ICT, a strategic resource –Ofulue

A professor of Information Technology (IT), Prof Joseph Ofulue has said that Information and Communications Technology (ICT), if properly harnessed, is a strategic resource that could position the nation well ahead for Vision 2020-20, reports CHARLES OKOH.

Prof Ofulue, who spoke to ITRealms Online in Lagos, weekend, called for an urgent integration of both the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) to accelerate rapid applications.

“We must also realise that communications and information technology is a strategic resource and its possession can contribute immensely to economic leadership, poverty alleviation and prosperity acceleration. We immediately need an urgent integrated communications and information technology infrastructure,” he declared.

Ofulue said to prepare for the challenges of the new information economy management action should be taken to accelerate the transformation to the new information economy by introducing communications and information system studies in the curriculum of management development programmes and in higher institutions of learning.

He said telecommunications network companies should be encouraged to continue to expand their systems that are vital to the information infrastructure by complete deregulation of the sector.

Prof. Ofulue said the private sector should fully participate in this sector by manufacturing information technology-based devices and systems to reduce the nation’s present total dependence on imported equipment.

“Strategic long term management must be emphasised and government must shift from qualitative management to quantitative management models and processes in all her programmes and plans,” he said stressing that Vision 2020 should go beyond a dream of accomplishing financial targets or milestones into technology and human capital development mission.

Ofulue who was a former General Manager (Operations), NITEL noted that Vision 202020 must be proactively implemented so that it does not die like others before it.

He also proffered that as a short term measure there is need for immediate review of Nigeria telecommunication and IT policies in view of technology convergence; through all stakeholders consultative forum; implementation of an integrated National Information Communications Infrastructure (NICI project).

“The challenge for us in Nigeria is to shift our focus from merely reacting, consuming products to the task of developing institutional policies and regulatory strategies which will create the conducive environment for its nurturing and full utilization.”

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WiMAXForum’10 gets date in Lagos

Telecom Answers Associates (TAA) has announced the date for its inaugural edition of the Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) forum in Lagos.

Chief executive officer, Telecom Answers Associates, Mr. Titi Omo-Ettu, disclosed this in Lagos, last weekend, saying that they have declared June 15 and 16 as WiMAX dates for the country.

He also said that WiMAX Forum 2010, is being hosted in partnership with the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and a number of industry players.

The forum, Omo-Ettu noted represents a rallying call to both the telecom industry players and consumers for further cooperation to share the responsibilities and rewards of enterprise so that future potential of further development, sustenance and informed investment in emerging technologies could be realized.

As said by him, the forum would be building on the success of the Co-location Forum 2009, organized by Telecom Answers Associates, but this time, a two-day event.

This, he said, would serve the industry with a befitting compendium of industry players, resources and prospects in the Nigerian market.

“It will also include a guided exhibition of world class, true relevant technologies and solutions,” he declared.

WiMAX, according the global forum on technology, is a wireless digital communications system, also known as IEEE 802.16, which is, intended for wireless Metropolitan Area Networks (MAN).

Equally, WiMAX has the ability to provide Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) up to 30 miles or 50 kilometres (km) for fixed stations, and three to 10 miles, an equivalent of between five and 15 km for mobile stations.

In contrast, the Wireless Fidelity (WiFi) 802.11 wireless local area network standard is limited in most cases to only 100 - 300 feet (30 - 100m).

Experts said that with WiMAX, WiFi-like data rates are easily supported, but the issue of interference is very much lessened, even as WiMAX operates on both licensed and non-licensed frequencies; providing a regulated environment and viable economic model for wireless carriers.

Thus, WiMAX could be used for wireless networking in much the same way as the more common WiFi protocol. WiMAX is a second-generation protocol that allows for more efficient bandwidth use, interference avoidance, and is intended to allow higher data rates over longer distances.


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Aviat Networks repositions

Global microwave leader, Aviat Networks Incorporated, has pledged the commitment to providing advanced Internet Protocol (IP) wireless network solutions and to continue making progress in radio access networks by supporting the evolution of wireless technology in developing telecommunication markets especially in Nigeria.

A press release by Newswire Nigeria, quoted officials of the company as saying that the rebranding of the company, Aviat Networks Incorporated, which hitherto was known as Harris Stratex Networks represents a culmination of the company’s transformation.

Also, the officials said, from that of a specialized microwave backhaul equipment supplier into a world-class provider of advanced IP wireless network solutions, energy and security system solutions, 4G broadband access and core solutions and comprehensive Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) to IP product migration lifecycle services.

The President, Aviat Networks, Mr. Harald Braun was also quoted as saying that the recent unveiling of Aviat Networks, marks a significant milestone in the evolution of the company.

“The Aviat brand embodies our commitment to quality and innovative products, highly individualized services, operational excellence and industry leadership,” he said.

Also, he noted that markets around the world, advancements in wireless network capacity have often been constrained because carriers are grappling with operational network limitations and cost-related challenges that have not been sufficiently addressed by telecom equipment vendors.

“Instead of ‘handshake’ assurances that do little to mitigate the perceived risk of IP migration, operators need practical and innovative solutions that help them bridge seamlessly from the legacy network of today to the network that will fuel their success in the future,” he said.

Mr. Braun said broadband is increasingly regarded as an essential utility for economic growth and social and political stability, fueled by new business models and government incentive programs, operators are deploying and expanding into the rural and underdeveloped areas of Africa, Asia, Middle East, and the Americas.

Further, Braun said it is not without challenges given significant differences in the local government, economy, demographics, terrain and existing network infrastructure, including limited spectrum availability, stressing that building networks in these environments takes skill, understanding and experience, as well as working closely by the side of our customers all the way.

“From fixed networks to broadband mobility, from TDM to all Ethernet/IP, from public to private, from planning to managed services, from the core to the edge – Aviat Networks is and intends to continue to help operators create, expand and manage the best networks for their markets and their bottom lines,” he asserted.

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Zain rewards 16 on TV quiz show

A second batch of 16 winners were last week reward by leading mobile operator, Zain, in the on-going Home Viewers Game segment of the popular quiz show, Zain Africa challenge.

At a prize presentation held last week at the Corporate Headquarters of Zain Nigeria in Banana Island , Ikoyi, Lagos , sixteen winners were presented with prizes including Nokia N97 phones bundled with Zain SIM packs.

The winners emerged after providing correct answers to questions asked during the broadcast of the show. Responses were sent via SMS (Short Message Service) to the short code: 35056. Questions on the Home Viewers’ Game segment are usually embedded in corresponding episodes with clear instructions on mechanics for participation.

The second batch winners include Seun Oredibe, Mary Ogiban, Emmanuel Odum, Adebayo Adeosun, Bode Akindele, Mrs. Nnabuife, Oluwatosin Zannu and Charles Obiechefu.

Others are Ebiye Mac-Braah, Maimuna Onyejemezi, Abdusalam Mohammed, Mrs. Princewill,
Darlington Ezenwa, Dubem Nnabuife, Mrs. Gidado and Osuala George.

The Home Viewers Game segment is a feedback platform created to allow viewers test their intellectual aptitude during the quiz contest, also affording them an opportunity to win fantastic prizes such as high end phones, Internet data card and airtime.

Speaking at the event, several winners commended Zain Nigeria for rewarding them with fantastic prizes and for creating a unique platform to allow viewers partake in the exciting academic game show.

The fourth season of the Zain Africa Challenge is televised every Monday on STV by 8pm; Wednesdays on NTA by 8:30 pm and Thursdays on AIT by 7:30 pm. The contest is also broadcast across the whole of Africa on the DSTV satellite platform on Magic World on Monday at 7:30 pm; on Africa Magic Plus on Tuesdays at 9:20 am and 6:20 pm, and Wednesdays at 12:30am.

Zain Africa Challenge is part of Zain’s efforts to promote education and emphasize Zain’s corporate commitment to creating ‘A wonderful world’” for its customers. The questions in the fast-paced quiz cover a wide range of topics, including history, science, African culture, geography, literature, music and current affairs.

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Why Glo re-launched website – Adenuga

The Group Executive Director, Globacom, Mr. Paddy Adenuga has explained why the Second National Operator (SNO), last weekend re-launched its website, www.gloworld.com, saying the objective was to make it more customer friendly and interactive.

Speaking in Lagos, Adenuga noted that apart from having more trendy features and visual appeal, the redesigned site is much easier to browse and offers more interactive platforms to customers and visitors.

He said the upgrading of the website would be implemented in phases and would be concluded by third quarter of this year.

Adenuga also said that the decision to upgrade the site was in line with the SNO’s commitment to continuously explore ways to offer more value to subscribers.

He stressed that the objective of the upgrade, was to grow an interactive and viral content hub which would cater to the needs of all potential customers and visitors.

“We hope to increase the awareness of the Glo brand, grow and sustain our client base through the website,” he affirmed.

He said Globacom has put in place a state-of-the-art hosting platform for its site to ensure availability and up-time, resulting in a highly responsive and fast website experience for all traffic.

“The new site offers an exciting browsing experience. It has been redesigned in such a way that it is fast and easy to surf. Our customers can do a whole lot more on the site and have fun while doing that. There are many great and amazing features waiting at the click of the mouse when they visit the site,” Mr. Adenuga explained.

The new gloworld.com site enables customers to compare the products and services on offer and choose the right package for their needs.

According to him, customers on the network could also easily find out about the latest Glo promotions, events and sponsorships, get enhanced access to the Customer Care Department, obtain information about job vacancies and also follow Glo events and shows on Facebook. Glo is the only GSM provider with a Facebook fan page in Nigeria which can be accessed from the Glo website or through Facebook directly.

The website has personalized and interactive features with online campaign and email services to stay in touch with our customers.

The Group Executive Director added that subscribers can also get their favourite Glo ambassadors’ pictures, profiles and biographies from the new site.

In the first phase of the project, the site offers, amongst other features, multimedia downloads through YouTube, interaction with the Glo brand on Facebook, contact email for all Gloworld shops, easy self-help tips and customer enquiry forms.

Phase two of the upgrade, which will be concluded by the 2nd quarter of the year, will enable the site to offer airtime sales, Online Customer Support via live chat (one to one), country and language selector and WAP.

The final phase to be concluded by the third quarter will offer Consumer Relationship Marketing (CRM) implementation, e-commerce portal and online billing and bills payment option.

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Oracle delivers best-in-class single node result

Oracle announced that Oracle Web Logic has been described as a representative of best-in-class, single-node resulting on the platform’s ability for best performance per processor of any result ever published.

ITRealms Online recalls that Oracle Web Logic is a component of Oracle Fusion Middleware, together with Oracle Database 11g Release 2 and Oracle Enterprise Linux, running on a Cisco Unified Computing System C250 M2 Extended Memory Rack-Mount Server with two, six-core Intel Xeon X5680 3.33 GHz processors achieved 5,185.45 SPECjAppServer2004 JOPS Standard (jAppServer Operations Per Second).

Affirming this, the senior vice president, Systems Technology, Oracle, Juan Loaiza, said that this achievement adds to Oracle WebLogic Server’s current SPECj AppServer2004 benchmark records including world record results in multi-node; dual-node; and single-node, categories; the highest performance ever achieved running a clustered database, and the highest performance.

The Java application servers, the expert said, were running on a Cisco Unified Computing System C250 M2 Extended Memory Rack-Mount Server with two, six-core Intel Xeon X5680 3.33 GHz processors.

Oracle Database 11g Release 2 was running on an identical hardware configuration. Both application servers and database servers were running Oracle Enterprise Linux.

According to Loaiza, for over eight years, Oracle has submitted record-setting application server benchmarks on a broad range of hardware and software platforms.

Oracle is the performance and price cum performance leader in multiple SPECj AppServer 2001(7) and SPECjAppServer2002(8) benchmark categories and also holds the world records for best performance and price/performance in the Ecperf (9) benchmark of J2EE application servers reported in July 2002.

SPECjAppServer2004 is a multi-tier benchmark for measuring the performance of a representative J2EE application and each of the components that make up the application environment, including hardware, application server software, JVM software, database software, JDBC drivers and the system network.

“Oracle WebLogic Server has a track record of delivering stellar benchamark results, providing proof that it is the application server of choice when applications and services need outstanding performance,” said Juan Loaiza, senior vice president, Systems Technology, Oracle.

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Okonyia applauds Glo on Beacon of ICT awards

•Wins in 3 categories

Chairman, CommunicationsWeek Media, Mr. Bob Okonyia, has applauded the Second National Operator (SNO), Globacom for its emergence in three categories, at the 2010 Beacon of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) awards, which held in Lagos, recently, reports CHARLES OKOH.

ITRealms Online recalls that Globacom was named the Best GSM Company of the Year, Telecom Operator of the Year and Gateway Provider of the Year.

Okonyia who presides over the organizers of the award and publishers of CommunicationsWeek, said Globacom emerged tops in these categories in an online poll conducted from November last year to March 15, 2010, in which over 215,000 respondents participated.

He explained that voters chose Glo Mobile as the GSM Company of the Year because of its revolutionary role in the industry, noting that the company had continued to ensure that Nigerians benefitted from technological advances by pioneering such innovative products as Blackberry.

For the Telecom Operator of the Year Award, Okonyia noted that Globacom had made great progress in realizing its vision of becoming the biggest and best telecom network in Africa with its success in Benin Republic, imminent rollout in Ghana and winning of a license in Cote d’Ivoire.

Additionally, he said that Globacom had distinguished itself by giving back to society through its life-changing promotions and sponsorships. He also observed that the launch of Glo Broad Access last year was a landmark achievement for Globacom.

In voting Globacom Gateway Provider of the Year, respondents took into account the emergence of Glo Gateway as a major player in international voice and data carrier services as well as the landing last year of Glo 1 international submarine cable in Lagos and Accra.

Glo, he pointed out, is the first company in the world to embark upon such a project single-handedly, noting that the cable would ensure availability of bandwidth at very affordable price in West Africa.

As said by him, the Beacon of ICT Awards was instituted to reward the vision and enterprise of individuals and companies that have contributed to the growth of the ICT industry.

Equally, he said, CommunicationsWeek’s objectives for the awards were to evaluate and recognize standards of excellence in the country’s quest for growth and development in the use of ICT, stressing that it would encourage public and private institutions to use ICT for development in general and improve citizens services in particular, to motivate other stakeholders in effective utilization of ICT for citizens services and to ensure that professionals are provided a benchmark for recognition and validating outstanding contributions.

Among those who attended the event were the immediate past Executive Vice Chairman, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Dr. Ernest Ndukwe, Director General of the National Broadcasting Commission, Mr. Yomi Bolarinwa, and former Communications Minister, Air Vice Marshal Canice Umenwaniri (rtd), who won the Father of Modern Nigeria Telecom, the ICT Man of the Year and the Lifetime Achievement Award, respectively.

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DCC achieves Cisco silver partnership

Lagos-based communication subsidiary of the Computer Warehouse Group (CWG), the DCC Networks, has attained a new status within Cisco partnership scheme.

Disclosing this recently, Cisco Channel certification unit, said DCC Networks has satisfied all it takes to be Cisco silver certified partner in Anglophone West Africa.

This, Cisco said was in recognition of DCC Network’s strength in support, personnel, specialization and customer satisfaction, the Cisco team explained that DCC “has demonstrated that it is qualified to sell, install and support Cisco Solutions in
West English Africa,” a press statement made available to Champion Infotech by head, Corporate Communications at CWG, Mr. Chidi Okpala read.

According to him, this certification places DCC Networks and CWG LTD as a group leading providers of Cisco solutions in the country and West African region.

The Deputy General Manager, DCC Networks, Mr. Oladipo Raji, noted that his team provides support for Cisco solutions and manage across the financial sector, oil & gas and manufacturing sectors in Lagos and CWG’s regional offices which include Port-Harcourt, Abuja and Ghana.

While commend staff of DCC, Raji pointed out that they were the people who actually made the attainment a reality.

“I must place on record that you people are a unique set of incredible human beings on the face of the earth found only in DCC,” he said.

Computer Warehouse Group Ltd prides herself as a company that provides world class solutions.

Equally commenting, the Group Managing Director, Mr. Austin Okere, applauded both the team and its leadership for this feat, just as he encouraged them not to rest on their oars, but, continue to improve the services they provide to customers and prepare to attain Gold partnership with Cisco.

DCC Networks a few years ago, was awarded by Cisco with the second tier partner of the year award in emerging markets in Africa as the company recorded then the highest Cisco sales in emerging Africa.


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Alvarion appoints Winston Smith, MD

Leading provider of Forth Generation (4G) WiMAX and wireless broadband solutions, Alvarion has appointed Mr. Winston Smith to head its South African office, which covers the entire continent of Africa.

Mr. Smith, officials said, takes over from Rick Rogers as the managing director of Alvarion South Africa in April, 2010.

Smith, an ICT veteran, has been in the employ of Internet service provider, MWEB, for the last three years, where he most recently served as the manager, Wireless Deployment & Operations.

Prior to that, Smith had worked at Sentech for over three years, Infosat Communications for a year, and Telkom for 15 years.

Speaking on his latest appointment, Smith said, “Alvarion is one of the top three wireless broadband access manufacturers worldwide and, as a WiMAX player, has managed to increase its market share during a period of global economic turbulence.”

According to him, as an operator, hitherto, has long been a customer of Alvarion and has had the opportunity to test and deploy a number of products within the Alvarion portfolio.

As a familiar customer impressed with experiences, Smith noted that when the offer of country manager was made to him, “he didn’t hesitate to accept the challenge.”

Smith equally indicated that his goals are to succeed in opening new markets for Alvarion in the SADC region and Nigeria, and helping it gain a stronger foothold in its existing customer base.

“I hope to ensure that the channels to market are not only successful in marketing the Alvarion product, but that they excited about working with the brand. Naturally, I also intend to grow Alvarion’s market share; and to enjoy myself in the process,” he adds.

WiMAX in South Africa is really at its infancy and with 10 per cent Internet penetration in South Africa, and a mere 3 per cent of that being broadband, according to research firm World Wide Worid’s Internet Access in South Africa 2010 study, this offers an opportunity for very rapid growth, especially with the recent deployment of the Seacom undersea cable and its associated reduction in bandwidth costs, maintains Smith.

“Alvarion has an excellent team in its South African office, which is the reason why the company has maintained its position as the choice WiMAX and wireless broadband access vendor in the SADC region. I am confident that, as a team, together with Alvarion’s strong local partners, we will be able to assist operators and enterprises in SADC to maximise the benefits that wireless broadband can provide them,” he said.

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Prof Abubakar resumes, promises to spur R and D

The new Minister of Science and Technology, Prof. Mohammed A. Abubakar has assumed office last weekend in Abuja with a promise to spur development of science in the country.

Chief Press Secretary to the Ministry, Mr. Tai Shobajo, confirmed this to Champion Infotech, saying that the Minister came to the Ministry of Science and Technology shortly after he was sworn in at Aso Villa, promised to work diligently to ensure rapid promotion and development of Science and Technology in Nigeria.

Shobajo quoted Prof. Abubakar as enjoining all the directors in the ministry to ensure that all hands must be on deck to move science sector forward.

“We have to start thinking of how to move science sector forward, he said.”

Prof. Abubakar who is a former Vice Chancellor of Kebbi State University insisted that science must be seen as a veritable factor of production that would be felt by the generality of Nigerians.

According to him, his presence in the Ministry is to add value and improve on Research and Development (R&D) results on ground as an expert in science.

In her welcome remark, the Permanent Secretary, Mrs. Fatima Binta Bamidele, assured the Minister of necessary support and pledged her loyalty and commitment towards the success of the Ministry.

Prof. Abubakar succeeds Dr. Alhassan Bako.

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