WASPAN enjoins stakeholders’ collaboration for VAS growth

ITRealms:

The Wireless Applications Service Providers Ltd GTE (WASPAN) has solicited collaboration of all stakeholders in the nation’s telecommunications sector to attract adequate economic growth for the Value Added Service (VAS) sub-sector of the industry, reports ITRealms.

WASPAN made this call through its National Coordinating Consultant, Mr. Simon Aderinola, told ITRealms that collaboration in a burgeoning industry like telecommunications.

He explained to ITRealms that wireless application sub-sector is one that has emerged globally in recent years and not part of the traditional telecommunications services. 

This reality, he said, brought to the fore the uncertainty about how to regulate the activities of wireless application providers and how to help develop the sub-sector.

Mr. Aderinola equally told ITRealms that the problem was not unusual to Nigeria, stressing that in many countries after initial problems, collaboration between network operators, application service providers, the industry regulator and other stakeholders had led to the development of the industry with greater economic prospects.

For this reason, he said that Nigeria needs to learn from the successes of other models adopted in the United Kingdom, South Africa, Kenya and most recently Ghana.

“These are countries where the wireless application services industry is doing well. These countries collaborated to develop a framework that is now successfully benefitting stakeholders,” he told ITRealms.

Aderinola further pointed out to ITRealms that following unending controversies, especially between mobile networks and wireless application services providers in the past, WASPAN in 2012 invited experts from South Africa to help in sharing their experiences on the subject matter, Dr. Leon Pellman. 

According to him, Dr. Leon Pellman was the consultant that assisted South Africa  to set up the country’s joint industry regulatory framework by leading a delegation to Nigeria and had useful discussions with several stakeholders in the country on how to develop application service sub-sector in the telecom industry.

He underscored the fact that collaboration amongst stakeholders cannot be overemphasized, maintaining that joining forces would accelerate the realisatoon of potentials of the sub-sector and the industry generally.

He noted that recently industry regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) declared that the volume of businesses on mobile Value Added Service (VAS) segment is valued at $200 million, about N 37,010,000,000 year-on-year.

The revenue is, according to NCC, is expected to double in excess of $500 million in the next few years if proper regulatory framework is put in place.

A major issue of disagreement between WASPAN and mobile networks is the current revenue sharing formula that gives close to 80 per cent to the networks.

Another is the gradual encroachment by mobile network operators into the wireless applications sub-sector and the stifling of growth of small companies.

It will be recalled that NCC had called a stakeholders’ meeting earlier in the month to discuss several issues bedeviling wireless application services.

A fall out, he noted was the proclamation by the Executive Vice-Chairman of NCC, Dr. Eugene Juwah that a plan to develop an industry-driven regulatory framework to strengthen the mobile VAS market would soon be unveiled.

 

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Pix: Mr. Simon Aderinola,

OnMobile, Airtel Africa partner on football services

DigitalSENSE Business News:

Leading Value Added Service (VAS), OnMobile Global Limited has partnered Airtel Africa to power a service called Airtel Football across the continent.

Reports gathered by DigitalSENSE Business News noted that as part of this engagement, OnMobile has partnered with Goal.com, and holds the official rights to English Premier League live match alerts in Africa. Airtel subscribers will benefit from updates on their favorite football clubs and live match alerts.

The partnership, DigitalSENSE Business News reports, evolved incredibly achieving an adoption rate of 11.6 million subscribers across 11 countries in Africa since its launch in August, 2012 making Airtel Football one of the most all-encompassing operator-branded mobile football subscription services.

DigitalSENSE Business News recalls that this service is an offshoot of OnMobile’s and Airtel’s vision to reach out across subscriber segments from the bottom of the pyramid users to smartphone users as well as high-value customers. This also supports Airtel’s objective of adapting to the enormous proliferation of Mobile Internet users across the continent.

Vice President, Africa, OnMobile, Biswajit Nandi, said that football in Africa is a television phenomenon, especially on paid channels.

“A lot of subscribers across the continent do not have access to television but love Football nonetheless. OnMobile is excited to power this service, through our partnership with Airtel, a leading global operator. Our aim is to directly touch the lives of millions of sport lovers and offer our consumers the best possible user experience,” he said.

Andre Beyers, Chief Marketing Officer, Airtel Africa said, “Football is the greatest passion in Africa. Our vision is to enable and take the game to all fans, even those without access to television. Combining Airtel’s customer reach and knowledge with OnMobile’s strong technology, we believe that we can take the world of football closer to the fans.” 

The football service which is accessible through SMS, IVR, USSD, WAP, Web and very shortly a handset app, is currently available in English, French, Swahili and Hausa. More languages are in the process of being added to ensure all subscribers receive official, authentic and the latest football news in their preferred language.

Chuks Egbuna/GEE

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ComvivaTech plans 200 jobs in Africa

Value Added Service provider for mobile operators, Comviva Technologies Limited, has indicated interest to create over 200 jobs across Africa in its first phase of hiring.

Comviva which first entered African market in 2003, when it deployed its dBILL billing solution for a leading operator in Nigeria, has since grown its presence on the continent with deployments of its product of portfolio in 34 countries.

Comviva’s Africa team is present in a number of countries across the continent, with support teams also located in Nairobi and Johannesburg.

Confirming the plans to create Messrs Siddharth Kumar and Sundeep Mehta of Corporate Communications, Comviva Technologies Limited, said the firm has plan to create jobs for 200 people in the first phase.

Mehta said that this step would create multiple job opportunities in the telecom sector across the continent.

A press statement made available to ITRealms Online, they quoted the chief executive officer, Comviva, Mr. Manoranjan Mohapatra, as saying that Comviva is the largest Indian VAS player in Africa.

“With over 30 per cent of our revenue coming from the African continent, we are in the process of expanding our pan-Africa operations significantly and as part of this further expansion, we are building our ecosystem partners in the VAS space,” he said.

Mohapatra said that Comviva’s expertise in the ‘VAS and beyond’ space is acknowledged globally and training will significantly enhance employability and technology work exposure for people.

“Our larger goal is to enhance the capability of the workforce in the VAS domain and thereby help spread knowledge, better customer experience and overall prosperity in the region”, he said.

In Africa, the CEO said, Comviva works with some of the leading operator groups such as Airtel Africa, MTN, Tigo and Safaricom to name a few.

“And very recently, Comviva won a landmark deal with Airtel Africa to provide end-to-end management of Airtel Africa’s VAS services. As part of the five-year deal, Comviva will manage all VAS nodes across Airtel’s 16 operations in Africa,” he disclosed.

Earlier this year, he said, Comviva partnered with leading content aggregators to further strengthen its content portfolio offering in the region.

The Vice President, Human Resource at Comviva, Sandyp Bhattacharya, noted that with strong growth in Africa the company expects to significantly increase the employment opportunities, especially when it combines all the direct and indirect partners who will work with the team to build its Africa business.

“We plan to create jobs for 200 people in the first phase, creating employment opportunities for talented individuals and providing all necessary training for people recruited directly from schools and colleges. We have already made over 35 offers to fresh technical graduates in East Africa,” he said.

ITRealms Online learnt that across Africa, Comviva’s prepaid recharge solution, PreTUPS, enables affordable recharge for over 100 million mobile subscribers across 35 deployments.

Remmy Nweke
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Nokia to embed GTBank's MoVe on phones

New Nokia phones in the NSeries coming into the country would have GTBank’s Mobile Velocity (MoVe) application embedded.

The General Manager, Information Technology (IT) at GTBank, Mr. Dare Adeyeri made this disclosure at the formal launch of a strategic partnership between GBTBank and Nokia in Lagos on Tuesday.

He said that most of the NSeries coming into the country towards the end of this year would have this application preloaded before shipment to this part of the world.

Adeyeri also said that GTBank’s MoVe application would be available on Nokia Ovi, which is an online store and open vista for opportunities for GTBank on the Ovi platform.

According to him, Naira Mastercard from GTBank, is the only accepted means of card payments on the Ovi Store, while GTBank’s innovative mobile banking application, MoVe, which is available for free download on Nokia’s premium application store, www.store.ovi.com and GTBank’s www.gtbank.com.

Mr. Adeyeri who stood in for the Deputy Managing Director of GTBank, Mr. Segun Agbaje equally said that the partnership with Nokia is in line with the bank’s quest to leverage on emerging possibilities of mobile marketing as the bank seeks to expand its already robust electronic banking platform.

This, he said, would bring to its customers cutting edge innovation and services at all levels, a vision he believes would be a boost with Nokia partnership.

Revealing that Nokia used GTBank internet banking platform to conduct the pre-0order for Nokia’s newest smartphone, the N8, which is another first for any bank in the West African sub-region.

He listed some of the features of GTBank MoVe application to include real-time currency exchange calculator for most of the world’s currency as well as Naira; ATM and brand locator, GTConnect widgets to name a few.

In his comment, the General Manager, Nokia West Africa, Mr. James Rutherfood made it clear that though Nokia is diversifying into mobile solutions, the mobile phone manufacturer is not stepping down its manufacturing aspect.

The convergence of solutions, he said, has encouraged Nokia to look into this area, stressing that Nokia has transitioned to a mobile solutions.

This, he said, is evident with is Nokia’s Ovi store, which is open 24 by 7 days per week and is accessible in 190 countries, while 85 per cent of those who signed in repeats visit daily.

Additionally, Rutherfood said that about 30 million downloads are witnessed on Ovi store per day with about 120 operators involved globally.

He noted that at Nokia, they would continue to seek ways to deliver an unbelievable experience.

He maintained that Nokia is not exiting mobile manufacturing because a lot have involved and devices are becoming much richer in terms of features.

The mobile business, he said, keeps up in business, just as counterfeit products have become a global challenge, which is not limited to Nigeria alone.

Earlier, while welcoming guest to the session, the Group Head for Communications and External Affairs, GTBank, Mrs. Lola Odedina, said that the partnership has been a tortuous way to where they are now and commended all those who played active part in ensuring that it comes to fruition in their bid to serve Nigerian customers well whether living in Nigeria or diaspora.

Incorporated since 1990, GTB Plc started as a private limited liability company wholly owned by Nigerian individuals and institutions. The approval as Commercial Bank followed came in August 1990 and operations were started in February 1991.

GTBank a partner of Morgan Stanley and BNP Paribas commenced universal banking in 2002 and was certified with ISO 9001:2000 in 2006 and by July 26, 2007 the bank was the first sub-Saharan bank and first Nigerian joint stock company to be listed on London Stock Exchange and Deutsche Börse.

Remmy Nweke:
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SMS aids fight against fake drugs

With the announcement that the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) subscribed to the concept of using Short Messaging Service (SMS) to check the influx of fake drugs in the country, more African countries are likely to key-in, reports AP.

ITRealms Online recalled that last July, NAFDAC said that with the introduction of SMS with a given code consumers in the country should be able to use on all medicines as soon as possible after certification via SMS.

“Consumers can now take the war against counterfeit drugs into their own hands,” according to the Director-General of NAFDAC, Dr. Paul B. Orhii, while announcing this development.

The report also noted that for Africans wondering whether the malaria drugs they’ve bought are real, there may soon be a quick way of finding out, basically through sending a text message.

Equally, the report noted that across the continent, over 30 per cent of malaria medicines are estimated as fake, and are usually difficult to identify.

According to the report, a new project called mPedigree allows consumers to send in a code via text message which enables them to check if their drugs are genuine, especially on malaria drugs.

Ghanaian entrepreneur, Mr. Bright Simons, who developed the mPedigree system noted that its technology and security infrastructure are now being provided by Hewlett Packard (HP).

The report added that the system assigns a unique code to genuine malaria medicines, printed on the back of medicine blister packs under a sheet that is scratched off like a lottery ticket.

Thus enabling customers to send a text message to a central hotline with the code and instantly get an “OK” response telling them if the drug is registered and thus real. The system, it was gathered could also send additional information like the drug’s manufacturer and expiration date.

And in the event of a fake drug, the system, the report said, would, consumers are to receive a text message saying “No. Please recheck code.”

The system is free for consumers and is paid for by pharmaceutical companies and governments.

Health officials say the innovative system could help Africa curb the tide of fake drugs and potentially save hundreds of thousands of lives.

Experts think about 700,000 people die from malaria or tuberculosis every year after taking counterfeit drugs, with some containing little more than sawdust, baby powder and water.

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Frenszo voice chat achieves 100,000 hits per day

The new value added service recently introduced by Glo Mobile, the Frenszo Voice Chat, is exciting subscribers on the network, recording on average, an estimated 100,000 hits per day.

Head, Value Added Services at Glo, Mr. Samson Isa, while affirming this, said that the new offer has attracted the interest of subscribers who have been visiting the portal enmasse on a daily basis.

According to him, the Frenszo phone chat has been designed as an exclusive social networking service for Glo subscribers.

“The service enables registered subscribers to find and make friends on the chat service based on defined profiles,” he said.

Mr. Isa also said that the new service has been recording an average of 100,000 hits per day, describing the response by subscribers as amazing.

“In the first few days of introducing the service, we recorded over 30,000 hits per day. Now the figure has shot up to an average of 100,000 daily hits and it is still growing,” Isa declared.

Further, he said, Frenszo Voice Chat is a unique, innovative and interesting platform for people to meet like-minded friends with similar interest from any region in Nigeria and stay in touch.

He noted that in order to be part of this product, subscribers need to activate the service on their mobiles by dialing the short code 547, then, follow the voice prompt and listen to the pre-recorded profile of other users on the system.

“To enjoy the full features of the service, first time users need to register their profile on the chat engine by recording short and interesting information about themselves,” he said.

He explained that Frenszo Voice Chat allows for anonymous conversation in a secure environment with spam and abusive language control.

“The chat can also be done through SMS. Once registered, the subscriber can manage his account, edit his profile, block/unblock any friend’s chat ID, edit search criteria and or opt for regional chat rooms. All these contribute to making the Frenszo Voice Chat the most robust and dynamic chat service available,” Isa said.

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