Nigerian women stingy with airtimes – Study

Cover of the week:

REMMY NWEKE & UGOCHI NKWOCHA

Despite speculations that women are more in terms of number in the nation’s population than their men counterparts and are known for asking for airtimes, they are still very stingy with credits, Champion Infotel exclusive study reveals.

This also leaves Nigerian men at the mercy of the Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) operators, as they spent more time and money making calls to the opposite sex.

Equally, the study conducted in Lagos, the most populated city in the country and home to 90 per cent of telecom companies in Nigeria, showed that this has been on the rise since the advent of GSM and evolution of mobile communications across telecom technologies such as the Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) as well as during festivals, year-in-year-out.

The study, which has 30,000 respondents consisting of 50 per cent from the two sexes of males and females GSM subscribers across the networks of MTN, Celtel and Globacom, proved that male subscribers make more calls than their female counterparts.

According to the summary in spite that females GSM users would prefer the opposite sex to send them airtimes also known as top-up credits, they still engage in ‘flashing’ equally known as ‘peeping’.

Just as when female GSM subscribers venture to call, they always complain of not having enough credit so as to justify their short times in calling and would prefer to be called back, except in the case of calling their children for those who are married.

Males, the study, which cut across students and professionals, indicated that 65 per cent of their calls are routed to females’ receivers, followed by business associates 15 per cent, children 10 per cent and other friends for married men 5 per cent.

For the unmarried men their calls route mostly to females 80 per cent, followed by business associates 15 per cent and the remaining five per cent for other kind of friends.

In addition, the study reveals that even most women when they receive Short Messaging Services (SMS) would stick to replying through the same medium, while their men counterparts would go the extra miles of putting a call through to either appreciate the sender, especially when it is a prayer and religious related or simply to hear the voice of the sender to be firmly assured that all is well.

Out of the total figure of 15,000 male respondents on the 10 most called lines, 80 per cent claimed to spend a good number of their times on phone with their spouses.

The figure also competes aggressively with the number of calls unmarried males put through to their girl friends, even as both married and unmarried men spend an average of 5 to 10 per cent of their airtimes on the opposite sex, invariably dear to their hearts.

While spouses topped the figure with about 80 per cent, girl friends gave the spouses a close mark with 50 per cent alongside business associates.

Most of the male respondents also call their favourite persons between four to five times daily, and some still call just once, especially among the married respondents, yet others cannot simply remember how many times but admitted they call randomly when the situation arises, mostly concerning children.

Also, for some men, children came second in grading of whom they call most in order of priority after their wives.

Another discovery, according to the study was that even when some women earn better than male counterparts, they still claim not having sufficient credits to make calls for a longer time than one minute, but would prefer to use the available airtime to flash their spouses, boy friends and call children or their own family members.

Thus bringing into fore the African mentality that men should always have.

However, the introduction of mid-night calls for a given mandatory airtime on any caller have afforded female subscribers and girl-friends precisely to try to reciprocate calls from their male counterparts, especially among the unmarried ones.

Additionally, most mid-night calls were rated over 60 per cent irrelevant considering the consequences of staying awake and keeping the receiver equally awake, willingly or unwillingly.

For the 10 most regular called lines on respondents phones genderwise, most men felt unsafe initia and reluctant than their women counterpart and for every 150,000 regular numbers from male GSM phones, it turned out that both sexes have 50 per cent share apiece, while female subscribers recorded 80 caller numbers on their phone sets with women topping the figure with 46 while 34 went for the men.

Thus indicating that although most men would prefer to call the opposite gender, female GSM subscribers prefer to call themselves often than they call men.

Relatively 40 per cent of total female respondents indicated that they call for upto 10 minutes, 10 per cent call for between 10 and 20 minutes, 20 per cent call for 30 minutes, while 10 per cent said upto an hour especially during the mid-night calls and another 10 per cent spend less than 10 minutes calls to their favourite persons.

Equally, 40 per cent of female respondents said they call daily to their favourite persons, 10 per cent twice weekly, 20 per cent thrice and 10 per cent once a week.

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Battling Spam mails with Sender ID (1)

Market Intelligence:

Nowadays that spammers have taken up arms in apparent disturbing mails, there is need for electronic mail (email) users to find a way to ameliorate the situation, especially for those on Microsoft free email platform, Hotmail, using sender identification (ID) service.

Hence, over the years, the likes of Microsoft and other industry leaders have formed a defence by leading in the finding solution to this mess call spam mails.

E-mail spam, according to online encyclopaedia, Wikipedia, is also known as bulk e-mail or junk e-mail is a subset of spam that involves sending nearly identical messages to numerous recipients by e-mail.

Sender ID is an initiative that provides a technical solution to help counter spoofing.

Experts at Microsoft informed that spammers use spoofing as their primary deceptive practice, even as e-mail domain spoofing involves forging a sender’s address on e-mail messages.

Malicious individuals use spoofing to mislead e-mail recipients into reading and responding to deceptive mails. These phoney messages could jeopardize the online safety of the user, and damage the reputation of the company, which seemingly sent the e-mail message.

Therefore, spoofed e-mail often contains “phishing” scams. In these scams, a spammer, posing as a trusted party such as a bank or reputable online vendor, sends millions of e-mail messages directing recipients to websites that appear to be official, but which are really scams.

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Ajayi dedicates NITTA prize to Internet Community

President of the Nigeria Internet Group (NIG), Mr. Lanre Ajayi, has dedicated his recent prize as the Nigeria Information Technology and Telecom Awards (NITTA-07) Information Technology (IT) Personality of the Year, to the nation’s Internet community.

Speaking after receiving the award in recently Lagos, Mr. Ajayi who also is the chief executive, PiNet Informatics, said that apart from God, he dedicates the prize to the nation’s increasing Internet community.

According to him, the dedication is vital to encourage those who have chosen to deploy and utilise the Internet for positive development of “our dear nation.”

It would be recalled that the prize came following his leadership skill displayed as the president of NIG in the past two years, especially in setting up the Internet-for-Job (I4J) Initiative, which is currently gathering momentum among stakeholders, even as it has garnered unprecedented support from corporate organisations as a means of transforming the teeming unemployed Nigerians, mostly the youth.

His citation read at the presentation ceremony held at the MUSON Centre Onikan Lagos and presided over by the immediate past Nigerian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Dr. Christopher Kolade, informed that as NIG president, Mr. Ajayi as an astute has so much going for him.

“In two years of his tenure as President of the NIG he has accomplished more than any of his predecessors; however, for those who know him, it is not coming as a surprise. He co-founded the NIG in 1995,” the organisers said.

They also posited that because Mr. Ajayi was deeply concerned with the use Nigerian youths have put the Internet, came up with the idea of Internet-for-Jobs (I4J) initiative, aimed at promoting the Internet as a platform for job creation.

Ajayi, NITTA further said, carried this passion into every other thing he is involved in and cited an instance with his 11-year contributions while working in the Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (NITEL).

“As a core member of NITEL’s Research and Development team, he is associated with a number of designs and devices, which became the first set of patents held by NITEL,” the citation read in part.

Some of these included as a designer of the External Line Plant Monitoring Device (the anti-cable theft device), which was a response to the national menace of vandalisation of telecommunication cables; member of the team that developed a Nigerian Digital Exchange (the Eagle project) at a laboratory in the world famous Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States of America in 1990.

As a consultant to the Foundation for Environment and Education in Nigeria (FEDEN), an NGO funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, he set up one of the first Internet hosts in Nigeria in 1992, yet without loosing sight of his PiNet Informatics as one of the first Internet Service Providers on the continent.

Equally, Mr. Ajayi was noted for his efforts in fighting the rising trend of spam mails in Africa, contained in a paper recently published and commissioned by Africa ISP Association (AfrISPA) tagged: “Towards a Spam free Africa Internet community,” even as he took this campaign to the two-phased World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and was able to address some stakeholders at the Tunis phase including some chief executives of the telecommunication regulators around world.

Elected as president of NIG after serving as vice president to his successor, at the last quarter of 2005, Mr. Ajayi is known as outspoken professional, especially on issues of ICT and Internet specifically.

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SMS improves relationship – Youths

Nigerian youths have identified Short Messaging Service (SMS) as a veritable medium for sustaining their relationships amongst themselves, reports UGOCHI NKWOCHA.

According to those who spoke to Champion Infotel on the effect of SMS on youthful relationships, they agreed that it has impacted positively in their dealings with each other and settlement of little differences among peers.

Ms Chinwe, a student of one of the tertiary institutions in Lagos, described SMS as a means of sending important message without the use of voice calls.

She said that SMS has affected the youth positively because it helps them to meet and know people.

“It is also a means of sending important massages on time,” she declared.

Also speaking, another student, Pope Kelechi, said that he believes most young people have benefited from the use of SMS as Value Added Service (VAS).

Kelechi said that personally, he likes sending SMS to friends, family members and loved ones, especially when he is not in the mood of making calls.

“It has affected me and I believe it has done same with other young people in many ways like sending short massages to friends, family and loved ones if they cannot take the stress of phone calls,” he said.

Another lady who chooses her name not to be in prints, agreed that it has affected her positively.

She adduced the reason that it has assisted youths in expressing themselves, but decried that most of the youthful expression were lustful.

“It has affected positively because it enables them to express their feelings though mostly in a manner that is not pleasing to God and man,” she said.

Equally, a footballer, Michael Abiola did not agree less as he said that the positive effect of SMS on youth relationships is enormous and comes handy when one is dearth of calling credits.

“It has affected them positively because it allows instant messages and you have an important massage if you don’t have much credit,” he said.

Another footballer, Shehu, told correspondent that apart from SMS offering having improved in the nation’s telecommunications sector, it has influenced the youths positively.

Personally, he said, that it has impressed on his relationship and he is sure not to be alone.

For instance, he noted that between him and his girl friend, despite that she resides within the neighbourhood, they have found SMS very handy in getting across.

“It has really assisted in impacting on our relationship and we exchange little intimacy, like ‘Pls dear, call me when you need me. I would be there for you’ and all other stuffs,” he said.

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Uwaje predicts successful national development in 2008

Chief executive, Connect Technologies Limited, Chief Chris Uwaje, has predicted a successful national development for the country, only if there is a gross input and balanced contributions of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) at all tiers of government and private sector.

Commenting on the prospects for 2008, Chief Uwaje, said that to achieve an even development as outlined in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), there is need to build an ICT-based critical mass in governance, education, power infrastructure, Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) sub-sector and rounding it up with citizens empowerment, which he said, “remain core strategic imperatives.”

According to him, 2007 presented governance in Nigeria with a fundamental challenge and opportunity to show-case her ability and capacities to manage the information systems during the 2007 general elections.

“Unknown to many, Information Technology was indeed the centre of gravity of the 2007 election crisis,” he said.

Information Technology, he said, for instance, was deployed at enormous cost, but regrettably there were too many professional missing links during the elections, which resulted to its failure.

He pointed out that this scenario is worth researching on as a matter of urgency, adding that another significant roll played by IT in 2007 is its contribution to the financial cum banking sector.

For those who can read between the lines, he said, Information Technology was indeed the saviour with respect to the Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s World Bank/Paris Club (2006/07) debt relief and Prof. Chaukwuma Soludo’s CBN master stroke which led to the merger and consolidation of the current 25 banks.

He also said that the impact of the reforms led to the eclipse of indigenous application software in the banking industry and the high-risk empowerment and monopoly of foreign IT firms, at great expense to the nation.

Chief Uwaje, the current first vice president, Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria (ISPON), noted that this is a severe blow to the indigenous software industry.

“Lesson learnt, is the need in future to undertake cross-impact analysis and inclusiveness strategy of all stakeholders before such a large scale national policy is implemented,” he asserted.

As said by him, current evaluations of available studies and analysis on conventional wisdom revealed that the less input of IT in any of the development domains, the less development success and contributions to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) would be expected.

“Equally, the greater IT input as in process automation we inject into our national development cycle will result in greater GDP yield and sustainable development success,” he said.

Chief Uwaje further cited an instance with the expected service delivery performance and efficiency of the power generation and distribution sub-sectors of the Energy sector in 2008, will grossly be determined by the amount and quality IT input, diffusion and professional project management incorporating the critical-mass of indigenous application software domestication of skilled IT manpower and commensurate tools into the sectors.

He identified core challenge in the power generation and distribution sectors in the country of today, to be outside the physical infrastructure level, but in the domain of information generation management system.

“As far as 90 per cent of the required services in that domain are manually delivered by unskilled manpower, no amount of investment in the next 10 years will resolve the problem of power black outs in the country,” he warned.

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Intel backs out of OLPC

One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project, at the weekend suffered another set following the withdrawal of its partnership by a foremost ally, Intel Corporation.

Intel in the dramatic withdrawal cited ‘philosophical’ differences as its main reason for backing out of the project proposed to make laptops available for pupils in developing countries including Nigeria.

Nigeria currently is having trail of some OLPC machines at the various nationwide and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

The laptops were initially slated to cost $100 per PC but have since escalated to over $200, about (N28,000), even as Federal Government recently expressed dismay over the modules of producing the so-called $100 laptops and eventual turning the country schools into dumping ground.

According to BBC reports on Sunday, Intel pulled out of the project through its hitherto funding and technical support.

The report also said that Intel’s withdrawal from OLPC is a big blow, which has found few nations willing to buy large numbers of the laptops.

Noteworthy is that the first versions of the OLPC or XO laptop were powered by a chip made by Intel’s arch-rival AMD.

The green and white XO machine was designed specifically for children, and supposedly made rugged to cope with conditions in developing nations and could be kept powered using a hand crank.

Further, BBC reported that Intel spokesman, Mr. Chuck Molly said it had taken the decision to resign from the OLPC board and end its involvement because the organisation had asked it to stop backing rival low-cost laptops.

On the OLPC board with Intel are 11 other companies including Google and Red Hat.

The chip maker has been promoting its own cheap laptop, the Classmate PC, in many of the same places as the OLPC.

“OLPC had asked Intel to end our support for non-OLPC platforms, including the Classmate PC, and to focus on the OLPC platform exclusively,” Mr Chuck said, adding that at the end of the day, Intel decided it could not accommodate that request.

He equally said that the use of AMD chips in the first XO laptops had not influenced its decision.

Prior to Intel’s involvement, OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte criticised the chip firm for what he called its attempts to undermine the project’s work.

He said Intel was selling its Classmate PC at a loss to make the XO laptop less attractive.

While Dr Negroponte’s initial aim was for a laptop costing only $100, the final versions under-going trials in Nigeria and Uruguay cost $188 (£95).

Costs were supposed to be kept low by governments ordering the XO laptop in shipments of one million, but large orders for the XO laptop have, so far, not materialised.

In a bid to boost the numbers of laptops available, OLPC ran a “Give One, Get One” programme in the US from 12 November to 31 December.

This allowed members of the public to buy two XO machines - one for themselves and one for a OLPC project elsewhere.

OLPC said the success of this had helped it to launch programmes in Haiti, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Cambodia, Mongolia, and Afghanistan.

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Taylor lauds RASCOM’s launch of ComSat

Chief Executive of Kemilinks International, Mr. Shola Taylor has lauded the recently launched Communications Satellite (ComSat) also known as RASCOM, reports AMAKA UGWUEZUMBA.

Speaking on the development, Mr. Taylor, a well-known telecom expert, said that the launch heralds consolidation of successful dedication of communications satellite for Africa.

A press statement made available to Champion Infotel and endorsed by Mr. Segun George, quoted Mr. Taylor as saying that the launch was a timely New Year gift for the continent.

Champion Infotel recalled that on December 21, 2007, RASCOM by Arianespace led by Dr. Jones Killimbe, which took 32- minute long flight.

Taylor who recently led over 600 experts across Africa on telecommunications study remarked “telecom community is a new year gift to Africa.”

He however disagreed with the motion that RASCOM will only serve as a competitor to Nigeria comsat its will improve a new optical fibres system been laid across the continent.

“This is a great achievement for Africa, Congratulations to you all. Assembly of parties, board of directors, management and all the staff of RASCOM for their great job,” Taylor said.

Equally, he said that the African Submarine Cable System compliments on connecting Europe with West African countries through the catalytic effort of the New Economic Partnership for Africa Development (NEPAD).

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Uwadia says computing is examinable

President, Nigeria Computer Society (NSC) Prof. Charles Uwadia has said that computing would become examinable this year, reports UGOCHI NKWOCHA.

He said this in a chat recently with Champion Infotel, stressing that the highest policy making body on education, the National Council on Education (NCE) has agreed that computing should be an examinable subject both in primary and secondary school.

“I think that is a major achievement,” he said.

According to him, in the next six months, NCS, plans to build more visibility so as to evaluate computer usage in the country.

He added that they also intend to engage members of the public to that extent with some programmes lined up for the youth and chartered group even for professionals in the ICT media.

Uwadia disclosed that NCS has a number of programmes for the youth this year including competition to bring about more youth into IT fold and afford them to realize the powers of IT empowerment.

He also said that NCS want to go to schools and let them know what IT is all about and to encourage those who may want to study IT in future.

He further said NCS would start a national IT quiz in memory of the late Olatunji Odegbami, a past president of NCS.

Prof. Uwadia equally said, that for core members of NCS there are outline of programmes, which is called acquisition of new skills to enable more regular workshops, seminars for members to be in top shape to compete professionally.

Prof. Uwadia counselled IT professionals to remain focused and continue to advance the course of IT and while doing that the issue of ethics must be paramount.

And urged them to behave like hardcore professionals and perform their duties and responsibility with all honesty.

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Warner Bros endorses Blu-ray HD-DVD

Endorsement by Warner Brothers for Blu-ray format has given the technology a boost on the battle over the next generation Digital Video Display (DVD) market.

AFP reports that the format gained upper hand in the battle supremacy, after last weekend report that Warner Bros. said it would only support the technology developed by Sony.

Report also said that the announcement dealt a hard blow to the High Definition (HD)-DVD format, promoted by a group led by Japanese electronics giant Toshiba, which may now be hard-pressed to regain momentum among consumers.

“With Warner Bros siding with the Blu-ray group, the battle over the next generation DVD standard is gradually becoming a one-sided game,” said the Asahi Shimbun.

Warner Bros., which previously supported both formats, announced last Friday that it would release its films exclusively in Blu-ray beginning later this year, “in response to consumer demand”.

Blu-ray will enjoy exclusive support from four of the six major Hollywood movie studios, with only Universal Pictures and Paramount Pictures supporting HD-DVD.

The battle between the two incompatible DVD formats is often dubbed as a “replay” of the VHS-Betamax battle between two types of video cassette tape in the late 1970s.

Warner Bros. said the competition has confused consumers, who grew reluctant to purchase next-generation machines, causing DVD firms to miss out on potentially lucrative opportunities.

Toshiba is now expected to further promote installation of HD-DVD drives in personal computers, targeting users who watch movies on their PCs, the Nikkei business daily was quoted as reporting.

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Fashola backs LASIMRA against ALTON

Lagos State governor, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola, has thrown his weight behind the position of the state-owned Infrastructure Maintenance and Regulatory Agency (LASIMRA) to regulate telecommunications infrastructure in its domain.

Speaking on his 2008 agenda on Channels Television on the New Year edition of its Sunrise Daily live, Governor Fashola insisted on the intention of the state to regulate the urban development aspect of telecommunications, especially by the host state.

Champion Infotel recalls that last February 25, a Federal High Court presided over by Justice Joseph Auta, delivered a landmark judgment in favour of the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) in the suit No. FHC/L/CS/517/06, which was on registered trustees of ALTON & Ors versus Lagos State Government & Ors.

Lagos State has since appealed the judgment which first hearing is expected this quarter.

Champion Infotel gathered that filing of papers have reached advanced stage to facilitate the case getting first hearing before the April this year.

Responding to questions on the matter at the session, Gov. Fashola, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), noted that Lagos State has the powers to regulate the urban planning element of its environment, stressing that it is saddening to see about four mast towers mounted at a location ordinarily where it could have been just one.

He also pointed out that some mast towers are located too close to residence and public centres like schools and expressed dismay over a recent incident that involved a fallen mast tower and a school building.

He advised telecommunications operators to co-locate and reiterated the state’s resolve to pursue the case up to the Supreme Court, since the operators have gone to court in the first place.

Governor Fashola further said that the state is not keen in contesting the powers of the Federal Government (FG) or the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) over the regulation of telecommunications in the country, but maintained that host states of these companies should be entitled to some incentives.

He emphasised that since states host these companies and their infrastructure tend to change the landscape of the environment coupled with emission issues, “we deserve some incentives in this regard.”

While Fashola is taking this stand in the New Year, LASIMRA had last quarter indicated interest to settle out of court with ALTON.

Champion Infotel gathered through high placed sources that ALTON is equally interested in out of court settlement, but both organisations are waiting for who would blink first.

Noteworthy is that last quarter of 2007 witnessed incessant arrests and detention of telcom officials by LASIMRA for alleged unlawful laying of infrastructure.

ALTON confirmed that the trend would impact adversely not only on the development of telecommunications in the country, and Lagos precisely as the nerve centre of the nation.

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XtraConnect gives hope to orphans

Nigeria’s largest telecommunications service provider, MTN Nigeria, through its family and friends platform. MTN XtraConnect, has given smiles and hope to the orphanages around the country, reports UGOCHI NKWOCHA.

The telecom giant extended its benevolence to the society through visitations to some orphanages located at Surulere and the Lagos State Motherless Babies Home, Lekki.

Speaking on the visit, the marketing manager, Lagos region, MTN Nigeria, Mrs. Titi Olubiyi, said that MTN intends to bring hope to the less privileged and ensure that they are not left out of the joy of Christmas.

“Our visit to the motherless babies homes is a project that is very dear to our heart. Today we visited one on the main land and then we visited another one on the island at Lekki, which is being managed by the Lagos State government,” she said.

Mrs. Olubiyi added that MTN wanted them to know that they are also part of the community and should not be left behind in all the fun and celebration of the festive season.

She further disclosed that each orphanage received as much as ten bags of rice, five cartons of oil, bournvita, peak milk and lots of toys for the children play with this season.

She also added that MTN XtraConnect brand hosted families to an exciting Christmas party on Christmas day at LTV 8 grounds in Agindigbi.

Over the years, MTN Nigeria has proved to be a responsible corporate citizen and has made positive impact virtually in every aspect of people’s lives.

This act of benevolence, she noted, has shown that they are leaders in every aspect of corporate practice.

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Celtel reiterates to expand network

Pan African mobile operator, Celtel International has said that continuous expansion plan is to the ultimate benefit of its teeming growing subscribers on the continent.

The telco cited the instance of spending over US$80 million to improve network coverage and capacity last year in Uganda, even as its Nigerian operation has reiterated its resolve to better service offering.

Speaking on the expansion plans of the telco, chief executive, Celtel Nigeria, Mr. Bayo Ligali noted that they are intensifying network and capacity expansion programme.

He recalled that Celtel Nigeria introduced last year a number of measures aimed at improving its service quality and tackling many of the common problems responsible for poor quality of service in the country including epileptic power supply, theft of telecom facilities, lack of a robust national transmission backbone, and security threats.

Mr. Ligali also announced recently that Celtel is now better ready to tackle a number of these problems in addition to embarking on numerous concurrent major projects to maintain a six months buffer capacity in the network at all levels.

He highlighted that the projects were intended to facilitate the company to offer its customers greater value and better cellular experience as well as empower more Nigerians especially those resident in underserved communities including the rural areas where the company is currently pursuing a combination of job creation, wealth creation and new distribution programmes.

Equally, outlined was some of the projects being executed by Celtel to include transmission capacity building project, fibre optic leasing project, coverage expansion plan, generator swapping scheme, and transformer installation programme.

Others are a national network monitoring centre project, consumers contact points expansion programme, and soft switches installation projects.

Champion Infotel recalled that late last year the company signed $130 million turnkey transmission capacity enhancing contract signed with Nokia Siemens Networks and a $70 million deal with Motorola for a comprehensive network expansion in the Southern part of Nigeria.

The deal with Motorola, it was gathered entail that the global equipment supplier will deploy its latest Motorola Reach GSM solutions, including EDGE (Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution) capability for mobile data, and will provide comprehensive network expansion planning, integration, support and optimization services to Celtel as it extends network coverage to a growing subscriber base in this densely populated and strategically important oil-producing region.

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Motorola introduces Motorazr 2v8

World leader in wireless, Motorola, has introduced Motorazr2v8 into the phone market, reports UGOCHI NKWOCHA.

According to officials of the company, the Motorazr2v8 luxury edition has engraved diamond patterns, fine menu wheel etching and touch sensitive keys.

The phone also has a 2.0 mega pixel camera, video capture and playback, affording users to read and send messages without ever opening the phone with one of the largest external screens in its class.

In addition, officials of Motorola said that the new RAZR has been reconfigured and re-imagined in the most luxurious material bathed in gold and clothed in snake like skin.

The phone is eye-catching and ready for its close-up and has a full suite of in demand features.

These include accessories for conscious consumers seeking a glamorous design as Razr2 also maximizes the music experience with up to 2Gegabyte (GB) of on board storage capacity up to 1000 songs and a power house processor for fast over the air download.

Officials equally informed that it comes with a complete Motorola H680 bluetooth headset with 18 gold-plated accents included in box.

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Russia, Paraguay may clash over TLD name

Global Internet community may begin the New Year, 2008 with Russia and Paraguay spoiling for war over the choice of country code Top Level Domain name based on the American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII).

TLD is a name identifying individual countries on the World Wide Web (www) such as .ng is for Nigeria, .fr for France, .uk for United Kingdom, .be for Belgium, .za for South Africa among others.

While ASCII is a computer science term consisting of a code for information exchange between computers made by different companies; a string of 7 binary digits representing each character used in most microcomputers and stand for text in computers, communications equipment, and other devices.

This development came as Russia seems to be loosing sleep over .py, which Paraguay has ever since at its TLD name.

Just as members of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) focused Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) have condemned the looming ‘Internet war’.

According to the United Kingdom-based Guardian, the growing cold war with Russia has a new frontier found on the Internet, as the Russian government has been reportedly pushing for greater control over the Russian-language part of the net which is aimed at creating a web that operates in Cyrillic, and completely independent from the wider web.

The report also added that the problem for Russia is that its TLD with the ASCII suffix .ru when translated into Cyrillic language reads as .py, which happens to be domain name of Paraguay.

It was gathered that Russia thinks this could pose security problems for its citizens who use the Internet.

Officer in charge of the Russian domain name at the international domain naming agency, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), Mr. Kim Davies told the Guardian, “Russia has a second top level domain name of .ru in Ascii code, but is pushing for .rf in Cyrillic.”

Equally, the special adviser to the chairman, Internet Governance Forum (IGF), Wolfgang Kleinwachter, said the proposal for ‘Russian internet’ would look at how they could communicate better inside the country.

As said by him, the internationalisation of domain names would afford Russia the opportunity to do things which are now being tested in China, “where they are currently using Chinese characters for three top-level domains: .net, .com and .cn.”

The report also highlighted that the key issue now is whether Russian international domain names would use their own root servers, which decide where to route their Internet requests independent of the existing Internet root servers, which are mainly based in the United States (US).

Kleinwachter also noted that in the hardnut scenario would entail every Russian to register a domain name using the .rf top-level domain in Cyrillic.

“Then [Russia] would have their own root and it’s much easier to control the top-level domain than hundreds of thousands of secondary level domains,” he said.

Thereby positing Russians as being safe from Paraguayan phishing, that is, it would also give the Russian government more control of the net and leave Russian citizens isolated from the international community in most cases.

Mr. Davies explained that Russian Cyrillic keyboards would make it difficult for Russian users to search for domain names using the roman letters of Ascii code. Pointing out that without a bridge to coordinate it with Ascii code, a Russian-language Internet would be cut off from the global net.

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Corporates applaud Globacom 3G plus

The recently launched Globacom 3G Plus has continued to attract applause from the corporate world, reports AMAKA UGWUEZUMBA.

Some of those that gave commendations included the chief operating officer (COO), Virgin Nigeria, Dr. Yemi Oshindero, Director-General, Nigeria Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) as well as Head, Corporate Communications, United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc, Celine Loader among others.

For the special guest and COO, Virgin Nigeria, Dr. Oshindero, who said he was impressed by the new service offering from Globacom described it as “a complete revolution.”

He added, “I am proud to identify with Globacom. I am delighted that it’s a Nigerian company that is setting the pace in telecoms in Nigeria.”

Dr. Oshindero further said that it’s an empowerment to Globacom subscribers.

“This is a privilege to all Globacom subscribers to use their telephones and join the world in the march towards the digital age with 3G plus,” he declared.

Also, the Director General of NDLEA, Otunba Lanre Itinmisho expressed his gratitude with the launch of 3G plus by the network, stressing that Globacom has proved Nigerian’s ability and capability in technology evolution.

For the Head, Corporate Communications, UBA Plc, Celine Loader, who took part in the launch demonstration on the video call service, applauded the intellectual capacity of Nigerians to rule their world wherever they may find themselves.

Glo’s 3G Plus tends to give customers high-speed mobile internet access, thereby allowing them to do video calls and video streaming on their 3G enabled mobile phones.

According to the chief operating officer, Globacom, Mr. Mohammed Jameel, it also offers other advanced mobile services such as Video Greeting Kiosk, video mail box, video conferencing on both phones and Personal Computers (PC) and so many other services on the 3G High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA).

This, he noted, offers speed up to 3.6 Mega bytes per second (Mbps), even as it provides Nigerians with mobile Television (TV) to name a few.

“We are empowering our subscribers to enter the next generation of technological innovations made in advanced countries and this will inevitably benefit the lives and businesses of the subscribers that utilise these products,” he said.

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EU ready for single online market

European Commission (EC), at the weekend announced its readiness to make proposals by mid-2008 targeted at creating a single European market in the growing sector of online music, films, and games, reports Reuters.

The Commission was also reported, as expecting the EU market for online content to quadruple from EUR 1.8bn in 2005 to EUR 8.3bn in the next two years and identified four main areas that needed to be addressed.

These four key areas include the reluctance of some owners of creative content to make it available for online distribution, for reasons such as concerns over illegal downloads and online piracy and the lack of multi-territory copyright licenses allowing the use of content in several or all EU member states.

In addition, EU is worried over the interoperability of so-called digital rights management systems (DRMs), the technologies that allow the management of content rights and the fair remuneration of creators, as well as the piracy of content.

An EU executive was quoted as saying that proposed plan to launch codes of conduct between access and service providers, rights holders and consumers to ensure the widespread offer of content online and adequate protection of copyrighted works, is gaining momentum across its domain.

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MTN gets commendation for backing ‘Night of 1000 laughs’

Leading telecommunications company, MTN Nigeria Communications Limited, has been commended for its consistent support for the annual entertainment show, “A Night of A Thousand Laughs”.

The commendation was given by one of the co-coordinators of the comic relief entertainment show, Mr. Sam Dede, at a New Year bash held in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, reports UGOCHI NKWOCHA.

Speaking at the Hotel Presidential venue of the twelveth edition held on January 1, an offshoot of the flagship ‘Night of A Thousand Laugh’ he disclosed that the Port-Harcourt edition was differently captioned as’ Day of A Thousand Laughs’ because the concept was conceived in the city and the maiden edition held right in Hotel Presidential in 1996.

He added that as anniversary edition, a whole day was dedicated to the show, even as it was specially broadened to accommodate home grown talents who are making waves all over the country.

Dede also said that line up of artistes mostly up coming ones were given the opportunity to display their God-given talents.

He expressed gratitude to all the cooperate organizations that have always been supporting the show right from the beginning till date.

Precisely, he identified MTN as the most consistent sponsor that has supported the concept so far.

“MTN has been with us over four years and we really appreciate their contributions,” he asserted

Further, he said, “I believe they are supporting the programme because it is family oriented. That is why we charged reasonable gate fees because we want families to have fun, free their souls, laugh and be joyful”.

Mr. Dede equally appealed to other cooperate organizations to emulate the likes of MTN by supporting the show as a way of giving back to the people, mostly at their operating communities.

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Techie canvassed for Open Source movement in schools

Technical expert with the Kofi Annan Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Centre, Accra-Ghana, Mr. Kwasi Kwakwa, has called for an open source movement in education.

Speaking recently in Accra, Mr. Kwakwa outlined the reasons why Information Technology (IT) is very crucial in education generally, mostly deploying a free and Open Source software.

Defined as a computer application for which the human-readable source code is made available under a non-financial induced copyright license, Open Source permits users to deploy, use, change and improve the software in addition to the available of redistribute either in modified or unmodified form.

According to Mr. Kwakwa, some of the advantages of deploying Open Source in education to include financial, openness, breadth of available tools, and long term implications.

He stressed that one good thing about Open Source financially, is that institutions of learning could deploy it for free devoid of strictly financial commitment with the ability to access the source codes at will and to the suitability of the individual or organisation but apparently cheaper anytime, anyday.

“Its simply cheaper to provide access to computing facilities with Open Source to tons of schools if you aren’t paying site licenses for all your software,” he said.

He pointed out that there are lots of available open source tool codes to customize the deployment to the users taste.

This, he noted, would accelerate the general penetration of IT literacy, especially in making educational information accessible for students both in developing and advanced countries.

“It offers equal reading literacy in today’s world,” he declared.

He emphasised that nowadays, everything is becoming a computer given that the mobile phone people carry about probably has more processing power than an early computer.

“And so does your car engine, music players, watches to name a few. We now embed microprocessors in almost everything,” he asserted, adding that the Internet is the largest free repository of information the world has ever known.

He equally said that as with a lot of things Africa has been behind on this trend, which has put the continent further at a competitive disadvantage and that is something Africa needs to rectify urgently.

“Especially if we actually intend to catch up with the rest of the world and not just pay lip service to the idea,” he asserted.

Comparing Open Source Software (OSS) and proprietary software, Mr. Kwakwa, for instance, saying that Inkscape, an OSS model could compare favourably with Adobe Illustrator, Scribus against Quarkxpress, GIMP and Kile Photoshop, Open Office against Microsoft Office, Firefox against Internet Explorer among several others.

OSS, he added, runs on everything from mobile phones to supercomputers, which means that even old computer which could barely run windows could still be made to run decently and reduces how often users need to upgrade.

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