Vmobile dangles MMS on customers

WITH determination to break even with its latest in stock, enhanced second generation network (2.5G), Vmobile Nigeria is dangling free Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) on subscribers till January next year, otherwise called VMMS.

Vmobile, which upgraded its network to 2.5G recently, said it has now, the capacity that enhances data communication and also makes data transfer speed over 10 times faster while availing subscribers instant reliable connection as well as improved mobile internet access and value added services (VAS).

The new offer, according to the Public Relations unit at Vmobile, this VMMS is designed to facilitate customers express themselves through combination of Short Messaging Service (SMS), audio, image and video topping it all up with guarantee for fun and excitement as part of the company’s vision to add more value to subscribers’ and take telephony beyond just calls and SMS for an enhanced user experience.

Vmobile also explained that VMMS offerings are in three categories namely, Person-to-Person (P2P), Person-to-Application (P2A) and Application-to-Person (A2P).

Emmanuel Otokhine of the Public Relations unit, said P2P offers subscribers the ability to send and receive multi-media messages from and to another mobile phone.

On P2A, he said, subscribers would be able to send MMS to any electronic mail (e-mail) address or other applications such as an online picture album, while A2P enable the situation whereby subscriber, is sent an MMS from an application, for instance, an MMS subscription service or download.

He also said, that VMMS is offered on the General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) and Circuit Switched Data (CSD) also known as GSM data, which are GSM technologies for high speed data transfer.

Starcomms compensates PH customers

Data customers on the network of a fixed wireless operators, Starcomms, in the garden city of Port Harcourt, are now smiling, following the announcement of a new package of incentives to reward them.

Champion Infotel recalls that Starcomms, announced a package to compensate subscribers to its data service for keeping faith with the company when it experienced a temporary outage in its data service in Port Harcourt recently.

Marketing Director at Starcomms, Mr. Omar Lababidi, while disclosing this said that the compensation plan entails that all customers be re-credited for the down time, and would also be granted one week extra access free of charge.

He explained that though the outage resulted from failures in service from the national carriers; Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (NITEL) and Globacom, the operator took urgent measure to halt all billing until the problem was fixed.

Emphasising that as a customer–centric organization, Starcomms was committed to taking care of the interests of its customers at all times and in every situation.

He expressed appreciation to all affected subscribers for their understanding and continued patronage, stressing that the company had taken all necessary steps to avert a re-occurrence of the incident.

Starcomms recently launched commercial services in Port Harcourt, as part of its aggressive roll-out programme.

The company which proud itself as the first PTO to hit 200,000 subscriber mark.

VIA Technologies endorses deal with PMM

Taiwan-based VIA Technologies Incorporated, has taken a major step in making its entrance into the nation’s growing Information Technology (IT) industry by endorsing deal with Nigeria’s technology public relations entry, the Private Media Mart (PMM) Ventures.

The endorsement described as a unique move would see PMM fronting as its PR and external communications representative in the country.

Managing Partner and CEO of PMM, Mr. Ejiofor Agada said the deal was sealed late November, and is to be the very first time that VIA, which is a world acclaimed leader in computer chip sets and related materials, would engage the services of any marketing communications firm on the continent.

He said, the firm’s level of specialization only on core technology brands, products and services marks it out other players in the corporate communication market industry.

“When we first encountered VIA a couple of months ago, they were highly impressed with the level of understanding we had shown on issues pertaining to publicity management for technology brands and that was when we commenced the relationship” he said.

VIA, a leading innovator and developer of silicon chip technologies and Personal Computer (PC) platform solutions including next-generation leading edge processors, noted that the decision to start its African operations in Nigeria unlike most global brands, is due to the importance of the country to its numerous projects including the VIA PC-1 initiative.

This was further demonstrated when VIA’s International Marketing Specialist, Werner Du Plessis made a fact-finding visit to the country recently.

From inception in three years ago, PMM Ventures has continuously garnered respect by identifying an area of operation with major strength even within the very low budget IT market.

Mr. Agada further said that by defining its business as strictly media relations, publicity and research for technology brands alone, PMM’s intention was to create a niche image for its activities that would be perceived as different from conventional PR practice in the country.

InfoGraphics wins Microsoft awards

Software company, InfoGraphics Limited, has won two prestigious awards at the just ended Microsoft Africa Partner Summit 2005, held in Mauritius.

At this yearly event Microsoft partners across the continent were assessed and recognised for outstanding work and among those honoured was, InfoGraphics, as the best enterprise solutions partner for West, East and Central Africa and the best regional partner of the year for Nigeria and Ghana.

The awards were presented recently to the Managing Director, InfoGraphics, Mr. Chinenye Mba-Uzoukwu, by the Microsoft’s Vice President, Europe, Middle East and Africa, Mr. Ali Faramaway.

According to the extract by Microsoft, “Infographics has helped in consolidating and extending Microsoft’s gains in the collaborative space in spite of stiff local IBM competition in the solution space.”

Microsoft also said that InfoGraphics has “positively helped to create mindshare for Microsoft collaboration technologies throughout the year at Microsoft-organised events and its own events.”

The global software giant said InfoGraphic was being recognised for excellence in execution through adherence to Microsoft best-practices, implementation guidance and effective and customer-acknowledged internal process methodology.

Microsoft further noted that InfoGraphics has been associated with notable wins and timely satisfactory implementations, which include: Portal and Collaborative Workspace solutions at MTN, Central Bank of Nigeria, Ministry of the Federal Capital Territory and Federal Ministry of Information and National Orientation (National Portal).

Mr. Mba-Uzoukwu was commended for the impressive performance of InfoGraphics in opening the path to technology innovation and delivery in both the enterprise and public sector environment.

Reacting, Mba-Uzoukwu, described the awards as a vindication and recognition of excellence.

“The awards came for pioneering work in the enterprise solutions space so they truly belong to the clients whose willingness and courage to explore the vision behind Microsoft’s great technology gave us the opportunity to express our technical skills in a creative fashion,” Mba-Uzoukwu said.

Mba-Uzoukwu also disclosed that he set out from the onset with his team to “build a premium technology brand for the intelligent business,” stressing that the awards were milestones on the journey to creating value through innovative technology.

“The saying that iron sharpeneth iron is true – my colleagues and I set out to build a premium technology brand for the intelligent business. The awards are just a milestone on that journey and it’s by God’s grace that it has come on my watch,” he said.

Oruame grabs GKP award @ WSIS-05

Nigerian-based IT Editor, Mr. Segun Oruame, has grabbed this year’s media award on the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) reporting organised by the Global Knowledge Partnership in collaboration with Panos Institute, London.

The award presented at the just concluded second phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunisia, also witnessed two other journalists from Asia and Africa grabbing this year’s media award at different categories.

The awards aimed at encouraging and bringing international recognition to thoughtful and incisive reporting on developing countries’ progress to becoming ‘Information Societies’ is now in its third year.

It also tends to reflect the importance of increasing media coverage by encouraging debate around their social and political implications, with this year’s theme ‘Funding the digital divide: Where is the money coming from?’

Selected by international jury, the winners’ work went beyond simple description of projects or new investment initiatives to analysing broader questions such as the social impact of information and communications technologies (ICTs).

Winning entries were said to have focused particularly on rural or disadvantaged groups, and on national and global communication policy issues.

The award which attracted thousands of submissions from around the world was open to journalists who are citizens of or living in developing countries as defined by the United Nations.

Programme officer at Panos, Mr. Murali Shanmugavelan said the 2005 Panos/GKP awardees included Vipin V Nair from India, whose piece investigated a project in Kerala that aims to give basic computer training to one person from each family; Kenya’s Fred Mudhai who wrote about the importance of African lobbying for ICT projects; and Nigeria’s Oruame who looked at funding the digital divide in
Africa with his web-published entry “A bridge too far.”

The award accords Mr. Oruame to become a GKP fellow, which has four categories namely Gender & ICT Awards 2005, Media Awards 2005, Youth & ICT Awards 2005 and Local Content Awards 2005.

The 2005 awards ceremony was a key highlight of a series of activities and events organised by the GKP parallel to the WSIS-05, which witnessed over 56 head of governments and 145 countries in attendance.

The collaborative awards programme of GKP provides international recognition to successful and innovative ICT4D initiatives from around the world while spurring the champions of the initiatives to continue to strive for excellence on the ground in using ICT to address community needs in a locally relevant way.

Executive Director of GKP Ms. Rinalia Abdul Rahim said that the programme also serves as a mechanism for gathering success stories from around the world on ICT4D initiatives, as GKP recognises that there are substantial benefits to be gained from sharing the lessons learned from the stories.

“The stories gathered via the awards programme are snapshots of the learning process that accompanies the introduction and implementation of ICT in a community development project. The GKP is also developing a database of ICT4D funding opportunities, training opportunities, and is also working on building the capacity of project champions through peer knowledge-exchange, and skills training workshops,” she said.

Mr. Shanmugavelan also noted that in defining the selection criteria, “Panos was particularly looking for journalism that builds understanding of the importance of communication for development; and that stimulates awareness of the impact of national and global communication policies on development.”

Other category winners included Ms. Audrey Codera from Philippines, for her “Community-based youth entrepreneurship programme”; South African Jean-Paul Bauer for his “Operation Fikelela (Operation Access) – fighting poverty through access to ICT education”; Kenyan Mark Okowa for his “Development ofan ICT centre for the youth, to build their capacity in information technology, fight HIV/AIDS and poverty”; as well as Malaysian Raj Ridvan Singh for “Providing education and life skills to poor school dropouts especially girls from rural areas”; Salah Uddin Ahmed from Bangladesh whose “Xayan IT” is enabling ICT skill development and employment creation for youth in Bangladesh”; and Wu Yang, China, for his “Household wastewater recycling management” initiative.

NIG’s third annual convention gets dates

A two-day national convention and the annual general meeting (AGM) of the Nigeria Internet Group (NIG), has been slated to hold at the Pearl Hall, Golden Gate Paradise Ikoyi Lagos, this week Friday and Saturday.

NIG is a non-profit, non-governmental organisation promoting internet access and awareness in the country.

NIG President, Dr. Emmanuel Ekuwem said that the theme of this year’s convention and AGM is “Youth restiveness: ICT to the rescue” and a paper entitled as such would be delivered by him while the goodwill message would come from the chairman, board of trustees of the group and former Minister of Communications, Chief Olawale Ige.

He also said that there would be two sessions per day, namely morning and afternoon with sub-themes including ‘Youth Empowerment in the digital revolution, becoming employable using Information and Communications Technology (ICT), Job opportunities in ICT- Starting with N15,000 capital, tele-education, tele-training for point-of-need skills acquisition, a click to hope and wealth and ICT for food security and poverty alleviation.

Other sub-themes consist of “Enabling infrastructure, ePayment, human capacity development, legal and regulatory framework, security, Internet content development, .ng ccTLD and Internet Governance".

On the second day of the convention, he said, that youth empowerment using ICT as tool which is sponsored Zenith International Limited would take place at the morning session while the annual general meeting AGM to follow soon after.

At the AGM, Dr. Ekuwem, who also is the chief executive of Teledom Group informed that there would be NIG’s presidential annual report, financial report by the audit, update of .ng ccTLD, in addition to election of the new executive for 2005-2007, and composition of new board of trustees as well as any other business (AOB).

For those interested in vying for NIG’s top four offices, namely president, vice president, publicity secretary and treasurer, he advised that they should pick their nomination forms which are available at NIG’s new secretariat in Ikeja, Lagos.

Over 300 entries for NISSCOM-05

As the deadline for this year’s Nigerian Students Software Competition (NISSCOM-05) ended Wednesday, November 30, over 300 participants have entered for the contest.

Organised by the Nigerian Association of Computer Science Students (NACOSS) with support from the SystemSpecs Limited, a software house based in Lagos.

NACOSS is the umbrella body of all students in universities, polytechnic and colleges of education nationwide, studying computer and other information technology related courses with regional local chapters operational in member institutions in all the six geo-political zones of the country.

The body also serves as the students wing of NCS, comprised of the Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria (ISON), Nigerian IT Professionals in the Americas (NITPA), Information Technology Association of Nigeria (ITAN) and Internet Service Providers Association of Nigeria (ISPAN).

National Secretary General of NACOSS, Mr. Olugboji Tolulope, in a statement made available to Champion Infotel, said that no less than 300 entries have already been received on the online portal designed for the entries at http://www.nisscom.net.

He said that this year’s edition is enjoying massive support from Africa’s leading Human Resource (HR) software company, SystemSpecs.

The NACOSS scribe also said that over 64 tertiary institutions received the posters for the competition to ensure that every student in the country is given an opportunity to participate.

Also speaking, NACOSS President, Mr. Olusegun Olutayo, said that plans have been geared towards making the national convention of the student body come next February, a success.

According to him, the convention coinciding with NACOSS’ annual general meeting and 10th anniversary, would be held at the Oduduwa hall, Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile-Ife.

The convention, he said, has NUPITEN: New paradigms for Information Technology Education in Nigeria, as theme, underscores the major curriculum review drive that the body has consolidated upon at the inception of his tenure.

He said, leading industry players, are expected to attend the event both from private and public sector, while hightlight of the convention would include networking opportunities with colleagues in diaspora and career fair showcasing of HR departments of leading IT companies, awards and announcement of the finals of the NISSCOM 2005 result.

Fantsuam Foundation banks on shared access

Executive director; Kafanchan based Fantsuam Foundation, Dr John Dada, has said that in order to survive the high cost of having access to bandwidth, his organisation has embraced shared access formula.

He said shared access has become a cultural norm in bridging the hard biting digital divide mostly in the rural areas of Africa and Fantsuam Foundation in northern Nigeria is banking on it to reduce cost of access.

Dr. Dada made this disclosure while responding to questions, at the on going
workshop on “Achieving affordable bandwidth,” and said that though the
foundation pays estimated 1,800 United States Dollars monthly on Very Small
Aperture Terminal (VSAT) access.

Speaking to newsmen recently, Dr. Dada who just returned from a three day workshop held in Saly, Senegal, said, it has become relevant to share access with other local organisations to empower the villagers and at the same time contributing in closing the gap between the advanced countries and bringing the rural communities closer to the cities in respect of technology usage.

“We are strategically located in Kafanchan,” he said.

Stressing that the reason the foundation was set up in a rural area was to be closer to the people which stimulates how the organisation intervenes by contribution to the development of the community.

He also said that disposal income varies according to communities.

“A community that has road access (what quality?), electricity, telephone, hosts
a post office, a secondary school and health clinic is richer than one that does
not have these. Graded pricing of services, pay what is affordable, and subsidize the balance via community leaders and understanding,” he declared.

Dr Dada also said that the current service in use at the foundation is being managed by Emperion, VSAT service provider.

This, he said, was after trying other products like Bgan and Arabian telecom.

Glo mobile opens shops @ Lagos, Kwara

Glo Mobile in its avowed expansion programme, this week began a tripod opening of Glo World shops in Lagos and Kwara States.

Beneficiaries of this tripod shops includes the Lagos State University (LASU), Ojo, Lekki and Ilorin.

The three centers with Glo state-of-the-art facilities would help make Glo’s world class services available to residents and business men and women in these areas and provide a one-stop shop for accessing Globacom range of offerings.

Globacom officials informed that the ceremonies commenced Wednesday, December 7, with the opening of the Glo World in LASU.

This, the firm said, would be followed by that of Lekki on Thursday, the 8th, with Ilorin opening ceremony taking place on Tuesday, the 13th of December 2005.

The Vice Chancellor of LASU Professor Latif Hussein is expected to be the chief host and special guest of honour at the LASU event, while the Elegushi of Ikate Land, would be the special guest at the Lekki phase.

Deputy Governor of Kwara State, Chief Joel Ogundeji is slated to be the special guest at the Ilorin wing of the ceremony.

In retaliation, Glo Mobile has said that its offering Classic 405, which sells for N405 at N355, while Classic 805 which sells for N805 will be sold at N725 on the day of the event and for the next nine days at this communities.

The N405 and N805 lines have N500 and N1000 free airtime respectively, free Short Messaging Service (SMS) and other features of a regular classic.

Each of the programmes would be preceded by a road show announcing the arrival of Glo World in the neighbourhood.

Meanwhile, Glo Mobile would also this week begin the presentation of the different brands of exotic cars which subscribers of the network have been winning since the inception of the Double Slam promotion in August.

Already, 24 out of the 36 cars in the promotion have been won by subscribers in all the geo-political zones in the country.

Eight cars have been won in Lagos, four in Port Harcourt zone, four in Enugu zone, four in Kano zone and four in Abuja zone.

In all, 12 cars are still up for grabs in the five zones, and according to the company schedule, two more cars would be drawn and four previous winners presented with their prizes in Port Harcourt.

Expert canvasses for T1 backbone

Telecommunications expert and chief manager, International Planning and Development at the Ghana Telecom, Mr. Richard Kojo Gyawu, has canvassed for a T1 backbone for the Economic Community for West African (ECOWAS) sub-region.

Mr. Gyawu, who spoke to Champion Infotel recently said that this would drive down the cost of telecommunications and especially the Internet access.

T1 backbone, also known as Digital Signal (DS1) is a T-carrier signaling scheme devised by Bell Labs. It is a widely used standard in telecommunications to transmit voice and data between devices.

A DS1 circuit is made up of about twenty-four eight-bit channels otherwise known as timeslots and DS0’s, each channel being a 64 kilo bits (kbs DS0 multiplexed pseudo-circuit).

He pointed out that the lack of T1 backbone in the region has continuously inflated the cost of bandwidth and its accessibility, especially in driving Internet access beyond the cities as presently observed.

According to him, when one is on the Internet, and is getting information through surfing, what happens is that every Internet Service Provider in the country has got its own central server and these servers are connected to a bigger network backbone own by British Telecom, AT &T among others.

“And that is where the major problem is because they actually carry the real information. In West Africa we don’t have any of these companies having one of the big servers,” he lamented.

He cited for instance that if an ISP in Ghana can assess Ghana bigger server which has got a bigger pipe “it means that ISP operator does not have only one operator to deal with like Ghana telcom, NITEL and all he has to pay for is the distance between where he is located and that of the server within the same country”.

Noting that usually a very small distance with small amount of money for interconnection would bring the cost of access extremely low.

The current situation, he said, is that if one has to go to the United States (US) where it is linked; ISPs have to go through the SAT 3 and SAT 3 goes up to Portugal from where operators buy another capacity to go to the US, all these have to be added to what the incumbent or telecom has to charge such an operator.

He emphasised that then this brings it to ISP operator who is also seen as a consumer and has to take into consideration the operational cost which includes the one the telco has charged such an operator and the one he got to pay for his server among other things.

“If you look at the cost analysis; there are lots of things causing it and we need to sit down and eliminate all these things to bring the impeding cost of current ISP operators down,” he said.

For him, when this is done, then the ISP operators could review the cost downwards, “that would solve the entire problem”.