Glo apologoses over disruption of service, blames fire outbreak

Following disruption of telecommunications across most of the mobile networks in the country, Globacom has attributed its part to fire incident in one of its key installations in Lagos.

Even as Glo apologized for the disruption that has been witnessed massively in the last 48 hours on the network.

The Globacom management in a press statement made available to ITRealms Online, said it wish to inform the general public that due to the fire incident which occurred at one of "our key installations in Lagos on Thursday night, there has been a temporary disruption in services."

Glo assured that all efforts are being made to quickly restore normal services.

"Inconvenience this might have caused our valued customers is hereby regretted," part of the statement read.

Also Globacom expressed appreciation for the continuous support for the network by Nigerians.

"We thank you all for your understading and support" Glo said.

Remmy Nweke
ITREALMS Online ... delivering news for ICT4D

Glo, Starcomms top list of Gmail supported SMS

Out of the eight mobile operators currently supporting Google Mail (Gmail) Short Messaging Service (SMS) across the continent, only two Nigerian operators are involved.

This is coming as more and more Nigerian are scrambling to get Gmail account due to its increasingly multiple platform access, including chat, SMS, buzz and talk and blog among others.

Google SMS option enables Gmail account owner to send SMS from his or her email to any relative’s mobile phone, which can only be delivered on those mobile network operators supporting the service.

ITRealms Online investigation revealed that in Nigeria, only Glo and Starcomms have enabled this service on their networks, thus supporting SMS that originate from their Gmail accounts to mobiles.

Interestingly, Google Mail SMS offers 50 free SMS to any subscriber on the supporting mobile networks free of charge. Any SMS received in return cancels the SMS earlier sent.

Replying to SMS messages, officials noted that “when you receive an SMS message from a Gmail contact, add the incoming number to your phone’s address book (this number is associated with the sender’s Gmail account, so you can use it to send Chat messages to that person in the future). Then, you can reply to the message as you would any other text message, and your reply appears as a Chat message in your friend’s Gmail account.”

Further investigations showed that a total of eight mobile operators support mobile operators for SMS chat in Gmail across Africa.

In the nearby Ghana, Airtel, Tigo and MTN are involved in supporting Gmail SMS, while in Kenya subscribers of Safaricom and Orange are bound to enjoy this service; whereas in Senegal, Orange and Tigo are involved as well as MTN and Airtel in Zambia.

Additionally, this Gmail SMS chat is available for subscribers of Israeli telecom mobile operator, Pelephone and Orange, just as in the Palestinian Territories, the operators of Jawwal and Wataniya Mobile are involved in delivering this offer to their subscribers.

However, in the United States, all the operators in the land are hooked to the service
To send a Short Messaging Service from Gmail Chat, subscriber or the Gmail account user has to enter his or her contact’s name in the ‘Search or invite friends’ box in the chat and select send SMS from the box of options that appears to the right of your contact’s name. Or, if you already have a chat window open for this contact, just click options and select send SMS.

Historically, Gmail gives people free web-based electronic mail (email) moderated by Google, which was initially proclaimed globally between March 31 and April 1, 2004, depending on the time zone of the world where one may be operating from.

Although, the Internet community thought initially it was an April fool’s Day stuff; a day when many people play tricks, which culminated in most people thinking then it might be a joke.

Google, however, said it was not a trick, which paved the way for lots of people to take the company seriously.

At first, a lot of people were pessimistic about Gmail based on their comments, especially on the
“terms of use”.

But currently the status of Gmail indicates that the first Gmail accounts were given to 1,000 people who either worked at Google or were friends and family of them, which they began to try out Gmail on March 21, 2004 and since then, several other people were allowed to test it.

On April 25, people who used the website Blogger.com a lot were given Gmail accounts, so also allowing them to invite other people.

Some of the Gmail features include letting users to keep 1000 megabytes (one gigabyte) of emails. That is, more than 166 times more than other websites like Yahoo! and Hotmail give people. This means people with Gmail can keep thousands of emails forever.

One thing going for Gmail it that is owners, Google has the largest search engine in the global internet space.

Google has since opened an office in Nigeria among other African countries.

Remmy Nweke:
ITREALMS Online ... delivering news for ICT4D

Exploring Nokia’s Ovi features

Accessing Nokia’s Ovi features have been gaining momentum among Nigerians, especially the youths, reports Remmy Nweke.
Imeh Okon, is a year-two student of Mass Communications in one of the higher institutions in the city of Lagos and has just got a new Nokia phone from the popular Computer Village, Ikeja-Lagos.

The young Imeh’s desire to get the Nokia phone, which is 2600 model, was because a friend has been enjoying what he described as free download of various stuffs which cut across applications, games and entertainment audio.

Some of the applications available to subscribers of Ovi on Nokia mobile phones ranges from ‘SMS Text Msgs’ by Sunny Gulati which is rated as an entertainment worthy 0.01 mega bit (MB). Its users can intend to send romantic, friendship, cute and inspirational Short Messaging Service (SMS) to near and dear ones, access free messages directly on their phones.

On Opera Mobile 10.1 from Opera Software which avails subscribers with speed dial, tabbed browsing, geo-location and always convenient password manager. Just as the Road to Hell Third Dimension (3D) by Jollybox offers free game derived from KORa 3D racing game, consisting of 13 selected races from the last year of online.

Also available at the Ovi Store is the free version of ‘BoxIt2’ by Digiment Games, which comes with 20 levels in-game ads by innerActive and requires data connection, even as it’s upgradeable to the full version.

Additionally, one of the features of Nokia Ovia is the ‘Facebook Chat’ by mSonar, described as chat with your Facebook friends on your Mobile! Just as another interesting iON BatteryTimer comes free from Capree Mobile; No more will you have to suffer battery drain because iON offers the control of operating time remaining to complete discharge.

On the other hand, ILYou 03 by Inode offers a cool ‘I Love U’ wallpaper for your mobile! Whereas the eBuddy Mobile Messenger from by eBuddy is another chat engine option on MicroSoft Network (MSN), Facebook, Yahoo!, GTalk (Orkut), American Online-based Instant Messenger (AIM), MySpace and ICQ, a popular instant messaging computer programme first developed by an Israeli company, Mirabilis and now owned by AOL, as well as getting the most popular free IM applications on your mobile.

Solutions Marketing Manager for Nokia West Africa, Ms Beatrice Olumhense recently said that by registering on Ovi Stores, which includes that subscribers like Imeh has to enter a name he would likely use to sign-in into Ovi, thereby having an account. Though this signing-in name should not be less than three characters nor more than 32, the password must be confirmed, which must not be less than 6 or more than 18 characters respectively. These details, she noted would be used at the event of the subscriber forgetting his or her password.

She pointed out that this is followed by contact information beginning with one’s country with a header that the user may choose to enter either an electronic mail (email) address or cell number, but has the liberty of entering both commencing with the country code number whilst inserting cell number.

The Ovi Stores, according to her, has its objectives divided into five distinct pages of recommended, applications, games, audio and video toggles respectively as well as personalization.

Another header notifies the users that occasionally Nokia Ovi Stores would like to reach out to customers to tell them exciting news about Nokia, thus they are required to thick how they would like to be contacted; namely by sending them the latest information on applications, games, entertainment and more from the Ovi Store via e-mail; send via Short Messaging Service (SMS) and finally, the choice of receiving updates from Ovi about the latest features and services.

ITRealms Online gathered that after registering on Ovi Stores includes the choice of language of which the United States English seems a default choice, but the column has Cestina, Dansk, Spanish Espanol, Espanol Latina, Deutsch, Suomi, Francais, Francais Canadien, and Netherlands.

Also, ITRealms Online gathered that a reconfirmation is however, needed to ensure that Nokia does not register robots, hence it prevents automated registration with a text displayed that must be entered into the box and which is not character case sensitive.

By clicking or selecting ‘I agree’ button at the bottom, shows that the user has accepted the Ovi service terms, the Ovi Store terms and the privacy policy; Completing registration to download, rate and review means that your cell phone is set.

Additional reconfirmation mail would be forwarded to the registrants email and reads;
“Hello Imeh and welcome aboard! To experience the full suite of Ovi services, all you need to do is visit http://www.ovi.com. Alternatively, if you would like to update your Nokia account details, please visit https://account.nokia.com. Please verify your email address by clicking the link below: https://account.nokia.com/acct/verifyEmail?id=B1jbUi6QnZ&lang=en-US If clicking the link does not work, copy and paste the URL in a new browser window instead. Thank you for joining and we hope you enjoy using Nokia services. All the best, Your friends at Nokia http://www.ovi.com.”
Speaking recently during the launch of Nokia C3 in collaboration with MTN Nigeria, Nokia’s representative, Mr. Marcel Van-de-Pas, said that Nokia as the number one leader when it comes to giving consumers solutions to their mobile needs which is evident in Nokia’s Ovi mail and Ovi chat on board, saying email and chats could be set up straight from the device.”

He noted that almost all the Nokia phones coming into market have the Ovi features.

At the unveiling of strategic partnership between Guaranty Trust Bank plc and Nokia, Deputy Managing Director, GTB Plc, Mr. Segun Agbaje, represented by General Manager, Information Technology (IT) at GTBank, Mr. Dare Adeyeri accompanied by the Group Head for Communications and External Affairs, GTBank, Mrs. Lola Odedina, said that new Nokia phones in the NSeries coming into the country would have GTBank’s Mobile Velocity (MoVe) application embedded.

Adeyeri said that most of the NSeries coming into the country towards the end of this year would have this application preloaded before shipment to this part of the world, noting that MoVe application would be available on Nokia Ovi, which is an online store and open vista for opportunities for GTBank on the Ovi platform.

As said by him, Naira Mastercard from GTBank, is the only accepted means of card payments on the Ovi Store, while GTBank’s innovative mobile banking application, MoVe, would be available for free download on Nokia’s premium application store, www.store.ovi.com and GTBank’s www.gtbank.com.

Equally he said that the partnership with Nokia is in line with the bank’s quest to leverage on emerging possibilities of mobile marketing as the bank seeks to expand its already robust electronic banking platform.

Stressing that the partnership would bring to its customers cutting edge innovation and services at all levels, a vision he believes would be a boost with Nokia brand. He listed some of the features of GTBank MoVe application, for instance, to include real-time currency exchange calculator for most of the world’s currency as well as Naira; ATM and brand locator, GTConnect widgets to name a few.

The General Manager, Nokia West Africa, Mr. James Rutherfood made it clear that though Nokia is diversifying into mobile solutions, the mobile phone manufacturer is not stepping down its manufacturing aspect.

The convergence of solutions, he said, has encouraged Nokia to look into this area, stressing that Nokia has transitioned to a mobile solutions entity. Pointing out that this has been evident with Nokia’s Ovi store, which is open 24 by 7 days per week and accessible in 190 countries, while 85 per cent of those who signed in repeats visit daily.

Further, Rutherfood said that about 30 million downloads are done on Ovi store per day with about 120 operators involved globally. Emphasising that at Nokia, they would continue to seek ways to deliver an unbelievable experience. Nokia, he said, is not exiting mobile manufacturing because a lot have involved and devices are becoming much richer in terms of features.

The mobile business, he said, keeps up in business, just as counterfeit products have become a global challenge, which is not limited to Nigeria alone. Primarily, what Nokia has done is that the likes of Imeh could through Ovi services explore Nokia features, which could be used from a mobile device, computer through Nokia Ovi Suite or via the web.

Just as Nokia says its focus presently is on five key services areas, namely the games, maps, media, messaging and music. Therefore leaving subscribers with plenty choice and where they plug in is entirely theirs, especially at this era of social networking at ease.

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Cloud computing report: Cisco explains exclusion of Nigeria

Cisco Systems has explained the absence of Nigeria in its 2010 Cisco Connected World Report, which showcased market opportunity for Cloud computing across the world.

Giving insight why despite the fact that Cisco claimed that Nigeria is a big market for it, yet it was not included the 2010 report, officials of Cisco Systems said that about 13 other big markets were not included as well as Nigeria.

They explained that countries involved in the study were those rated to be on the most established economies.

They noted that it was not a deliberate attempt to slider the significant of Nigeria, but based on certain parameter, which incidentally excluded Nigeria and South Africa.

According to the study, 78 per cent of IT organisations around the world are considering, implementing or having already adopted cloud as part of their IT strategies.

This is coming as another study on Pacific Crest on Cloud Computing Industry Overview since March 2010 showed that the sum of $500 billion work of IT equipment were purchased over the past five years for the optimization of legacy client-server workloads.

This, Cisco officials said, would not be adequate to support the next generation cloud computing, virtualization and mobility workloads of the future.

On Cisco’s strategy, they pointed out that the firm’s philosophy is that which stipulates that networking is a fundamental enabler for the cloud.

“It makes the cloud possible,” he declared, adding that it is a building block for cloud services, even as Cisco strategy is to leverage the network to lead and innovate in cloud infrastructure and services.

According to them, Cisco is strategically focused to provide cloud-enable infrastructure for enterprises and service providers, cloud applications cum hosting services and innovation to broaden cloud’s reach through partnership and professional services across all three areas.

Diversified cloud’s possibilities, Cisco said there would be many different types of clouds serving different purposes, so multiple approaches are required to accommodate customer objectives.

“The network can enable cloud diversity and flexibility,” he said.

On the security aspect of the cloud computing, he said, that’s what they are working on every day is bound to improve.

However, they posited that customers are adopting to cloud computing based on the fact that it has changed the fundamental economics of IT by way of balancing capital expenditure and operating expenditure constraints, in addition to reducing deployment times.

Equally, they noted that new application and information delivery models are now available, thereby enhancing IT efficiency and agility.

Further, they highlighted that new waves of innovation and revenue opportunities are now on board, while risk management has shifted from the user to the provider of IT services.

They emphasised that cloud computing has considerably affected some real-life trends that are influencing the cloud’s viability and adoption.

Underscoring the fact that an estimated 60 per cent of employees believe they don’t need to be at the workplace to deliver on their jobs or be productive, while 66 per cent of these people research stated, believe they should be able to access personal and work information at anytime, anywhere, using any device.

They said that there has been device proliferation, noting that the growth of connected devices will reach about 50 billion in 2013, which equates to seven devices per person on earth.

Remmy Nweke:
ITREALMS Online ... delivering news for ICT4D

GISPA elects new officers, plans big for 2011

The Ghana Internet Services Providers Association (GISPA) has elected new set of executive to steer its affairs in the coming years with plans to boost broadband economy in the country.

Arising from its Annual General Meeting (AGM) held in Accra recently, GISPA elected a new board headed by Mr. Ernest Brown (BBH) as President. The new board comprised of Mr. Alexander Sulzberger (Ecoband), Mr. Stanley Tsekpo (Netplux), Mr. Gregory Eid (TeledataICT) and Mr. Roger Baah (GCNet) members.

GISPA Secretary, Mr. Eric Osiakwan said, the new exco promises to focus “Broadband Abundance – making broadband affordable and accessible.”

The new president, Mr. Brown was quoted in his acceptance speech, as saying that Mr. Richard Hlomador-led outgoing board steered the industry to make Ghana aware of the need to place economic significance on broadband.

He reiterated commitment on taking forward the association’s quest to realize the aforementioned goal through the reduction of prices and making broadband abundant.

The new board has applied itself to securing capacity for the Google Global Cache (GGC), which
is at the Ghana Internet eXchange (GIX located at the Kofi Annan Centre) to ensure that it is up and running effectively. The GGC, which is a collaboration with Google Inc, would ensure that all Google related traffic (like search) to be stored locally on that server so that subsequent recipients would get it fast and cheaper.

Efforts, he said, are underway to ensure that GISPA members come together and collectively purchase international wholesale capacity which would allow the unit cost to members to be cheaper, hence members would then in turn transfer such savings to the consumer.

“This is to build up on efforts by the old board that lead to reduction in broadband prices and or increase in capacity in some cases,” he said.

The board also plans to effectively engage with the new leadership at the National Communications Authority (NCA) who have being very receptive to ensure a level playing field in the industry. A meeting has been held and a position paper submitted to that effect.

The Ghana Internet Services Providers Association (GISPA, www.gispa.org.gh) is a non-profit trade corporation that represents the interest of Internet Services Providers (ISPs) in Ghana.
Our focus is to grow the Internet locally through lobbying for the right policies, negotiating transparent and independent regulatory frameworks and building networks to enhance easy, reliable and affordable communication to the consumer.

GISPA is currently made up of NCS, Internet Ghana, Africa Online, IDN, BusyInternet, Netplux, K-Net, BroadBand Home, Easy-Net (MTN), Ecoband, NetAfrique, Gateway Communications,
Discoverytel, Africanus, TeledataICT, ComsysGhana, iBurstAfrica, Internet Solutions, UCOM, GCNet, Expresso Telecom and Zain.

Remmy Nweke:
ITREALMS Online ... delivering news for ICT4D

Olawale Ige to chair Broadband Summit

Former Minister of Communications, Chief Olawale Ige has been confirmed as the chairman of the 2011 Broadband Summit.

The Broadband summit is jointly hosted by the eWorld Magazine and eBusiness Life Communications and has been slated to hold this month in Lagos at the Golden Gate, Ikoyi.

Disclosing this to ITRealms Online, the organizers in a joint press statement made available to newsman, and endorsed by Mr. Aaron Ukodie and Mrs. Ufuoma ‘Daro informed that Chief Ige, a former Commissioner of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) would preside over
affairs at the annual Broadband Forum scheduled for 24.

Also they said that the Minister of Information and Communications, Mr. Labaran Maku, himself a media guru is expected to attend the Forum as Special Guest of Honour.

Maku, he said, would be supported by the Executive Vice Chairman, Nigerian Communications Commission, Dr. Eugene Juwah, who would be giving a keynote address.

The organizers noted that Chief Ige piloted the process that led to the liberalisation of the Nigerian Communication industry and has over a period of 40 years played very vital roles in Nigeria ’s communications development.

The Broadband Forum, which is being hosted by two leading Nigerian ICT magazines, eWorld and e-Business Life will take place at the Golden Gate , Ikoyi Lagos.

Already a number of key industry players have confirmed their acceptance to attend the event and contribute to ideas on how to make Broadband the digital right of the Nigerian citizen.

The stakeholders will speak on a number of topics drawn from the broad theme: Broadband, Mobile Application Ecosystem and the New Media.

Issues expected to be discussed at the event include Broadband and the last mile imperative, Broadband and digital Right and the role of the regulator in mobile application ecosystem and the new media.

Other issues to be discussed include the mobile ecosystem and new media: the Imperative of Converging Broadcasting, Telecommunication, IT regulation, Legal and Regulatory Issues in the Information Economy/Censorship or Content Regulation and Mobile application stores: the market place and the users experience.

Stakeholders will also look at innovative business models associated with Mobile Broadband (e.g. mobile applications stores and Global Best Practice and the imperative of the new markets/technology and Trends in Mobile Advertising.

Global focus is on making broadband services as digital rights of the citizens and it’s imperative that all stakeholders harmonise strategies and generally acceptable models for driving broadband services, according to Aaron Ukodie, CEO of Ajomedia and Managing Editor of eWorld magazine.

According to Mrs. Ufuoma Daro, Editor-In-Chief of eBusiness Life, a number of companies have indicated their interest to attend the event and unfold their roadmap for broadband development and their array of broadband services and products to the Nigerian market.

Stakeholders that have indicated their interest to speak at the event are the Chairman of the Teledom Group and Broadband infrastructure advocate, Dr Emmanuel Ekuwem and the Managing Director of NigComSat, Engr Ahmed Rufai.

President of Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) Engr. Titi Omo-Ettu and President of Nigerian Internet Group (NIG), Engr Banjo Bayo will speak at the event.

Chairman of pioneer Internet Service Provider, Linkserve and proponent of Broadband Internet, Chima Onyekwere will also present a paper at the event.

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ATCON to mentor emerging entrepreneurs

The Association of Telecommunication Companies of Nigeria (ATCON0 has identified an emerging generation of young entrepreneurs worthy of recognition and mentorship.

Leading a six-man member to the National Executive Committee to the 2011 Mobile Web West Africa conference in Lagos, the ATCON president, Mr. Titi Omo-Ettu made this assertion.

He said that ATCON having identified these budding young entrepreneurs is to structure a programme to further offer them a developmental assistance.

To this end, he said, ATCON would mobilize its members provide the necessary mentorship and training that will make them thrive in their endeavour to grow in business.

Executive Secretary, ATCON, Mr. Ajibola Olude in a press statement made available to ITRealms Online soon after the session, said plans are up to align this programme with existing ones with relevant stakeholder groups in the country.

“We are working on this along with our other established programmes of creating awareness on investment opportunities in broadband infrastructure construction for our members, all in close collaboration with the regulator and also with the executive and legislative arms of Federal Government,” he assured.

Noting that they also hope to identify areas of difficulty and resolve same for the benefit of investments in the sector.

Omo-Ettu who dwelt on ‘Harnessing the Potential of the Internet and Applications on Mobile Devices’ said that ATCON aligns with the vision of bringing young entrepreneurs together to meet the established players, and stimulating interaction between them.

“To instigating a more rapid spread of mobile web applications and services and a plethora of opportunities and benefits that exist for the entire eco-system,” he said.

The association, he also said, has started seeing the mobile phone, in particular, as a device for change, a tool for closing the digital divide, an ultimate closer of the gap between the rich and the poor, and between the rural and the urban.

“I want to hope that delegates at this conference will see the need to include in the discussion agenda the role of legislation, regulation, and the link between government and the private sector. That interests us as an emerging market that is in a hurry to catch up,” he said.

Omo-Ettu pointed out that by building the rapidly expanding mobile system to generate more business makes good sense.

“Yes, millions of SIM cards exist in the market and are supposed to be doing quite a lot beyond voice. Content creation is key and I am particularly concerned about how much of this can be locally targeted and locally produced,” he said.

ATCON, according to him, is not only concerned about some issues but is in a hurry about attaining set levels about them.

These issues, he enlisted to include attainment of more generic and stipulated levels of service and proliferation which will be brought about by a deeper understanding of problems and how to solve them.

Additionally, he said, the cards are areas of increasing productivity among young people, growing competition that handles antitrust effectively, regulating independently and fairly, understanding and getting ready to manage the frequency spectrum optimally, and of course growing mobile systems for optimum application.

ATCON under the present exco, he said, wants to deliver its mandate by leveraging on the passion of the young and the wisdom of the old – and the expertise of all – towards building an industry that would not only command better economic attention but one that will add to the socio-economic growth that Nigeria so desperately needs.

“Mobile Network Operators in many markets are known to be making huge amounts of revenues and profits from voice and text. However as competition, penetration and innovation increases these will hit a plateau and the new area of profitability will be data usage,” he observed, stressing that this is happening already with some experts describing it as an explosion.

“I am told that at the weekends in South Africa, 60 per cent of Google searches are made on a mobile telephone. For Operators to take full advantage of this they need to have content and services for their consumers to use. This is why the entire ecosystem needs to work together to enhance the development of the mobile web and applications,” he said.

ATCON boss said that citing mobile advertising as a case in point, saying that this is single biggest opportunity to monetize the mobile web and applications.

“Mobile marketing has created a new medium for advertisers; an entirely new way for them to reach out to and connect to consumers. Indeed, some experts consider it to be the superior way of marketing their products,” he said.

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ITREALMS Online ... delivering news for ICT4D

Fairpros names IT & Telecom Nigerian rep

A Germany-based leading exhibition organizer, Fairpros, has named IT & Telecom Digest, its Nigerian representative.

The appointment which commencement date was put at January 1, 2011 was endorsed by the Chief Executive Officer, Fairpros, Jorrit Plambeck.

He said that the decision to appoint a representative to co-ordinate its Nigeria office was informed by the increasing business prospects from Nigeria and the country’s sheer size as the most populous country in Africa, which places Nigeria as unarguably as the biggest potential.

He explained that the expansion into Nigeria is driven by the growing demand for Fairpros services related to the international trade shows organised by Messe Berlin GmbH, Koelnmesse GmbH and NürnbergMesse GmbH, represented by Fairpros in Nigeria.

“This move will give a clear signal of commitment towards our Nigerian clients. Relations with these go back for more than eight years already,” Mr. Plambeck said.

The choice of appointing IT & Telecom Digest to represent Fairpros in Nigeria, he said, was taken after a rigorous and exhaustive assessment, which proved the selected establishment to be the most suited given its integrity and commitment to help grow the Nigerian economy and assist Fairpros and the exhibitions it represents to gain a firmer foothold on the Nigerian market.

“Our local business partner with whom we run the Fairpros Nigeria office is Mr. Mkpe Abang. Along his engagement with Fairpros Nigeria, Mr. Abang is the Editor-in-Chief of Africa’s foremost magazine in the field of telecommunication, IT and electronics, IT & Telekom Digest, issued monthly from Nigeria,” he said.

Further, Plambeck noted that IT & Telecom Digest has over 10 years of experience in organizing conferences in Nigeria in addition to his background in journalism combined with an independent and challenging opinion on economic and political themes in Nigeria, earned the team great respect, thus a source of excellent relations in the country.

In his response, Mr. Abang told ITRealms Online that the appointment is an indication that the interest and commitment of Fairpros towards Africa and Nigeria in particular is real.

He pointed out that Fairpros carried out an independent search of who should represent them in Nigeria without him or the management of IT & Telecom Digest realising what was in store.

“Our dealings with Fairpros over the last four years have been purely on a professional level. We had no idea they were interested in appointing a Nigerian representative to co-ordinate their affairs and activities in Nigeria,” he said.

Abang reiterated the commitment of his team to take Fairpros’ activities to the best possible level in Nigeria.

ITRealms Online gathered that the agreement between the two companies was signed in Berlin and Frankfurt last year, and comes into effect with the take-off of the Fairpros Nigeria office from January 1, this year.

Fairpros team had visited Nigeria in August 2010 to see the country for themselves before the decision to open a Nigerian office and appoint a representative thereafter.

IT & Telecom Digest has also been the sole Nigeria agent for the West African International Telecommunications and Information Communications Technology exhibition (W.Afri.Tel) organised by EMS of South Africa since 2004. W.Afri.Tel is the sub-region’s biggest and most professional telecom and ICT show, and now in its 11th year.

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IT experts laud Zinox over DDC machines

A cross section of Information Technology (IT) groups have lauded Zinox Technologies for standing firm and taking every step possible to ensure that the just ended nationwide voters’ registration was a success.

Some of the industry experts who commented on the participation of local firm like Zinox in the exercise include the President, Nigeria Computer Society (NCS), Prof. Charles O. Uwadia, President, Information Technology Association of Nigeria (ITAN), Dr. Jimson Olufuye, and the Chief executive officer, the Computer Professional Registration Council of Nigeria (CPN), Mr. Shehu Sikiru.

Despite the initial hitches, the Independent National Elections Commission (INEC), announced weekend that over 60 million Nigerians were registered at the end of the 21 days exercise.

But commenting on the role of IT and local firm, the experts said that inputs from Zinox were highly professional and depicts patriotism in supplying the technological backbone for the registration.

NCS president, Prof. Uwadia expressed the satisfaction of his society with the performance of Zinox in being the first of the three contractors to deliver fully.

Zinox, he said, has set a record that justified the position of Nigerian professionals from the beginning that only Nigerian Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM’s) be shortlisted for the supply of the DDC machines.

Prof. Uwadia also said that Zinox supplied these machines in 2006 and had the capacity to deliver in 2010/2011.

Equally, he said, Zinox virtually exceeded its mandate in terms of support, commitment and passion, stressing that the performance of Zinox should be a pointer to government in future considerations of Nigerian professionals in procurement, consultancy, manufacturing, training and delivering of systems.

“This should translate into patronage so that local content would be substantially improved upon,” he said.

For ITAN president, Dr. Olufuye, he was very proud with the performance of Zinox, an ITAN member, for being the first to deliver among the trio contracted to supply 132,000 DDC Machines.

This feat by an indigenous company, he said, could best be appreciated against the background that Zinox supplied 80,000 machines representing 60 per cent of the entire order within the stipulated 35 days.

His association, Olufuye noted, was grateful to INEC and the Federal Government for the confidence they reposed on the capacity of a world-class local company to deliver.

“There were anxieties at the beginning of the exercise but all that were quickly set aside as soon as INEC upgraded the software which had nothing to do with Zinox,” he said.

Dr. Olufuye also expressed delight that the software being used was written by Nigerians and , stressing that this achievement would evolve into appreciable patronage for the Nigerian software industry.

In his reaction, the Chief Executive Officer, CPN, Mr. Shehu Sikiru, gave kudos to Zinox for delivering its quota of the DDC machines ahead of time thereby bringing relief to an apprehensive nation.

Shehu said that the initial hiccups could be ascribed to environmental problems, adding that the professional aspect came into play with the decisive way that INEC and Zinox resolved the issues.

He gave Zinox additional commendation for the patriotism of sending two additional engineers to each state of the Federation including Abuja in effort to assist INEC even though this was not part of the deal.

“The performance of Zinox is a defining moment in the public perception of the Nigerian computer professional and henceforth Government would be expected to give us a little more respect” he asserted.

Zinox Technologies Ltd, prides itself as foremost integrated ICT firm, which was launched in 2001 by a team of tested IT technocrats with a combined experience of over 128 years in different continents led by Mr. Leo Stan Ekeh.

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Alcatel-Lucent boost mobile technology with lightRadio

The Alcatel-Lucent has launched lightRadio into the global market, promising greener, simpler, lighter networks: multi-billion Euro savings in infrastructure and power costs, addressing major elements of global “Digital Divide.”

The entrance of lightRadio is a breakthrough in mobile and broadband infrastructure that streamlines and radically simplifies mobile networks.

Regional Communications Manager, Africa, Alcatel-Lucent, Sherine Aziez, said that the solution was unveiled at a press event in London supported by partners like Freescale and Hewlett Packard (HP).

Aziez noted that as pioneered by Bell Labs, Alcatel-Lucent’s unique research and development arm, the new lightRadio system would dramatically reduce technical complexity and contain power consumption and other operating costs in the face of sharp traffic growth.

“This is accomplished by taking today’s base stations and massive cell site towers, typically the most expensive, power hungry, and difficult to maintain elements in the network, and radically shrinking and simplifying them,” Aziez said.

According to the regional communications manager for Africa, lightRadio represents a new architecture where the base station, typically located at the base of each cell site tower, is broken into its components elements and then distributed into both the antenna and throughout a cloud-like network.

Additionally current clutter of antennas serving Second Generation (2G), Third Generation (3G), and Long Term Evolution (LTE) systems are combined and shrunk into a single powerful, Bell Labs-pioneered multi frequency, multi standard Wideband Active Array Antenna that can be mounted on poles, sides of buildings or anywhere else there is power and a broadband connection.

Aziez further said that Alcatel-Lucent’s new lightRadio product family of which initial elements is ready to begin customer trials in the second half 2011, provides benefits in several platform.

Some of these benefits include improving the environment through reduction of energy consumption of mobile networks by up to 50 per cent over current radio access network equipment.

As a point of reference, Bell Labs research estimates that base stations globally emit roughly 18,000,000 metric tons of CO2 per year.

Also, Aziez said that lightRadio provides an alternative to today’s jungle of large overcrowded cell site towers by enabling small antennas anywhere.

In addition, lightRadio tends to addresses digital divide by reducing the cell site to just the antenna and leveraging future advances in microwave backhaul and compression techniques, this technology will eventually enable the easy creation of broadband coverage virtually anywhere there is power; electricity, sun, wind by using microwave to connect back to the network.

Ben Verwaayen, CEO of Alcatel-Lucent, said “lightRadio is a smart solution to a tough set of problems: high energy costs, the explosion of video on mobile, and connecting the unconnected.”

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