Africa > Communication

Communication / ICT in Africa

  • Cyber security: The subplot to Africa’s online connectivity boom

    NIGERIA, 2015/03/28   Although the enabling potential of the internet for Africa is a popular story told alongside impressive statistics on internet access increase, cyber security needs additional attention to keep pace with the rate of digital penetration. High profile cases of cyber crime such as the recent hack on Sony Pictures are increasing public awareness of the risks associated with digitisation and the internet. In Africa, internet usage grew seven times faster than the world average between 2000 and 2012, clocking additional than 3,600 % increase to a total 167 million users. From instantly on the flipside of the rapid expansion of internet infrastructure is poor cyber security safeguards. On 17 January 2012 an Indonesian student and amateur hacker known online as Direxer hacked and defaced 103 Kenyan government websites. His tools? Tutorials on the Indonesian language forum Code Security. He attacked everything from the ministries of finance and education to police and prisons, leaving a song to play in the background at the same time as each site opened. Reportedly no data was stolen - but likely only because on this occasion theft was not the objective.

  • Phase3 Telecom Builds West Africa's Connectivity Infrastructure

    NIGER, 2015/03/28 PHASE3 Telecom, West Africa's major independent fibre optic infrastructure and telecommunications services provider has announced plans to commence the deployment of aerial fiber optic infrastructure from Kano in Nigeria to Gazaoua in the Republic of Niger. The network, which will run from Kano national through Katsina national before arriving at Gazaoua will be 228 km long and is expected to be completed in the coming months.

  • Ghana Mobile Phone Tariffs Up 75%

    GHANA, 2015/03/18 A recent directive, by the National Communication Authority (NCA) to telecommunication companies to charge GHp4 per minute, will kill businesses and affect over 10 million subscribers, Vodafone Ghana has warned. The company believes the current move by the NCA would have a negative impact on the telecom industry, since the directive could disarm their ability to monetise GH¢80 million annual capital investment . Vodafone Ghana expressed the concern over the "On-net price regulation" by the NCA at a media round table discussion held in Accra last week Thursday.

  • MTN Côte d’Ivoire Launches MTN TV on Mobile

    CôTE D'IVOIRE, 2015/03/05 Côte d’Ivoire’s unit of telco giant MTN has announced a strategic partnership with tech developer SUMMVIEW to launch of a new service called “MTN TV”, which is accessible via mobile devices. MTN says it presently offers its users the ability to access from their smartphones and tablets, to a set of live TV channels inclunding on-request content. Wim Vanhelleputte, CEO of MTN Côte d’Ivoire, said MTN TV expands the telecom’s range of services and mobile applications and provides its subscribers an innovative offering of quality content, data inclunding entertainment on mobile. “By deploying this new service, MTN continues its actions to offer its customers a new digital world and contributes to the emergence of a digital Ivory Coast,” he said.

  • Local media review 2014, reflect on the New Year

    ZAMBIA, 2015/01/05 Zambian newspapers this week reflected on the major events that occurred in the country in 2014 and what lies ahead in 2015. The death of President Michael Sata on 28 Oct., four days next the country celebrated 50 years of its independence anniversary, was part the major focus by newspapers here. “The country was in shock. Although our president’s failing health was for a long time masked, it was increasingly becoming difficult to conceal that he was not well. Statements were issued to the result that he was well, he was in good health. But his physical national was saying something different,' the independent Post newspaper said in an editorial this week reflecting on the year 2014. 'The country remained disciplined and gave our president a respected end to his life. We hope lessons were learnt on how to transaction or how not to transaction with the health of the president of the Republic,” the paper added.

  • Congo-Kinshasa: Leveraging Mobile Tech to Combat Conflict and Corruption

    CONGO KINSHASA, 2015/01/02 Rarely has so small a law stirred so much debate about so distant a conflict. Over the completed several months, debate about legislation requiring companies to disclose any use of conflict minerals in manufacturing, has dragged a bunch of seemingly unconnected people into its orbit: from Green Bay Packers' quarterback Aaron Rogers and members of the U.S. Congress to Washington think tanks and thousands of American companies. At issue is whether Section 1502 of the Dodd­‐Frank Act of 2009 has hurt or helped people in the target country - the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Advocates pushing for the provision called attention to what they saw as the complicity of the American consumer and their 'blood cell phones' in Congo’s ongoing conflict. Critics claim the law has drained the country of much needed investment , throwing millions of Congolese further into poverty. From presently on, the debate about the legislation in Washington has drowned out the Congolese voice. But new technologies offer new ways for their voice to be heard.

  • Liquid Telecom to extend the firm's fibre cable infrastructure across Kampala's

    UGANDA, 2014/11/10 Liquid Telecom, a data, voice and IP provider, has announced it will inject Shs 2bn to extend the firm's fibre cable infrastructure across Kampala's central business district (CBD) and the nearby towns of Masaka, Mbarara, Mukono and Jinja. Liquid telecom, which bought Infocom last year, says the infrastructure will bring a new experience of internet usage in the country. Hans Haerdtle, the company's chief technical officer, East Africa, said: "Our aim in investing so heavily in this new Ugandan internet infrastructure is to achieve better service delivery and improve the country's internet penetration."

  • Egypt will have unified telecoms licence before year-end

    EGYPT, 2014/11/10 Egypt's telecoms minister said it would issue a long-awaited unified licence for landline and mobile services by year-end, brushing aside reports of operators' reservations and insisting that the terms of the transaction were no longer negotiable. A unified licence would open the way for national fixed-line monopoly Telecom Egypt to enter the additional lucrative mobile market. Officials have said repeatedly over the completed year that it was about to be issued, bt Atef Helmy said on Friday the process had at last reached "the final phases". "It is just the final review of the documents and the licence between the national regulatory authority and the operators," he told Reuters on the sidelines of an industry conference in Cairo.

  • Morocco Wins African App Competition

    CASABLANCA, 2014/11/06 A Moroccan company just won an African Content Awards for developing one of the world's five best health applications. The SEHATUK app from Dial Technologies includes an index of drugs available in Morocco, along with their prices and dosages. Additional than 500 mobile applications from 100 nations, inclunding a dozen from Morocco, were entered in the competition.

  • Africa: How to Make Your Mobile APP Go Global

    SOUTH AFRICA, 2014/10/19 Putting mobile apps within reach of a world audience is one of the easiest steps companies can take to tap into the market of additional than one billion potential online smartphone customers. According to Statista.com, as of July 2014, Android users could choose from 1.3 million apps available for download, iPhone users 1.2 million, Windows Phone users 240,000 and Blackberry users 130,000. In most nations, English apps are still the majority popular with native language apps ranking a close second. While English apps intensely compete for downloads, most Asian nations prefer apps in their native language, Distimo.com has found. There\'s a large opportunity for companies to make their English-only apps available to people of other regions where they may thrive.Of course, translating and localising an app (or translating related content to widen your reach) won\'t make sense for each product on the market - you need to carefully consider the business case.
Trending Articles