Stop SIM pack hawking – ATCON

As members of the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) meet today in Lagos for its Annual General Meeting (AGM) and election of new executive members, one item topping the agenda is the proposal to urgently accredit Subscribers Identification Module (SIM) pack in the country.

This would automatically bring to a halt the hawking of SIM cards on the streets of the nation.

SIM pack contains SIM card and other valuable information for customers or potential subscribers. SIM card is a small electronic card also called smart card used in mobile phones which carries the phone number and has the operator’s serial numbers, thereby used in identifying a telecom subscriber on a given network.

ATCON on the other hand is the umbrella body of about 161 telecom firms in the country and founded in 1992.

The proposed accreditation, according to ATCON national president, Dr. Emmanuel Ekuwem, would aid national security greatly.

He told newsmen on Friday at a press conference in Lagos that the call has become necessary due to the security repercussions, just as they requested for mandatory call data retention database of all telecom operators to boost cyber-security initiatives of the government.

Dr. Ekuwem said that the accreditation being proposed would avail the nation a database of telecom subscribers, especially on the Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) platform among others.

Lamenting that as at today, Nigeria is the only country where you could pick a SIM pack just on the street because it’s hawked without relevant data of the buyer.

He explained that in other countries of the world, SIM packs are sold in shops where relevant data of the buyer is captured including details of the international passport data page.

According to him, if a SIM after being purchased on the street is used to commit a crime it would be hardly traced, this is because the buyer may have used false name.

He pointed out that without the capturing of other important part of the buyers information such as in photographic capturing, the SIM in question could be used to perpetrate any evil act untraced.

Disagreeing with those who think the suggested accreditation would impact negatively on the sales record of operating companies and penetration of their networks, Dr. Ekuwem said, rather than allow the illegality of picking SIMs on the street to continue, its better for the nation and her citizenry to get it right now and support the reform.

“… Which would assist security agencies in curbing crimes committed via telecom and using GSM platform, which subscriber-base is over 42 million as at January 2008,” he said.

Noting that presently, there is need for the accreditation because whosoever makes a call or send Short Messaging Service (SMS) that is inimical to the national security may not be traced.

This, he said, would help the nation’s law enforcement agencies including the Police, Economic and Finance Crime Commission (EFCC), Nigeria Intelligence Agency (NIA), Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC), State Security Services (SSS), Customs and Immigration to name a few, in carrying out their responsibilities effectively.

As said by him, the urgent need to accredit SIM packs in the country, would be top on the agenda of ATCON at its AGM and NEC election holding today.

While urging support from the stakeholders on the subject, Dr. Ekuwem said their input is crucial to make certain its victory as the deliberation take centre stage.

He argued that this exercise when accepted and guidelines issued by the industry regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) would significantly advance criminal investigations in the country.

Ekuwem noted that in moving forward, ATCON is canvassing for a defined and registered distribution of dealer channels for SIM packs for the operating companies.

He highlighted that sale of SIM packs after accreditation expected to start after a moratorium of about six months or one year by any dealer or seller in the country would involve a photocopy of the buyer’s international passport data page or national identification card, filling of accreditation form containing basic bio data and contact address information.

“Only accredited phone numbers should exist in the operator’s subscriber database after the moratorium,” he said.

ATCON, he said, is advocating that this database be highly classified as confidential and passworded, which means that it would be restricted to on-line access to subscriber bio-database by appropriate law enforcement agencies via a multilaterally agreed access due process.

Equally, ATCON calls for mandatory call data retention database of all telecom operators to aid cyber security initiatives, with a platform drawn from relevant agencies to manage the database, adding that even new business in form of data warehousing, data mining and storage area networks would spring up with the successful SIM accreditation.

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Steps to observe packet spoofing by ISPs (5)

Market Intelligence:

You’ll use this channel to coordinate your activities and to compare notes.)

Once you’re confident that both computers are talking to each other over the Internet correctly and are saving a valid packet trace, you can begin to gather experimental data about whatever application is of interest to you - or try to reproduce any reported or conjectured errors or problems.

For example, for our tests with Comcast, we configured one of the computers as a BitTorrent tracker and sender and gave the other computer a BitTorrent file instructing it to attempt to download the file hosted by the first computer.

The details of what you’ll test depend on what you’re interested in and will require you to be familiar with the application you’re testing in some detail.

In the BitTorrent example, it’s not sufficient simply to have both parties start running BitTorrent at this point; rather, one computer needs to be configured explicitly to offer a download to the other computer, which, in turn, needs to be configured to request a download from that computer.

When your experiment is complete, you should stop the capture and save the resulting capture files to disk.

You can then exchange these files with the person at the other end - by e-mail, for instance.

Wireshark can be used to open and display a saved capture file generated on another computer.

There are many other network analyzers or packet sniffers that could be used instead of Wireshark.

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ICT and elections in Africa: Nigeria as a case study

Features of the week:

In Africa, one of the key elements for sustenance of democracy is Information and Communication Technology (ICT).Remmy Nweke, in this report examines its impact on the 2007 election and consolidation of democracy across the continent.

The evolution of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) on African continent is commendable, especially its deployment to election processes. This incursion has two sides like a coin; in making governance transparent and drawing government nearer to the voters.

Using Nigeria’s April 2007 election held between 14 and 21, as yardstick to take a look at neighbouring Ghana and Togo as pattern to ICT involvement in election.

Democratically, most elections align with the kind of public governance or geographical location of a given state, and in Nigeria it begins with the party primaries, then the general election, which include the presidential and National Assembly, governorship and state legislative arms and local government elections respectively.

Experts, for instance, have defined election as a decision making process where a population chooses individual(s) to hold official positions on trust, thus becoming ‘public servants’ according to the Wikipedia online. This, the open source encyclopaedia stated, is often the mechanism for modern democracy to fill offices in the executive and legislature for all the three-tiers of government in a federated state; namely federal, states and local systems, which usually is enshrined in the constitution of the country.

Third Term Agenda:

The impact of ICT manifested in the live broadcast via Television technology, of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) induced Third-Term agenda to perpetuate then President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo in power after serving the statutory two terms of eight years in office.

The National Assembly made up of the Senate and Lower house, took path in salvaging Nigerian democracy under the leadership of Chief Ken Nnamani and Alhaji Aminu Bello Masari as Senate President and House Speaker respectively and lived up to yearnings of the people and media especially.

2007 election:

Prior to the general elections, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), had as far back as 2005, began sensitisation of the populace on the various concepts to be used, including the Option A4, Electronic Voting (e-voting) and Open Secret ballot systems.

In Option A4, obviously a Nigerian model, voters are expected to queue behind a representative of a given political party or its candidate and counting will be done in the full glare of the public.

While e-Voting consists of several types of voting, including electronic means of casting votes and counting votes. This equally could involve punch cards, optical scan voting systems and specialized voting kiosks otherwise known as self-contained Direct-Recording Electronic (DRE). So, e-voting involves transmission of ballots and votes via telephones, private computer networks or even the Internet with the merits of speeding up the counting of ballots and availing enhanced voting access for disabled persons, thereby curtailing electoral frauds like stocking of ballot boxes with ballot papers.

Also the Open Secret ballot system eventually adopted in 2007, affords voters to cast votes in enclosure, though after due verification on Direct Data Capture (DDC) printout available at polling centres.

ICT compliant INEC:

Still, INEC introduced data capturing of eligible voters from 18 years and above in a nationwide exercise for the first time; deploying Personal Computers (PCs), digital cameras and thumb printing scanners.

Equally, INEC set up 2007 elections website, “Elections 2007” to provide users with exact information with a page created for each of the 50 political parties, listing the names of their national chairmen, secretaries, treasurers, financial secretaries, and physical address of the national headquarters of the parties in addition to contact phone numbers. The site also provided roles like ‘Find a Polling Station’ and ‘Track Candidates’ used to check results.

According to INEC chairman, Prof. Maurice Iwu, it was to ensure that visitors to the site including Nigerians in Diaspora and observers, receive complete and authentic information from the INEC, just as there is Voter Contact and Response Centre (VCRC) meant for the public to get answers to questions with three distinct telephone numbers; 09-222-INEC (09-222-4632) and 09-780-9339.

The presence of ICT in the 2007 general election in Nigeria saw deployment of 22,000 Direct Data Capturing (DDC) machines as at December 2006, in addition to earlier deployment of 18,000 of devices for revalidation of voters register who are eligible on or before February 13, 2007, paving the way for the registration of over 61 million voters by the time it was concluded with 40,000 DDCs.

Iwu explained that the adoption of DDC technology with manual back-up for the revalidation of voters’ register in the 36 states against the Optical Mark Reading (OMR) system was to make the exercise more transparent, speedy and less cumbersome, adding that the equipment consists of two components; the data and the printer units.

Unique local input:

:Deployment of 40,000 DDCs was a unique break for local ICT firms to prove their worth in terms of encouraging their inputs and keeping the funds within the country rather than awarding the contracts to foreign firms that would attract foreign exchange and eventually not create local employment.

As said by Chairman, Zinox Technologies Limited, Dr. Leo-Stan Ekeh, his company rescued the 2006 Nigerian Voters Registration exercise deal by supplying 13,000 Integrated data capture systems to INEC within four weeks.

For him, it took patriotism and financial buoyancy of the like of Zinox to deliver and save the nation from such a crisis, adding that it was a great challenge to local IT firms and Zinox has proved it is achievable. Stressing that the only way for the intervention to be a success was to provide more sophisticated devices such as Centrino laptops and wireless laptops in addition to other components that formed the solution for DDC consisting of webcam and fingerprint reader integrated in a box as well as the mobile printers to name a few.

Reacting, the immediate-past president, Nigeria Computer Society (NCS), Dr. Chris Nwannenna, commended Prof. Iwu-led INEC for involving ICT into core electoral process for the first time in the history of Nigeria and Zinox for its ability to deliver.

He said, it paved the route for future acceptance of ICT tools in elections, and provided experts in the country the platform to prove their worth and compete favourably with their counterparts globally.

For chief executive, Connect Technologies, Chief Chris Uwaje, usage of ICT is critical to mass involvement in governance and empowerment, describing it as a “core strategic imperatives,” adding that it presented governance in Nigeria with a fundamental challenge and opportunity to showcase her ability and capacities to manage the information systems.

Place of ICT in April polls:

The immediate past Secretary-General, Catholic Secretariat Lagos, Rev. Fr. George Ehusani, said on Patitos Gang, a current affairs discussion programme on Tv, that technology has come to stay in this country, especially influencing positively on elections. Emphasising that the April polls was different, because technology brought about by the advent of Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) among other ICT tools came to play.

Fr. Ehusani said, for instance, that rigging during the election was minimal, thus not huge as hitherto, citing a situation where party agents are armed with a mobile camera phone during the elections, at voting centres and who felt threatened simply had to use their camera phones to take shots and send it through Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) to their party leaders, even as these shots could be tendered in a law court or tribunal in the case of discontents and litigations thereafter.

Noteworthy is that political parties, especially the Action Congress (AC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) stalwarts used SMS widely in Lagos State, much later after the public campaign was banned, in reminding relatives and friends to vote for their parties.

Also, individual politicians used SMS’ to urge voters to vote for their parties reminding them of their party symbols, even the GSM operators enjoined subscribers to go out and exercise their franchise by voting during elections, just as electoral observers used SMS and mobile phones to gather reports across the country and compare activities on the election day. While Police among other law enforcement agents announced some GSM numbers as emergency lines in case of any disturbance and used their GSM phones to exchange relevant information concerning the security reports.

At INEC, Prof. Iwu said, ICT tools were used to report directly to the headquarters network server in Abuja, because it owns a network infrastructure to forestall dependence on private Internet Service Providers (ISPs) for data delivery, during and after the election.

Telescope across Africa:

In Togo, the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) has a bilingual website in French and English with facilities to offer Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds, podcast and journal audio. Thus the site tends to run generic multimedia rather than strictly politically related developments.

For the Burkinebe Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI); focus is firmly on election and electoral education with a 12-slide show on how to vote and the relevant processes capable of guiding anyone to follow and not be disfranchised among other offers.

And in Ghana the Electoral Commission offers list of candidates at the presidential and parliamentary levels, core six political parties with links and the electoral system in use since year 2000 when the current team was inaugurated.

Unique of the site links is that the political parties own their websites as well, which was lacking in Nigeria. Although some experts have attributed this to the number of parties involved; that is six against 50 in Nigeria and the cost of maintaining the staff afterwards.

Conclusion:

The aforementioned shows that although African nation’s like Nigeria may not be deploying the electronic voting system now, but the steps taken so far by INEC among others in West Africa, is commendable and sustainable; exposing stakeholders interest and activism in what was before now a ‘dirty game’ while they suffer silently. Even as industry observers noted that ICT input in 2007 general elections in whatever form aided the process and marks a good beginning for the continent at large to embrace.

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Zinox joins Intel exclusive Champions’ club

NIGERIA’s leading manufacturer of personal computers, Zinox Computer Group was last week inducted into the Intel’s exclusive Champions’ club in far away Rome after days of management training which formed part of the award.

Chairman, Zinox, Dr. Leo-Stan Ekeh, who disclosed this on arrival from Rome, Italy, after receiving the award in recognition of his firm’s input on penetration of computers in the continent and West African sub-region, said Zinox was selected to be a member of the Champions’ club as classified by Intel within the Europe, Middle East and African region, purely on merit.

On what the membership portends, Ekeh said that Intel would be working more closely with Zinox in terms of improving the company’s research and development strategies thereby supporting the computer firm to scale competitions.

“Zinox has been elected into the privilege club of Intel known as Champions club, which comes with huge incentives,” he declared.

According to him, the award showed that Zinox has hitherto proven itself without Intel’s assistance in terms of financial support and now they are coming in to invest on their own as a way of showing encouragement.

As a result, Intel team for the implementation of the Champion club incentives would soon be in the country for the take off of the project.

“They gave us a very clear indication that they will be in Nigeria anytime from next month for a take off,” he asserted.

He said the achievement would not put off Zinox initial expansion plans, which according to him, is aimed at making its products and services available to Nigerian without much ado.

Presently, he disclosed that Zinox is leading in the mobile computing – laptop – market in the country and the sub-region and would continue its expansion.

ITRealms Online recalls that few months ago, shareholders of Zinox Technologies Group, approved the injection of N3.5 billion to position the company better for competition, just as Zinox advanced strategies to acquire three local Information Technology (IT) firms with core interest in computer manufacturing.

Zinox Technologies is owned by STAN Technologies of Nigeria, Mustek of South Africa, manufacturers of South Africa, Kenyan and Zambia No.1 brand MECER Computers and Alhaner Ventures of France, a major telecom facility company with extensive interest in Europe and Africa.

The group’s corporate affairs manager, Mr. Echika Ezuka said that the latest fund injection is to truly position the company as the number one among its competitors.

He also said that the decision was taken at the board’s last meeting towards the end of 2007, and confirmed last month in accordance with the promise made to stakeholders by the founding fathers of Zinox Technologies during its launch in 2001.

He explained that the additional capital was necessitated by the need to expand its programme, which includes the planned acquisition of majority shares in some three local computer firms.

“That will add value to our present network of branches both locally and internationally in order to serve our customers better, reduce the total cost of ownership of ICT products and fast track us to our desired destination,” he said.

Ekeh hinted that Zinox is expanding its offices and support network to 20 before the end of this year.

This, Mr. Ezuka noted would add value in Zinox desire to deploy world class infrastructure that will sustain the firm’s position as the number one brand.

Presently, he said that Zinox is committed to building the largest computer assembling plant on the continent located in Lagos, Nigeria.

“When completed, this will increase our plant output by over 500 per cent and will resolve some digital interfaces faster and accurately. We shall soon relocate to a more spacious office with more high-tech facilities possibly the first of its kind on this side of the Atlantic,” he said.

Adding that Zinox group is investing too heavily on human capital that will drive this growth. He explained that this must be incubated over a minimum period of nine months.

“We have just hired over 40 new graduates for the first phase and they are all Nigerians,” he said, revealing that this was a prelude to Zinox plan to launch the largest software company on the continent.

“We intend to launch possibly the largest software,” he asserted, clarifying that Zinox is partnering with both African and Asian companies to ensure this happens between the end of next year, 2009 and first quarter of 2010.

As said by Echika, Zinox is set to launch an interest-free computer ownership scheme in the country and Ghana, pointing out that after the successful launch of Zinox Student Computer Ownership Project (ZSCOP) and the current Computer Discount scheme partly financed by a Nigerian philanthropist, few foreign interests have approached Zinox to use its credible platform to really test the reliability of the Nigerian and Ghanaian consumers when they purchase items on credit.

ITRealms Onlinel recalls that recent market study in the West African region by the United States-based International Data Corporation (IDC) rated Zinox Computers as being neck-to-neck with Hewlett Packard (HP).

Zinox, however, reaffirmed its position as the only Microsoft certified Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) partner in West Africa and the largest Intel Corporation partner in sub-Saharan Africa.

Also speaking weekend at the end of Zinox board meeting in Lagos, Chairman, Mustek South Africa, Mr. David Khan, restated confidence in the Nigerian market and paid tribute to chairman, Zinox Technologies, Dr. Leo Stan Ekeh for taken the franchise beyond all expectation in such a short period with a passion.

“I would say wait for another 12 months to really appreciate his road map. Stan is one gentleman you must trust because his focus is not just on money but rather building a knowledge driven Nigerian economy and we all support him and hope your government will support him to change the face of Nigeria because that is his passion,” Mr. Khan declared.

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Dell commends Computer Warehouse

Founder and Chief Executive Officer of computer giant, Dell, Mr. Michael Dell has commended the leadership of the Group Managing Director (GMD) of the Computer Warehouse Group (CWG), Mr. Austin Okere, for driving penetration of Dell brand in the West African region.

A press statement from CWG, the Group Marketing Communications Manager, Ms. Morenike Popoola, said that the hardware subsidiary of the Computer Warehouse Group, recently won the prestigious Dell Enterprise Partner of the year award from Dell, at the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) partners’ forum, which took place at the Grand Hotel in Venice, Italy, from April 11 through April 13, 2008.

Mr. Dell, who gave the keynote address to a packed hall of over 200 delegates, mainly CEO’s of the most successful Dell Partners in the EMEA region, specifically took time out to personally congratulate the GMD of the Computer Warehouse Group, Mr. Okere for being one of the foremost partners of Dell.

According to Popoola, who quoted Mr. Dell as saying that CWG has shown consistent outstanding performances over the past years.

The award was presented at the gala dinner at the meeting by the Vice President, Dell EMEA Emerging Countries, Mr. Pim Dale who said, the prize was “for achieving the highest volume of sales in Enterprise Systems and Storage solutions in the region.”

Mr. Dale also commended CWL, a division of CWG for the excellent support services to Dell’s Global Segment (GS) customers and large corporate accounts in the region.

“Our customers have expressed high regard for your responsiveness and customer centric values. We trust that you shall keep up this outstanding performance in the coming year,” he said.

Responding after receiving the award, Mr. Okere, expressed gratitude to the customers who have made this feat possible with their cherished patronage and confidence reposed in CWL.

“This award challenges us to continue to be responsive to our customers and stop at nothing to ensure outstanding service experience for all our customers,” he said.

Noteworthy is that Computer Warehouse had in the past won Dell awards for Best New Partner, and Fastest Growth Partner, as well as being one of the first in the region to be certified as Dell Authorised Service Partner (DASP), and Dell Storage Gold Partner.

ITRealms Onlinel recalls that when Dell sought to have a spare parts hub in Nigeria in the late 90s, the firm turned to Computer Warehouse to act as custodian and administrator of the spares hub, a function which is still on-going and governed by the process efficiency of the ISO 9000:2000 standard in which she is also certified by the Standards Organisation of Nigeria.

CWL Systems was appointed a Dell Partner in 1994 to focus not just on box sales but also to use her wealth of experience in Enterprise Solutions to position Dell in the Data center, and to bring to bear better after sales support not only to her customers but also to other Dell customers in Diaspora.

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ICANN opens comment on DNSSEC

Internet coordinating agency, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has announced the opening of a comment period on the Public Interest Registry (PIR)’s proposed implementation of Domain Name System (DNS) Security Extensions (DNSSEC) in .org.

ITRealms Online recalls that on April 3, 2008, ICANN posted the PIR proposal for public information.

Equally of note is that ICANN had made a preliminary determination that the PIR proposal requires further consideration by the Registry Services Technical Evaluation Panel (RSTEP) because the new service could raise significant security or stability issues.

ICANN explained that under the terms of the Registry Services Evaluation Policy, RSTEP shall have 45 calendar days from the referral, that is until June 5, 2008, to prepare a written report regarding the proposed registry service’s effect on security and stability.

The report expected to come along with a summary of any public comments will be forwarded to the ICANN board, just as it would set forward the opinions of the RSTEP, including, but not limited to, a detailed statement of the analysis, reasons, and information upon which the panel has relied in reaching their conclusions, along with the response to any specific questions that were included in the referral from ICANN staff.

However, it was gathered that the precise addendum is a change to Section 3.1c(i) of the .ORG Registry Agreement.

Comments on the PIR proposal, ICANN said, should be submitted to pir-dnssec-proposal@icann.org and would be considered until 23:59 UTC 24 May 2008.

Public comments would be available for consideration by the RSTEP review team and the ICANN board, and may be viewed at http://forum.icann.org/lists/pir-dnssec-proposal/.

Part of the amendment No. 2 to the .org registry agreement showed that ICANN and Public Interest Registry agree that the modification be made to Section 3.1(c)(i) as at December 2006.

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DigiCore tech records 27% success

Digicore technology has recorded 27 per cent growth in fleet management solutions according to a recent research conducted in the United Kingdom, reports GERALDINE OKOLIE.

The survey indicated that 27 per cent fleet operator bank on Digicore amidst 150 service operators.

The survey was designed to measure the up take of vehicle tracking amongst fleet operators, on how the technology is being used, and what barriers are preventing more companies adopting the solution.

Chief Executive Officer,(CEO) Digicore Group, Mr. Nick Vlok, said that the survey reaffirms trends reported by other 31 operators around the world who are all experiencing rapid growth in the implementation range of award winning C-track Global Positioning System (GPS) fleet management solutions.

Managing Director of Digicore UK Limited, Mr. Tom O’ Connor said “The results of the vehicle tracking survey 2008, suggests that an increasing number of Fleet operators are utilizing tracking technology to better manage and control their vehicle operations”.

The research, he said, found out that uptake was greatest amongst commercial vehicle fleets with 30 per cent and operation with more than 100 vehicles 31 per cent.

More than half of the companies not using vehicle tracking have considered investing in the technology but over a third is still unaware of the benefits it provides.

Fleet operators achieving payback from their investment in vehicle are enjoying a range of benefits including increased productivity (54 percent).reduced cost, Fleet operators are now achieving an average of 12 per cent saving on their fuel bill and lowering overtime claims 13 per cent.

In fact, 85 per cent of vehicle tracking users said they were satisfied with their current solutions provider.

In addition, only 48 percent of these Fleet operators thought tracking could benefit their business, and only 44 per cent believed it could offer a return on investments.

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Morshid to preside @ special Connect Africa session

Director, International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Telecommunication Development Bureau (BDT), Mr. Sami Al-Basheer Al Morshid would preside over a special session of Connect Africa at the forthcoming Telecom Africa billed to hold in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, next month.

A press statement from the global telecom regulator, ITU, said that the forum tagged ‘From Kigali to Tomorrow’ has been scheduled to hold on Tuesday, May 13, 2008.

Champion Infotel also gathered that a press conference has been planned at the event to announce major initiatives and roll-out of USD 55 billion commitments to connect Africa as achieved in Kigali, Rwanda, last quarter of 2007 during the launch of the Connect Africa Initiative.

Worthy of note is that in October 2007, ITU organized the Connect Africa Summit, in its bid to bridge the digital divide it came up with the scheme under Dr. Hamadoun Toure-led ITU as its Secretary General.

Over a thousand participants from 54 countries, representing governments, industry, development banks and international organizations met in Kigali, Rwanda to mobilize the human, financial and technical resources needed to expand access to ICT infrastructure across the continent.

According to ITU sources, planned investments totalling USD 55 billion were announced to connect Africa and help accelerate implementation of the objectives of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Further important commitments, ITU said, were made in workforce training as well as policy and regulatory reform to support these investments, it was gathered that ITU is at present working closely with the Connect Africa partners to assist in achieving the key objectives, which emerged from the Kigali summit, including interconnecting all African capitals and major cities by 2012.

At the special session, there would be some keynote speakers and panellists to address issues that could move the initiative forward.

Leading the keynote speakers at the special session would be the Minister in the President’s Office in charge of Science, Technology, Scientific Research & ICT, President’s Office, Rwanda, Mr. Romain Murenzi, and Special African Envoy of the President of the European Commission, Mr José Manuel Briosa E Gala.

While the panellists would include the Chairman, Commission of the African Union, Gabon, Mr Jean Ping, President, African Development Bank, Dr Donald Kaberuka, and the United States (US) Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy, Bureau of Economic, Energy and Business Affairs, U.S. Department of State, Ambassador David A. Gross.

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Etisalat explains move to own property

In furtherance of its plans to roll out in the coming days, the Nigeria’s fifth licensed Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) operator, Etisalat has explained the reason behind its movement to own newly acquired corporate office complex.

A press statement from Etisalat, endorsed by Head, Communications, Ms Nwugo Nwoke, said that the movement is in demonstration of the telco’s preparedness to offer Nigerians world-class telecommunications services.

She added that the property located in the highbrow Banana Island, Ikoyi, Lagos, provides Etisalat’s top-rated employees with the right environment to function optimally.

She quoted the chief executive, Etisalat, Mr. Saoud Al Shamsi, as saying that the acquisition is a confirmation of the telco’s believe in Nigeria.

“Acquiring our own property lends credence to the fact that Etisalat believes in Nigeria and has indeed come to stay. It further demonstrates our commitment to Nigeria,” he said.

Al Shamsi explained that Etisalat’s decision to acquire its own property was strategic as it “reaffirms our readiness to offer Nigeria the best available telecom services and best human capital development.”

He further stated that the new office is spacious and will accommodate the firm’s growing workforce, adding that this will enhance the efficiency and productivity of its employees.

“Etisalat prides itself as an employer of choice. We promote good motivation for the staff in all the climes where we operate. Our belief is that a conducive work place will in the long run impact on efficient service delivery to our customers here in Nigeria”, he said.

Meanwhile, EtiSalat recently embarked on strategic staff development in its bid to offer excellent service, just as it commenced strategic staff induction and functional training programme to inculcate its core values, vision, mission, and ambitions to the employees.

Company sources informed that the programme which began on March 31 with initial 60 personnel selected from the various units of the company while the over 500 Nigerian staff will be trained in batches before the end of July.

The exercise, he said, encompasses the company’s operational manual and other developmental needs that would further equip employees to become better managers in future.

He also stated in his goodwill message to the delegates that Etisalat is an employer of choice that offers its staff an equal opportunity of career growth, irrespective of their race, culture or gender.

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Forum tasks operators, Police on facilities

Participants at the second public forum to address Quality of Service (QoS) challenges in the Nigerian telecommunications sector, have tasked operators and the Nigeria Police on the need to collaborate on the security of telecom services.

A communiqué made available to Champion Infotel, participants’ also tasked operators on the essence of educating consumers to enable them make appropriate choice that would be suitable to their pockets.

At the forum, presentations were made by the Minister of State for Information and Communications, Alhaji Ibrahim Nakande, representative of the National Assembly, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the Nigerian Police, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), three Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) operators, consisting MTN, Globacom and Celtel as well as two consumer advocacy groups, the Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), and the QoS Working Group.

Some of the challenges identified at the forum include network congestion, limited transmission infrastructure cum capacities, inadequate public power supply, security challenges facing telecom equipment and community relation issues.

Equally, the forum in a communiqué endorsed by the Head, Public Affairs at NCC, Mr. Dave Imoko, stated that after due considerations of the different presentations, interventions, questions and answers from the participants and stakeholders it was recommended that operators should fast track their pace of deployment of base stations and transmission capacities because of the urgent need to resolve the QoS challenges within the shortest possible time.

In addition, the forum suggested that all telecom stakeholders should engage relevant public institutions and agencies in the power sector to accelerate ongoing reforms in the sector, so as to improve power supply in the country.

Also, all telecom operators have been mandated to produce and publish their consumer codes of practice and service level agreements to the consumers of telecommunications services as soon as possible.

The government was urged to engage its relevant agencies in provision of incentives to operators who are interested in deploying landline infrastructures to complement the dominant mobile phone services.

NCC, the communiqué stated should collaborate with telecom operators in Nigeria to seek ways to make services more accessible to the physically challenged.

“Telecom operators should increase current resources available for their corporate social responsibility projects and programmes in Nigeria,” part of the stated read, emphasising that the telecoms operators should improve on the management of their customer care centres, including using options like outsourcing of such facilities to make them more widely available and effective.

Just as the form should be held more regularly to assist in ameliorating issues and challenges promptly.

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