LG opens 10-day exhibition @ Galleria

Global technology leader in home appliance convergence on Saturday opened its 10-day product exhibition at the Silverbird Galleria, Victoria Island in Lagos, just as it commenced the firm’s this year health-oriented home appliances campaign in the country.

Speaking at the occasion, Managing Director of leading LG distributor in the country, Fouani Nigeria Limited, Mr. Mohammed Fouani, said that the campaign would afford LG customers to have an insight into the product lines so as to better cater for their well-being.

He also said that an estimated 500 customers would benefit from the campaign through raffle tickets, especially by those who visit the exhibition stands to enable them attend a show of their choice at the Silverbird Galleria.

“We will also be rewarding our customers with 500 raffle tickets to be won by visitors at the stand during the exhibition,” he declared.

He therefore urged LG customers to ensure they take advantage of this offer to visit the 10-day exhibition at the Galleria.

Also speaking, General Manager, Digital Appliance division at LG Electronics for West Africa, Mr. D.K. Son, noted that the company recently pioneered a study called LG-Synovate, which established that health was one of the biggest concerns of customers and that technology could be of help in prevention of the problems including respiratory, skin and nutrition-related diseases.

He pointed out that majority of the study respondents, concurred that they could adopt to new technologies that would dramatically improve hygiene in their environments and reduce illness resulting from unhealthy surroundings.

The study, he said, also revealed that homes and offices were the primary breeding grounds for respiratory and infectious diseases, even as regular serving of air-conditioners and maintenance of vacuum cleaners could equally improve air quality in offices and homes.

Therefore, in response to these findings, LG Electronics has launched its healthcare products to meet these challenges.

“All of these appliances have one thing in common – health friendly features that distinguishes them from similar conventional products,” he asserted, adding that products on display would include air conditioners, microwave ovens, washing machines, refrigerators, and vacuum cleaners among others from the stable of LG.

Throwing more light on the brand’s health concern, Events Officer at LG, Mr. Ajibola Akomolafe, said that LG Neo Plasma Plus air conditioners, not only cool, but also equipped with a 12-level bio enzyme filter that enhances purification and sterilisation facility.

“The Green Ion Door cooling refrigerator has been equipped with ‘Green Catechin deodorizer,’ which filters out moisture, bacteria and odour thereby preserving food and making them fresher and long lasting,” he said.

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BTE makes a debut

Image and Publics Communications Limited (IPCL) has introduced a cutting edge media network known as Business Technology Edge (BTE).

Executive Producer at BTE, Ms Iyabo Oladeji, informed that the company tends to lead in technology business information provision.

She noted that the network started broadcasting in the West African Sub-Region from Accra, the Ghanian capital on Ghana Television (GTV) and TV3.

BTE, she said, also delivers timely, incisive and informative news and reports on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and business developments from around the continent with a bias for corporate West Africa using MiTV and DSTV 156 as a launch pad.

“The network consist of a quarterly print version biz-tech magazine, BTE TV, BTE Radio programme, and a popular web portal www.btenews.com which is constantly updated to report business technology news as they break,” she said, in addition to public relations and perception management division.

The TV and radio programmes by BTE, she said, are aimed at promoting knowledge diffusion on business and technology in Africa with a view to achieving a level of interconnection that enables countries in West Africa sub-region create partnerships that build the region.

“Business and Technology Edge will provide companies with the opportunity to showcase their new products and explain the advantages of their brands,” she said.

BTE TV, according to her, currently airs on DSTV Channel 156, Mitv Lagos, 8.30 am every Saturday.

This is in addition to T3 Accra, and GTV Ghana, even as it would soon be on African Independent Television (AIT), Galaxy, GOTEL and Silverbird TV.

“It is a 30 minute morning programme that provides current news, interviews of special guests, and special reports on products and happenings in ICT businesses,” she declared.

Ms Oladeji pointed out that the BTE Radio broadcast is already running on major networks across the sub-region in West Africa including Ghana: Joy FM Accra, Nigeria: Star FM, Lagos, Ray power, Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Jos, Kaduna, Edo and Yenagoa.

While most of its programme would be anchored by well-trained professionals Pamela Okoro and Lawson Ovih.

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India increases ITU support by 50%

India, at the weekend doubled its financial contribution to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) from five ‘contributory units’ to ten, amounting to CHF 3.18 million per annum.

Secretary, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Government of India, Mr D.S. Mathur, who disclosed this at the end of ITU Council meeting in Geneva, said his country is fully supporting the mission of ITU to connect the world and, in particular, to develop online resources and strengthen cyber security.

“The Global Cyber security Agenda launched by ITU this year is a significant step in ensuring confidence and security in the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ITC) around the world,” he said.

Mr Mathur added that India would continue to back ITU not only financially but with human resources as well.

“India is at the forefront of ICT development in the world owing largely to its wealth of human capacity, which is based on our top-class educational system,” the Secretary noted, stressing that India would use its growing global presence in this sector to promote ITU’s work in reaching the benefits of ICT to all inhabitants of the world.

This, he said, is an endorsement of ITU global initiatives and expressed confidence in ITU’s management even as the launch of new global initiatives, including the series to ‘Connect the World’ was commended.

ICT, he pointed out is the driver of economic growth and employment around the world and the catalyst for improved services such as health care and education.

In his response, Secretary-General, ITU, Dr Hamadoun Touré, while welcomed India’s increased contribution, said it was a reflection of the spectacular growth of telecommunications in the country.

“I thank the government of India for the increased financial contribution that will support ITU’s commitment to connect people everywhere, especially in remote and underserved regions. By doing so, we will be able to accelerate the process of meeting the broader development goals,” he said.

Dr Touré also said that a Marshall Plan for ICT is needed if the 2015 deadline for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is to met.

He therefore called on other countries of the world to emulate India in increasing support for ITU.

“India’s increased financial support must be emulated by other Member States and stakeholders who have made commitments to connect the world in the Millennium Declaration and at the World Summit on the Information Society,” Dr Touré said.

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Carrier Ethernet goes on trial @ Deutsche Telekom

Acclaimed global enabler of communications services, the Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN), and Deutsche Telekom, at the weekend announced the commencement of the field trial on the Carrier Ethernet to optimise the optical transport networks.

The trial which is running on the new connection-oriented standard “Provider Bridging Backbone – Traffic Engineering” (PBB-TE) is to exhibit how Carrier Ethernet transport in conjunction with an optical Wavelength-Division Multiplexing (WDM) network could be cost-effective alternative to Internet Protocol (IP) router-based implementations.

EIBONE project manager at NSN, Achim Autenrieth, pointed out that with PBB-TE, Ethernet could now be used as the transport network technology in metro, regional and long-haul networks. Ethernet services, the manager said, are transported directly on a layer 2 transport network instead of via IP edge routers.

Autenrieth also said that based on Carrier Ethernet switches in conjunction with flexible optical WDM networks, this optimization offers not only greater scalability, but also considerable cost advantages when it comes to capital spending and power consumption.

“We presented our first demonstrator with PBB-TE a few months ago. Now we can showcase the first field trial in Deutsche Telekom’s network. That shows how important the topic is for us and that Nokia Siemens Networks is playing a pioneering role in Carrier Ethernet transport,” the project manager said.

NSN claims service provision of a well-balanced product portfolio of mobile and fixed network infrastructure solutions and addresses that has been growing in demand for services with 20,000 service professionals worldwide.

NSN headquartered in Espoo, Finland s is one of the largest telecommunications infrastructure companies with operations in 150 countries.

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Developing rural telephony through PPP

Features of the week:

The need to boost rural telephony in the country through public-private partnership (PPP) has become imperative, writes REMMY NWEKE.

Introduction

OVER the years, Nigeria is known as the top black concentration on the continent, with over 140 million population, according to the 2006 population census. This goes to strengthen the declaration by some concerned experts that over 75 per cent Nigerians currently reside in the rural communities.

Apparently at this era of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) no worthy state will declare an experiential growth without first advancing well-being of her citizenry.

Undoubtedly, the advent of Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) in 2001, spurred rural inclusion in the development of Nigeria as a country. So, it was not surprising that six years down the lane, most of the leading GSM operators, namely the MTN Nigeria Communications Limited, Celtel Nigeria Limited and Globacom Limited are already thinking rural and have claims of extending their services to these communities.

Hence, there is need to examine what stakeholders described as Public-Private Partnership (PPP) in developing rural telephony with focus on Nigeria.

Efforts by the government:

Prior to the new government of Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, it was a dream of the erstwhile president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo to increase telecommunications access and precisely on telephony with an estimated 636,256 lines across the three zones of the National Rural Telephony Programme (NRTP) roadmap before May 29, 2007 when he handed over leadership to his successor.

Although Obasanjo’s dream for rural telephony was not realised, but based on the project and relative facts before him in 2004, his administration was encouraged to take a grant from the Chinese government to the tune of $200 million (about N25,462,000,000.00).

Equally, Nigeria was expected to achieve rural penetration in 36 states of the federation including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja, according to the director of NRTP at the Federal Ministry of Communications (MoC), Mr. S.S. Ahmed.

He noted that the second phase of the project, which began last quarter of 2006, was expanded with the addition of Messrs Huawei Technologies, noting that during the first phase, two-Chinese telcos were adopted into the project being executed by only Chinese firms, namely ZTE Corporation, and ASB Fixed.

The director emphasised that zone one made up of Kano, Kaduna, Bauchi, Yobe, Gombe, Borno, Katsina, Zamfara, Sokoto, Kebbi, Jigawa and Plateau, would be managed by ZTE. While zone two, comprised of Lagos, Oyo, Osun, Ogun, Ondo, Ekiti, Kwara, Niger, Kogi, Edo, Delta and Bayelsa states, to be administered by ASB Fixed. Just as Huawei is handling zone three through linking Enugu, Abia, Imo, Anambra, Ebonyi, Rivers, Akwa-Ibom, Cross-River, Benue, Taraba, Adamawa and Nassarawa states into the project.

He explained that by deploying Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) the contractors; ZTE would deliver about 200,000, ASB fixed, 236, 256 and Huawei 200,000 lines respectively.

The government too via the industry regulator, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), introduced the State Accelerated Broadband Initiative (SABI) to further drive ICT penetration within the 36 states of Nigeria, even as the Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF) has been established with Mrs Lolia Emakpore on the steering.

Notwithstanding the initial efforts in 2001 which saw to absconding of a British firm, Rural Radio System (RRS) after collecting over 80 per cent of its contract price worth, $3.2 million (about N4.2 billion) to supply radio to the NRTP in 125 Local Government Areas (LGAs) out of the 740 nationwide, coupled with over payment of $.6 million.

Efforts by telcos:

Since launch in August 2001, MTN Nigeria, for instance, claims to have steadily deployed services across Nigeria and precisely in 223 cities and towns, more than 10,000 villages and communities and a growing number of highways across the country, spanning the 36 states of the country and FCT.

According to Corporate Service Executive, MTN Nigeria, Mrs. Amina Oyagbola, “Many of these villages and communities are being connected to the world of telecommunications for the first time ever.”

She recalled that MTN’s digital microwave transmission backbone, measuring 3,400 kilometre also known as Y’elloBahn, was unveiled by former President Obasanjo in January 2003.

For Celtel Nigeria, a company that prides itself as pan-African with operations spanning over 14 countries, its aggressive network rollout has advanced the desire towards ‘Making life better’ as it claims coverage in over 600 towns and 8,000 communities across the six geo-political zones of the country.

Also, Celtel Nigeria, last May introduced GSM payphones called Jembi Public Calling Office (PCO), expected to create over 60,000 jobs especially in the rural areas.

Public Relations Manager at Celtel Nigeria, Mr. Emmanuel Otokhine, informed that Jembi is an exciting brand promise-inspired product that leverages Celtel’s proposition to her subscribers, declaring, “It’s another tangible experience of Celtel customer centric brand.” He added that one major objectives of introducing Jembi was to improve rural telephony countrywide and give a boost to the economy. Pointing out that Jembi, is a complete business tool, offering the user several services including voice calls, Short Messaging Service (SMS) and Value Added Service (VAS) in either pre-paid or post-paid mode.

“It also has unique security features, flexible record keeping attributes, ability to connect with printers and scanners and a high capacity internal battery which provides over seven hours talk-time. The battery can be recharged easily,” he said.

He further said that Jembi payphone comes in plastic frame body with built-in billing functionality, dual power mode which means it could work with battery or electricity, durable keypad and display features, secured and simple to use with Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) and network lock features among others.

On the other hand, Globacom since launching on August 29, 2003, claims a revolutionary change into the nation’s GSM sector, even as it had in the first year of operation, grown GSM network to a record of over one million subscribers and covering in excess of 87 towns within nine months.

The subscriber figure at the moment stands at over 12 million with coverage extending to over 40,000 cities, towns, communities and major roads, thus making the company the second largest operator in Nigeria, even as it eyes extension into the West African sub-region as it is concluding negotiations with two neighbouring countries.

NCC connection:

This is coming as the Executive Vice Chairman (EVC), NCC, Dr. Ernest Ndukwe recently tasked the Organised Private Sector (OPS) within the telecommunications industry to be proactive on proffering solution that would boost the rural ICT penetration in the country.

Dr. Ndukwe who presided the occasion told participants at this year’s telecom stakeholders forum on the theme: Telecom Franchise & Virtual Operation: Accelerating Service Provisioning in Rural Nigeria,” in Lagos, that it is no longer debatable if the nation’s rural areas are yearning for telecommunications services, but how to cover them should be top on the OPS list of items.

The forum was organised by the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) in collaboration with NCC and Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF).

While recognising the fact that many rural communities are yet uncovered despite the efforts by telcos, he assured them of the commissions support.

“It’s worthy to note that many rural areas are still uncovered,” he said, stressing that his commission is working hard to ensure that the universal access to all parts of Nigeria is achieved within a short period, just as he reminded stakeholders that coverage in this instance means providing voice and data through broadband solution.

According to him, forum like this should not have more than two government agencies making presentations, but rather, OPS should use that as an opportunity to inform the government and its agencies of their expectations in moving the country and the industry forward by proffering solutions, mostly on the theme.

Actualising rural telephony via OPS

“Government does not have the intention to compete with the OPS in achieving this goal of accelerating ICT in rural areas,” he asserted, assuring that both State Accelerated Broadband Initiative (SABI) and USPF were established to readily work with the OPS to actualise this goal.

He used the opportunity to disclose that USPF would soon publish its plan for the extension of access to rural Nigeria, which must be from button-up structure.

Dr. Ndukwe therefore invited ICT companies to avail themselves the opportunity being displayed by USPF through ensuring that they submit proposals when the plan is published.

Also, the special guest of honour, former Minister of Science and Technology, Prof. Turner Isoun, counselled participants to reach out to rural communities in the country through establishing presence in all the council areas.

Represented by Director of Technology Acquisition and Assessment in the ministry, Dr. Umaru Bindir, Prof. Isoun equally noted that about 70 per cent of the population, which is in the rural areas are yet to have various access as far as telecommunications is concerned.

He advised participants at the forum to ensure that they channel their desire to develop rural communities in the country by engaging other industry groups rather than the major operators, emphasising that this way, they would be attracting interests from other industries into telecommunications sector.

“I want to see industry groups talking to groups of people outside this sector such as farmers so that they would know where fertiliser is and at the most affordable prices,” he said.

And for the ATCON president, Dr. Emmanuel Ekuwem, the desire may be there to involve the rural communities in the country in telecommunications evolutions, but there are questions begging for answers to motivate the step.

These, he said, include how many of the telcos are ready to deploy services to these underserved communities, waive their profits by seeing rural telephony as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) among others.

Conclusion:

The viability of this partnership between government and the private sector should be emulated and no doubt, has brought lots of energy in telecom penetration into the hinter-lands as of today, Nigerians could travel from East to West and North to the South without switching off their phones because of lack of network access, except for very interior areas.

As matter of fact, in Nigeria where the market is now are the rural communities, as the minor and big networks battle the major cities like Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt.

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OOXML: CSOs allege corrupt tendencies

INFORMATION and Communication Technologies (ICT)-based African Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) have alleged that corrupt tendencies influenced the voting of developing countries, at the recently ended exercise to ratify the Ecma Office Open Extensible Markup Language (OOXML) in Geneva, Switzerland, especially from developing economies.

XML is a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) initiative that allows information and services to be encoded with meaningful structure and semantics, which computers and humans could understand. XML is great for information exchange, and could easily be extended to include user-specified and industry-specified tags.

It would be recalled that on Sunday, September 2, 2007, member countries of the International Standards Organisation (ISO) voted for the initial draft of OOXML seeking endorsement of the international body, including Nigeria, just as CSOs also alleged that the OOXML has over 200 flaws.

The proposal led in campaign by software giant, Microsoft Corporation alongside over 20 others, claimed that over 2000 partners representing 67 countries on six continents gave green lights for the ratification of OOXML by ISO.

However, at the voting proper, the required 66 per cent criteria was not met as the proponents got 53 per cent, while those against recorded about 26 per cent, even as 23.5 per cent abstained.

According to reports, ISO received a total of 87 votes, of which 70 was given either by the Secretariat country (USA), participating members (“P Member”) or observers (“O Member”) and at various stages of the voting only these 70 votes were taken into consideration.

Reacting to the voting pattern, some members of CSOs from Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire and Nigeria agreed that corrupt tendencies must have influenced the exercise, mostly from developing countries on the continent and beyond.

They argued that about 17 countries, which took part in the exercise were perceived to be relatively corrupted, according to the Corruption Perceptions Index 2006 (CPI index).

“… Mostly supported the OOXML, with approval given by 13, approval with comments 2, abstention 0, disapproval 2,” a senior member of African CSOs informed.

The 2006 CPI index was a research by Prof. J. Graf Lambsdorff of the University of Passau and commissioned by Transparency International.

CSOs further stated that of the most corrupted half (CPI index less than 3.95) 23 or 77 per cent voted for approval, approval or approval with comments) and 7 or 23 per cent for disapproval; 5 abstained.

They emphasised that of the least corrupted half in the CPI index, which is more than 3.95, that is, 13 or 54 per cent voted for approval of OOXML and 11 or 46 voted for disapproval, while 11 abstained.

Some of the critics with hindsight blamed the software giant of aggressive lobbying for a backlash of the voting at the draft OOXML, even as out of the 87 countries that participated, only 69 voted yes or no; 18 of those, or 26 per cent of the total, opposed the bid.

Under the voting rules, no more than 25 per cent of countries could oppose the bid.

The work to standardise Open XML is being carried out by a technical committee of Ecma International, which includes representatives from Apple, Barclays Capital, BP, British Library, Essilor, Intel, Microsoft, NextPage, Novell, Statoil, Toshiba and the United States Library of Congress, among others.

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Still on fraudulent emails

Market intelligence:

A fraudulent electronic mail was making yet another round inviting Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) to United States (U.S.) for a summit on development.

Concerned Internet experts noted that several erroneous steps have showed that those behind the fraud are simply gold-diggers wanting to reap people of their hard earned money through payment for event or summit that does not exist and would never held.

The first of such wrong steps by these gold diggers was the caption for the call for participation, which read, “Invitation Participation to first International NGOs & CBOs Summits on development/JACOBSON.”

Expert sources faulted this, saying that Jacobson, a renowned family enterprise in the United States would not make call for participation and the same time trying to stress emphasis on the name – JACOBSON.

The second wrong note for the perpetrators, expert said was that the address for remittance for the summit participation fees was given as in Togo, West Africa, a link that does not have any connotation to JACOBSON in the United States.

Additional wrong note for the perpetrators was the fact that the invitation was not ‘professionally’ scripted to international standard, hence it began with the abridged brief on Jacobson companies, which was founded in 1968.

However, the original call for participation from these fraudsters dated August 2, 2007, stated the event was to hold from September 10-14, and 24 through 28 both in United Kingdom.

Part of letter read: “Dear Colleagues, The present notification has been previously sent to your office through postal mail transmission and through electronic mail transmission but since our Office did not receive any confirmation from you, we send it to you anew.”

And for the finances, the fraudsters invited those interested to send their Western Union to:

Mr Franck JOHNSON, The Africa Bureau- J.I.D.F, 125 Blvd de la Paix, Tel. (+228) 942 7896, Kara-TOGO – West Africa, By Email at: franckjohnson.togo@mail.org.

Noteworthy here is that the likes of InterPol and Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in the West African region should join forces to ensure that such people as this are brought to book, especially when there are glaring links to the perpetrators such as the email used and telephone numbers that are traceable.

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David Mark to preside @ AfriTECC-07

The Senate President, Dr. David Mark has been slated to preside and lead the federal government’s delegation to the two-day African Information Technology, Computers and Courier (AfriTeCC-07) conference.

The conference which holds September 25 and 26, 2007, in Lagos and being organised by ITWorld International Magazine, would also feature keynote presentations from eminent personalities including Information and Communications Minister, Mr. John Odey, Executive Vice Chairman (EVC), Nigerian Communications Commission, Dr Ernest Ndukwe, Postmaster General, Mori Ibrahim Baba and industry captains comprising of the Managing Director, Celtel Nigeria, Mr. Bayo Ligali; Dr Idika Ochaa of Digital Bridge Institute, Abuja and the Executive Vice Chairman, Dr Emmanuel Ekuwem, Teledom International Group.

According to the organisers, the Managing Director, Ericsson Nigeria, Mr. Leif Edwall; Chief Marketing Officer, MTN Nigeria; Mr. Bola Akingbade; Managing Director, Motorola Nigeria, Mr. Ralph Udeogu; Managing Director, DHL Regional Services Ltd, Olusha Pearce; Ralph Ozoude, Country Manager, UPS and Managing Director, Tradeways Express, Larry Chinekezi, are being expected to grace the event.

The list of panel discussants for courier include the Assistant Post-Master General, in-charge of Courier Regulatory Department, Dr Simon Emeje; B.P Ruwase, Executive Director, Panalpina International; Toyin Olufade, CEO, Swift Courier and Larry Chinekezi. Panel discussion on telecoms include: Uchenna Obidike, CEO, Weco Systems Group; Chima Onyekwere, CEO, Linkserve Nigeria; Ralph Udeogu of Motorola and Gbenga Adebayo, Consultant to MTN on VGC Communications integrations.

Proudly sponsored by Ericsson Nigeria, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST), Celtel Nigeria, MTN Nigeria Communications, Bourdex Telecom, Weco Systems, Teledom International, Linkserve Nigeria, Reltel Wireless and Motorola Nigeria, the confab has been described as Africa’s definitive event aimed at exploring the latest business, technology and service opportunities for enhanced revenue generation in telecoms, postal, computers, courier and Internet.

Highlights of the event would include the opening ceremony, keynote sessions, strategic presentations and technical sessions expected to offer new insights and practical experiences on: Critical factors for successful 3G launch in Nigeria; strategies for increased revenue generation with 3G; balancing the base station bottom line in 3G networks.

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NITTA-07 calls for entries

The organisers of the annual Nigerian Information Technology and Telecom Awards (NITTA) have called for submission of entries for the year 2007.

The awards which is in its sixth year, has proved itself as a means of sensitising the Nigerian and African markets, just as plans have been advanced for it to take place on November 16, this years.

The event scheduled to take place at the Musical Society of Nigeria (MUSON) Centre, Onikan Lagos, would also be an avenue to celebrate the nation’s six years of Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM).

According to the organisers, the event is coming as the government through the activities of the regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission is shifting attention into the much neglected rural areas of the country and accelerated focus in broadband Internet connectivity as a way of reducing cost of doing business, generally.

Chairman, NITTA Board of Trustees, Dr. Tom Adaba, while announcing the date for this year’s event, disclosed that it would form a platform to celebrate the gains and successes of the past as well as the future prospects in the ICT industry.

As said by him, this year’s event would bring the various stakeholders in the industry and related sectors together in what promises to be an evening of sweet memories.

“Planning of this year’s awards which commenced late last year, has reached advanced stage,” he declared.

Dr. Adaba also said more than ever before the board is proud of developments in the nation’s ICT sector.

“Indeed, awareness is vital in telling the history of this revolution appropriately. NITTA 2007 therefore will build on the successes of the last one year and consolidate as well as applaud the actors and operators in the sector who have contributed immensely through their products and services including professional skills,” he said, stressing that by so doing, the board believed that they will be encouraged to do better and in the long run, Nigeria will be the better for it.

Dr. Adaba said that there was need to encourage ICT operators to work for the benefit of the populace as this would lead to increased competition, better quality of service delivery, innovation in products and services, enterprise and increased investment in the sector.

He emphasised that the country is entering a new phase in its ICT infrastructure development with more companies joining the race and network operators upgrading their capacity and recent mergers and acquisitions, among other innovations.

Dr. Adaba urged stakeholders to gear up to be evaluated through the awards programme since it would not only facilitate ICT growth in the country, but would also enhance competition, which is good for the sector and the country.

Champion Infotel recalls that IT & Telecom Digest instituted NITTA in 2002 and, ever since, the programme has yearly attracted the support and participation of the leading ICT organisations within and outside Nigeria, while the massive participation of the Federal Ministry of Communications, Federal Ministry of Science and Technology, NCC and the National Information Technology Development Agency, among other government agencies, has never been lacking.

Equally, various state governments including Lagos, Ogun and Akwa Ibom have shown a consistent presence at the event, just as this year promises to attract even more state chief executives.

Speaking on his company’s plan for NITTA 2007, Editor-in-Chief of IT & Telecom Digest magazine, Mr. Mkpe Abang said as a standard practice with NITTA, there would be competitive categories to be advertised for corporate bodies and individuals to make entries and/or nominations as the case may be and this will be announced in a broader perspective.

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WWTBAM: MTN, Ultima lift group B with N1m

MTN Nigeria Communications and Ultima Communications have lifted the group B participants at its sponsored popular TV show, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire (WWTBAM), with the group going home with N1,000,000, at a special session in Lagos.

Champion Infotel recalls that MTN’s involvement in the programme brought success and stability to the Millionaire show, thus making it the biggest TV show in the country, while Ultima holds the ace as the programme promoters.

The session anchored by Mr. Frank Edoho, saw two of four members each, contesting for the N1 million through correct responses to current affairs and random questions, which eventually was won by group B led by Mr. Kelechi Okorie.

Speaking at the event, chief executive, Ultima Communications, Mr. Femi Ayeni, said that apart from the opportunity to win life-changing money, the Millionaire Tv show is more of education than entertainment, structured around promoting technologies.

Mr. Ayeni said he was thrilled by the participation, and the vision to promote a programme that is helping to build knowledge in the society.

Whereas the group team B got a cheque of N250,000 each, their counterparts in group A were rewarded with the sum of N50,000 each.

Mr. Ayeni further explained that the Millionaire show is not about being knowledgeable in a particular subject but having general knowledge on nearly every issue under the sun.

Later a total of 40 winners were chosen to benefit from the N20,000 audience largesse from the sponsors.

In his remark the Master Brand, MTN Nigeria, Mr. Kola Oyeyemi, promised that like its robust brand, MTN was ready to ensure the show remain a robust statement as it enters a new season.

MTN, he said, has invested up to N10m since the programme began, especially since home play was introduced for viewers and the live audience could also now take something home, adding that more goodies are in the line up.

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