Telecommunication Technology: Issues and Trends In West Africa

The Fed Reserve bank in US has just raised the interest rate in US. The implications are mixed. On one hand, it is a sign of recovery of the US economy with unemployment rate as low as 5% as at today. The Fed reserved had largely archived   at this working with the US government and had injected as much as over 4T dollars into the US market since Obama came to power through a series of quantitative easing (Printing dollars LOL!) What is of real interest is that the US economy is on a sound footing on recovery. You can’t contemplate telling Nigerian government to print Niara anyway. The clear message however is simple, if you have rising unemployment, you cannot afford to deflate the economy. You can’t squeeze what is already squeezed. What are really the implications for Nigeria? 1.        Foreign investors will pull back their resources and move back to the US economy. Business is all about “Where will my money be safe profitably?” These investors that have been scoutin

  Matthew Talbo Back in August, I visited South Africa and spent some time with a number of BlackBerry’s mobile operator partners, BBM’s advertising and content partners and some payment providers we were considering for partnership opportunities. Having spent many years working with South African mobile operators and banks in past roles, I have always been amazed at the potential of the market there. But on this trip, I learned something new about the value of the BlackBerry and BBM brands both in South Africa in particular and across the entire continent in general. It’s big. That’s particularly exciting because of all the growth we’ve been seeing in this market in the last few years. Leaps and Bounds Africa is clearly a mobile-first market, with the majority of people accessing the internet from mobile rather than desktop devices. We’re also seeing many people coming online for the first time in recent years, so BBM has seen quite a bit

Blackberry Limited, the Canadian global mobile communications leader, has announced its intentions to extend its mobile payment option to Africa, starting with Nigeria, then South Africa. Blackberry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) first launched its mobile payment program in June 2014 in Canada with a 3-year deal with EnStream, a joint venture by the three largest wireless service providers in Canada, which gave it access to the credit card details of smartphone users, enabling them to inter-connect them and banks. Later in August 2015, Blackberry introduced BBM Money to BBM users in Canada; that is mobile payment through PayPal. Matthew Talbot, Blackberry’s senior VP for Emerging Solutions wrote in a blog, “we’re excited to announce we’ll be expanding our mobile money initiatives into Africa, commencing in Nigeria. Blackberry has partnered with Interswitch Ltd, Nigeria’s largest payment processor, to enable any Nigerian to transfer money or airtime within BBM as simply as they

The demand for affordable smartphones in emerging markets drove worldwide sales of smartphones in the third quarter of 2015, Source:   Gartner A total of 353 million units were sold globally, a 15.5 percent growth over the same period in 2014. Out of these numbers emerging markets sold 259.7 million units represent 18.4% increase over same period in 2014, while sales in mature markets saw growth just at 8.2 percent over the same period. "Smartphone sales in emerging markets rose to 259.7 million in the third quarter of 2015 - an 18.4 percent growth over the third quarter of 2014 - while sales in mature markets saw growth of just 8.2 percent over the same period."….   Anshul Gupta, research director at Gartner In the third quarter of 2015, Samsung refreshed its flagship devices just four months after its previous refresh to address slowing demand for its high-end devices, and further compete with Apple's large-screen iPhones. Apple continued its dominance in t

From the data available from NCC (Nigerian Communication Commission), the present subscriber data shows that 86m users are online in Nigeria and 80% of these online users are mobile. A little mathematical calculation shows that the figure will hit 100m plus by 2016 and that is huge indeed. The first casualty to this growth will be the cost of shop rentals as the market place will change dramatically. Let us examine these opportunities systematically Small scale farmers I was in a city called Jos in Nigeria just some few weeks ago and I met a farmer harvesting cucumber. I asked him if he will be willing to sell to me and he said why not. Well I requested for a $2 cucumber and I was taken aback when he filled a bucket for me. Wow! That was a $25 cucumber in Abuja. The distance between Abuja and Jos is just less than 400km and the price disparity is unbelievable in terms of these farm produce. Think of a situation where this farmer could sell his farm produce straig

THE POWER OF FOCUS  Well, a world well know, but often misunderstood by almost all. Years back as a Physics student those days, one of the experiments we often do is to focus rays or waves at some point of calculation called the focal point or simply the focus. For example, we can focus the sun’s rays at a pot and bring the water inside it to boil very quickly or have some potatoes cooked there. We can also focus some rays towards an atom and have it smashed into two different atoms, especially the heavier ones. Particularly Uranium or thorium, in doing so, tremendous energy is released. One of my projects was to design an equipment that can focus sound waves at elevated frequencies and use them to scan the hidden interiors of material structures, using ultrasound waves (so called) we can detect structural defects buried inside a given material. That is what they do in checking air planes, or ships or oil pipelines or even nuclear plants. Focus is power. Without focus, the rays are

Published on: 3rd Nov 2015 Fitch Ratings has affirmed China based ZTE's Long Term Foreign and Local Currency debt ratings at 'BB '. The Outlooks are Stable. The agency has simultaneously withdrawn all the ratings. Fitch said that the ratings have been withdrawn as they are no longer considered by Fitch to be relevant to the agency's coverage because ZTE has no international public bonds outstanding and is no longer considered essential for its peer analysis or sector commentary. China's 4G Investment Fitch continues to believe that substantial 4G capex in China will be an opportunity for ZTE to repair its financial profile. We expect ZTE's stronger market position in China will allow it to take advantage of investments in 4G by Chinese telecoms operators in the next two to three years. However, ZTE is very dependent on China and the rating reflects that the company may need to reduce its dependence on Chinese telecoms capex before the cu