Expect Egyptian magic in Nigeria – Etisalat

The fifth Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) operator, Etisalat Nigeria Limited, has sounded a note of warning to competitors as its warming up to replicate what the telco magically did in Egyptian operation by achieving over five million subscribers in one year.

Giving this assurance, Chief executive of Etisalat Nigeria, Mr. Saoud Al Shamsi, told newsmen at the just concluded 2008 ITU Telecom Africa held at the Cairo International Convention Centre, Cairo, Egypt, this has been a key reason for not being in a haste to roll out commercially.

These efforts, he said, were to sustain that kind of overwhelming subscriber-base as achieved in Egypt, accompanied with the quality of service, which Etisalat is known for throughout its operation in the Middle East and Africa (MEA).

“It is because of that kind of services and quality that we have managed to do that and we do not think that our performance and accomplishment in Nigeria will be anything less,” Al Shamsi said.

He explained that in Egypt, Etisalat launched with both Second Generation (2G) and Third Generation (3G) technologies respectively and even later advanced to 3.75 G with telecom presence in most of the cities.

“Our presence and track record in Egypt is just a demonstration of our track record in quality of service. We have 2G and 3G licenses in Egypt and it tells you the kind of services that we are offering,” Al Shamsi declared.

He pointed out that although Etisalat has not began commercial operation in Nigeria, the telco has been working on the continent for a long time.

Etisalat International, he said, is the company’s business unit that operates outside the United Arab Emirate (UAE) and manages Etisalat ventures in telecommunications carriers in Afghanistan, Benin, Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic, Ivory Coast, Egypt, Gabon, Niger, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo and Pakistan among others.

“You have been to our stand and come across innovative services and ideas that we are looking forward to providing in Nigeria. Our participation in ITU Telecom Africa is to get the people better educated about our values and operations in addition to the valued services that we are offering,” he said.

Etisalat Nigeria, he said, is currently troubleshooting all the quality issues that could arise.

“We’re putting and rolling out the network in various cities of Nigeria so that we have greater coverage and we have better reach to the various ends of Nigeria,” he asserted.

Al Shamsi urged Nigerians to expect Etisalat services eventually at every end of the nation’s geographic representation and that is what the telco is presently concentrating on.

“We do not want to be motivated by early profit and launch prematurely and then face the quality of service issues. We are trying to manage all of these problems before we give the Nigerian consumer exposure to ourselves,” he said.

Stressing that with a better quality of service, which his firm is aiming at and aspires to operate in Nigeria, would be accompanied by deployment of the latest technologies that would offer the latest services with affordability and quality of service to customers.

“This is the strategy that we are utilising in every of our operation and that’s why we gained five million subscribers in 12 months operation in Egypt,” he said.

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QoS: MTN to reward subscribers

IN compliance with the recent directive by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), instructing some telecommunications operators to reward customers for substandard services, which also was a subject of litigation, MTN Nigeria Communications Limited, has concluded plans to reward the affected subscribers, reports CHARLES OKOH.

MTN said beneficiaries would be those who have remained active in its network as at January 31st, 2008 to the tune of a minimum N175.00 free airtime credit beginning from May 28, 2008.

Chief Executive Office of the telco, Mr. Ahmad Farroukh, in press statement made available to Champion Infotel, said the reward is in appreciation of the loyalty, understanding and patronage by its customers.

According to Mr. Farroukh, “in consultation with the NCC we shall be disbursing the airtime credit over a period of six weeks with effect from 29th of May, 2008,” adding that notwithstanding the differences early had with the NCC over the directive, MTN recognizes that loyal and dear customers who have faithfully stayed on its network through both easy and difficult times deserved to be rewarded.

“We are extending the reward at a time when we are confident that the network can accommodate the expected upsurge in network utilization that would result from the reward airtime credit,” Farroukh said.

The CEO also outlined actions already taken in the last nine months to expand its network capacity to enable it deliver a quality of service that will meet and exceed the expectation of all its subscribers.

Some of these he said, are installation of 23 new base stations controllers; upgrade of 2,200 base stations across the country; raising its switches and base stations to 63 and 444 respectively.

Others are, installation of 18,218 additional trans-receiver units making a total of 56,348; up grade of Home Location Registers (HLRs) to provide capacity for additional 14 million subscribers across the network among others.

It will be recalled that during a working visit by the Senate Committee in charge of communications led by Senator Sylvester Anyanwu, recently, the CEO had promised that efforts were on to further improve the telcos services by June, 2008.

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ATCON, GABI join forces against corruption in telecom

THE Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) in conjunction with Global Academy Bloc International would play host to the first Global Economic and Financial Crimes Control and Eradication Conference (GEFCEC) telecommunications stakeholders’ conference on corruption from June 10-12, 2008 at the Muson Centre, Lagos, reports CHARLES OKOH.

The three-day conference tagged Corruption Management in the Nigerian Telecommunication Sector, according to the organisers is aimed at forming a bloc of leadership interested in learning the contemporary methods to control and eventually eradicate “Economic and Financial Crimes” especially in the developing nation of the world.

A press statement made available to Champion Infotel, said the conference is for the management of all telecommunications companies in the country, two key heads of information technology (IT) departments of all banks, IT heads of departments of micro-finance banks; departments of all insurance companies; information relations officers and IT heads of all government parastatals.

Others are commissioners of information in all the 36 states and Abuja, Nigerian Communications Commission; Independent Corruption Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

According to the statement, some of the guest lecturers are, Senator Ken Nnamani, former Senate President, who would be speaking on “Legislation and Policy Implementation as key factors to eradicating corruption, Chairman of ICPC who would be speaking on “The corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act 2000 and its effect on Corruption Control while the Executive Vice Chairman, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Dr. Ernest Ndukwe would dwell on “The Positive role of regulation in the global Information Communication Technology (ICT) environment’ just as Transparency International, World Bank and International Telecom Union are expected also to send representatives to the conference.

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Galaxy Plc gets ministerial applause

0For taking part in the just concluded 2008 edition of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)-organised Telecom Africa which held in Egypt, Galaxy Backbone Plc has received a ministerial applause.

This applause was proclaimed during the event held at the Cairo International Convention Centre, Cairo, Egypt by the Minister of Information and Communication, Mr. John Odey who visited Galaxy stand at the Nigerian exhibition area.

ITRealms Online recalled that Galaxy Backbone Plc participated in the 2008 edition, which took part between May 11 and 15, this year as strategic partner of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Nigeria pavilion.

The presence of Galaxy Backbone at the continental event, Mr. Odey said, underscores the determination of the company’s leadership to appreciate Federal Government’s assurances to achieving its Vision 2020; a programme of collective multi-sectoral economic growth designed to position Nigeria among the league of 20 most robust and vibrant economies in the world by year 2020.

According to him, by leveraging innovative developments in ICTs for the socio-economic development of the country, this vision could be achieved.

Earlier, while welcoming the minister to the stand, accompanied by the Executive Vice-Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) Dr. Ernest Ndukwe, and officials of the Nigerian Embassy in Egypt, the Managing Director of Galaxy Backbone Plc, Mr. Gerald Ilukwe noted that the continental event provided the firm an opportunity for Galaxy Backbone Plc to showcase its value proposition as an agent of change.

He also told the ministerial team that with the increasing pace of development of ICTs on the continent, Galaxy Backbone is ready to play a pivotal role in delivery of the ICT benefits for the imperatives of efficient governance and the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that would enable digital inclusion of underserved communities and hard-to-reach areas of the country.

Ilukwe used the opportunity to explained to the concept of Galaxy Backbone’s 1-Gov.net to the Minister, saying that as a common government–wide platform for the provision of network and other transversal services for the Federal Government through the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), as well as the reality of its NICEP Network which is a nation-wide network infrastructure platform for the delivery of e-education, e-health, e-agriculture and e-government solutions.

Also, Galaxy Backbone utilized the ITU forum as a platform for networking and securing partnerships with key ICTs personalities and institutions that attended the event.

Also, ITRealms Online recalls that Galaxy Backbone Plc is a public enterprise of the Federal Government that was established to provide a common platform for the provision of network connectivity and transversal services to the public sector.

GBB Plc also has the further objective of delivering connectivity and digital access that will enable relevant solutions to governance and other underserved communities and locations in Nigeria, whereas its currently deploying core infrastructure – satellite, terrestrial networks and data centre infrastructure to support connectivity and other IP services delivery.

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Finacle 10, nextgen banking solution

Management of Infosys Technologies has said that its recently unveiled Finacle 10 is the next generation solution for banking transformation, just as the firm has invested new funding to the tune of $60 million (about N7,062,000,000).

ITRealms Online recalls that Nigeria’s Computer Warehouse Group (CWG) is the sole marketer and implementer of Finacle countrywide and in English speaking West Africa.

Also of note is that currently leading financial institutions including First Bank Plc, UBA Plc, First Inland Bank Plc, Oceanic bank Plc, Spring Bank Plc, FCMB Plc, Fidelity Bank Plc and Kakawa discount house all run on Finacle.

While announcing the launch of Finacle version 10, recently the management of Infosys Technologies said the step was to reinforce its global leadership in banking transformation.

A press statement from CWG Nigeria endorsed by the Marketing and Corporate Communications Manager, Ms Morenike Popoola stated that the latest version is a highly sophisticated and advanced system that has been built with an investment of over 240,000 personnel.

She explained that this new version of Finacle would enable banks to transform their multi-country operations through a standard platform and processes.

“A set of over 5000 parameters and an enhanced scripting studio will deliver rapid product innovation,” she said, adding that the new version brings with it a whole new set of offerings including Islamic banking, wealth management; and an enhanced mobile banking solution.

Popoola also quoted a member of the board, Infosys Technologies Ltd, T.V. MohanDas Pai, as saying that the firm is strongly focused on banking and financial services , hence it has continued to make relevant investments in Finacle.

“Finacle is core to our growth strategy. We have invested over $60m in the last three years to build a state-of-the-art banking solution. Finacle Universal Banking Solution, integrated with Infosys services like SI, Consulting and BPO will offer global banks a truly differentiated transformation model,” Pai said.

The board member added that with Finacle version 10, Infosys is poised to address the key challenges of banking transformation. A technically strong solution with SOA, BPEL-enabled workflow and advanced security and compliance framework delivers significant improvement in productivity and greater readiness to manage security and regulatory challenges.

Business Head, Finacle, Haragopal M. noted that Finacle version 10 with its powerful multi-country infrastructure and transformational capabilities delivers increased productivity, rapid innovation and a comprehensive set of offerings to meet diverse customer demands. “Seven Tier-1 and Tier-2 banks around the world have already reposed their trust on Finacle, version 10 to power their domestic and international operations,” Haragopal said.

Noting that as a leader in banking transformation, Finacle has a global footprint across 60 countries and has been acknowledged by top analysts including Gartner, Forrester and Celent among the leaders in the core banking solution space.

“Finacle is also the winner of a series of awards for its innovation and implementation capabilities, the most notable ones being The Banker Technology Award and The Asian Banker IT Implementation Award,” asserted Haragopal.

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Steps to observe packet spoofing by ISPs (9)

The local machine, with IP address 12.13.14.15, reported transmitting a total of five RST packets to the remote machine at 4.8.16.32 (packet nos. 2340, 2342, 2346, 2350, and 2354), while it reported receiving 13 such packets from 4.8.16.32 (packet nos. 2338, 2339, 2343, 2344, 2347, 2348, 2351, 2352, 2355, 2356, 2357, 2358, and 2359).

The remote machine, with IP address 4.8.16.32, reported transmitting only a single RST packet (packet no. 2560) while it believes it received 17 RST packets from 12.13.14.15 (2549, 2550, 2551, 2552, 2553, 2554, 2555, 2556, 2557, 2558, 2561, 2562, 2563, 2564, 2565, 2566, 2567).

Evidently, many of the RST packets received by each machine did not actually originate from the other. 11 The result of these RST packets in this case was that the BitTorrent session stopped and did not resume for around four and a half minutes.

(A new TCP session is established with the characteristic SYN and SYN/ACK packets at local capture packet nos. 2446 and 2447, which correspond to the remote capture’s packet nos. 2578 and 2579.)

Wireshark provides the ability to view not only a packet summary list like the lists displayed above but also the sequence of bytes that comprise each individual packet, as well as a dissector view, which shows what the packet’s contents actually mean from the point of view of various Internet protocol layers.

A careful examination of this evidence could involve a byte-for-byte, packet-for-packet comparison to determine exactly which packets were spoofed. If one is performing such a comparison, it is important to appreciate that Wireshark captures more than just the IP packets that get transmitted over the Internet; each IP packet is typically captured wrapped inside a link-layer header (often referred to as an Ethernet frame header or Ethernet packet header on an Ethernet-style network, including a wired Ethernet or WiFi network).

Link-layer headers are used to communicate between computers on the same local Ethernet network and are discarded and regenerated whenever a packet is forwarded through any router. Thus, there is no reason to expect link-layer headers to correspond between two packet traces unless those packet traces were captured on the same physical local-area network. When manually performing a detailed packet comparison, packets should be considered “the same” if the Internet Protocol headers and payload match up; the link-layer headers can simply be ignored because they were never forwarded over the Internet.

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HiTV lauds copyrights commission

Terrestrial satellite entertainment operator, HiTV, has lauded the Nigeria Copyrights Commissions (NCC) for being steadfast in raiding of illegal entities tapping other people’s works without authorisation.

Noteworthy is that recently NCC raided some satellite television cable network in Onitsha and Port Harcourt, and seized offensive contrivances as decoders, smart cards of other service providers, just as it arrested nine employees of the company.

This, NCC said it was acting in accordance with the Strategic Action Against Piracy (STRAP).

Commenting on the development, chief executive of HiTV, Mr. Toyin Subair noted that the prevalence of piracy has become frightening as the scourge has crept from music and videos to virtually all sectors of the economy, including the internet, technology, manufacturing, media and films, pharmacy, medicine, fashion, arts and publishing.

He also tasked the Commission not to relent in the anti-piracy war, as protection of intellectual property is central to any creative endeavour, without which substantial amounts of money are lost, besides the fact that investment and research are adversely affected.

Champion Infotel recalls that last year HITV joined the anti piracy war with the donation of a Toyota Hiace bus to the regulatory agency for its operations in Owerri.

Head, Operations at HiTV, Mr. Benjamin Zida, said at the occasion that the company recognized “the fact that NCC is incapacitated in its activities and we know that one of such incapacities is the ability to move from one point to another.”

He added that it’s just something to ensure that the job they are doing moves on as fast as possible, mostly at responding to complaint and immediately dealt with.

Responding after receiving the bus on behalf of NCC, manager, Owerri Zonal office of NCC, Mr Chris Nkwocha, who represented the Director General admonished other stakeholders to join the quest for copyright protection.

“We expect more from other corporate bodies. If we must fight this pirates to a standstill we need cooperative and collaborative effort from establishments. So we expect them to borrow a leaf what you (HiTV) have just done,” he said.

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‘Transcorp still committed to revive NITEL’

Transnational Corporation of Nigeria Plc (Transcorp) has reiterated commitment to revitalise the Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (NITEL) and its mobile unit, the Mobile Telecommunications Limited (MTEL), despite indications that the telco is at the crossroads, reports CHIOMA CHUKA.

According to the telco, NITEL is still profitable.

An impeccable source, who pleaded anonymity, disclosed on Monday that Transcorp might have felt disappointed with the financial irregularities discovered in NITEL recently; it is working out modalities to ensure the loopholes are blocked and that such occurrences do not repeat itself in the future.

Transcorp had, fortnight ago, alleged that its team of accountants which had been examining financial records of NITEL, discovered what it referred to as a major fraud. The team, according to Transcorp, had identified a huge leak in the billing system of NITEL through which revenue generation was unaccounted for.

As a result of this, Transcorp threatened to suspend further investments in NITEL until corrective steps were taken to block leakages in the financial system of the first national telephone network operator.

However, the source disclosed, Transcorp is committed to its plans for NITEL and MTEL; adding that the management is currently reviewing its blueprint meant for revival of the subsidiaries. ‘Transcorp still believes NITEL has enormous potential to return to the path of profitability.

Despite the challenges, Transcorp has a huge potential to pay huge returns to shareholders,’ he said.

Reacting to the position of the National Union of Postal and Telecommunications Employees (NUPTE) on the issue, the source said the body only needed to gain access to the various steps Transcorp is taking to address the pending issues.

NUPTE is calling on the Federal Government to take over the management of NITEL due to what it called incapability in managing the crisis in the first national carrier.

The source however was not satisfied with the NUPTE’s judgement of the prevailing crisis, asking whether the government would give thumps up for the financial

irregularities just discovered in NITEL. Instead of pointing accusing fingers at Transcorp, the source advised the union to sanction any of its members involved in the alleged fraud, even if it would pitch another tent with the conglomerate.

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UNESCO opens call for ICTs in education prize

United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), has announced the call for nominations in its Information and Communication Technology (ICTs) in Education Prize.

Known as the “Digital Opportunities for All: Preparing Students for 21st-Century Skills” as this year’s theme for the UNESCO King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa Prize for the Use of ICTs in Education, is funded by the Kingdom of Bahrain.

The US$50,000 prize is divided between two winners, even as every year, this prize rewards activities that demonstrate best practice as well as creative use of ICTs to enhance learning, teaching and overall educational performance.

Submissions for candidature must reach UNESCO via the governments of member states, in consultation with their UNESCO National Commissions, or by international non-governmental organizations, which maintain formal relations with the organization.

The organisers also said the deadline for submissions is 31 August 2008, just as winners will be celebrated at an award ceremony on 14 January 2009 at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris.

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MWeb introduces Remote iWay Gateway

Leading Internet Service Provider (ISPs) in the country, Mweb Nigeria, has introduced to its subscribers its Remote iWay Internet Gateway (RiIG).

Marketing Manager, Mweb Nigeria, Mrs. Muyiwa Esomojumi informed in a press statement made available to Champion Infotel that the Remote iWay Internet Gateway (RiIG) is a number of software modules precisely servers, serving different purposes bundled together in an operating system to form one gateway.

Each of the modules, he said, have been carefully researched and implemented to serve a different purpose, stressing that RiIG has content management feature that gives users more flexibility and freedom in managing and controlling their volume usage locally.

“It also allows the subscriber to remove unwanted content and increase privacy on their network,” she said.

Additionally, she said, that RiIG amongst other things could improve Internet link performance by assuring efficient link utilization, reduced processor load on indoor unit (DW), reduces HTTP Internet usage by approximately 25 per cent, users pop mail from the RiIG thus saving on link bandwidth, to assure quality internet services, as well as network security which helps to protect customers’ networks from malicious external attacks, to manage Internet content (HTTP), that is, it could be used to mange user’s internet content the way such customer prefers and gives the power to manage domain’s email confidently.

Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) Manager at MWEB Nigeria, Mr. Dotun Faseru pointed out that the core features of the RiIG to the subscribers are numerous as it helps with their content management, anti virus and anti spam tool.

All this, he said, have been introduced to automatically update every six hours over the Internet.

“It is integrated with the mail server, Safe Squid Proxy and Cache Server which is a robust content filtering internet proxy server with transparent caching which enhances security of your Local Area Network (LAN) by ensuring that only trusted sites are connected to the proxy,” he said.

This, he noted would increase privacy and makes surfing a more pleasant experience by blocking pop ups and advertisements, defining users limits to allow Internet access by time, bandwidth, and maximum file size downloadable and Blocking of unwanted websites (URL’s).’

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