default means for voice communication and Internet access. The completion of a second deep-sea communications cable should also help drive down the cost of data and accelerate mobile data consumption.

the bottom line: improvinG the quality of lifeWhile the revenue opportunities offer significant potential for mobile industry players in Africa, what’s really remarkable about mobile technologies in Africa goes far beyond the economics – it’s mobile’s ability to transform lives.

Beyond voice calls, mobile phones can help Africans do any number of extraordinary things: improve access to news and information, expose schoolchildren to better learning opportunities, remind the elderly to take their medication…even track market prices for fishermen and farmers, ensuring that they get the best prices for their goods. The fact is, for many people in Africa, their first and only access to telephone services and computing capabilities is going to be through a mobile phone.

If that’s not inspiring, consider the point from a macro perspective. Mobile networks, particularly 3G communications networks, are critical infrastructure in developing countries across Africa, and these networks are now a major factor in driving substantial economic growth and socio-economic progress. A 2009 World Bank Information and

Communications for Development report showed that wireless connectivity matters: a 10% increase in mobile phone penetration results in an increase of .81% in per capita GDP and a 10% increase in Internet/broadband penetration results in an increase of 1.38% in GDP.

makinG mobile more accessible and affordable for allOne might conclude that mobile technologies offer Africa a lot of potential, but how can a rural African citizen, one who might live on $2 (USD) a day, afford a mobile phone?

Qualcomm and its many partners are working continuously to develop solutions that lower the barrier to entry for the everyday consumer. For instance, Qualcomm’s “system-on-a-chip” single-chip solutions and turnkey reference designs are not only making mobile phones more power efficient and reliable, but also more cost-effective to build and less time consuming to bring to market. The cost benefits realized by device manufacturers are ultimately passed on to consumers through the availability of more device choices at more affordable prices. Ultimately, efforts like these are bringing down the average selling price of mobile phones, allowing more and more Africans – particularly those in the underserved communities – to discover and benefit from the mobile phone.

the future depends on usWhat’s on the horizon for mobile is limited only by the imaginations of key industry players – device manufacturers, network operators, app developers and content publishers – as well new market entrants who have the vision to apply wireless in a nearly infinite number of non-traditional ways. Regardless, Qualcomm will be there to help bring to fruition

Jing WangSenior Vice President and Chairman, Qualcomm Asia Pacific


the big ideas and solutions that make a difference in Africa and accelerate mobility around the world. AT

Mobile is Moving AfricA

Emerging markets such as

Africa, represent a tremendous growth opportunity as they

transition from 2G to 3G

‘‘ ‘‘


>>Zain Kenya announced another reward programme that will see its customers on both prepaid and postpaid enjoy unlimited calls within the networ>>

NEWS

ITU’s RadIocommUnIcaTIon secToR (ITU-R) has completed the assessment of six candidate submissions for the global 4G mobile wireless broadband technology, otherwise known as ImT-advanced. Harmonization among these proposals has resulted in two technologies, “LTe-advanced1” and “Wirelessman-advanced2” being accorded the official designation of ImT-advanced, qualifying them as true 4G technologies.

In its recent meeting in chongqing, china, ITU-R Working Party 5d, which is charged with defining the ImT-advanced global 4G technologies, reached a milestone in its work by deciding on these technologies for the first release of ImT-advanced. In the ITU-R Report, which will be published shortly, the LTe-advanced and Wirelessman-advanced technologies were each determined to have successfully met all of the criteria established by ITU-R for the first release of ImT-advanced. The Report is expected to be approved by ITU member states at the ITU-R study Group 5 meeting in Geneva in late november 2010.

ITU secretary-General Hamadoun Touré said, “IcTs and broadband networks have become vital national infrastructure — similar to transport, energy and water networks — but with an impact that promises to be even more powerful and far-reaching. These key enhancements in wireless broadband can drive social and economic development, and accelerate progress towards achieving the United nations’ millennium development Goals, or mdGs.”

“While the goals set for ImT-advanced were considered by some to be very high, I am very pleased to see that all stakeholders in the mobile wireless industry have risen to meet the challenge,” said Valery Timofeev, director of the ITU Radiocommunication Bureau, in expressing his appreciation for this worldwide effort. “I look forward to the ITU-R

Recommendation for ImT-advanced that will have a profound effect on the development of state-of-the-art technologies for 4G mobile broadband.”

Following the success of the ITU-defined ImT-2000 (3G) systems, ITU-R launched the ImT-advanced (4G) initiative with its strategic ImT future vision in 2002. It subsequently established the services, spectrum and performance requirements for ImT-advanced as well as a detailed evaluation process. In an on-going partnership with the industry, the six proposals received by ITU in october 2009 were individually subjected to a rigorous assessment, supported by the work of independent external evaluation groups that had been established around the world. Industry consensus and harmonization fostered by ITU-R among these six proposals have resulted in the consolidation of the proposals into the two agreed ImT-advanced technologies. These technologies will now move into the final stage of the ImT-advanced process, which provides for the development in early 2012 of an ITU-R Recommendation specifying the in-depth technical standards for these radio technologies.

ImT-advanced (4G) provides a global platform on which to build the next-generations of interactive mobile services that will provide faster data access, enhanced roaming capabilities, unified messaging and broadband multimedia.

stephen Blust, director of Radio standards, aT&T, and chairman of the ITU-R Working Party 5d, also expressed his thanks to all the contributors in industry, government and ITU who have made the ImT-advanced process successful.

The close partnership between ITU-R members and the global wireless industry in the work on ImT-advanced clearly establishes these technologies as the pre-eminent ITU-sanctioned 4G mobile wireless broadband solution for information, communications and entertainment. AT

ITU paves way for nexT-generaTIon 4g mobIle TechnologIes ITU-R ImT-advanced 4G standards to usher new era of mobile broadband communications

"While the goals set for ImT-advanced were considered by some to be very high, I am very

pleased to see that all stakeholders in the mobile wireless industry have risen to meet the challenge"

>> Sony Ericsson PlayStation Phone is likely to be based on the Android 3.0 (aka ‘Gingerbread’) platform and powered by Qualcomm’s 1GHz MSM8655 chip >>


NEWS

Spescom Media IT has just launced a new product range from Avid Audio. Avid Audio is the industry defining audio solutions provider previously known as DigiDesign, and needs little introduction to the music and video production industry.

Avid’s recently announced new line of high quality audio I/Os for Pro Tools HD – namely the HD I/O, Madi OMNI and HD Native - is cause for celebration among professionals.

Says Ian Holden of Spescom Media IT, distributor of Avid Audio HD in South Africa: “ This release offers a host of enhancements to the Avid Audio range that users have been anticipating for some time. These products will allow the professionals to raise the bar on audio quality and performance, improving their overall results."

Besides being the first release to be branded Avid Audio rather than Digidesign, the three interfaces introduce new I/O options that users have not had before, such as Curv, a new built-in soft-knee analogue limiter designed to catch even the fastest transients, allowing you to record even hotter signals and smooth out inconsistent input level. AT

SpeScom media iT Announces New Product range from Avid Audio

The Motorola Solutions business of Motorola, Inc. has launched a new global Services offer - Service Management Platform (SMP). The SMP service revolutionizes the way in which operators are able to monitor, analyze and optimize mobile network traffic and performance. Motorola's SMP service is able to provide near real-time network tracking from the network equipment level down to the mobile device level.

The new SMP service measures network performance from a subscriber, device and application perspective instead of a network equipment perspective. It is an innovative and cost-effective approach to providing near real-time monitoring and analysis that greatly improves network efficiency and the end user experience,” said T.K. Ng, General Manager of Motorola Networks Services in China and Asia Pacific.

Operators can significantly enhance the user experience by deploying the right resources to resolve user satisfaction issues and prioritize services based on user privileges,” added Ng.

In addition, the information gathered by the SMP service provides insight into call patterns and usage models. For example, roaming services being highly profitable to operators, the SMP can track the success rate of roaming calls and find out why and where roaming calls fail. AT

Motorola Solutions launches innovative service management platform


>>Apple's iPad will help sales of media tablets around the world hit 19.5 million units this year, according to a Gartner forecast >>

NEWS

Etisalat and Alcatel-Lucent have joined together in a strategic partnership to launch the first permission-based mobile advertising service in the UAE. Etisalat's customers in the UAE will be able to opt-in to receive ads and offers that match their interests from their favorite brands on their mobile phones.

Advertisers are becoming more and more conscious of the opportunities that mobile advertising offers. Mobile advertising remains one of the most exciting developments in the mobile market today, enabling marketers to better target customers from a wider base more directly, through an entirely new channel. The rise of mobile as a means of advertising supports the ongoing shift of ad budgets from traditional marketing media, such as TV and radio, to more direct "below-the-line" forms, such as direct mail, E-mail and the Internet. Mobile advertising promises to provide the next phase in this development, offering marketers even higher levels of advertising effectiveness and impact.

Khalifa Al Shamsi, Etisalat's Senior Vice President of Marketing stated, "In today's wireless world, mobile advertising is now essential to the foundation of any successful marketing campaign. Prospective customers are using their mobile phones at anytime and from anywhere, hence giving

mobile advertising compelling influence over consumer decisions in real-time by feeding them an ad at the most influential moment".

"We are very enthusiastic about working with Etisalat to bring a more personalized and compelling experience to their customers," said Amr El-Leithy, Head of Alcatel-Lucent’s business in the Middle East & Africa.

The Etisalat approach to the market will be based on customer permission and preferences, i.e. customers will have to opt-in to the service and share their interests in order to enjoy these promotions and discounts. "Etisalat has always been extremely attentive towards the needs of our valued customers and it is our responsibility to ensure them maximum flexibility in the way they use and enjoy Etisalat's services. The opt-in feature of this service gives them the power to decide what advertisements they wish to receive as per their interests and preferences and protects them from receiving undesired promotional messages." says El-Leithy.

The mobile advertising model that Etisalat has chosen to penetrate the market with, is interactive "Dialogue" ads along with the other messaging service that is available on Etisalat's nation-wide network. AT

eTiSalaT

mobilises brands, advertising agencies and media houses throughout the UAE


>>Africa led the charge, registering 4% growth in subscribers between the first and second quarter of 2010>>

NEWS

Fujitsu Develops technology For Design oF compact, high-eFFiciency Wireless charging systems paves way for simultaneous wireless charging of multiple portable devices

"What Fujitsu Laboratories has done is to develop technology that dramatically shortens the time required to design transmitters and receivers for magnetic resonance charging systems and, in addition, enables accurate tuning of resonant conditions in the design phase,

even for compact transmitters and receivers that are prone to influences from nearby metallic and magnetic objects."

Mobinil which leads the Egyptian mobile market by subscriber numbers, is considering borrowing as much as 2 billion Egyptian pounds (US$ 347 million) to finance expansion of its network and services.

The size of the loan depends on market conditions as well as talks with Commercial International Bank (CIB) and state-owned National Bank of Egypt, al-Mal newspaper reported, citing the firm's Chief Executive Officer, Hassan Kabbani.

The central bank has blocked Mobinil, jointly owned by France Telecom and Orascom Telecom, from further bank borrowing because its creditor banks have reached the limit they can lend to any one client.

When calculating single client loans, the central bank also takes the loans of Orascom Telecom into consideration because Orascom owns part of Mobinil.

Al-Mal quoted Kabbani as saying Mobinil had asked the two banks to seek an exception for the firm because Mobinil had incorporated its financial accounts into those of its other major shareholder, France Telecom.

Mobinil's Chief Executive said in September the firm was considering issuing bonds worth 1 billion pounds. The firm issued 1.5 billion pounds in bonds in January. AT

egypT's mobInIl mulls US $347 million loan

THe neW TecHnoLoGy Has THe FoLLoWInG cHaRacTeRIsTIcs:

1. a magnetic field analysis simulator which analyzes the coil model and a specialized circuit simulator which analyzes the resonance conditions, including the capacitor model, are combined, making it possible to quickly and accurately design wireless charging systems for multiple transmitters and receivers at once using a variety of coil sizes.

2. The design of the wireless charging system can be automated to precisely match the desired resonance requirements, based on an assessment function which maximizes the charging efficiency.

>> Libyan investment company LAP Green Networks is set to build a fibre-optic network in Zambia>>


NEWS

Fujitsu Laboratories Limited has recently announced the development of wireless recharging technology that enables the design of magnetic resonance-based wireless charging systems that can simultaneously recharge various types of portable electronic devices.

This technology not only promises more compact and more efficient power transmitters and receivers, it also offers the ability to design charging systems in 1/150th the time currently required. In addition to dramatically shortening development times, this technology paves the way to integrating compact wireless charging functions into mobile phones and enabling multiple portable devices to be charged simultaneously without any restrictions on their position with respect to the charger.

Wireless charging has become an increasingly desirable technology in recent years, as people are eager to avoid the clutter and inconvenience of using power cables to recharge their mobile phones, digital cameras, notebook computers, and other portable electronics.

electromagnetic induction and magnetic resonance are the methods most often used for wireless charging. With electromagnetic induction, a magnetic flux is induced between the power-transmitting and power-receiving coils, and operates based on electromotive force. This method has been used in cordless phones, among other equipment. The drawbacks are that the method only works over short distances, and the power transmitter and power receiver need to be in alignment, so it is effectively no different than using a charging station with a wired connection.

By contrast, the magnetic resonance method, which was first proposed

in 2006, uses a coil and capacitor as a resonator, transmitting electricity through the magnetic resonance between the power transmitter and power receiver. This method can transmit electricity over a range of up to several meters, and because a single transmitter can power multiple receiving devices, developments are under way for a broad range of potential applications, charging everything from portable electronics to electric cars.

What Fujitsu Laboratories has done is to develop technology that dramatically shortens the time required to design transmitters and receivers for magnetic resonance charging systems and, in addition, enables accurate tuning of resonant conditions in the design phase, even for compact transmitters and receivers that are prone to influences from nearby metallic and magnetic objects.

Together, these two technologies represent the world's first practical magnetic resonance design simulator which enables rapid and precise designs for transmitters and receivers according to the desired resonance requirements.

Fujitsu plans to continue using this analysis and design technology in research and development on wireless charging systems for mobile phones and other portable devices, and plans to bring products using it to market in 2012. The company is also looking at applying the results of this work to fields other than portable electronics, including power transmission between circuit boards or computer chips, and providing mobile charging systems for electric cars. aT

How can I write a movie script for nollywood? How does the stock exchange operate in Johannesburg? What is the recipe for bitter leaf soup? What is the best company for car insurance in Kenya?

english and French speaking Internet users in africa, with local questions, can now turn to each other for expert advice on almost any topic, using Google Baraza. Baraza, which means ‘taskforce’ or ‘council’ in swahili, is a question and answer service that will also be integrated into search results on Google search.

Baraza is available in 40 countries across africa. Local domains of the service have been set up in south africa, cameroon, Uganda, senegal, nigeria, Kenya, Ivory coast and many other countries. experts in any field, be it food, business, tourism, fashion and more, can log on and start providing advice. Users can also create profiles, send messages, follow others, rate answers and receive points for asking and answering.

"In our effort to understand the needs of the market we found out that people across africa ask Google a tremendous number of questions every day. However, a lot of these remain unanswered due to the lack of local content online. We recognise that users are the best at answering each other's questions within a community, and this product is the perfect way to be able to share and contribute information," says aneto okonkwo , Product manager, Google. “The Google africa teams are committed to enhancing the online experience, and making the Internet more relevant for all the continent’s users.” AT

"We recognise that users are the best at answering each other's questions within a community, and this

product is the perfect way to be able to share and contribute information."

Have a question? Google Baraza may have the answer…Google launches question and answer product across Africa


>> InMobi’s largest African markets, in order, are: South Africa, Egypt, Kenya, Sudan, Libya and Nigeria >>

NEWS

President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria has approved that the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) conclude the privatisation of Nigerian Telecommunications Ltd (NITEL) and its mobile arm, M-TEL and that staff of the two organisations be paid their entitlements.

The President has approved that New Generation Telecommunications Consortium, pay a bid security of US$750 million as a pre-condition for the issuance of an offer letter in its bid to acquire NITEL and M-TEL. In accordance with the provisions of the Requests for Proposal (RFP), the bid security sum is to be paid within ten calendar days from the date of issue of a demand letter from the BPE. The balance of the bid amount of US$1,750 billion should be paid within sixty days from the date of the issue of an offer letter.

New Generation Telecom Ltd., consists of China Unicom (Hong Kong) Ltd., Minerva Group of Dubai and Nigeria’s GiCell Wireless Ltd., who won the bidding for 75% of the company.

The New Generation Consortium had emerged the preferred bidder with an offer price of US$2.5 billion during the opening of financial bids for the privatisation of NITEL and M-TEL which was held on February 16, 2010 in Abuja. The reserve bidder is Omen International with an offer price of just under US$1 billion.

The National Council on Privatisation (NCP) had at its meeting of March 12th 2010, set up an eight-member ad-hoc committee under the Chairmanship of the Attorney-General of the Federation to review the NITEL/ M-TEL sale transaction. The Committee found out that the transaction complied strictly with due process as outlined in the BPE’s Procedures Manual and that necessary approvals were obtained through the Technical Committee (TC) and the NCP at every stage of the transaction.

President Jonathan also approved that staff entitlements and outstanding salaries of all employees of NITEL/M-TEL be paid. The President’s decision was based on the recommendation of the Presidential Task Force on NITEL/M-TEL Labour Restructuring Taskforce which was tasked to address the issue of outstanding salaries and allowances owed the workers. The Committee which was chaired by the Minister of Labour was re-activated at the NCP’s meeting of June 11, 2010.

The Debt Management Office has been authorised to issue a bond while the Federal Ministry of Finance has been directed to raise the amounts immediately required to resolve the matter of staff liabilities. The bonds will be subsequently redeemed from the proceeds of the sale of the twin corporate units. AT

"The new Generation consortium had emerged the preferred bidder with an offer price of $2.5 billion

during the opening of financial bids"

Nigeria Approves $2.5 Billion Sale of Nitel


>>ABI Research™ global services business revenues are forecast to grow at a 4.3% CAGR over the next 4 years, reaching $133bil by 2014>>

NEWS

according to the Ghana news agency, The national communication authority (nca) has reiterated that the registration of mobile phone subscriber Identity module (sIm) cards currently in progress is free.

The authority said it is therefore illegal for agents of mobile telecom operators to demand fees under any form of guise.

mr John Benyarku essamuah, deputy manager, customer and corporate affairs of nca said this at a phone chip registration and identification seminar in Ho for field workers of the Information services department (Isd) in the Volta Region.

He said it was also a gross anomaly for these agents to register sIm cards based on data received on phone, without seeing the client. current reports on the registration exercise indicate that such a situation exists in certain parts of the country.

Under the nca policy, unregistered sIm cards by June 30, next year would be blocked.

mr essamuah stressed that the exercise is an important national documentation issue that posed no threat to individual liberties.He said all data used in registering the sIm cards would be verified and spurious information would be cancelled.

He urged mobile phone operators to open up more registration centres to enable subscribers to reach them.

mr essamuah also urged subscribers to see the exercise as a civic responsibility. He said in the near future, mobile phones would also be registered.

on co-location of telecom masts, he said, the nca had reached agreement with the telecom operators.

mr Bennet dzogbelu, Regional Information officer tasked his officers to get to work to fill the information vacuum on the exercise with credible messages before wrong information took hold of the people. AT

NCA - Mobile Phone SIM Card registration is free

MICrOwAVE BACKHAuL SPECIALIST, Cambridge Broadband Networks, announced a comprehensive framework agreement with MTN Group, for the provision of microwave backhaul and access equipment. The framework agreement, covering all 21 countries served by MTN, follows the successful deployment and operation of Cambridge Broadband Networks’ VectaStar solutions in a number of MTN’s African markets.

Each of MTN’s operating companies now has access to a range of pre-approved VectaStar microwave backhaul equipment via a group-wide purchasing agreement. That equipment has already been validated by MTN for a range of applications including backhaul of 2G, wiMAX and 3G network traffic, and the provision of broadband Internet access services to businesses. Additionally, MTN deployed vehicle mounted VectaStar units to provide addition backhaul capacity during the 2010 FIFA World Cup™. The agreement also makes provision for Cambridge Broadband Networks supplying a comprehensive set of design and implementation services including RF Planning, Project Management and Solutions Consulting.

Commenting on the agreement, Mr Navindran Naidoo, MTN Group’s GM Group Technology, said: “MTN delivers world class mobile services to business and residential users across Africa and the Middle East. To do so, we need world class partners and Cambridge Broadband Networks’ cellular microwave solutions have been proven in our developed and developing territories. The VectaStar range is quick to deploy, cost effective and designed to meet the data capacity demands of next generation networks.”

“MTN Group is a forward thinking operator focused on the delivery of best in class services,” said Graham Peel, Cambridge Broadband Network’s CEO. “That approach was evident in the rapid design and activation of its South African network, in preparation for the expected footfall at the world Cup. VectaStar microwave equipment is a key element of that network, and gave MTN the flexibility to extend network capacity on match days at a moments notice, using eight VectaStar equipped vehicles. We are looking forward to working with MTN to maintain their lead position in the industry.” AT

MTN Group and Cambridge Broadband Networks complete multinational Framework agreement

Cambridge Broadband Networks selected as preferred supplier for microwave backhaul equipment


>>Developing markets accounted for 3.98 bil of the world's 5.15 bil total connections>>

NEWS

Multinational corporations can take advantage of a new network alliance Verizon has formed with Gateway Business Africa that will expand Verizon Business Private IP network capabilities in several African countries.

The agreement allows Verizon Business to leverage Gateway Business’ network presence and extend coverage of the Verizon multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) network to an additional 14 pan-African countries by using interconnection points between the companies’ networks. The MPLS network gives customers a scalable and flexible cross-continent IP business communications platform for continued growth and global reach.

Verizon Business customers now can access Private IP network capabilities in Tanzania and Kenya in Africa’s eastern region; Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Cameroon on the western coast; and Namibia, Botswana, Mozambique and

South Africa in the central and southern regions. Other countries to be added to the Private-IP Gateway interconnection arrangement are Uganda, Lesotho, Angola and Zambia.

“As a leader in developing and delivering global IP network solutions worldwide, this new agreement continues to meet our customers’ growing requirements for IP as the global business platform of choice,” said Ihab Tarazi, Vice President of Verizon’s global network planning. “Our network alliance and the MPLS interconnect enables full traffic integration of Verizon Business’ global Private IP network with Gateway Business’ network in this important emerging market. As a result, our multinational customers can rely on a single secure global network foundation for their business operations around the world.”

Verizon Private IP customers benefit

from six classes of service (CoS), and latency-sensitive applications, such as VoIP and video, receive priority over applications such as e-mail. The ability to prioritize applications, combined with advanced reporting tools for network and application performance to the desktop and user level, make Private IP an ideal global platform for business communications and day-to-day operations.

“As the leading pan-African telecommunications provider, we look forward to helping Verizon Business expand its MPLS network coverage to meet their customers’ needs in this growing region,” said wally Beelders, CEO of Gateway Business, a Vodacom Group Company. “We take pride in our commitment to provide outstanding network connectivity using a unique mix of submarine and terrestrial cables and satellite connections.” AT

VerizoN BusiNess expands Global IP network Reach in african countries by Teaming With Gateway Business africa

2011

EVENTS CALENDAR


11-17 Barcelona

SpainGSMA

www.mobileworldcongress.com

31 Johannesburg

South AfricaTatum Willis

+27 11 516 4059Terrapinn

www.terrapinn.com/2011

28 Johannesburg


+27 11 516 4059Terrapinn


GSMA MOBILEwORLd COnGRESS

pREpAId CARdS AFRICA 2011

MOBILE MOnEy wORLd AFRICA

may

mar01-02

DubaiUAE

TM Forum

http://www.tmforum.org

MAnAGEMEnT wORLd MIddLE EAST 2011

02-03 Nairobi

KenyaHelen Moroney

+44 148 088 0774AITEC Africa

www.aitecafrica.com

AITEC BAnkInG & MOBILE MOnEy COMESA 2011

12-13 Nairobi

KenyaVeronika Pete

+44 207 017 5818Informa Telecoms & Media

www.comworldseries.comEAST AFRICA COMapr

jan

26-27 SingaporeTM Forum


MAnAGEMEnT wORLd ASIA 2011

01-03 5Th AnnuAL E-GOv AFRICA FORuM

Rumana Bukht+44 208 600 3800

C.T.Ohttp://www.cto.int

21-23 hR4ICT11 NairobiKenya

Rumana Bukht+44 208 600 3800

C.T.Ohttp://www.cto.int

20-21 Cape Town

South AfricaMagenta Global

www.magenta-global.com.sg/3g4g/3.9 G: 3G TO 4G

Patricia Chong+65 6391 2555

DATE EVENT CITY CONTACT ORGANISER

feb 01-01 South AfricaRumana Bukht

+44 208 600 3800C.T.O

http://www.cto.int

6Th AnnuAL dIGITAL BROAdCASTInG SwITChOvER FORuM SOuTh AFRICA

04-05 Nairobi

KenyaAFRICAn OuTSOuRCInG SuMMIT 2010

29-30 Istanbul

TurkeyEuRASIA COM

JANuARy 2011 - NoVEmbER 2011


23-27Nice

FranceTM Forum

http://www.tmforum.orgMAnAGEMEnT wORLd 2011

30 Johannesburg


+27 11 516 4059Terrapinn

www.terrapinn.com/2011SATCOM 2011 AFRICA

If you would like Africa Telecoms to add an event to the calendar, please contact Mr. Bradley Shaw at: [email protected]

jun

sep

20-21 Johannesburg

South AfricaTM Forum


15-16 Dakar

SenegalVeronika Pete

+44 207 017 5818Informa Telecoms & Media

www.comworldseries.comwEST & CEnTRAL AFRICA COM

MAnAGEMEnT wORLd AFRICA 2011

jul

08-09Accra

GhanaHelen Moroney

+44 148 088 0774AITEC Africa

www.aitecafrica.com

AITEC BAnkInG & MOBILE MOnEy wEST AFRICA 2011

20-21 Lagos

NigerianIGERIA COM

DATE EVENT CITY CONTACT ORGANISER

05-08 Johannesburg


+27 11 516 4059SuBMARInE nETwORkS wORLd AFRICA 2011

Terrapinnwww.terrapinn.com/2011

06-07Johannesburg

South AfricavAS AFRICA

aug01-04

JohannesburgSouth Africa

Tatum Willis+27 11 516 4059

TerrapinSOCIAL MEdIA wORLd AFRICA 2011 www.terrapinn.com/2011

02-03 Johannesburg


+27 11 516 4059Terrapinn


ThE InTERnET ShOw AFRICA 2011

28-29 Johannesburg

South AfricaHelen Moroney

+44 148 088 0774AITEC Africa

www.aitecafrica.com

AITEC BAnkInG & MOBILE MOnEy SOuThERn AFRICA 2011

26-29 Cape Town

South AfricaTELECOMS wORLd AFRICA 2011 Terrapin


Tatum Willis+27 11 516 4059

oct11-12

HammamatTunisia

nORTh AFRICA COM Informa Telecoms & Mediawww.nafrica.comworldseries.com

nov09-10

Cape Town South Africa

AFRICA COM

Veronika Pete+44 207 017 5818


H Uncool HH Poor HHH Average HHHH Excellent HHHHH Awesome

>>LG GE20 ExtErnaL DVD DriVE

Cost: Approximately R 500Rating: HHHH

FEatUREs: USB 2.0 external writeable DVD drive, SecurDisc to protect your data, LightScribe Direct Labeling, Supports all disc formats.

You’ll need to get your hands on something like the LG GE20 external DVD drive if you have a netbook, or thinking of getting one, as these devices sacrifice an optical drive to achieve their compact size.

The most common use of a writeable DVD drive, apart from reading DVD discs to install programs and watch movies, is as a backup device. A writeable DVD drive will enable you to back up audio, video, and files of any type from a PC or Mac. This means it can be used to clear space on your hard disk, make backups of files or watch and burn DVDs wherever you might be.

When it came to using the device, the LG GE20 seems to be a very capable DVD-writer. With maximum supported write speeds of 20x for DVDs and 48x for CDs, it will probably be limited by the USB 2.0 interface it uses rather than anything else – so you should expect a fairly quick response time from this device, but it won’t blow you away. What sets this external DVD drive apart from the competition is the LightScribe Direct Labeling facility. This enables you to burn a silk-screen-like, high-contrast label on the topside of your CD or DVD media.

SamSunG SPF-87H DiGitaL PHoto FramE


FEatUREs: Ultra-thin frame and screen depth, Uses LED screen technology, Shuffle modes, 1GB memory.

Samsung has cleverly thought of a solution to the convoluted hassle that is printing your photos and framing them for the mantelpiece: it’s called the SPF-87H and it’s an 8”-wide “Touch of Colour” digital photo frame.

Almost as beautiful as the photos it showcases, it utilises UbiSync technology to make the 87H more than just a digital photo frame.

It also allows you to set it up as a secondary mini-monitor, perfect for adding things like a digital calendar or clock, or spreading work documents across two screens.

The SPF-87H has a widescreen resolution of 800 x 480 and a contrast ratio of 500:1 and there are lots of display options and a shuffle capability that makes for a unique experience every time you turn it on.

The stylish and wafer-thin SPF-87H digital photo frame from Samsung is a great way to show off your digital pictures, and keep them fresh and interesting, without much effort on your part.

>>

gadgets


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

SanDiSk uLtra 16GB SDHC CarD

>>


FEatUREs: High-performance memory card with extremely fast read and write speeds, Necessary to capture hi-res still images and HD movies, 16GB capacity can store a lot of HD content.

The High Definition (HD) revolution has been underway for some years now, and has invaded everything from TV technology to cameras that take both still and moving images. As the megapixel ratings of the average camera have increased, so have the file sizes of the resultant images. These days, it’s possible to take pictures that are multiple megabytes in size, even with an entry-level compact camera. Today, it’s imperative that cameras write hi-res JPEG photos to memory in less than a second, to ensure that no shots are missed. The same applies to HD video cameras and camcorders and this is where a product like SanDisk’s Ultra SDHC card comes in handy as it has high read and write speeds so you can capture photographs and videos, even extremely high-resolution ones, without compromising on speed or quality. Need proof? This Ultra card can read and write at a speed of 15MB per second, which means it’s brilliant for HD photos as well as HD video. Chances are good the average photographer won’t come close to filling this card before heading back to their PC to download, as 16GB means 2hrs 40mins of HD video footage (1080p) and over 6,000 photos at 10MP.

Cost: Approximately R 5,500Rating: HHHHH

FEatUREs: 12MP camera with Carl Zeiss optics, 720p video recording, Symbian ^3 touch operating system, 3.5-inch AMOLED display.

In a line up of carbon copy touchscreen phones, all vying to look like the iPhone, the N8 manages to stand out. This is due to its aluminum construction and avante garde mixture of curvaceous sides and smooth lines bottom and top side.

A unique touch is offered by the wide range of colour choices available in the N8 but these are all small fry compared to the biggest feature that will set this device apart from others in its category - this being the camera which utilises the world’s largest smartphone image image sensor and a Carl Zeiss lens with a Xenon flash and a on-board photo editing app completes the package.

In terms of the step up to Symbian ^3 – touch operations are smoother and slicker with consistent kinetic scrolling and single tapping select/activate throughout. Get hands-on with more productivity and entertainment apps from Ovi Store v2 and stay in contact with text messaging, instant messaging, e-mail and the like, with threaded conversations. Support for media, multi-tasking, and a fully-featured organiser and improved browsing experience make the N8 a viable alternative if you’re dead-set against getting an iPhone.

nokia n8

>>

>>

iPoD nano 4tH GEnCost: TBCRating: HHHHH

FEatUREs: Smallest nano yet, weighing 21 grams, VoiceOver functionality for sight-impaired, Multi-touch navigation with accelerometer, 24 hours of music playback.

The iPod gets a makeover, yet again. The latest model is half the length of its predecessor and has the same clip-on design as the new iPod shuffle. The biggest change to the design is the fact that there’s no click-wheel, just a screen. In fact, the only actual buttons found on the nano are for sleep/wake and volume control and everything else is controlled by a brand new multi-touch display.

Yes, you heard right. Multi-touch display. While the nano seems to run a version of iOS (Apple’s iPhone, iPod touch and iPad operating system) it’s a scaled-down version, with limited functionality – for example, you can’t buy and install third party apps and there’s no Wi-Fi. Going back to that display, it’s a 1.5-inch colour stunner, with a 240 x 240 resolution. The display itself is perfectly square with four icons on each screen.

From the Home screen you have access to Playlists, Now Playing, Artists and Genius Mixes, swipe left and you’ll get another screen hosting access to Radio, Podcasts, Photos and Settings and the next screen contains Songs, Albums, Genres and Composers and finally the last screen boasts Fitness and Clock.

Intended purely for audio enjoyment and portablility, the iPod nano’s makeover makes it more attractive than ever.

gadgets H Uncool HH Poor HHH Average HHHH Excellent HHHHH Awesome


oLymPuS SP-800uZ uLtraZoom 14mP DiGitaL CamEra

>>Cost: Approximately R 3,000Rating: HHHH

FEatUREs: Amazing 30x optical zoom lens, 2GB built-in memory, Somewhere between a point-and-shoot and a DSLR, Shoots photos big enough to be made into posters.

The addition of an incredible 30x optical zoom lens to the SP-800UZ, means you won’t have to lug around expensive lenses or heavy equipment if you’re looking to capture photos at range. It also means that the SP-800UZ fills the gap between entry-level point-and-shoot cameras and the more expensive DSLRs.

It also shoots wide-angle and panoramic 14MP images, 720p videos, and can shoot images singly or in bursts, which makes it nicely suited to just about any situation you’d care to photograph. This is due to the inclusion of what Olympus calls “dual stabilisation” technology – which means the camera can take steady shots, even when fully zoomed in, and without a tripod. Obviously you’ll need one if you require no shake whatsoever.

Taking pictures is easy as the camera is very responsive and there are many built in shooting mode options, and each producing amazing results. We have to say that this is a fantastic camera, and one we’re happy to recommend to anyone looking for a camera with a competent feature-set as well as a built-in zoom that lets you leave all that heavy equipment at home when you go bird-watching.

gadgets

PHiLiPS DCm580 DoCkinG EntErtainmEnt SyStEm

Cost: Approximately R 3,000Rating: HHHH

FEatUREs: Tubular tower that plays music from CDs, iPods and iPhones, More volume and versatility than previous models, Vertical design makes for easy room placement.

Philips has been around for over a hundred years, so they know a thing or two about technology. This is no more apparent than in the company’s new DCM580 music tower, which plays music from everything from CDs to iPods to iPhones. The iPod docking/charging station located at the very top of the device is flat, with two clips on either side that secure any 4th or 5th-generation iPod or iPhone 3G/3GS. This makes them easy to operate without feeling as if you’re about to push them out of the dock, or break them. Also, the dock rotates, allowing you to view any videos stored on your iPod Touch/iPhone in widescreen format.

The DCM580 is also able to play regular audio CDs as well as MP3- and WMA-filled ones and it also has a handy USB slot for external storage devices like USB sticks and hard drives. Most importantly, the DCM580’s volume has received a boost courtesy of a new 4.1-speaker system and an extra 40 watts (RMS) of power. This gives it a total of 140W, so you can really pump your tunes and get the neighbours to call the cops on you. Happily, even at lower volumes, the sound is warm and rich, and the subwoofer volume is adjustable so you can find the right balance for you. If you’re after a classy, loud and versatile hi-fi system, the DCM580 system from Philips is a very good buy.

>>

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


>>

LExmark PinnaCLE Pro901

Cost: TBCRating: HHH

FEatUREs: Four-in-one print solution, 4.3-inch touchscreen, Automatic duplex printing, Print from SD, xD, MS/MMC and USB/PictBridge media.

The Lexmark Pinnacle Pro901 is the perfect all-in-one office solution if you want something that’s a bit of a workhorse when it comes to bundle-scanning, faxing, copying and high-quality colour prints. If you’d like that device to come with a variety of paper-handling options, then you’re in luck because the Pinnacle Pro901 is easy to integrate into your current computer set-up. It will reduce clutter by replacing four separate devices with just one. Not only will it save you space, but it will also give you loads more useful functionality and share-ability, with its wireless capabilities.

The Lexmark Pinnacle Pro901 is highly capable when it comes to communicating. You can fax, scan to e-mail and even scan to the Web.

Even more useful offerings include scanning and printing double-sided automatically as well as support for printing directly from SD, xD, MS/MMC and USB/PictBridge devices – so you can plug in all your memory cards and cameras, and print without a PC.

Overall, this device is perfect for a small office environment that’s looking for affordability, flexibility and oodles of functionality and efficiency from such a purchase. You can’t go wrong here.


A bold little idea and the dedication of some truly brilliant people has resulted in a combination hardware/software product that – in the hands of some entrepreneurs – could change the telecoms landscape across the continent. - Africa Telecoms takes a closer look at the Mesh Potato and the man behind it, steve song.

bigTaking on The

gUYSby bRETT HAGGARD

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP


The high prices and lack of coverage that are symptomatic of the telecoms environment in Africa are stifling innovation and holding the continent’s citizens

back from realizing their full potential.That was the rather direct and outspoken message that came

through loud and clear at Steve Song's, Telecommunications Fellow at The Shuttleworth Foundation, keynote address delivered at Tech4Africa in Johannesburg earlier this year.

Song, who is somewhat of a veteran in the telecommunications space says that nevertheless there is hope.

The only problem is however, that a great deal needs to change at a governmental level, where there needs to be sufficient entrepreneurial spirit to take the large, established players on in the telecoms market and – most importantly – the communities must be prepared to climb on board to make a change.

A story of declineIt’s ironic that there’s been so much ground lost in the past eight years.

“South Africa was riding high in the developing world when it came to the quality of telecoms infrastructure in the developing world between 2002 and 2003,” Song says.

“And then, as a result of what can only be called complete regulatory failure, it began falling behind substantially,” he adds.

Looking at the landscape across the continent, South Africa has been succeeded by numerous countries when it comes to the quality and cost of telecoms, taking a back seat to countries in Northern Africa that a good few years ago began making use of the undersea cables they had on their doorstep to change their situation.

But, Song says, that shouldn’t suggest that Africa is by any means leading the developing world when it comes to quality, penetration and cost of telecoms infrastructure.

“And there’s always the ‘So what?’ factor to content with,” he says.

“Many people I meet say that Africa needs clean running water, sanitation and other infrastructure more urgently than what it needs cost effective, high quality telco infrastructure,” he says.

“While on some levels they have a point, I often have to remind them that there’s strong evidence that an improvement in communications infrastructure has a tangible effect on a country’s GDP “And it’s not an insignificant impact either,” he adds.

“While it varies from one country to another, the research shows that broadly-speaking, for every 10% increase in telecoms infrastructure, there’s a corresponding 1% increase in GDP.

“And obviously the degree of impact escalates as that infrastructure moves from fixed line, to mobile, to Internet and

finally to broadband,” he says. Looking at a country like South Africa that benefits from a

1.38% increase in GDP for every 10% increase in telecoms infrastructure (the impacts are larger throughout Africa), we’re talking about a $3bn increase in GDP on top of its current $280bn GDP.

“That should convince us that there’s a clear economic case for improving the telecoms environment in Africa and that politicians should be paying attention to these statistics when it comes to driving broadband access as a strategic issue,” Song says.

HArsH reAlitiesSong says this paints a convincing picture. But there are further reaching benefits too.

There’s another piece of research that states people’s proximity to communications results in a tangible decrease in Malaria linked deaths. “And it stands to reason,” Song says.

“If you can get to a phone, you can get diagnosis and more ready access to treatment,” he says, “and when things are put like this, it’s difficult to deny the basic impact communications have on our lives.”


steVe sonG telecommunications fellow

shuttleworth foundation

Access to telecommunications services also unlocks new efficiencies, and allows for bright people to collaborate, in turn acting as a catalyst for innovation.

“We’re not getting to the point where we can unleash that innovation, because of the cost however,” Song says.

“We’re facing a reality where 50% or more of the money earned by the bottom 75% of the income earning population in Africa goes towards telecommunications services.

“That’s a staggering amount of money in anyone’s book,” Song says.

“And although economists say that those people wouldn’t pay more then 50% of their monthly earnings on communications services if they weren’t delivering value, at that level of expense we’re not going to see innovation unlocked,” he says.

“There’s a great Clay Shirky quote that bears this out,” Song says.

“Shirky says when it’s expensive to fail, the lesson we learn if we don’t succeed is, not to try that again.

“On the flipside,” Song says, “if it’s inexpensive to fail – and in our case that means not having to think about affording our monthly broadband bill – we can afford to fail instructively.

“The bottom line is, innovation only happens in places where people can afford to fail. In the rest of the world, access is cheaper and as such, we get accidental innovations – like Twitter.

“With expensive access in Africa, it’s going to be difficult to see those kinds of innovations,” he says.

solVinG tHe problemsSo how do we change things and create that environment for innovation.

“Well,” he answers, “we start by realising that the world has changed and the dominant metaphor for how we understood the world, namely as a machine (which led us to things like business process re-engineering), is no longer valid.”

If nothing else, the worldwide credit crunch has illustrated that we live in chaotic and unpredictable world – and that planning, as is advocated by the view that everything can be managed like a machine, is futile. “We need to look at the way the Internet functions,” he says.

“It relies on a more organic, responsive kind of infrastructure, as opposed to classical telco infrastructure that still belongs in the old ‘machine’ paradigm,” he says.

“Today, if a village wants to get connected to a phone network it can’t until someone with the power to make it so decides they are economically viable enough. All of that kind of thing is planned from a set of headquarters somewhere far away from that village and as I’ve discussed, that planning process isn’t fast or responsive enough for the development of the kinds of infrastructure the developing world needs,” Song explains.

“The Internet was built with a ‘build it and they will come’ mentality. “That meant – even though at the time, South Africa was a political pariah – thanks to the energy and creativity of a


New thiNkiNg iN telecoms

“it’s also completely open source – both from a software and hardware perspective – so the schematics are available for download.

the potato runs open Wrt, so it’s secure, runs an embedded instance of the Asterisk open source Voip tool and has support for a pay as you Go billing system.

the potatoes are designed to connect to each other and form a mesh network autonomously and at the most basic level, allow every house equipped with a potato to make free ‘local’ calls.

that makes it perfect for underserviced areas, areas where expensive telco services exist and even in disaster relief areas.

“We’ve also designed them so that it’s as easy as possible to connect a ‘village telco’ to upstream bandwidth and break-out calling providers.

“We’ve developed a solution called the Village telco entrepreneur server – that runs a billing server and Asterisk server, so an entrepreneur can either make use of an upstream Voip provider to allow his customers to call outside of the local network, or – if they get big enough – develop their own interconnect agreements.” song says there’s also very little hassle from a legislative perspective.

“in south Africa, if you’re a non profit or co-operative, you can operate a Village telco completely legally without any additional licensing requirements, as long as you’re not charging for services,” he says.

“if you want to make a business out of it, you’ll need an ecns license, something that’s not too difficult to come by,” he says.

right now, song says the device can be ordered anywhere in the world for between Us$119 and Us$142 using the villagetelco.org website, or can even be ordered directly from Atcom – the manufacturers in shenzhen in china.

“We’re hoping however that others take what we’ve built, evolve it and contribute those improvements back into the mix, since that’s the way things move forward in this environment,” he says.

"the potatoes are designed to connect to each other and form a mesh network autonomously and at the most basic level, allow every house equipped with a potato to make free ‘local’ calls."

tHe mesH potAto

handful of people in South Africa and University of Oregon, with a 9600 baud modem and some effort, South Africa became connected to the Internet. “And that’s how it should be.

“So today, if you have energy, passion and will to become a telco and go out there to change the world, you should be able to do so,” he says.

not jUst AboUt netWorksSo, while Song says the way communications networks are built, structured and managed today are an issue, a second part of the problem is the client access devices themselves.

“In the knowledge economy, wealth is created through the process of combining good ideas with other good ideas, or in other words using old recipes to come up new recipes that deliver value,” he says.

The problem is, if you don’t have access to the original recipe, you have to experiment and figure everything out from scratch.

“It’s far easier if you have a recipe or toolset at your fingertips,” he says.

“Mobile phones are like the former example. They’re useful, but not having visibility into their make-up means they don’t help us be as innovative as we could be.

“While operating systems like Android are changing that, the changes need to come faster,” he says.

“Nobody knows what the next big thing is,” he says, “and that means we have to operate in a more evolutionary, natural selection kind of way when we do things.

“Technology continues to get faster, cheaper and better at every turn,” he says, “and it seems like quantity is the new quality. “Google is a great example of this.

“They entered a market where – if you wanted to build a

search engine – the chosen route would be to buy the biggest, fastest computer you could lay your hands on.

“Larry Page and Sergey Brin exploded that idea by stacking commodity technology together to create a single, massively powerful machine,” he explains.

tHe seed is plAntedAnd Song says that whole paradigm around using commodity technology is what gave him and his team inspiration to create the ‘village telco’.

“I had an epiphany a couple of years ago when playing with a Linksys WRT54G router – a rather old, but nonetheless very cool router, if one considers there’s a number of free, open source firmware packages for it,” he says.

The story is rather quaint.: “One day, while hacking around, someone discovered that Linksys had used Linux as the basis for the WRT54G’s firmware and because Linux is protected under the Gnu Public License, compelled the company to release the code into the public domain,” Song says.

What followed was a torrent of hacking and the discovery that for some reason, Linksys had used some extremely powerful hardware for the device – and not used a fraction of its capabilities.

“So, a number of those hackers built Voice over IP, Quality of Service and bandwidth management tools on top of that open firmware and released in to the public domain as a derivative of the original firmware called Open WRT” he continues. It didn’t stop there however.

“Some hackers discovered that by unscrewing one of the antennae on the back of the device and replacing it with a tin can or ‘cantenna’ they could make the device’s range increase by several kilometers in one direction,” he adds.

Song says that whole paradigm around using commodity technology is what gave him and his team inspiration to create the ‘village telco’.


“I remember looking into this and thinking ‘Holy Shit!’ This is infrastructure!

“So, because I was working at a research funding agency, I had the ability to get some hackers together for workshops in Zanzibar, Egypt, Senegal and South Africa and basically sponsored hacking of these devices.

“It never took off though and I think there’s a couple of reasons.

“The first is, hacking hardware is still tricky and complicated. The second is, the voice component was missing – and delivering an Internet connection where there’s no voice isn’t very satisfying.

“It was clear that if this was going to succeed, we needed both voice and Internet capabilities,” he says.

Using his fellowship at the Shuttleworth Foundation, Song says he was able to bring some of the smartest people in wireless hacking space together and added some smart voice people to the mix too.

tHe potAto is bornWhile there are a number of smart mesh devices out there, the problem for Song was that they only supported Internet traffic.

“And everything we found needed a SIP phone plugged in if you wanted to use it for voice,” he says.

“With cost and ease of use considered an imperative for users, we wanted a device we could plug an ordinary phone into, which meant we needed a combination analogue telephony adapter and wireless mesh Internet device,” he explains.

It was then that David Rowe, an Australian hardware hacker Song was working with at the time, said, “Hey, I could design that!”

“Up until this point we had been thinking about taking a

"Using his fellowship at the shuttleworth foundation, song says he was able to bring some of the smartest people in wireless hacking space together and added some smart voice people to

the mix too."



commodity piece of hardware and hacking or bending it to our will,” Song says.

“It was an interesting thought. Maybe we didn’t have to use commodity hardware. Maybe we could design our own hardware and partner with a Chinese manufacturer to build it,” he says. And that’s where the Mesh Potato was born.

“To start with, we soldered a telephony adapter onto one of the commodity, off the shelf wireless mesh devices and had exactly what we needed.

“We partnered with manufacturer in Shenzhen, China, who were strangely open to the idea of it being completely open source, since they were getting free expertise and a free PC Board design. And all they needed to do was manufacture the devices for us,” he says.

“We went directly into two rounds of testing and are now in full production,” he says, “and the devices are designed to be UV resistant, weatherproof device and capable of withstanding some serious abuse, short of course of a direct lightning strike.

lookinG forWArdWhile so much has been achieved already, Song says his hope is that the Mesh Potato and Village Telco concepts become popular enough to pop up on the major telcos in Africa’s radar scopes.

“Right now we’ve had no contact with them and when

we do, it will be a great endorsement of the fact that we’re becoming relevant and important enough to matter,” he says.

The other hope is that this concept gets added to and updated constantly over the coming months and years.

“A good example of this is the work being done at some universities, using the same protocols as we run on Android-based mobile phones. “The results are looking interesting already,” he says.

Ultimately, the Village Telco is a fantastic idea and one that has a great deal of momentum behind it.

And that momentum is surely going to continue building as the one thing Africa has no shortage of, is customers looking for cost effective, reliable communications infrastructure.

With the ease of use and low cost the Village Telco provides, it’s a compelling option. It’s a ballsy move and one that’s very ‘David and Goliath’ in its nature.

As for who wins, the future holds the answer – hopefully however it’s the customer and those without connectivity. AT

"And that momentum is surely going to continue building as the one thing Africa has no shortage

of, is customers looking for cost effective, reliable communications infrastructure. "

Scarborough Mesh crew built Mesh Potato phone booths at AfrikaBurn

by Arthur Goldstuck


This is the huge irony that lies behind the ever-mounting range of added extras that are used to market phones in the 21st century.

Between 2005 and 2010, most of us changed the way we choose a cell phone. Today, we no longer buy phones because the advertising messages convince us

we would be able to have better conversations, or because a particular device has clearer sound and better speakers.

These features are taken so much for granted in phones today, that manufacturers and marketers can no longer sell the cell on the basis of its primary purpose.

This is the huge irony that lies behind the ever-mounting range of added extras that are used to market phones in the 21st century. Already in 2004, one particular high-end phone was marketed with the message that the user “can take a picture or make a video; add text and send a multimedia message or e-mail to a compatible device; save it in the photo album; transfer it wirelessly over Bluetooth technology; do it

all with the graphical user interface; 65,536 colours for a large, bright display screen; use the notepad, video recorder or web browser; receive your e-mail...”

To its credit, the message eventually added: “you can even phone someone”. The irony of this hype-laden message was that the phone was “designed primarily for the business person”. It was one of the first phones to combine all the added extras without requiring a flip-top lid that exposed the insides of some phones as digital diaries, but its cost was prohibitive. Its business benefits did not justify its cost, and the consumers who would be attracted by its price were dissuaded by its price.

Six years later, however, all smartphones are able to offer similar features, and most smartphones are also business phones. Basic mass-market phones almost all include cameras, and all have colour screens.

Internet and media

Mobile


The nexT revoluTIon Is well under wayPhones with Internet access are beginning to outnumber those without for the first time.

The result is that the use of mobile Internet services has exploded in South Africa, although less than half of urban cellphone users who have Internet-capable phones use the Internet.

This has emerged from the Mobile Internet in South Africa 2010 study, conducted by World Wide Worx, and backed by First National Bank.

The report shows that usage of specific applications like Mxit and Facebook Mobile far outpace browsing on the phone, even though both are available on almost two thirds of the phones used by South Africa’s urban cellular users.

While 28% of the urban cellular market is using mobile instant messaging (IM), as many as 65% have the capacity on their phones, meaning that only 4.5-million out of 10.5-million potential mobile IM users actually use it. In many cases, an application has been installed on the phone, and the owner may even have registered to use the service, but is not in fact a user.

And, while 60% of users in this market have phones that can browse the Internet, only 21% report that they use this

form of mobile Internet access. Indeed, it’s quite startling to find how many have these

features on their phones but don’t use them, either out of ignorance or because of cost concerns.

The findings suggest, on the surface, that more than half of urban cellular users – 8.5-million – are capable of accessing e-mail on their phones, and as many as 60% – 9.5-million – are able to browse on their phones. The implications of these numbers are significant: in one fell swoop, they would turn the SA Internet user base from the 5.3-million reported by World Wide Worx at the end of 2009 to 9.6-million. Add Instant Messaging to the mix, and the total becomes 10.56-million – exactly double that of the Internet user base at the end of last year.

The truth is, many people with these applications on their phones do no use them and do not even know how to use them. It is clear that the cellphone has the potential to take South Africans across the digital divide, but the phones themselves need to become more user-friendly, and a vast amount of consumer education is needed.

There are deep implications for media. On the one hand, it is clear that the market is moving towards cellular-based information, and the growth in consumption of mobile media

It is almost forgotten amid all the hype and noise that, in 2004, for the first time, green-screen cellphones were no longer dominant and full colour cellular phones represented

the greatest revolution in cellular technology since the sMs 12 years earlier.

services is huge. No newspaper or news service worth that name is complete – or can compete in this environment – without a .mobi site.

On the other hand, the market for such services is not homogenous. The mobile Internet is spread out between a vast array of stand-alone applications (or apps) and .mobi sites. Clearly, a scattergun approach won’t work.

BuT where To Take aIM?The jury is still out as trends of usage and patterns of market share evolve rapidly in an immature industry. But an early clue to this early market lies in the demographic profile of mobile web users.

This suggests that the mobile Internet is heavily age AND application oriented. Instant messaging is the preferred communications medium of the schoolgoer, but other data in the report shows that usage evolves through university age and working age towards e-mail. In the working environment, however, age once again becomes a factor in slowing down

usage with growing age – and obviously comfort with the old ways of communicating.

So, while consumption of traditional print media tends to increase with age, consumption of mobile media would decline with age.

The immediate lesson from this is that mobile apps and sites should be directed at a youth market before any other. This does not mean that you cannot target an older market. However, it does mean that the older the market, the more user-friendly that targeting must be, the more of an educational component needs to be built into that targeting, and the more sensitivity needs to be displayed towards an affinity with traditional media.

Yes, the mobile Internet has arrived. Yes, it is growing rapidly. Yes, it can’t be ignored. But it’s a case of seller beware. Consumers of mobile media are still finding a path through the technology that makes the media possible. They do not yet take the media itself for granted. Take these consumers for granted at your peril. AT

The table reveals that the digital divide in mobile Internet usage is also an age divide. while more than a third of 16-18-year-olds (36%) use mobile instant messaging, this drops to one in five (19%) in the 36-45 age group and close to one in ten (13%)

for the over 45s. similar gaps between the youngest and oldest groups appear in Internet browsing, downloading applications and use of Internet applications. however, the most active Internet browsers are the 19-25s.

MoBIle InTerneT By age InTerneT BrowserInsTanT MessagIng/ chaTusIng InTerneT apps downloadIng

ToTal% 11 28 21

16-18 15 36 24

19-24 15 33 28

25-35 10 28 22

36-45 7 19 13

46+ 1 13 7

19

23

22

22

14

5

The table above from the Mobile Internet in SA 2010 report provides the age breakdown of mobile Internet use. It is also a devastating insight into the aversion that older users have towards the mobile Internet:


The purpose of this page is to give readers of Africa Telecoms a brief overview as to the growth and statistics related to the Telecoms and ICT markets in Africa. What we will be doing on an annual basis is relooking at the statistics, this way over time Africa Telecoms will have a basis for tracking developments and growth in the Africa Market. Each Edition of Africa Telecoms will be focused on a specific area. This month we focus on New Technologies; to this end we have

tried to include a range of related statistics relevant to the African and International Telecoms Markets. I trust that you will find this information of value and interest, should you have comments on this page or statistics that you think would be relevant that we have not included (or that you have access to and would be of interest to our readership) the Africa Telecoms team would appreciate an e-mail to [email protected]

AFRICA TELECOM STATS

Informa Telecoms & Media 2010

20122010 2011 2013 2014

2,000

1,500

1,000

500

TV

SOCIAL NETWORKING

MUSIC

MOBILE PAYMENTS/BANKING

MESSAGING

LBSINTERNET

IMAGES

GAMES

GAMBLING

VIDEO

MOBILE CONTENT SERVICES USERS ACROSS AFRICA, 2010-2014

MIL

LION

S

0



Bangladesh29%

Vietnam39%

Brazil17%

Sri Lanka24%

India52%

Saudi Arabia42%

Tanzania33%

Sudan27%

DRC19%

Libya28%

Nigeria21%

Ghana23%

Morocco17% Egypt

28%

Afganistan24%

TOP 20 ANNUAL GROWTH RATES, 2Q 2009 - 2Q 2010

Indonesia25%

Iran23%

Uzbekistan23%

China45%

Uganda23%


Gartner (August 2010)

HyPE CyCLE FOR EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES, 2010


PEAK OF INFLATED

EXPECTATIONS

X

X

Human Augmentation

LESS THAN 2 YEARS 2 - 5 YEARS 5 - 10 YEARS MORE THAN 10 YEARS OBSOLETE BEFORE PLATEAU

YEARS TO MAINSTREAM ADOPTION:

TECHNOLOGY TRIGGER

TROUGH OF DISILLUSIONMENT

SLOPE OF ENLIGHTENMENT

PLATEAU OFPRODUCTIVITY

TIME

EXPECTATIONS

Context Delivery ArchitectureComputer-Brain Interface

Terahertz Waves

Tangible User InterfacesExtreme Transaction Processing

Autonomous VehiclesVideo Search

Mobile RoboticsSocial Analytics

3D PrintingSpeech-to-speech Translation

Internet TVPrivate Cloud Computing

Augmented RealityMedia Tablet

Wireless Power

3D Flat-Panel TVs and Displays4G Standard

Activity StreamsCloud Computing

Cloud/Web Platforms

Gesture Recognition

Mesh Networks: Sensor

Microblogging

E-Book ReadersVideo Teleprescence

Broadband Over Power LinesVirtual Assistants

Electronic Paper

Pen-Centric Tablet PCs

Public Virtual WorldsConsumer-Generated Media

Idea ManagementMobile Application Stores

Biometric Authentication MethodsInternet Micropayment Systems

Interactive TVPredictive Analytics

Location-Aware ApplicationsSpeech Recognition

As Of August 2010

TOP OPERATORS By NON-SMS DATA REVENUES AS % OF TOTAL DATA REVENUES 1Q 2010

SUBSCRIPTIONS (THOUSANDS)20.00.0 40.030.0

VODACOM, South Africa

MTN, South Africa

MTN, Nigeria

SAFARICOM, Kenya

TIGO, DRC

ZAIN, Gabon

MTC, Namibia

ORANGE, Cote D’Ivoire

ZAIN, Kenya

ZAIN, Congo

10.0 50.0 60.0 70.0 4000 800

TOP AFRICAN MOBILE BROADBAND OPERATORS, 2Q 2010

VODACOM, South Africa

MTN, South Africa

MTN, Nigeria

WANA, Morocco

UNITEL, Angola

ETISALAT, Egypt

GLOBACOM, Nigeria

MEDI TELECOM, Morocco

SAFARICOM, Kenya

VODAFONE, Egypt

1200



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The rapid spread of higher-speed cellular connections and the growing affordability of smartphones are setting the scene for wider adoption of the Internet

in Africa. That’s according to Deon Liebenberg, Regional Director

for Sub Sahara Africa at Research In Motion (RIM), the company behind the BlackBerry® solution. He says that the continent’s cellular infrastructure will do as much to bring data services to Africa as it did to bring voice telephony within the reach of its people.

Liebenberg says that Sub Sahara Africa is a large and diverse market in its own right, with vast differences in Internet penetration rates, maturity of the telecom infrastructure, regulatory environments and economic growth rates between countries. But as a rule, most countries have dismally low Internet penetration rates.

Against this backdrop, there are enormous opportunities for growth. Many customers are looking to smartphones and the mobile networks for their first taste of the Internet.

And massive investments in international cable links and cellular infrastructure are helping to bring affordable bandwidth to many parts of the continent for the first time.

“Affordable devices, such as BlackBerry® smartphones, coupled with services such as the BlackBerry® Internet Service have the potential to bring Internet connectivity to many small businesses and consumers in Africa who could not afford it in the past,” says Liebenberg.

Liebenberg notes that falling smartphone prices are a major engine of growth for Internet penetration in Africa. An estimated 15.1 million smartphones were sold in Sub Sahara Africa in 2010, representing 10% of all handset sales in the region. By 2014, smartphones are expected to account for 30-40% of total mobile handset shipments in Sub Sahara Africa.

“This is significant in a market where there are few desktop computers and notebooks,” says Liebenberg. “These devices are already giving many Africans access to online communications, multimedia, navigation and

Mobile sets the stage for africa’s internet revolution

Deon Liebenbergregional Director for Sub Sahara Africa,research in Motion (riM)

personal productivity applications for the first time.”“Increased smartphone penetration is already spurring

demand for mobile data in Africa. Users are more clued up than ever about the type of mobile experience they expect,” Liebenberg notes. “Operators and handset manufacturers need to cater for this growth in a scalable and sustainable way.”

“Sub Sahara Africa is one of the fastest growing markets for RIM. But there are many challenges in this environment, too. Consumers don’t have a lot of disposable income to spend on smartphones,” explains Liebenberg. “And Africa’s operational and regulatory challenges mean that tariffs for mobile data are high in many parts of the continent. Another challenge lies in reaching the 70% of the population of Sub Sahara Africa still living in rural areas in a cost-effective way.”

Liebenberg says that smartphone manufacturers therefore must develop their products for the African market to be even more affordable and ensure that they’re efficient in


their consumption of both bandwidth and battery life. But Liebenberg believes that the work operators and

handset manufacturers are doing to make the mobile Internet more accessible to poorer Africans will drive a communications revolution in Africa.

“We are seeing a great deal of innovation from our African operator partners, who are working to make bandwidth cheaper and more abundant,” says Liebenberg. “We believe that there is still massive scope for growth in Africa. RIM has a real opportunity to drive Internet penetration in Africa in the years ahead.” AT

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tori

al


by LesLey stones


Augmented

AugmentIng OuR WORLdOne gadget I really would love is a pair of specs that cunningly displays information about the person I’m looking at. So I can shake hands with enthusiasm while I’m reading a little note in the corner of my eye that says ‘Robert Ndlovu, works at IBM. Last met at a conference in Cape Town.’

“Robert,” I’d cry, “It’s been ages - how’s IBM treating you?” Which is a vast improvement on my usual blank look that means someone I’ve met a dozen times still has to remind me of their name.

Actually I hate wearing specs, so if that name and face recognition technology could project the information onto my contact lens, that would be ideal. It should happen – eventually - but probably not until I’m retired and can blame my bad memory on age, not carelessness.

Incalculable amounts of money and brainpower are being poured into devising such ways to marry the real world with computer-generated information. To supplement the things we see with Augmented Reality (AR) to tell us things we might like to know about them. Several AR applications have already been devised for cellphones, so you can hold the phone’s camera up to a building, for example, and read about its history.

It won’t be long before you can do the same with a person, and see their name and salient details hovering over their head when you view them through your cellphone’s camera. But that’s so unsubtle that I’d rather just admit to a memory lapse than pull out my phone and pretend I want to take their photo.

ReALItyfake has never been so real

deFInIng AugmentIng ReALItyAR is one of those fascinating technologies that has been bubbling around for years, and will probably remain bubbling for several years to come. So far there are no compelling applications, the equipment is still clunky, and it’s far too early to estimate whether consumers will actually be interested in the results. In other words, it could become a technology for technology’s sake. Just like the much-hyped ability to watch movies on your cellphone, which occasionally happens, but only in relatively isolated islands of geekiness.

The strength of AR is its ability to bring masses of stored data to your instant attention, by superimposing relevant text, graphics, sounds and even smells on top of your view of the real world. Not surprisingly, the military were among its pioneers, to give soldiers crucial information about their surroundings and enemy movements in the area.

One commercial niche where it could certainly have a place is in tourism, since you often walk around wearing a headset in museums, art galleries or city centres listening to a commentary about what you’re seeing. If the headset was adapted to feature a display screen that shows text too, or perhaps overlays the ruins in front of you with a splendid scene of how they used to look, then AR could fly.

LOCAtIOn BASed teCHnOLOgIeSCellphone users can already use location-based technologies to indicate where they are, and that information is shared with others via the internet so friends can locate them, or marketers can send location- specific offers.

As this merges with AR, subscribers could access increasing amounts of data to tell them about their surroundings. Perhaps text from Wikipedia could be displayed on top of the real images you admire through your camera phone on a walking tour, telling you about the area you’re exploring. Images of how the area looked decades ago could be overlaid, or by clicking an icon you could hear some relevant audio. If advertisers got in on the act, a nearby restaurant could pop up with an icon offering you discount.

SOme ReAL-WORLd APPLICAtIOnSSo far the cash-flush gaming world is leading AR developments, but its uses could extend to interactive

marketing, education, and “how-to” applications.Probably the best-known examples so far are in sport, with

yellow ‘first down’ lines drawn virtually across the pitch in TV broadcasts of American Football. Or the advertisements that appear to be painted onto rugby and cricket pitches by their sponsors when you watch a match on TV.

Technology company Qualcomm’s global research and development teams are beavering away with complex computer vision algorithms, computer graphics, tracking and image detection at a new research centre in Austria devoted to the

development of AR. The research will build on intellectual property acquired from Imagination Computer Services, a developer of computer vision and AR technology for mobile devices.

“As part of our efforts to bring augmented reality to market, Qualcomm has been continually enhancing the capabilities of mobile devices with high-speed connectivity, powerful applications and graphics processors, GPS, cameras and other sensors,” said CEO Paul Jacobs. The acquisition of Imagination’s technology and the new research centre would accelerate this vision to make mobile devices “the remote control for your life,” both in the physical and digital worlds, he said.

In June Qualcomm also joined forces with the Georgia Institute of Technology to establish an Augmented Reality Game Studio to pioneer advancements in mobile gaming and interactive media.

The university’s Augmented Environments Lab has been researching ways to enhance a user’s senses by creating interactive computing

environments for more than 12 years. “Powerful processors and sophisticated graphics engines

in today’s mobile devices have only recently reached the point where they can meet the computing requirements for augmented reality,” said Lab Director Blair MacIntyre. “By collaborating with Qualcomm, we’ll have access to both the high-end hardware and core augmented reality technology that will enable us to push the envelope in game development.”

AR technology in gaming and military applications on computers has been around for years, but has only recently begun moving onto handheld devices thanks to their increasing sophistication, faster wireless broadband networks, and new and cheaper chip developments.

Yet much more experimentation and innovation is needed before any large-scale consumer services actually hit the

“Powerful processors and sophisticated graphics engines in today’s mobile devices have only

recently reached the point where they can meet the computing requirements

for augmented reality,”

Georgia Institute of TechnologybLair Macintyre


market. Once they do, said Mark Donovan, a senior analyst at ComScore, we will go from telling applications where we are to applications that tell us about the world around us.

We are getting there, slowly. A company called PresseLite has developed a Paris Subway application that uses AR to display information about local businesses when you look at the city through an iPhone camera.

Acrossair has developed a similar application for New York’s subway system. If you hold up your phone and look through the camera, the screen will show where the closest subway is, and point toward nearby tourist attractions too.

Even so, AR is still little more than a novelty. But as handheld devices and software get cheaper, more sophisticated and more powerful, the level of information they can access and display will increase.

It’s just that the way they do it isn’t too convincing yet.

mACHIne-Led FutuReIn an interview for The Naked Scientist, Tom Drummond, a senior lecturer at the Machine Intelligence Laboratory at Cambridge University, said AR was about taking computer graphics off the computer screen and making them available over the real world. Since the real world doesn’t have a computer display capability, you need to display those graphics by some other means.

Some applications use a clunky headset, which is ok for pilots needing to see vital data about the landscape they’re viewing, but a bit daft if you’re walking down the street merely admiring the architecture.

The advantage of Head Mounted Displays, the developers say, is the immersive experience for the user. “When you're looking at the world, the computer graphics are right there in front of your eye,” Drummond said. “So there’s a very strong connection between the virtual elements and the real elements. But there are some negative consequences as well. It’s very difficult to build these systems without latency in them. So when you move your head, the computer graphics might follow a tenth of a second later. Unfortunately, one of the consequences is that it can make people feel motion sickness and it can be very unpleasant to use.”

Headsets are also very expensive and cumbersome and get between you and the real world they are trying to enhance.

Far more likely to succeed are small, handheld computing devices with a display that uses see-through video techniques

“even so, AR is still little more than a novelty. But as handheld devices and software get cheaper,

more sophisticated and more powerful, the level of information they can access and display

will increase.“

USING AR FOR EDUCATIONeducause, a non-profit association that advances higher education through the intelligent use of It, believes AR is promising because it can add contextual data to deepen a student’s understanding of the world and its contents.

Its website at www.educause.edu/eli suggests that in a technical course on PC maintenance, AR could overlay a schematic diagram onto the inside of a computer to identify the various components and access technical specifications about them. Augmented reality blurs the line between the reality the user is experiencing and the appropriate and timely content provided by technology, educause says. Since every object or place has a history and a context, making that content available to individuals interacting with it will provide a richer experience.

By exposing students to an experiential and explorative way of learning, AR has the potential to change education so students are not simply receiving content but take an active role in gathering and processing information.

Some applications use a clunky headset, which is ok for pilots needing to see vital data about the landscape they’re viewing, but a bit daft if you’re walking down the street merely admiring the architecture.


to overlay graphical information onto the real-world image. AR on a smart phone is like holding up a magic spy glass to learn something new about what you're looking at, Drummond said. “If there’s some latency and the picture takes a tenth of a second to catch up as you move it, nobody really minds because it’s not directly affecting what you're seeing and conflicting with what your inner ear is telling you.”

Applications are already available for iPhones and Google Android phones that use GPS to pinpoint your location and an internal compass to work out which direction the device is pointing in. Then it displays computer graphics like “this is Table Mountain” over the image in the viewfinder. These applications will become very popular, Drummond believes, justifying the huge effort going into shrinking the algorithms down to run in the computer capacity of a cellphone.

A third technique being developed is Spatial Augmented Reality (SAR), using digital projectors to display graphical information on physical objects. SAR is a system that can be used for mass audiences, since the displays are not related to devices for individual users. The results can also be larger and more impressive, since an SAR system can display information on several surfaces at once, instead of requiring users to squint at a tiny screen.

mARKetIng tHe FutuReMarketers have already started to use AR to promote their products. At the LA Auto Show in 2008, Nissan unveiled its concept vehicle Cube and gave visitors a brochure. When they held it against a webcam the page showed several versions of the vehicle. But who wants to hold a magazine up to a webcam just for the novelty of reading information they can live without?

A more practical use is the possibility of giving people additional information to help them with a complex task such as assembling or maintaining components, or even performing surgery.

Details about different engine parts could be displayed for a mechanic – or even a layman – holding their cellphone over the steaming, wheezing engine in his car.

In medicine, a doctor performing keyhole surgery could wear a head visor to see images from probes or ultrasounds happening

“A more practical use is the possibility of giving people additional information to help them with a complex task such as assembling or maintaining components, or even

performing surgery.”



in real-time on the patient.One crucial component of an AR system is a tracking

system to pinpoint the user’s location and track their hand or eye movements. The complexities of confirming their overall location and their movements so the graphics display correctly are a major hurdle in developing successful systems.

To be effective, AR has to be almost instantaneous. Any time lag or mismatch between the graphics and the actual scene is disorientating. The data needs to be refreshed quickly too as you shift the device to focus on a different view.

One day AR displays could look like ordinary glasses, with graphics appearing in your field of vision and audio playing in your ear. Which still sounds awfully disorientating. Imagine walking into a lamppost because you’re concentrating on the text telling you the history of the street you’re in. The technology may eventually become foolproof, but we foolish mortals may need educating in how to use it.

CuttIng tHe edgeIt’s still very much theoretical rather than practical at the moment, however, but it’s edging closer. Developers from MIT’s Media Lab first demonstrated their AR system called SixthSense in 2009. It combines a camera, mirror, small projector and a smartphone in a device that the user hangs around his neck. He uses the camera and mirror to view the surrounding world and that image is fed to the phone, which processes the image, gathers GPS coordinates and pulls data from the internet. The projector then displays the resulting data onto any surface in front of the user, whether it’s their wrist or a wall. Because the camera is on his chest, SixthSense will augment whatever he is looking at. So if he looks at a car, it could call up its specs, pricing and motoring reviews.

He can interact with the projected information too, with the camera and phone picking up and processing those actions. With the car, for example, he can use his fingers to tap on projected links to receive more details.

Equally exciting is a prototype application unveiled at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona which is focusing on the personal touch. Its Swedish developers at The Astonishing Tribe call it Augmented ID, and it works by calling up personal details about somebody when you point a cellphone camera at them.

The software trawls the internet for details including their Facebook page and Twitter name and display them around their head. The application was voted one of the most innovative and promising worldwide initiatives of 2009 by the Netexplorateur jury.

And it’s basically the first step towards those specs – or contact lens – with the built-in face and name recognition software that I so desperately need. AT

One day AR displays could look like ordinary glasses, with graphics appearing in your field of vision and audio playing in your ear.

Developers from MIT’s Media Lab first demonstrated their AR system called SixthSense in 2009.

Contact the sales team at +27 21 426 5574 or visit www.africatelecomsonline.co.za for more information

AFRICA TELECOMS - COMMUNICATING ICT SOLUTIONS WITHIN AFRICA

Celebrating our first anniversary, Africa Telecoms is proud to be a platinum media partner with Informa for AfricaCom 2010.To recognise this important milestone, we will be giving away a Blackberry Bold 9700 smartphone at the end of each day. To enter, just pop by our stand (P40) and drop off your business card.

CELEBRATING OUR FIRST ANNIvERSARy

WIN A blAckberry bold 9700


SEACOMAn essentiAl link in the AfricAn network chAin

‘‘ ‘‘SEACOM is one part of an African Internet build-up. As more submarine cables come on line, broadband

options will become plentiful along with much-needed

redundancy.


SEACOM began as an ambitious plan to connect Africa to the broadband revolution. In the year since its launch, SEACOM has changed the shape of the telecommunications industry in the countries it serves. High definition TVs, peer to peer networks, IPTV and high speed internet are becoming the new reality. These changes have served as a catalyst in a number of areas. Governments are beginning to create policies to ensure ‘broadband for all’, the influx of submarine cables on both the east and west coast of the continent is opening unprecedented opportunities for terrestrial broadband developers, and cheaper broadband is enabling a whole generation to access video sharing, social media networks, and information that otherwise would not have been available.

The realiTy of an african neTworkBefore SEACOM, the East African market relied entirely on satellite communications, which, although effective for smaller populations in remote areas, was too expensive for densely populated cities, which were growing increasingly hungry for bandwidth. The launch of the SEACOM cable in July 2009 provided an alternative option to satellite – an undersea fibre-optic cable with a capacity of 1.28 Tbps. Expansion of an African network was the next logical step for a continent that now had access to affordable and plentiful bandwidth.

National buy-in is crucial to the development of this African network. In July this year, the South African Department of Communications published their National Broadband Policy, the key aim of which is to enable “universal, sustainable, ubiquitous and affordable access to ICTs by all, and provide sustainable connectivity and access to remote and marginalised areas at national, provincial and municipal levels.” Affordability is now a reality, with further benefits likely to evolve as the network develops. However, it is the issue of access that now presents a further challenge.

Access to broadband is key to socio-economic development in a continent that is often left behind in the modern

technological boom. The need to build infrastructure to bring broadband to the end user, for example with fibre-to-home options, is part of this access. The government of Tanzania has embarked on a national fibre backbone rollout to connect population centres around the country. National carriers have realised that they have to upgrade their networks to move large amounts of bandwidth. For example, Kenya is building three different national networks, South Africa is developing four national networks, and the government of Rwanda is rolling out huge fibre networks throughout the country. Ethiopia is now also following the same path.

SEACOM’s success is attributable to its in-country partnerships with subsidiaries and local partners who have established these backhaul solutions. Each of SEACOM’s beach landing stations is linked to an in-country partner’s infrastructure. The benefits to these partners are obvious – various pricing and package options to customers who can take advantage of the broadband boom. In addition, for the telecommunications industry, there also exists an opportunity for more players to enter the market, thereby increasing competition, technological development and economic spin-offs.

SEACOM is one part of an African Internet build-up. As more submarine cables come on line, broadband options will become plentiful along with much-needed redundancy. Redundancy increases reliability within the system, ensuring duplication of services should the service temporarily suspend. To this end, SEACOM is already in talks with other cables due to land. It is common practice in the industry around the world for cable networks to provide redundancy capacity to one another. As more cables reach Eastern and Southern Africa, the problem of redundancy will be easier to manage as more options

become available to reroute capacity during an outage.

SeacoM’S fuTure growThThe arrival of the SEACOM cable expanded both product development and the consumer market. The subsequent rapid uptake far surpassed industry expectations, and we can only predict further change and progress in the years to come. The value of creating a network of partners in providing support for redundancy, capacity and advocacy in this burgeoning industry is starting to gain in popularity and understanding.

Brian Herlihy, CEO of SEACOM said:“In just one year, our network of

connectivity is bringing tangible change to a continent that is bursting with untapped potential. But this is merely the beginning. With the challenges of creating a platform for all Africans to enjoy the benefits of connectivity, we’ve remained true to our core focus of providing access, both in terms of affordability and capacity. As we enter our second year of operations, we’re excited to begin our next tier of growth in aiding the development of African content. Content by and for African people is long overdue. A mouthpiece for this generation of voices is possible with the access provided by broadband. The possibilities are endless.”

SEACOM is also working on a number of projects which include the installation of routers to the landing points of the cable. This addition would make a switchover to other capacity a lot simpler. In addition, the finalization of SEACOM’s own link between India and Europe would provide further redundancy options.

SEACOM’s commitment to partnerships across the African ICT network has resulted in all stakeholders working together to continue to provide this access. It is this co-operation that will lay the foundation for continued success in providing broadband connectivity to Africa. AT

SEACOM is also working on a number of projects which include the installation of routers to the landing points of the cable. This addition would make a switchover to other capacity a lot simpler. In addition, the finalization of SEACOM’s own link between India and Europe would provide further redundancy options.




Despite the past eighteen months’ economic downturn and the near stagnation of the information and communications technology industry as a result of that slowdown, 2010 was a good year if you’re into new technologies, the maturation of others and the invention of entirely new categories of product.

for 2010

by brett haggard

Often it takes adversity for a market to start innovating. Even though the technology industry is one that’s become well known

for innovation, things were beginning to get stale. So in many ways, the pressure placed on the

market by the static (and in some cases decreasing) average selling price of technology, is exactly what the doctor ordered.

So to celebrate the success of some companies and their products, and reflect on the failures of some others, we thought we’d round off with a brief look at some of the technology trends that have so far shaped 2010.

red Hot tecH trends5


One - tablets tO ease the painIf you’re asking: ‘what’s a tablet?’ you really need to get out under that rock you’ve been living under for the past couple of months.

The war for dominance in the personal, information-driven, touch-screen space is in full swing and the four players involved, namely Apple, Samsung, Microsoft and Blackberry are taking no prisoners.

While there’s a fair amount of ‘hargey-bargey’ taking place around whether 7-inch or 10-inch touchscreens offer the better form factor and what combinations of other specifications suit the market better, the real battle is raging in the application store space.

The vendors know if they’re able to get a user onto their platform, they’re likely to stay there for life – and make them a fortune in application purchases for the next several years.

As usual, Apple’s gotten itself a great head start in this space by being the first mover, but the other vendors aren’t fools and are desperate to catch up quickly.

Expect this market to become hotly contested in the coming year with Blackberry opening its application development platform up to as wide an audience as possible, Android tackling the issues of platform fragmentation and a complete lack of quality control and Microsoft trying desperately to still be perceived cool and relevant in an environment where it’s slipping further behind by the day.

maybe browse the Internet a little. Then, smart phones became mobile devices you could install and use applications on, portable multimedia powerhouses and the most sought after gadgets, no matter which demographic you’re speaking to.

While the jury still has to pass a ruling down on whether or not all of that functionality has been truly beneficial or not, the mobile applications and application store phenomena have changed the face of the Internet forever.

Many users prefer using purpose built applications to interact with information on the Internet – and the revenue is beginning to shift from those people with the content, to those people with cool applications.

Again, it’s unclear whether or not this shift is a good idea and only time will tell.

It is nonetheless an interesting trend and one that will be interesting to observe over the next several years.

three- sOftware nOt yet a serviceIf predictions coming out of software companies and online giants a couple of years back were anything to go on, by now, software as a service should have taken the world by storm and all of the functionality, information and vital services we make use of daily should be in the cloud.

But operating systems and applications continue to persist – and be a revenue spinner for vendors like Microsoft and Apple.

While there’s good evidence that this trend will manifest itself in full swing over the next five to ten years – like the fact that Microsoft Office 2010 for Windows and 2011 for Mac have online components enabling collaboration with other users and the fact that that Google’s Gmail is growing more powerful by the day – we’re not there yet.

Expect there to be a steady build of cloud based services as complements to existing on-premise applications over the coming years – there most definitely won’t be a step-shift change however, like so many software vendors would like us to believe.

fOur – gaming that mOves yOuWhen Nintendo launched its Wii gaming console four years ago everything was supposed to change.

Sony and Microsoft – the vendors that had stolen the console gaming market away felt the empires they’d been carefully building come under threat and suddenly it didn’t matter how crisp your console could display graphics at, or how fast your console’s processor was.

‘‘ ‘‘The war for dominance in the personal, information-driven, touch-

screen space is in full swing

twO - smart phOnes and applicatiOn stOres change the webWhen Apple released the iPhone a couple of years ago, the definition of ‘smart phone’ changed substantially.

Classically, devices enable you to check your emails and


summaryAll in all, not a bad haul for 2010 and we’ve only just scratched the surface of some of the things going on in the consumer electronics market.

With the cloud computing/software as a service revolution coming on strong, compelling devices like smart phones, tablets and connected televisions providing the perfect interface for accessing these services and motion gaming technology available that will ultimately lead to gesture-based control of our computers, it’s exciting to think what the future looks like.

We can hardly wait.

It was all about the experience and Nintendo had managed to create a fantastic one, and entice the non-gaming market to give this geeky recreational activity a try. Needless to say it was a massive success.

This year, Sony and Microsoft have come back with a counter-offer and both have now entered the motion-gaming market.

Sony has PlayStation Move, while Microsoft has Kinect. While Sony’s Move is more accurate than the Wii controller and as such great for creating a more immersive experience, you still have to make use of a controller.

Microsoft Kinect doesn’t require a controller just a peripheral that records the movements of the player and translates them into on-screen action.

Whether or not Sony and Microsoft can snatch the attention back from Nintendo remains to be seen. If anyone can do it however it will be Microsoft, since Kinect is a completely new idea.

Five – internet tvsGeeks have been dreaming of a world where audio, video and other forms of content just flow off the Internet into their home entertainment systems without any other intervention from them, besides choosing the media they would like to enjoy.

And even though that’s been possible with some hacking, activities that border on the outskirts of legality and some homegrown, but really technical hardware, it’s never been available to the mass market.

That’s until this year when Google started speaking to television vendors about building its Android operating system, which was designed for use on cellular handsets, into television sets.

It’s not the full panacea that the techie-elite have been hoping for, but it’s a move in the right direction. The new televisions – one has already been launched by Sony – have embedded Intel Atom processors and a Google Chrome browser for scooting around the Internet.

This is great for getting context to what you’re watching – like research team stats during a sports game, or getting the world’s sentiments on a live event, using twitter.

There’s also links to a number of top news services and because it’s built on the Google Android operating system, the televisions will also support the ability to download and purchase thousands of applications from the Android marketplace. AT

the surface of some of the things going on in the consumer‘‘ ‘‘2010 - We’ve only just scratched

electronics market.


with Nick JoNes, VP DistiNguisheD ANAlyst, gArtNer reseArch, uk

This issue of Africa Telecoms is focused on New Technologies. With your area of expertise being Mobile and Wireless, how would you describe the current condition on the Mobile and Wireless market when talking about Innovation?Innovation is still very rapid and operates at several levels:Device hardware is evolving rapidly, for example we’re just seeing mobile devices with multicore processors exceeding 1 GHz, we’ll likely see several new types of display including 3D displays on a few mobiles in the next year or so, new sensors, new types of wireless such as Bluetooth 4, perhaps WiFi Direct protocols, wireless HDMI connections to screens and so on.

We have economic evolution as well as technological evolution. Nokia is selling smartphones at EUR 115 retail (before tax), which means we’ll likely have sub EUR 100 smartphones next year. This makes smartphones accessible to a much wider range of people.

Networks are also evolving. Many operators are on some form of HSPA. A few have started very early LTE deployments, and we can already see the next long term step on the roadmap which is LTE-A.

We’re also seeing rapid innovation in mobile applications and services. Apple has over 300K apps, Android around 100K. Increasingly apps don’t just stand alone but integrate with innovative cloud services. We’re seeing growth in a wide range of mobile services such as payment, context, music, social networking and mobile advertising.

I expect rapid evolution in all of these areas (and more) to continue for at least 5 years.

We would like to know from you what you believe will be the next big New Technology in the Mobile and Wireless space?

I don’t see any single “next big” technology. There are probably 20 technologies which are important including context, platform independent AD tools, Bluetooth 3 and 4, mobile HTML5, near field wireless, M2M, LTE, mobile augmented reality, haptics and new screen technologies.

I think that in the mobile space, innovation often happens not from one single technology, but a combination of technologies.

For example look at augmented reality (AR) tools such as Layar or Wikitude.

These enable all sorts of new applications and visualisations such as location aware competitions, marketing, games, geotagging to name but a few. But AR itself is built on a set of underlying essential technologies such as GPS, e-compass, graphics accelerators and tilt sensors. So, in my opinion many of the innovations come from combining technologies rather than from a single technology.

However, if I had to identify one technology which we don’t yet have, but when it arrives will be very influential, it would be indoor positioning. The holy grail in this area would be a technology that can locate your position indoors (where GPS doesn’t work) to within 1 metre or so.

This would enable a wide range of applications such as indoor navigation, indoor AR, finding products on shelves in shops as examples. Sadly, we don’t yet have any single technology that looks as if it will become a dominant standard, although companies like Nokia have demonstrated some interesting possibilities.

In a recent Blog Post you spoke of the “Rule of 3” used in economic theory being applied across many industries. Specifically, you mentioned computers, PC’s and Mac’s for normal people and Linux for Geeks. Do you think this will be the case in the Operating System arena for Mobiles? And, if so would you care to take a guess at what they might be by 2020? Why do you think this will be the case?I think mobile OSs will eventually consolidate to around 3 strong leaders, however it will take a long time; I don’t see it happening before 2015 at the earliest, probably later.

At the moment the best candidates for the long term “top 3” are Symbian, Android and Apple iOS. But the game is still on and many things could happen before the market stabilises, so it’s not a very safe bet! Mobile Operating systems are clearly a topic of interest worldwide with some interesting information coming out of Gartner over the last few weeks, specifically with declining Symbian and RIM market shares to increasing Android market share. What do you think the main drivers is in the world of Operating Systems?I see this not so much as an operating system battle but an ecosystem battle. An ecosystem is bigger than an operating system, and it encompasses users, developers, applications and devices as well as the OS. What will determine the long term

fate of the operating systems is the strength (or otherwise) of their ecosystem.

A strong ecosystem means lots of applications which makes the platform more attractive to users, which in turn makes developers rich and attracts more developers. It’s a virtuous cycle. Ultimately, however good the OS if you don’t have applications and services the device can’t succeed.

Considering this, do you feel there is space in the market for new operating systems or is consolidation going to take place?I think in the long term we’re going to see consolidation as I mentioned above. However, in the short term the market will get very competitive indeed. 2011 will likely be the most competitive year ever for platforms and devices because we will have a new Symbian version, the first release of MeeGo, a revitalised webOS from HP, Microsoft phone 7, new iPhone versions and new Android versions.

It would be extremely difficult for a new platform to make much impact in such a crowded and competitive space.

However, the competition isn’t just around OSs, because new “platforms” are emerging above the OS. E.g. I expect HTML5 will become a popular mobile app delivery platform, some of the AR tools I mentioned earlier are becoming “platforms” of a sort, which just complicates matters further.


A final question on the Operating System front. Do you think Open Source or Proprietary Systems will win the battle and why?Both will co-exist because they have different, but viable business models. For mass market platforms with many manufacturers, open is attractive because the cost of OS licenses can be an issue and an open source approach allows manufacturers to differentiate their products. However the closed model such as that used by Apple or RIM also has advantages because it ensures a consistent end-to-end experience that includes the device and the services in the cloud.

There are many new areas of technology in the Mobile and Wireless space. Some of the ones that we think will have an effect in Africa specifically include:a. Mobile Healthb. Mobile Governmentc. Augmented Realityd. Machine to MachineWould you care to comment on their viability in Africa and what aspects do you think are interesting in these areas? Then, I would also like to know over and above these what else do you think will take Africa by storm in the next 2-5yrs?I agree that healthcare is a huge mobile opportunity, and we’ve seen mobile phones used for clever applications such as eye tests, health education and support for remote health workers. Perhaps my only concern is price, most citizens won’t be


able to afford a high end smartphone so there are still some challenges with what can be delivered.

I mentioned AR above, I think it will become a major platform for delivering applications as it’s very user friendly, however it does demand top-end expensive smartphones and high speed networks which limits the opportunities a bit.

M-governmwnt is also an opportunity although some applications like m-voting can be challenging for reasons of security and authentication.

M2M is interesting but the opportunities in rural areas where signal coverage is poor are limited and in my opinion, although we have seen some examples in emerging markets such as India for water pump control.

Another area which I think has great potential and where I’ve seen some very interesting leading work carried out in South Africa is mobile learning, i.e. using the mobile phone either to deliver lessons or to support the learning experience.

Tablets seem to be a technology that are taking the world by storm at the moment with the launch of the Apple iPad, the Cisco Cius and the up coming launches of a number of other including Research in Motion’s (RIM) Playbook. Do you think that this is a viable alternative for Third World Economies like Africa to personal computing (granted if the cost of the devices where to come down)?Personally, I don’t think the hardware is the big issue. We have had low cost hardware for a while, e.g. the OLPC project. You

can build cheap netbooks for the same cost as a cheap tablet. In my opinion, people are getting sidetracked by the hardware hype and forgetting the big issue which is the ultimate goal.

The challenge is to deliver applications and content that benefit society, the hardware really doesn’t matter. Added to which many of the new generation of tablets aren’t designed for use in challenging environments such as villages without power; it takes a lot more energy to charge a tablet than a phone for example, and it’s easier to break a tablet when you drop it.

Taking a more global look at the Mobile and Wireless Technologies sector what do you think will be the biggest challenge facing the industry in 2011?I think 2011 will be one of the most competitive years ever - as I mentioned above. For many of the platform vendors this will be a year when they have to run flat out to stop competitors getting ahead.

It will also be a challenging year for network operators because the mindshare is owned by platform and device manufacturers such as Apple or Android, or app stores. It’s becoming increasingly hard to convince consumers that the network matters much.

Moving on from that what do you feel is the biggest opportunity that has arisen and can be commercially exploited in 2011?


I don’t see the market having a simple single opportunity. I think it’s a market of many opportunities at many levels. Mobile is still in the discovery phase of the market, in a sense now we’re moving beyond voice and SMS, yet we’re still trying to find out what mobile phones are for. App stores are discovery machines which let thousands of developers experiment with new services and along the way we’ll find out what’s popular by a sort of Darwinian process.

Personally, I believe that one principle underlying many of the most successful new mobile services of the next few years will be context. i.e. applications which are hyper-personalised, sensitive to your location, behaviour needs and habits. For example; in a few years I expect my handset will beep one day and say something to me such as:

“Did you remember It’s your wife’s birthday? I see from your mobile payment history today that haven’t bought any flowers, but the traffic is bad so by the time you’ve driven home your favourite florist will be closed. However, there are three flower shops within 500 metres of where you’re standing and one of them got great ratings from two of your friends on Facebook.”

We can’t quite do all of this in 2011, but we’re certainly seeing the beginning of apps that can combine location, Facebook data and so on. I think context this is a huge opportunity that will continue to evolve for 5 to 10 years, but even now it can be used to deliver suggestions which are personalised and relevant. And that, after all, is what you want from the personal device in your pocket. AT


Whilst most of us take mobile phone access for granted, with GSM coverage almost ubiquitous, there still remains an estimated 1.2 Billion

consumers that live in geographic areas not covered by the mobile operators. Forecasts suggest that 800 million of these consumers from isolated rural communities will subscribe by 2015. However, such growth will not materialize without overcoming major commercial and technical hurdles.

The key challenge in addressing this market lies in the extremely low ARPU (Average Return per User) which is expected to be between US$2 and US$4 per month. The low ARPU is further exasperated by the high infrastructure costs in reaching these small towns and villages characterised by minimal road access, poor high site infrastructure and possibilities, and obvious power restrictions and costs.

Whilst this remains a difficult market segment to service, it is important to note that key incentives remain prevalent for the mobile carriers. With decreasing ARPUs in many

countries, combined with high levels of subscriber saturation, the key growth possibility lies within this rural market. Additionally, as carriers pursue value-added services such as money transfer, the pressure remains to extend these services to rural consumers and traders alike. Not least of the considerations is the pressure for rural economic growth and the carrier’s fulfilment of their underserviced area obligations.

Richard Smuts-Steyn, CEO of Multisource Telecoms,

IN EXPANDING GSM TO RURAL AND LOW DENSITY AREAS

By RichaRd SmutS-Steyn, ceO, multiSOuRce

believes that there is a viable solution to this, and other GSM coverage issues – “Clearly the use of traditional Macro base stations to service this rural market, or even to provide cost-effective filling within the urban areas is not a viable solution. The adoption of High Tower - High Power is economically unattractive for reaching areas with lower than expected ARPUs. Installing high-capacity macro-cells requires not only high-capital expenditure for BTS equipment, high towers and diesel generators, but also causes operational costs to sky-rocket, as maintenance, diesel fuel and security become operational requirements. The baseline price for the macro-cell solution is several hundred thousands of dollars in Capex and tens of thousands of dollars in your annual operational expenses. This model is simply not economically viable for low density in rural areas.”

Smuts-Steyn goes on to say “Additionally, as the carriers move from 2G to 3G to 4G, the gap between average bandwidth and peak bandwidth usage is increasing exponentially. Carriers will need to look at a new base station architectural paradigm to reach these low return rural communities, optimize the data flow within their networks, and provide cost-effective filling within geographic coverage as they expand. We believe that this can be done effectively with the emergence of compact base stations ”

The Compact Base Station or “SuperPico” is a complementary solution to the macro-cell approach, and is primarily characterized by small transmission footprint and low power consumption. It provides adequate coverage range to low-density areas, while requiring minimum maintenance. Typical attributes to this SuperPico architecture, include the installation of antennas on top of rooftops at small local commercial establishments or even Community Leader

THE COMPACT SUPERPICO BASE STATIONTHE EMERGENCE OF


premises, which allows for an easier commercial arrangement, security, or even minimal local service and support.

As opposed to macro-cells with up to 18 TRX capacity, the SuperPico approach can provide 1 to 6 TRX capacity with an integrated satellite backhaul, in a full outdoor solution without the use of air-conditioning or even fans. A complete TRX system with satellite backhaul consumes less than 150 watts of power, making it ideal to be powered by all solar power or hybrid systems. This model drastically minimizes capital investment and on your operational costs. Certainly the macro-cell has proven its worth in urban networks, but as indicated in the graph below, the return on investment within low population areas is significantly lower than SuperPico type installations.

Macro Base Stations clearly work best either in high density urban areas or in large urban areas of flat terrain. In such areas, carriers can share the high site, electrical and backhaul costs, thus minimizing the initial investment as well as the operational costs. However, whenever one or more of these conditions are not present the SuperPico BTS becomes increasingly more economically and technically attractive.

Any of the following conditions end up favouring the deployment of a compact BTS: towns and villages that are isolated due to distance, access, mountainous terrain, etc.; when the maximum number of concurrent calls would be less than one hundred; towns with populations of between 500 and 40,000 people; roadways between such areas; or anywhere the revenue per BTS is below US$10, 000 per month.

The macro versus pico BTS becomes imperative as operators drive towards lower total Capex and Opex per BTS in order to retain a good return on investment. These expenses include site acquisition, BTS equipment, site installation, infrastructure, support and maintenance and generators.

In order to achieve better ROI, new approaches to the BTS site design and support are necessary. Critically the Capex is reduced simply through the outright cost of compact designs versus the macro BTS. The compact base station is full outdoor and does not require a rack or air-conditioned container. This low capex is further enhanced by full service and financed offering by the various vendors.

Transmission power is reduced, fan and air-conditioning are not required, and thus the power consumed is drastically reduced. A typical 3 TRX unit consumes less than 150w, making an all solar/battery powering possible. This negates the need for procurement of expensive diesel generators and associated diesel fuel and maintenance.

With the move to all IP, the data backhaul requirements of the compact base station has been reduced. Where TDM inefficiencies leave empty time slots and silent frames, the new

breed of SuperPico BTS takes advantage of IP optimization. The diagram below illustrates a typical local call routing in an IP environment where only signalling is backhauled to the MSC but the voice traffic remains at local level.

To further support data optimization, rural GSM sites can be clustered to ensure all voice traffic within the community cluster remains under the control of the BTS and integrated BSC, with only limited signalling traffic to backhaul to the MSC. This current trend of data optimization allows for very cost-effective Vsat backhaul for rural, marine, or temporary BTS deployments.

Both site acquisition and installation have long been a bugbear of the traditional macro base station approach. In contrast, the SuperPico compact BTS is easily installed on existing infrastructure with no dedicated server rooms or containers, and requires significantly less skills to install, commission, and service. The use of local installers and service agent is a well accepted business model of the compact BTS environment. Time to roll out is reduced to a point where first mover advantage becomes significant for the carrier adopting compact architecture. The model below illustrates the clearly Capex and Opex advantages of compact base station architecture discussed above.

“Clearly the emergence of the compact base station will significantly change the BTS environment” says Smuts-Steyn. “Not only are the expenditure and operational advantages far too compelling to ignore, but the ability for Mobile Operators to secure new markets, new customers, grow their termination revenue into these rural communities, and present value-added services to these communities, will most definitely see a paradigm shift in BTS architecture. The various Fully Managed Service offering by vendors such as Multisource, will also spur significant growth in this area of the market”. AT

Opex Benefits • Backhaul significantly reduced - Optimized iP backhaul - no wasted excess capacity - local voice traffic routed within local BSc• Power requirements minimized - Green power with only solar and battery required - no diesel generation or maintenance - terrestrial power not required • PredictaBle ongoing costs - lease or fully managed service options available - local installer and support agent possible

Capex Benefits • low initial cost - low initial purchase price at typically 1/10 of macro base station costs. - high coverage/cost ratios• fully managed service - Zero initial outlay, Opex only• high site simPlistic - no requirement for large mast infrastructure or equipment cabinets• Power requirements - diesel generator not required• vsat Backhaul PossiBle - low cost ntu and auxiliary equipment

‘

‘

‘

‘

growth will not materialize without overcoming major commercial and technical hurdles.


How is it that a device as fundamentally flawed as the iPad can be so successful that it is

the single most aspirational device in the industrialised world in 2010?

Or, to be more specific and mundane, how can a device with no USB port and no file management system worth talking about be confused with a tool for productivity?

Think about it: you cannot use the iPad in its own right: it must be tethered to another device with which you must synchronise it in order to transfer files, data and the minutiae of your working life. Merely to switch it on and set it up, you have to connect it to a computer. Does that mean the iPad isn’t really a computer in its own right?

The truth is, of course it’s a computer.

But it’s a computer designed to be used on Planet Jobs, meaning that whatever Steve Jobs thinks should be allowed onto it, will be allowed. Whatever he doesn’t want associated with his baby, you are going to have to trick your machine into doing.

So why aren’t we hearing the howls of indignation? Why is Steve Jobs not dodging the lynch mobs? Why is Steve Ballmer still pondering a switch to a black polo-neck (but Microsoft-branded) sweater? The secret is in how the iPad handles its own ecosystem. It is a thing of beauty. Never before has reading a magazine, comic or book on an electronic device looked so damned good. Never before has a computing device offered so intuitive an interface. Never before has a computer demanded so insistently that it be

Few consumer technology products outside of the iPod and iPhone have inspired as much blind loyalty as the next offspring in Apple’s quest to dominate the information iWay. The iPad is loved, admired, adored, and worshipped by its users. The limitations of the device are almost completely ignored in this fan frenzy. But then, so is its true significance, writes ARTHUR GOLDSTUCK.

Goldstuck on GadGets

but what a great signpost

The iPad is noT The fuTure

‘‘ ‘‘Does that mean the iPad isn’t really a computer in its

own right?


releasing product that is so ultra-cool, it won’t matter what others are doing. Like, for example, the iPad.

The rivals are lining up: Samsung has unveiled an almost equally gorgeous Galaxy Tab; RIM has segments of the market salivating for the BlackBerry PlayBook; Toshiba CEO Masaaki Osumi has had his “one more thing” moment with his own tablet prototype. Asus, who reinvented the netbook almost single-handedly, also want to play – and work; they offer a keyboard dock on their upcoming Eee Pad.

Meanwhile, at the low end of the market, Netbooks have stormed the market, giving manufacturers a new lease on life, and heralding the death of the traditional desktop PC.

Ironically, this explosion in low-cost, low-featured laptops comes several years after the failure of the first iteration of such devices aimed at the developing world and the poor. For as long as it was seen as an act of charity, the low-cost devices like the OLPC (one Laptop per Child) achieved no market traction. Little wonder: they used over-simplified operating systems and programs, second-hand connectivity, and little upgrade path for either technology or experience.

The Netbook, on the other hand, is a recognisable component of the formal and commercial world of operating systems, devices and technology roadmaps. It is slow, it has low specs, and it is no way for a busy information worker to operate. But it fills a vast gap in the market, and even creates a new market.

Early indications are that the iPad may be cannibalising the laptop market, but is not having much effect on Netbooks. It is still too early to measure true impact, but both devices point to a near future that is very different from the one dominated by desktop behemoths.

For one thing, the computer user of tomorrow will be unable to cope without a touchscreen, while yesterday’s workforce relics will still be heavily dependent on keyboards.

touched. And touched. And touched.Enough has been written about what

one can do on the iPad, and perhaps not enough on what one can’t do on it. I won’t dwell on either. I believe the iPad is a work in progress. Not only by Apple, but by every developer of new formats, ranging from netbooks to tablets to hybrids.

The truly important question is what we will be able to do on iPads and equivalent devices as they evolve. And the implications of that question also hold the key to the near future of computing, information management and productivity itself.

The flaws in the iPad – and there are many more – are very arguably intentional. They give Apple a roadmap on which it can position several generations of upgrades. Why NOT put in USB ports? Why NOT include dual 3G/WiFi capability as standard on all models? (It costs a few dollars more, but Apple is able to ratchet that up into the next price bracket? Why NOT offer an extra port for a 3G modem? Why NOT let us run two programs at the same time? Why NOT build in a camera? Why NOT allow Flash...?

Oh we know the answer to the last one: it’s not Made in Apple.

So, expect many devices with touchscreens and keyboards.

For another, the computer user of tomorrow will not tolerate a device that needs a second device to allow it to work. Out with the Apple closed garden. It will maybe not be quite “Return from Planet Jobs”, but the tablet of tomorrow will be truly portable and not tethered to walled-in ways of thinking.

Thirdly, the concept of downloading or installing massive computer programs will be dead, as the empire of the app takes over. Almost every activity on a computer will be conducted via a streamlined app, and every computer will contain a library of apps, and even app templates that allow you to create your own personally-tailored apps on the fly.

Fourth, multiple paths to the data cloud will be built into all these devices. A choice between 4G and WiFi, or a premium price for a combo? How quaint! A chip or device that can’t handle all major wireless connectivity options as standard will be an object of ridicule.

What will this device look like? Well, what would you like it to look like? With viable screen sizes ranging anywhere from 3.5” to 28”, it’s no longer a question of what someone says should be good for you, but what feels right to you personally. It’s a world of competition, choice and instant gratification out there, and that will drive the future of the computer.

The astonishing speed with which every major manufacturer has been able to rush out a tablet prototype – and the eagerness with which the market laps it all up – tells us that everyone has been ready and anxious for the arrival of the computer of the future.

The iPad is not yet that future, but it sure is a powerful signpost. AT

Arthur Goldstuck tested an iPad supplied by have2have. their prices range from around r6,000 for the 16GB WiFi version to r9,600 for the 64GB WiFi & 3G model.

Goldstuck on GadGets

The result of the closed garden Steve Jobs is trying to create is that, among users, as much effort is going into “jailbreaking” the iPad as in getting the most out of approved apps. That means when the iPad rivals become just as good, but offer an open ecosystem with access to any applications, communications mediums and even one’s own data – sheesh, you can’t even file a photo where you’d prefer it on your iPad – Apple will have a fight on its hand. The only way to hold off the barbarians at the gate will be to keep

The flaws in the iPad – and there are many more – are very

arguably intentional. ‘‘ ‘‘

THE LAST WORD

WHERE’S KARL? - It'S foR yoo-Hoo

THE AUTHOR Mohammed Khan is the Executive Editor of Africa Telecoms Magazine

The days of the great old school revolutionary, tearing through countries in

the name of the glorious workers uprising, is well and truly over.

There was a time, not thirty years ago, that the mere mention of Karl Marx, conjured up images of cold wars, iron curtains and quarrelling superpowers.

Amidst this ideological tug of war, with comrades and cowboys duking it out, Marx’s ideology rested on the minor point that the culmination of human history would be reached during the industrial revolution.

In a few short years, we have gone from a globe covered in the red cloak of the world according to Marx, via one or two despots along the way, to a time where even China is finding it increasingly difficult to resist the temptation of democratic free market forces.

What Marx did not foresee was the information and communications revolution that followed the industrial age. He did understand that communication was going to be key to allow all the workers of the world to centralize and overthrow the Bourgeoisie, but he certainly did not foresee that the end of the revolution would be televised, and how?

In many ways, it was the communications revolution that assisted in the downfall of communism around the world, with images of the destruction of the Berlin Wall beamed around the globe, it was impossible not to take note. For the first time, people were able to communicate affordably, efficiently and most importantly in real time.

We can only speculate today what Marx would have made of this epoch defining time we are living through today. Would he have a Twitter page and try to incite

the revolution through Facebook? Would he have hired a PR guru to take the revolution viral.

“Do you accept Karl Marx as a new contact – No, ignore and block contact.”

More likely than not, Marx would have seen the information age as the next great historical movement following from the industrial age and embrace the technology to stir the pot and centralize his followers around the globe in the name of the glorious revolution.

It suddenly feels like we are truly in the future. In that realm of science fiction where through technology, there lies the possibility of addressing the needs of the underserved and disenfranchised. Technology as the great leveler. . If only Marx had been a futurist or a science fiction writer, he could have correctly foreseen the end of the industrial age and the birth of the

technological revolution. In this transition, technology has become a real enabler and has democratized our world.

Unfortunately for Marx, the future is bright and it does seem to be orange rather than the red he would have so loved. Well, it might be time he updated his facebook page and tweeted away to his heart’s content on the evils of communication, and the struggle between the have’s and the have not’s of the technology century.

In any case, it would be exceedingly difficult to imagine Marx without at least a Blackberry, possibly an iPad and certainly his own web page.

The revolution may not or may not be televised but it will certainly be on your mobile.

Techies of the World Unite! AT


"What Marx did not foresee was the information and

communications revolution that followed the industrial age."

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