Telecommunication Technology: Issues and Trends In West Africa

In view of the recent breaches in our national security through various bombings and explosion, it is important that we look at some issues that can easily become a tool in the hands of terror networks to enhance their operations. The essence of this write-up is to create the necessary alert to the dangers these devices pose to national security. In 2002, a Canadian company Research in Motion (RIM) released a smartphone BlackBerry, which supported push e-mail, mobile telephone, text messaging, internet faxing, web browsing and other wireless information services. One of the most significant features of this smartphone was its extreme security in messaging through advanced encryption techniques. This extreme security implemented by BlackBerry services is now in news for risking national security in some of its fastest growing markets like UAE, Saudi Arabia and India. In its statement, the company explained that data on its BlackBerry Enterprise Server network is encrypted so that no one

Lawful Interception (LI) describes the lawfully authorized interception and monitoring of telecommunications pursuant to an order of a government body, to obtain the forensics necessary for pursuing wrongdoers. LI has existed from the times of short range telegraphy to today’s world spanning Next-Generation Networks (NGNs). This article studies the technical concepts underlying LI, and describes existing standardization done in this field. Technical Aspect of Lawful Intercept The establishment of the international Telecommunication union ITU 17 may 1865, was closely linked with the invention of the telegraph. Already some 20 years earlier. Samuel Morse has sent the first public message over a 61km telegraph line between Washington and Baltimore, and through that simple act, he ushered in the telecommunication age. Since those early days of electronic communication, communicating parties have come to expect that their messages one to another will remain private. Indeed ITU treaties prov

­Future computers may rely on magnetic microprocessors that consume the least amount of energy allowed by the laws of physics, according to an analysis by University of California, Berkeley, electrical engineers. Today's silicon-based microprocessor chips rely on electric currents, or moving electrons, that generate a lot of waste heat. But microprocessors employing nanometer-sized bar magnets -- like tiny refrigerator magnets -- for memory, logic and switching operations theoretically would require no moving electrons. Such chips would dissipate only 18 millielectron volts of energy per operation at room temperature, the minimum allowed by the second law of thermodynamics and called the Landauer limit. That's 1 million times less energy per operation than consumed by today's computers. "Today, computers run on electricity; by moving electrons around a circuit, you can process information," said Brian Lambson, a UC Berkeley graduate student in the Department of El

Let me take a critical look at the market trends with a view of looking into the future going forward. The Nigerian Telecoms market has performed excellently well since the introduction of mobile telephony into the space especial the GSM operators. From a Paltry 400,000 installed capacity in 1997 to a whooping 85M lines today, the market has done well beyond expectation. What were the major drivers of the Market? 1 Available total hungry Market of over 100M subscribers yearning for Telco services which were unavailable 2 Government liberalization of the space 3 A transparent frequency licensing regime by NCC 4 A growing young and vibrant population, highly literate and highly mobile 5 A reasonable economic leverage within the population, that enabled them afford the services 6 Vibrant operators , offering mouth watering incentives in the form of mobile lottery in most instances What are the inhibiting factors to Growth and affordability? 1 Lack of basic Infrastructure

Hello again, Just had some reflective moments on issues concerning us. The Problems we face in Nigeria were man made and will be solved by man. We have become too religious to the detriment of our responsibilities and assignment. God gave us sound mind and strength and He expects us to use them. We must learn to distinguish between what is our assignment and what is God’s responsibilities as we cannot send God on an assignment. God will not do our assignments for us, just as no genuine father will do his child’s assignment and send him to pass it to his teacher . If we don’t do our assignment and just pray, we will fail. And I think that is just what we have been doing at the national level. The significant problems we face today in our country, cannot be solved at the same frame of mind where we were when we created them. We must shift our reference frame, our lenses with which we view the world around us. What on earth are we still doing with “state of origin” in our status books?, a

Hi again, This is an overview of the telecommunication market situation in Nigeria for the year that has just ended 2010. The information source is mainly from the latest release from NCC. It did not capture the the last quarter of 2011. Globacom, has emerged the number two operator by subscriber number and grossed over 3.7 million lines more than Airtel Nigeria, in one of the major telecoms market upsets emerging out of the 2010 telephone subscriber information released by the industry regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC). It was earlier thought that the emergence of Bharti Airtel into the Nigerian market will stir up vibrant competition. This has not happened as Airtel has not shown a clear strategy for the Nigerian market having acquired Zain in 2009. The market information, which usually offers insight into the state of things in the telecoms market as regard market performance of operators using key indicator of subscriber numbers, provides a barometer for measu

Hi, It is my intention to do a series on the inefficient communication networks we have in Nigeria and I welcome comments on this.It is over eight years now since the introduction of GSM and other mobile network services in Nigeria, given birth to a number of operators in the industry.While NCC has been largely successful in selling communication licenses to would be operators and existing ones, it has not met with equal success in regulating these kinds and quality of networks being rolled out in Nigeria. This have subjected the industry to a number of speculations, bad and poorly designed networks and equipment flooding the market with the attendant poor quality of services from all the operators , leaving the subscribers to the mercies of these operators whose only goal is profit, profit and moor profit.In these series I will like to pursue the causes of these poor qualities of services in the Nigerian telecom industry and perhaps proffer some solution to these problems. While some

Mobile network backhaul infrastructure plays a key role in the delivery of services to end users and is likely to be an important spend area for network operators during the medium and long terms. Operators will be upgrading backhaul to match the capacity of core and access networks. ­Infrastructure sharing will increasingly be used by operators to reduce capital expenditure (CAPEX) and operating expenditure (OPEX) on backhauls. These trends will create growth opportunities in the Sub-Saharan Africa’s largest mobile network backhaul infrastructure market. Escalating demand for data services is driving the need for upgrading mobile network backhaul infrastructure. Operators need to share costs and invest in network technologies that support transmission of large quantities of data such as optical fiber and its associated technologies. Landing of undersea cables like MAIN 1 and GLO 1 and the deployment of enhanced 3G (3G+) and 4G technologies will amplify the increasing demand for data s

This question has been on my mind for a while and I have taken a review of my earlier article on this subject yet again as we approach the election date in Nigeria. I have been pondering on this universal phenomenon. I have wondered how it applies to an individual and to a nation as a whole. It is my candid opinion that this mathematical identity is true in all cases namely: Change (C) =F(space, time , attitude). By way of explanation to my non maths readers, this equation says that for change to happen, three variables must be at play. They are space, time, and attitude. This is a function which has a unique solution since we know that change itself must come. It appears to me that the tensor which guarantees the existence of this change in a given space-time metric (i.e. a space time-metric is a scientific way of measuring a particular space within some time frame) is a universal one and evenly distributed. This function applies to the individual as well as to a nation, though a lot