West African collaboration: NCC recommits to regional digital integration - ITREALMS

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The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has reaffirmed its dedication to strengthening partnerships with sister regulatory bodies within the West African region, reports ITREALMS.

This commitment was highlighted at the weekend when the Commission hosted a high-level delegation from the Liberia Telecommunications Authority (LTA) at the NCC Headquarters in Abuja.

Undersea cable cuts disrupt data, voice services across West African - ITREALMS

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A combination of cable cuts, resulting in equipment faults on the major undersea cables along the West African Coast, have negatively impacted data and fixed telecom services in several countries of West Africa, including Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, Cote de Ivoire, among others.

A press statement available to ITREALMS from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) endorsed by the Director, Public Affairs, Reuben Muoka, he said that the cuts occurred somewhere in Cote de’Ivoire and Senegal, with an attendant disruption in Portugal.

AFRINIC sets up NomCom to replace West African board seat 2

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The African Network Information Centre (AFRINIC) has set up a four-man ad-hoc Nomination Committee (NomCom) to replace the board seat 2, on or before end of May this year, reports ITRealms.

AFRINIC, ITRealms gathered is the Regional Internet Registry (RIR) for Africa with headquarters in Ebene City, Mauritius.

The replacement, according to the chief executive officer, AFRINIC, Mr. Alan Barrett, has become expedient following the recent resignation of its else while chairman, Mr. Sunday Folayan, who also is the president of the Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NIRA).

Barrett disclosed that the AFRINIC Board has appointed the NomCom to handle the election for Board seat 2 (Western Africa), which is vacant following the resignation of Sunday Folayan, who was the chairman of AFRINIC until his resignation.

The NomCom members, he said, include Mustapha Ben Jemaa (Northern Africa), Douglas Onyango (Eastern Africa), Didier R. Kasole (Central Africa), S. Moonesamy (Board representative, Indian Ocean).

Currently, ITRealms also gathered that the eight-man elected AFRINIC board has only West African, Mr. Seun Ojedeji (Nigerian) representing the Non-Regional Africa since July 1, 2016 and whose tenure will expire by June 2019.

ITRealms further gathered that with the resignation of Sunday Folayan, Mr. Abibu Rashid Ntahigiye from East-Africa and whose tenure as board member is due by June 30^th, this year, assumed the position of the chairman, while Christian D. Bope from DRC Congo and representing the Central Africa is the Vice chairman and whose seat will expire by June 30, 2020.

AFRINIC, ITRealms recalled was set up in 1997 by several early Internet adopters in Africa, during an INET workshop in Malaysia.

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Nigeria, Senegal, Cape Verde dominate West African hotel industry

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Nigeria, Senegal and Cape Verde have described as the top three dominating the West African hospitality industry, with over 114 hotels and 20,790 rooms, reports ITRealms.

According to the W Hospitality Group’s 2017 Hotel Chains Pipeline report, the West Africa region is at the heart of the continent’s growth and economic transformation in recent years.

ITRealms reports that notwithstanding the sharp slowdown experienced in 2016 and 2017, the region’s economy is expected to rebound in 2017 onwards.

The commodity-based economies, like Nigeria, ITRealms gathered, are slowly recovering from the fall in oil prices and oil production, while countries like Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, and Senegal have shown economic resilience and sustained growth.

The report also noted that as many of the countries continue to stabilize politically and economically, the region will be better integrated from a local and international context. This increased integration raises the need for quality travel and accommodation infrastructure.

Experts equally see the growth of the hotel sector as an important indicator of how well the market is developing its travel infrastructure, and the indicators for West Africa are mixed.

ITRealms pointed out that the 114 hotels and 20,790 rooms, accounted for 42 per cent of the sub-Saharan African hotel pipeline.

However, of these hotel deals signed and planned, only approximately 9,875 rooms, or 48% have moved to construction. In addition, projects in the region have longer than average development periods at approximately six years, compared to the two- to three-year development program that is usually planned. Some of the reasons for these delays are high capital investment required, lack of access to adequate financing options, limited access to raw materials, high construction and material costs, a heavy reliance on importation, inadequate technical capacity to manage the development program, and other barriers to entry.

Within the West Africa region, Nigeria, the report showed, contributes 49.6 per cent or over 10,000 hotel rooms in 61 hotels.

“Nigeria is also the top market in Africa for planned rooms,” part of the report read.

The other substantial markets in West Africa include Cape Verde with 11 hotels and 3,478 rooms, and Senegal with 14 hotels and 2,164 rooms. These three markets contribute a total of 15,955 hotel rooms, or 77 per cent of the West African hotel pipeline.

Approximately 57 per cent of the pipeline in these countries have moved to site, however some of these projects have been stalled for some time. In a country, like Nigeria, this can be significant. For instance, 40 per cent of Nigeria's pipeline was signed between 2009 and 2014, and as the chart above illustrates, a large portion of these projects is still in the "planning" phase. In Senegal only approximately 44 per cent of the deals signed have moved to site.

The pipeline of hotels to the sub-region, therefore, is encouraging and indicative of strong investor interest, the low completion rate of projects could be troubling for the development of the hotel sector. It is also difficult for the hotel chains whose expansion plans in these markets rely on partnerships with local and foreign investors to develop these hotels. All the major global hotel chains have strong expansion plans to increase their operating presence on the continent, and in West Africa.

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West African telcos battle declining ARPU says IDC

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The telecommunications companies across Africa and especially in West Africa are increasingly focusing on effectively maximizing their return on investment from data and on monetizing emerging opportunities such as the Internet of Things (IoT) to remain competitive and afloat, reports ITRealms.

The research director for telecommunications, media, and IoT at International Data Corporation (IDC), Mr. George Kalebaila, made this disclosure, attributing this largely to increasing levels of competition that is forcing them to seek new methods to stem the steady decline of traditional voice services via the Average Revenues Per User (ARPUs).

ITRealms gathered that ARPU also known as average revenue per unit is a measure used primarily by consumer communications and networking companies, defined as the total revenue divided by the number of subscribers over a given period or month.

"We expect to see greater market consolidation as telcos increase their efforts to acquire smaller ISPs in response to the challenging marketing conditions," he said.

Kalebaila was particular about telcos operating in West Africa, saying this has been driven by heightened market saturation, declining average revenues per user (ARPUs), increasing operating expenditure, and diminishing profit margins on services.

As such, he said, IDC expects some consolidation within the market, especially between local ISPs that possess 4G LTE frequencies and fibre-to-the-x (FTTX) infrastructure and multinational telcos with solid financial support.

In markets where 4G adoption is already gaining traction, discussions around fifth-generation network technology (5G) will take center stage, creating awareness and bringing the possibilities and expectations of future data networks to the forefront.

"IDC expects vendors to focus on the higher bandwidth 5G offers and the technology's potential ability to support emerging services such as IoT, seamless video on demand or Internet Protocol Tv (IPTV), drone video recording, smart city solutions, and virtual reality applications," Kalebaila said.

IDC, ITRealms reports also expected 5G to deliver gigabit connections that enable the seamless delivery of rich multimedia services and applications.

As competition continues to increase in Africa's more mature telecom and IT markets, the need to attract and retain customers through differentiation has become imperative. This means that telcos must move beyond traditional connectivity offerings and provide IT services such as unified communications and collaboration, cloud, and datacenter services.

"In the medium to long term, telcos will be forced to re-evaluate their business models to efficiently design, develop, and deliver cost-effective solutions and services," Kalebaila said.

He pointed out that this may compel telcos to migrate from operating legacy networks to deploying agile systems that are capable of increasing operational efficiency while speeding up the time to market of new solutions.

“Those telcos that prioritize technologies such as network functions virtualization (NFV) and software-defined networking (SDN) for the delivery of connectivity, cloud, and datacenter services will be well placed to maximize cost savings, achieve greater efficiency, and increase productivity," he said.

Chuks Egbune/GEE

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Microsoft Devices, TD Mobile team up on Nokia Lumia 2520

ITRealms:

Leading manufacturers of smart devices, Microsoft Devices is leveraging its latest takeover of Nokia by teaming up with the West African leading distribution channel of ICT products, TD Mobile to bring Nokia Lumia 2520 to Nigerians, reports ITRealms.

Graced by Heads of Information Technology (IT) in the private and public sectors, re-sellers and key movers of the industry, ITRealms gathered that the Chief Executive Officer of Technology Distribution (TD) Group, Mrs. Chioma Ekeh, former Executive Vice Chairman (EVC) of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and chairman of OpenMedia Group as well as Dr. Leo Stan Ekeh, Chairman, Zinox Group, witnessed the launch at Wheatbaker Hotel, Ikoyi, Lagos.

Welcoming guest to the occasion, Managing Director, Marketing at Technology Distributions, Mrs. Chioma Chimere, explained that TD has again been forced to act in the national interest through the establishment of TD Mobile.

She told ITRealms that TD played a similar role in computing, printing and enterprise solutions, stressing that in each of those periods, TD was literally forced to invest in processes and market innovations that introduced order while delivering large numbers of genuine original products at affordable prices and at the right time.

Mrs. Chimere also said that the mobile market was growing in leaps and bounds thus exposing the consumer to mobile technology that often do not meet their aspirations.

She pointed out that TD Mobile has been nurtured to showcase the same values and attributes that propelled TD to the number 1 distributor position in the subregion, in addition to its partnership with world-class Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), stocking and professional warehousing, immediate delivery, and unrivalled after sales support.

She declared that the launch of the Nokia Lumia 2520 is evidence that TD Mobile is poised to raise the bar on standards.

Unveiling the product, the former Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigeria Communications Commission, Dr. Ndukwe said that the Lumia 2520 was coming at a time that Nigerians need a tool that would deliver truly mobile solutions.

He said that the Lumia 2520 would have a familiar feel to all who have used Microsoft products, emphasizing that Nigerians would find the Lumia 2520 very useful as the nation develop capacities for electronic business and electronic governance.

For the Managing Director, Microsoft Devices, Mr. Nick Imudia the Lumia 2520 builds on the beautiful Lumia design and comes in a number of stunning colors, including red and white in a glossy finish, alongside cyan and black in a matte finish.

“The Lumia 2520 is designed to work anywhere, with a 10.1-inch full HD display that offers the best outdoor and indoor readability. He said that for the first time, ZEISS optics appear on a tablet alongside proprietary Nokia imaging algorithms. The Lumia 2520 has a 6.7 megapixel rear camera with f1.9 aperture, providing great low-light images, and also features a 2 megapixel front-facing camera for high quality video calls. Concerns about power are a thing of the past with the Lumia 2520, as it provides up to 11 hours of battery life during video playback and has support fast-charging; providing up to 80 per cent charge in just one hour.

Mr. Imudia said that the Lumia 2520 also comes with a number of unique software experiences – Nokia Storyteller, which is built into the Lumia 2520, reinvents the way you relive your stories; Nokia Video Director, a new video editing software that lets you get even more creative with videos; the Microsoft Outlook experience, making it easy to finish off your pending mails no matter where you are. With Microsoft Office built in, you can view and edit your Word, Excel and PowerPoint files on the move, while keeping the original formatting.

ITRealms recalls that TD is reputed globally for its quality products, people and processes, have won numerous international and local awards for innovative marketing and good corporate governance.

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