3G’s poor outing threatens quality service

The recent marathonic unveiling of the Third Generation (3G) products among leading Global Systems for Mobile communications (GSM) operators, may have after-all become a threat and further increases the deteriorating quality of service (QoS) in the country.

Champion Infotel recalls that in the last two weeks, the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector witnessed rushed plans to roll out 3G services commercially among the operators in their bids to claim one first or the other.

It was also gathered, for instance, that while the like of MTN Nigeria lays claim to being the first to launch the services into the market, Globacom points to its demonstration ever before the licensing was granted to any of the operators by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), which was over a year ago.

Our checks indicated that the level of drop calls among these two 3G giants have risen considerably, especially since the forthnight ago when the competition hot up the sector.

Further checks revealed that one of the 3G operators tried to give reasons via Interactive Voice Response (IVR), the other network would simply display network error, or connection error and informing that the “number you are calling is unavailable” even when they are available among others.

Equally, the Executive Vice Chairman, NCC, Dr. Ernest Ndukwe recently predicted a bleak yuletide for Global System for Mobile communications subscribers in the country inspite of 3G debut.

Ndukwe who spoke at the December edition of the monthly Telecom Consumer parliament in Lagos, foresaw a gloomy festive season for Nigerians due to deteriorating telecom services, even as he warned operators to live up by improving on their networks through adequate expansion plans.

He stressed that the poor quality of service in the sector is long over due for correction and tasked operators to wake up to this challenge.

“Nigerians would experience network congestion this Christmas season as current infrastructure and transmission facilities may not be able to cope with the expected high volume of traffic, he said.

He also noted that unless the service providers expand infrastructure to carry the current capacities in their networks, which experts say is already over subscribed, the possibility of a smooth holiday telephony would not be achieved this 2007.

Dr. Ndukwe admitted that network problem is a global issue but noted with optimism that in no distance future, Nigeria will become one of those best countries in the world if enough capacity is expanded by the operators.”

Although he said that the quality of service in the country has not improved as expected, promising that Nigeria will continue to build infrastructure until we get to an appreciable stage and charged network operators to ameliorate network congestion.

According to him, “The problem in the network is carrying capacity. We must continue to build it even up till the next five years. We may not expect a perfect network now. There is not even a perfect network in the developed countries. We need more base stations. Let us hope that network quality will improve especially, this Christmas season, when there will be more congestions in the networks. The operating companies must do something now to abate the impending congestion to the barest minimum.”

He tasked the operators to be proactive and build more capacities in order to abate drop calls.

“We do not have enough capacity to the size of the network. The consumer deserves best QoS. That is the bottom line. It is very important that the operators prepare for the challenges ahead. That is the simple truth of the matter”, Ndukwe said.

This is in addition to the negative impact of what the operators under the aegis of Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), described as ‘excesses’ of the Lagos State Infrastructure Maintenance and Regulatory Agency (LASIMRA).

Just as ALTON said its ready for meaningful negotiation as being solicited by the management of LASIMRA.

Champion Infotel recollects that the group while reacting recently to the incessant arrests and detention of telcom officials from its member companies in Lagos, over what LASIMRA alleged as unlawful laying of infrastructure, ALTON said that the trend would impact adversely not only to the development of telecommunications in the country, but also to Lagos as the nerve centre of the nation and would be drastically hit with the increased poor quality of services across the networks.

ALTON chairman, Mr. Gbenga Adebayo, had said their attention have been drawn to some media adverts inciting communities against telecom operators sponsored by LASIMRA, asking those communities to call the agency on sighting of telcos site engineers, adding that the most worrisome now is the arrests of site engineers and confiscation of their tools as well as cables.

“It is with considerable concern that we draw attention to recent closure of some operators’ sites on the orders of the General Manager of LASIMRA,” he said, lamenting that ALTON major concern is that this act of disregard for the rule of law is coming from a state led by Mr. Babatunde Tunde Fashola, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN).

Industry analysts, however, opined that although the sector is competition deriven, there is need to ensure that adequate arrangement is made to avoid serious damages to the operating companies and unforeseen emotional impact on subscribers.

Some other analysts said that the bid to hastely explore the Nigerian telecom market by the telcos has not given them ample time to establish firm footing on a given Value Added Services (VAS), such as available in the 3G platform.

They equally cited an instance of Short Messaging Service (SMS), which is still having hard times to deliver on most of these networks.

ITREALMS Online ... delivering news for ICT4D

ITU sets standards for Internet TV

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has set for the first time, a global standards for Internet Protocol TV (IPTV).

Chief, Media Relations and Public Information, ITU, Mr. Sanjay Acharya, informed that the standards were built with technical contributions from leading service providers and manufacturers from the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector to concretise ITU’s role as the global leader in IPTV standards development.

He explained that IPTV is one of the most highly visible services to emerge as part of the development of Next-Generation Networks (NGN).

“Indeed, it is seen as both the business case and principal driver for accelerating deployment of NGN,” he said.

The new standards, according to him, were developed by the Focus Group on IPTV (FG IPTV) in ITU’s Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T).

A press statement made available to Champion Infotel and endorsed by Mr. Acharya, quoted the Director, ITU’s Telecommunication Standardization Bureau, Mr. Malcolm Johnson as saying, that standards are crucial for IPTV to reach its market potential and global audience.

“They’re necessary in order to give service providers — whether traditional broadcasters, Internet Service Providers (ISPs), cable operators or telecoms service providers, control over their platforms and their offerings,” Mr. Johnson said.

He stressed that standards will encourage innovation, help mask the complexity of services, guarantee quality of service, ensure interoperability and, ultimately, help players remain competitive.

This development is coming on the heels of the seventh and final meeting of FG IPTV hosted in Malta by the Maltese Ministry for Competitiveness and Communications.

Speaking at the occasion, Minister for Competitiveness and Communications, Mr. Censu Galea, said, the stage of work that sees completion lays the groundwork for an area of ICT that some predict could attract up to 100 million subscribers in the next three years.

“It’s easy to see why so many of the world’s key ICT companies have been keen to progress this work in ITU. Malta is proud to host this event and play a part in advancing this important technology,” he said.

Additionally, contained within the documents produced by the Focus Group are the high-level architecture and frameworks needed by service providers in order to rollout IPTV services.

ITU’s next phase of IPTV work is touted to be on the IPTV-GSI (Global Standards Initiative), which tends to centre on the speedy preparation of standards based on documents produced by FG IPTV as well as on the detailed protocols required.

Between 2006 and 2007, ITU has focused on numerous physical and electronic meetings as well as workshops thereby perfecting work on IPTV worldwide, just as about 21 documents covering IPTV requirements, architecture, quality of service (QoS), security, digital rights management (DRM), unicast and multicast, protocols, metadata, middleware and home networks will be submitted to the ITU-T Study Group charged with progressing and distributing the work.

The IPTV-GSI will build on the momentum generated over the past 20 months, and it is foreseen that contributions and participation will continue to increase.

Operators consider IPTV a key element of a triple-play package of voice, video and data services. Standardization is imperative if service providers are to offer high quality products with value-additions, such as video-on-demand services that will inevitably drive the market.

Whereas, a combination of voice, Internet and video services over a single broadband link and from a single provider is foreseen as the ultimate goal of the broadband revolution.

FG IPTV benefited from collaboration with all ITU-T Study Groups and other forums and regional standards bodies, including ATIS IPTV Interoperability Forum (IIF), DSL Forum, the DVB project, ETSI TISPAN and the Home Gateway Initiative (HGI).

Even as the first meeting of IPTV-GSI will convene in Seoul, Republic of Korea from 15 to 22 January 2008.

ITREALMS Online ... delivering news for ICT4D

ICANN to improve Whois Accuracy

Global coordinating agency for the Internet, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has advanced plans to improve Whois Accuracy.

The plans would enable the accessibility of some ICANN compliance projects such as Whois Data Accuracy study, Whois Data reminder policy audit, registrar investigation of Whois Inaccuracy claims audit and accessibility study of Whois.

ICANN noted that these steps have become necessary because over the years, its constituencies and others have observed apparent inaccuracies in Whois contact information provided by registrants when registering and maintaining their domain names.

Hence in an attempt to contribute to community discussion regarding Whois policy, ICANN has undertaken a study of domain name Whois contact information accuracy, the body said.

According to the ICANN position paper, with a great deal of Internet community interest behind it, the study commenced in November 2007 by developing a sampling plan to draw a representatives of domain names from the Generic Top Level Domain (gTLD) name population.

Equally, Champion Infotel gathered that in consultation with a statistician, ICANN developed an algorithm to determine the appropriate sample population size; one that provides acceptable accuracy and certainty levels.

However, in the first phase of this study, ICANN will select a sample from statistical purposes, an infinitely large database that will provide a measure of accuracy to +/- 5 per cent with a certainty of 95 per cent.

“Staff will then randomly select domain names in accordance with statistical sampling practices,” ICANN officials informed.

Also, ICANN said its currently defining the steps staff will take to determine the accuracy of Whois contact information associated with each registered domain name and address within the representative sample.

“It is ICANN’s goal to ensure that staff uses practical and reasonably reliable means to assess accuracy of each data set,” the body said.

ICANN explained that after finalizing the methodology to determine the Whois data accuracy of each data set, staff would execute the steps for each registered domain name within the representative sample.

As well, staffs anticipate several steps will be necessary to determine Whois data accuracy, thus they will conduct this study in phases.

ICANN will publish status reports as staff completes work in connection with each phase of the study.

The first report regarding this study will be published by February 2008.

ITREALMS Online ... delivering news for ICT4D

UNESCO, Hewlett Packard enter strategic deal

The United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and Information Technology (IT) giant, Hewlett-Packard (HP) have signed a strategic partnership deal to strengthen collaboration on existing education projects.

The signing ceremony, which held in Paris, weekend was attended by the UNESCO Director-General, Mr. Koïchiro Matsuura and vice president, Global Citizenship HP Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), Gabriele Zedlmayer.

In his comment, Matsuura said that it’s essential that UNESCO and HP help developing countries, in particular African countries, to bridge the information technology gap and to become full-fledged partners of today’s knowledge society.

“UNESCO’s education priorities are very much in line with the goals of HP’s education strategy. In Europe, the Middle East and Africa, HP has supported more than 200 education projects in over 20 countries, reaching over 50,000 young people in 2007,” he said.

Zedlmayer stressed that on a worldwide level, HP contributed grants to more than 850 schools in 36 countries, worth €30 million between 2004 and 2007.

Through the partnership, UNESCO and HP will work together on several projects in the area of education, especially to support UNESCO’s priority of “Education for All”.

This includes an evaluation on the extension of the existing brain drain project to additional regions in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. UNESCO and HP started to collaborate five years ago in South East Europe to help key universities connect to global research networks.

Champion Infotel recalls that in 2006 the project was extended to Africa, streamlined to fight brain drain by providing universities with an advanced technology called grid computing, which allows top quality researchers to play a key role in international research and contribute to economic development in their home countries.

Another project is the World Heritage Map, which enables the general public to visualize the spread of World Heritage sites around the globe, and raises the awareness of the World Heritage Convention.

The map is above all an educational tool, allowing UNESCO to communicate its work in this field on a large scale.

Equally, HP has provided a financial contribution to UNESCO for the “Printing and distribution of the Man and the Biosphere Map”. The Man and the Biosphere Map will be fully prepared and edited by the Division of Ecological and Earth Sciences of UNESCO, which will provide the full lay-out to HP for printing and distribution.

While the computer recycling training guide is also the fruit of UNESCO and HP cooperation aimed at supporting local stakeholders, in developing countries in particular, to manage electronic waste. The goal is to support local actors, especially those with a background in managing used computer equipment, and to create environmentally clean and healthy business opportunities.

Currently, HP is the only technology partner in the project, which also includes the French Agency for Environment and Energy Management (Agence de l’Environnement et de la Maîtrise de l’Energie - ADEME), EMMAUS, the international movement of solidarity, and TIC ETHIC, Information and Communication Technologies in the service of ethics and sustainable development.

UNESCO functions as a laboratory of ideas and a standard-setter to forge universal agreements in its fields of competences. It also serves as a clearinghouse – for the dissemination and sharing of information and knowledge – while helping its 193 Member States to build their human and institutional capacities in diverse fields.

HP worth $104.3 billion for the four fiscal quarters in revenue, which ended October 31, 2007, focuses on simplifying technology experiences for all of its customers – from individual consumers to the largest businesses, has a portfolio spanning printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure.

ITREALMS Online ... delivering news for ICT4D

Tahir commends MTN on Gold Club

Former Minister of Internal Affairs, Dr. Ibrahim Tahir, has commended MTN Nigeria Communications Limited for coming up with the concept of Gold Club.

The club tends to offer special recognition to MTN subscribers who use upto N150,000 and above per annum.

Chatting with newsmen at Oceanview, venue of the launch, Dr. Tahir accompanied by his family, said he is a pioneer MTN subscriber.

“I have been using MTN line since 2001 and I have never had any course to regret using the network. Though I have not been judicious with how much I spend on my calls, as long I can talk without any hitch, I never cared about the cost but today MTN has made me realised that it is wise to spend more on their network because at the end of the day it is going to be of mutual benefit. You can see that my spending has qualified me as a gold card member,” he declared.

He pointed out that he was given free first class ticket to attend the event with his family, lodged in 5-star hotel with feeding; all expense paid.

“I learnt the same treatment is given to all high value customers invited here today. Considering the numerous values attached to the gold card membership, I will advise MTN subscribers to start spending more though wisely on their calls so that they can qualify for the gold card membership,” he enjoined, expressing appreciation to MTN for all these great added value offerings.

MTN Chief Marketing Officer, Mr Bola Akingbade, said that the club is a high value loyalty scheme and designed for big spenders on MTN account nationwide.

“Its primary objective is to reinforce the relationship that the network has developed with its customers in this category by way of returning added values to them in a way that no other network has done,” he asserted.

In addition, he said, that the benefits of this loyalty scheme include full medical examination for the top 500 customers and vehicle tracking for the top 3,000 customers with different levels of discount applying based on customer spend.

Others, he said, are lifestyle benefits such as luxury holidays, discounts in highbrow restaurants and bars, free golf lessons to name a few.

“We’re meeting your needs for security and well-being of what you value most. We want our customers to be able to say ‘MTN truly cares about my health, safety and lifestyle needs. I feel recognised and appreciated,” he said.

Equally speaking, another MTN high value customer and managing director, Capital Oil, Mr. Ifeanyi Patrick Uba, declared, “MTN has shown to us, its customers that subscribing to the network is not one-sided relationship. That, it is not about profiteering from us alone, that it is about building a symbiotic partnership. Look at all what I am going to be getting free, just for using the network. More kudos to them and I wish other networks can emulate this wonderful gesture from the people’s network.”

Explaining further, General Manager, Consumer Market at MTN, Mr. Kola Oyeyemi, said that for vehicle tracking, this added value would be offered to 3,000 top customers with different levels of discount, with tier one covering top 500 customers who spend N250,000 per quarter with each in this category having a free vehicle tracking device.

The second tier, he said, would be made up of about 2,500 customers who spend N150,000 per quarter, while MTN would bear part of the cost for their vehicle tracking devices to a tune of 50 per cent discount, even as the customer pays the balance and signs a contract for a period.

“The cost of the device is then spread over the contract period, which means the customer pays his monthly fee of N2,500 for the tracking service plus the amortised cost of the modem,” he added.

ITREALMS Online ... delivering news for ICT4D

Celtel takes over Accra Westel

Pan African mobile operator, Celtel, has finally taken charge at the Ghanaian telecom network, Westel.

This follows the conclusion of agreements between the telco and the Ghanaian government at the weekend.

Champion Infotel recalls that few months ago, Westel, a government owned telecommunications in Accra, was sold to the pan African mobile operator after the bidding was concluded, even as the signing of the final deal took place last Friday with the Ministry of Communications in Accra, thus giving Celtel the right to move into operations.

Westel is the second national operator in Ghana and is licensed to provide fixed and mobile (GSM) telecommunications services.

Also, Champion Infotel gathered that Celtel plans to commence enhanced telecom services nationwide in the first half of 2008.

According to Celtel parent company, Zain Group, a leading mobile telecommunications network operator in the Middle East and Africa, the delay in handing over the operation to Celtel was believed to have been caused by the need to work out the finer details of operational rules or issues including the approval of a tax holidays to Celtel.

“With the signing of the agreement, the issues appears to have now been resolved paving the way for the African operator owned by Zain Group to move into the company,” sources close to the deal informed.

Meanwhile the selection of the winner for Ghana Telecom is still being finalized, although the transaction advisors have already passed on their recommendations to government.

Celtel hopes to quickly turn around the network by investing heavily in network coverage expansion, improvement in quality of service and in other critical areas of the business such as human capital development.

Commenting on this development, Zain Group Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Saad Al Barrak, said the acquisition of Westel is important to Celtel as it gives the mobile operator a “gateway to West Africa.”

Celtel operates in a number of West African countries including Nigeria , Niger , Chad , Burkina Faso , and Sierra Leone, among others.

The company also looks forward to promoting Ghana as a gateway to West Africa through its One Network, the world’s first borderless network.

One Network offers Celtel’s customers the opportunity to move freely across geographical borders using the same services they would access in their home country, and to make calls without roaming surcharges and without having to pay to receive incoming calls and messages.

The service will also permit customers to buy and top up with local airtime when they visit other countries in which One Network is operational.

Celtel’s One Network service is currently operational for over 400 million people across six nations in East, Central and West Africa.

ITREALMS Online ... delivering news for ICT4D

Glo day inspires visitors @ PH fair-07

The recently held Globacom special day at the just concluded 2007 Port Harcourt International Trade Fair, was an inspiring one for visitors at the fair.

The special day, which held last Friday, was one of the highlights of the yearly trade event as the Nigerian telco used the occasion to connect with its subscribers and visitors.

The event, which attracted hundreds of Glo subscribers and others who thronged the venue to identify with the success story of Globacom, had the Globacom Regional Manager, Port Harcourt, Mr Lucky Akponovwe, enlightening them.

Speaking on behalf of the Chief Operating Officer, Mr Mohamed Jameel, the regional manager reaffirmed Globacom’s pledge to Nigeria and her people, stressing that its passion is about the rapid growth and development of the country.

“This is why we have been rolling out our network across Nigeria at an unparalleled pace. This was also why we have been in the forefront of crashing the cost of telephony so that Nigerians, irrespective of their social and economic status, can maximize the benefits of modern telephony to reach their fullest potentials,” he said.

He noted that Globacom has been particularly close to the people of the Niger Delta and Rivers state in particular where it is currently working with the state government to ensure 100 per cent coverage of the state by Globacom so that the people in the remotest locations across the state can reach others and be reached from anywhere.

“Currently, Globacom is working on a project with the Rivers State government to extend our services to all of Rivers State , including the creeks and the riverine areas. We must note the passion of the State Government in seeing to the speedy conclusion of the project for the benefit of the people,” Akponovwe disclosed.

He also said that Globacom is working with Shell on a project which, “as part of a broader communication project, affording Glo services to be extended to all the areas of Niger Delta where Shell has operation. Through this, the vast majority of communities in the Niger Delta will be empowered to communicate with ease.”

Since the arrival of Globacom on the Nigerian telecommunications landscape over four years ago, according to him, has remained focused on the noble objective of empowering the people and changing lives.

“At Globacom, we believe in rewarding our loyal subscribers and this we have consistently done since we rolled out over four years ago. We are happy to note that competition has copied our subscriber reward programmes in the last few years”, Akponovwe noted.

He equally reminded visitors of the on-going Win & Rule promo, tagged the biggest consumer reward programme ever in the country, in which 500 brand new cars are to be given out to 500 loyal old and new subscribers nationwide.

The cars, he outlined to include 200 Kia Rio , 150 Nissan Sunny, 100 Peugeot 307, 38 BMW 3 Series and 12 Mercedes C360.

“All that is required is for the subscriber to recharge his/her Glo line with between N500 and over N10,000 every two weeks to qualify for the draws for the cars. This promo is running from December 2007 to May 2008,” he said.

ITREALMS Online ... delivering news for ICT4D

Nokia Siemens concludes 4G trials in Berlin

Few months after its take off as a joint venture between the two global brands in telecommunications, Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN), has concluded trial of the Fourth Generation (4G) network in the city of Berlin, Germany.

This is coming as most telecommunications operators in the country are battling to launch Third Generation (3G) technologies.

Champion Infotel gathered that NSN had involved Long-Term Evolution (LTE), the successor to 3G in order to offer theoretical data rates of up to 173 Mega Bytes per second (Mbps).

LTE is known to have been on the same pedestal marketwise with mobile Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WIMAX), which only promises around 70 Mbps but has a significant impact in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) market.

The fastest currently available mobile broadband, High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA), offers around 7.2 Mbps.

Experts said that both LTE and mobile WiMax use the Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) modulation scheme and multiple-input multiple-output (Mimo) technology, which is based on the use of multiple antennae.

On the other hand, Mobile WiMax’s recent inclusion to the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) family of standards has raised the possibility of both technologies becoming part of what will be known as 4G.

United Kingdom-based ZDNet reports that while announcing its latest trials, at the weekend, NSN said it had completed the world’s first multi-user field trial of LTE in an urban environment.

The trial, which was in Berlin, utilised 20 Mega Hertz (MHz) of bandwidth in the 2.6 Gega Hertz (GHz) spectrum, which is set for a hotly contested auction in the UK next year.

“[The trial confirmed] that LTE performance requirements can be met using 3GPP standardised technologies and it realised data rates of more than 100Mbps over distances of several hundred metres, while maintaining excellent throughput at the edge of typical urban mobile radio cells,” NSN’s statement read.

Calling the trial an “important initial proof of concept for LTE”, NSN’s chief technology officer Stephan Scholz said that LTE would further the company’s goal of connecting five billion users by 2015, due to LTE’s efficient use of spectrum.

Mobile WiMax has a good chance of deployment in the UK if spectrum is secured at auction next year. ZDNet.co.uk attended a demonstration of the technology.

Head, LTE at NSN, Mr. Matthias Reiss said that they have demonstrated that the platform meets the high expectations set for this new technology.

“Most importantly, we now have evidence that future LTE networks can run on existing base station sites and mobile operators can build LTE networks without requiring new antenna sites,” he said.

Champion Infotel recalls that UK telecoms regulator, OfCom announced recently the keenly anticipated auction of the 2010-2025MHz and 2500-2690MHz bands on last Wednesday.

The auctions will take place in mid 2008, and the deadline for applications by mobile operators is 16 January, even as its expected that the use of these bands will pave the way for a multitude of new mobile broadband services.

Although it is theoretically slower than LTE, mobile WiMax has the advantage of currently being in existence, albeit in just a few products, whereas the Fixed WiMax, which is in some cases upgradeable to mobile WiMax, is available as a commercial service in some parts of the UK today.

ITREALMS Online ... delivering news for ICT4D

Ndukwe predicts bleak Yuletide for subscribers

Chief executive, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) Dr. Ernest Ndukwe, has predicted a bleak yuletide for Global System for Mobile communications subscribers in the country, reports Obi Chinemerem.

Speaking at the December edition of the monthly Telecom Consumer parliament in Lagos, Dr. Ndukwe foresaw a gloomy festive season for Nigerians due to deteriorating telecom services.

He also warned operators to live up by improving on their networks through adequate expansion plans.

He stressed that the poor quality of service in the sector is long over due for correction and tasked operators to wake up to this challenge.

“Nigerians would experience network congestion this Christmas season as current infrastructure and transmission facilities may not be able to cope with the expected high volume of traffic, he said.

He noted that unless the service providers expand infrastructure to carry the current capacities in their network which experts say is already over subscribed, the possibility of a smooth holiday telephony would not be achieved this 2007.

Dr. Ndukwe admitted that network problem is a global issue but noted with optimism that “not too long, Nigeria will become one of those best countries in the world if enough capacity is expanded by the operators.”

Although he said that the quality of service in the country has improved as expected, he promised that Nigeria will continue to build infrastructure until we get to an appreciable stage and charged network operators to ameliorate network congestion.

“The problem in the network is carrying capacity. We must continue to build it even up till the next five years. We may not expect a perfect network now. There is not even a perfect network in the developed countries. We need more base stations. Let us hope that network quality will improve especially, this Christmas season, when there will be more congestions in the networks. The operating companies must do something now to abate the impending congestion to the barest minimum”, he said.

He tasked the operators to be proactive and build more capacities in order to abate drop calls.

“We do not have enough capacity to the size of the network. The consumer deserves best QoS. That is the bottom line. It is very important that the operators prepare for the challenges ahead. That is the simple truth of the matter”, Ndukwe said.

According to him, the quality of service leaves the country without much to be desired, while the entry costs and tariffs are still high, the number of complaints about poor service delivery is still unacceptably high and it has been taking too long to address them.

industry, who were present at the occasion, were adviced to stop charging for services they do not render to consumers.

He further stated that consumers be given value for their money when he said that it was wrong and did not conform with international best practices for GSM operators to continue to charge N100 from subscribers migrating from billing options to another.

He also faulted the issue of misleading adverts as he specifically, directed culprits to withdraw misleading adverts, which they are running. According to him, important facts that would aid right decision-making about the service are always missing in the adverts or are in very small print in the adverts.

Lamenting further, he disclosed that the idea behind the consumer parliament was to give consumers the voice to express themselves and to ease the difficulties encountered in lodging complaints, by consumers, Ndukwe noted that there was the need for the operators to expand their human resources in customer care centers across the country.

ITREALMS Online ... delivering news for ICT4D

Gov. Sambo commends Zinox on Kukah digital centre

Executive Governor of Kaduna State, Mr. Namadi Sambo, has commended premier computer manufacturer in the country, Zinox Technologies for collaborating with the Monsignor Kukah’s Digital Centre, reports Ugochi Nkwocha.

The governor who performed the foundation laying ceremony, expressed delight over the development, adding that the planned training of computer engineers at the centre is most welcome.

He pointed out that given the antecedents of Zinox, this plan would be a plus for the Kakuri community and Kaduna state.

Gov. Sambo enjoined Zinox to help in injecting this new system into young professionals who could take advantage of the foundation and create business opportunities.

While commending the collaboration, he expressed thanks to the Vicar General and the Parish Priest, St Andrew’s Catholic Church, Monsignor Matthew Hassan Kukah, for undertaking such a huge project.

He emphasised that himself, coming from the background of international consultancy is well placed to appreciate what an initiative of this nature could achieve.

He also noted that given the antecedents of the Catholic Church in particular and Monsignor Kukah himself, he had no doubt that this project is set to change the lives of the ordinary people living around Kaduna South and all lovers of education and professionalism.

He stressed that Kaduna State, just recovering from a very difficult phase of its history, having been inundated in the last few years with severe religious crises, that an initiative of this nature has the potential of closing the gaps and ending the frustrations of many young men and women in the society.

He disclosed that the Kaduna state government is prepared to cooperate and collaborate with all individuals and organizations, which are poised to help to change the lives of her people.

ITREALMS Online ... delivering news for ICT4D

VoIP lobby group debuts

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) pressure group in Europe known as Voice on the Net (VON) Coalition Europe, comprising large suppliers like Google, Intel, Microsoft and Skype, was launched on Friday following regulatory proposals made by the European Commission a month ago.

These proposals included the idea that all VoIP providers should enable calls to the emergency services, reports ZDNet, a United Kingdom-based agency.

In addition, it was gathered that the UK telecoms regulator, Ofcom, has since mandated that such access must be made available by September 2008.

Leading VoIP providers, such as Skype, disagreed with such proposals, arguing that VoIP is a complement to, rather than a replacement for, traditional telephony services.

According to a press statement made available last Friday, VON Coalition Europe “will work to educate, inform and promote responsible government policies that enable innovation and the many benefits that Internet voice innovations can deliver”.

The group also said, “Internet-enabled communications are an entirely new genre of communications products, services and applications and a new frontier in communications for individuals and businesses alike,” said Stephen Collins, director of global governmental and regulatory affairs at Skype, stressing that in order to unleash their vast benefits, policymakers need to embrace forward-thinking policy approaches.

“If we automatically subject this new technology to legacy telephone regulation, consumers and business users could miss out on the new services, increased choices, better prices and improved features that VoIP, for example, can deliver,” Collins said.

Equally, the coalition claimed that the “premature application of 112 [emergency call] rules to websites, click-to-dial services, one-way PSTN-out interconnected voice services, and other VoIP services that are not a replacement for traditional home/business phone services could actually harm public safety, stifle innovations critical to people with disabilities, stall competition, and limit access to innovative and evolving communication options where there is no expectation of placing a 112 call.”

ITREALMS Online ... delivering news for ICT4D