DEVICE SALES, INFORMATION, DEVICE LEAKS, &TIPS

Thursday, January 10, 2013

high, low points of ict sector in 2012

Even in the face of many challenges including multiple taxation, ICT infrastructure vandalism, multiple regulations, poor quality of service, among others, the year 2012 has come and gone but not without success stories recorded.
While taking stock of the Nigerian ICT market in the year under review with stakeholders expressing mixed reactions, listings expectations for the year ahead, Nigeria did fairly well in 2012 with a lot of room for improvement in the current. Already, experts in the Nigerian ICT sector who spoke to Vanguard Hi-Tech with optimism believed that Nigeria has lots of potentials to achieve digital economy by 2015 if right policies and put in place.
Looking at the Ministry of Communications Technology created a year and five months ago to facilitate the transformation of Nigeria into a digital economy, a number of milestones have been achieved even as a number of initiatives that will fast track the development of the ICT sector have been put in motion.
While working to ensure that made/assembled in Nigeria brands are more favourably positioned to achieve the national objectives of job creation, domestic value added and growth in the ICT industry, the Ministry, according to report released recently has achieved remarkable progress in facilitating increased access to ICTs even as teledensity ratio increased in fixed line access from 0.51% in 2011 to 1.5% in 2012. The ratio, according to the Minister of Communication Technology, Mrs. Omobola Johnson would increase to 10% by 2015.
Mobile subscriptions
“Ratio of mobile subscriptions increased from 68.49 in 2011 to 71.54% in 2012. Ratio will increase to 97.69% by 2015. Access of rural population to ICTs increased from 1.5% in 2011 to 1.65% in 2012. Mobile phone coverage in the rural areas stands at 40% in 2012 and is expected to hit 60% by 2015 and 100% by 2017.
“Speed of broadband access has increased from 1.0 in 2011 to 1.8 in 2012. It is expected to increase to 5.0 by 2015. While cost of broadband subscription (3GB package/yr) has reduced from N93, 000 to N72, 000 in 2012. It is expected to go down by 50% by 2015.
Device ownership penetration
“Device ownership penetration shows that ownership rate in personal computers currently stands at 4.5% and is expected to increase to 12% by 2015, while ownership of mobile devices rate in the country stands at 60% and is expected to increase to 80% by 2015” she added.
By 2015, all the MDAs , she informed would have effective websites, adding that verified Mobile Money Agents currently stand at 3000 and is expected to increase to 50,000 by 2015.
“Total value of Mobile Money transactions currently stands at N228m and is expected to increase to N151bn by 2015, while total volume of non-store shopping increased from N62bn in 2011 to N77.5bn in 2012. This figure will increase to N658bn by 2015” Johnson added.
Focus of CT ministry
Increase the contribution of the ICT industry to GDP, Connecting Nigeria by facilitating the provision of a ubiquitous and cost effective national ICT infrastructure, Software development, ICT entrepreneurship and innovation and the development of a strong and vibrant ICT industry, quality of service delivery, Local content and skills development to create jobs and sustain the industry and Cost reduction, transparency in governance and citizen engagement to promote efficiency in governance, Johnson assured would be her major focus between now and 2015.
Success stories and prospects for 2013:
SIM card registration
The stage for the SIM card registration exercise was set in February 2011 when the Nigerian Communications Commission signed contract with seven registration service providers to handle the registration process in different parts of the country along with telecommunications operators. The Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) card registration exercise was meant to furnish the Commission with bio-data of telephone subscribers in the country thereby reducing the rate of crime committed with mobile phones.
New interconnect guidelines
Following negative effect of accumulated interconnection bills on telecommunications operations, which has reached over N20 billion over a period of 11 years, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has begun fresh move to address the situation. One of the moves, according to NCC, is the planned release of fresh guidelines in January 2013 that would facilitate the process of getting quick approval from NCC to disconnect operators that are heavily indebted to interconnect billings, especially those that are reluctant to settle such bills.
Number portability
Number Portability which allows a subscriber to switch networks while retaining his/her number is expected to begin this year. The idea of Number Portability is borne out of the need to level the playing ground, by driving competition which will in turn lead to fair pricing, network coverage expansion and quality of service improvements.
The biggest reason why a customer stays loyal to a network is because of all the contacts and connections that have been made with a particular phone number. The idea of number portability is to remove that advantage from the networks and put in the hands of the customer.
100% of the IT backbones are foreign procured
“Our financial system (banking, insurance, taxes, pensions etc) are all IT driven, the oil industry is IT driven, etc etc, unfortunately nearly 100% of the IT nervous system in terms of software and hardware are foreign procured. This is not good for Nigeria and must be triggered to change from 2013,” he said.
What to do
For the ISPON President, Chris Uwaje, predicting the future of global ICT landscape will be nearly impossible because, any country of the world is capable of mastering her ICT destiny, provided she concentrate on developing infrastructure and skilled capacities to promote her core competencies and domestic market requirements as a precondition for mastering the export market.
Within the context of this evaluation, Nigeria, Uwaje noted has a great chance to compete with the rest of the world – viewed from the perspective of her potential resources in high school and university graduates coupled with her ability to speak and communicate in English Language.
Nigeria’s core competence is in software knowledge industry
This also means that 2012 can be seen as a blessing for Nigeria to rethink her ICT development Strategy as an urgent, critical imperative. No nation succeeds in her ICT development without a central Focus on its core competence. Nigeria’s core competence is in software knowledge industry and not in heavy technology industry” he explained.
Speaking further on ICT in 2012, Lanre Ajayi, the President of ATCON said that the ICT industry in Nigeria did fairly well in 2012 but with a lot of room for improvement. The teledensity, according to him, continued to grow, the number of telephone lines in Nigeria exceeded a threshold of 100 million lines during the year.
“However, the internet bandwidth continue to witness appalling utilization with capacity utilization less than five per cent. Our capacity to develop software applications particularly for export has not been impressive but there are isolated success stories. Our desire to develop the outsource industry, remains unfulfilled” he added. According to Uwaje, Nigeria national ICT model and strategy must change from the 95% wireless model to fixed line priority equilibrium.
“We need to re-wire Nigeria in readiness for Cloud computing and total e-economy, e-knowledge society. 55% fixed line on broadband and 45% wireless is a better infrastructure strategy for the future survivability.”
Broadband penetration and sustainability
In the opinion of Lanre Ajayi, the ATCON President, a major way to fastrack Broadband penetration was to stimulate demand for broadband access by promoting the deployment of applications that were relevant to Nigerian users and add values to their life.
Such applications, he added may include ones that make commerce available online (e-Commerce), ones that make Government services available online (e-Government), ones that make health services delivery available online (e-Health), ones that make learning available online (e-Learning) and so on. Government should take a lead by making Government services available online, he added. But the industry regulator, NCC has made spirited efforts to develop the broadband sub-sector.
After developing a broadband plan, NCC also put in place a strategy to develop and actualize the plan, an initiative commended by Secretary-general of the International Telecommunications Union, Dr. Hamadoun Toure. In addition, the regulator has taken the Nigerian broadband vision to many local and international fora, including the ITU Telecom World 2012 which held in October in Dubai, UAE.
Strategy for the ministry and operators
Nigeria, Uwaje warned was undergoing a massive information crisis because our national content, from e-Government to National Database, to Digital Education, Digital Litigation process, Digital Transportation, Digital Urban planning and Residency Data/ National Identity Information system were in crisis, adding that the crisis can only be resolved by software.
“India has recognized that long ago and is woking to resolve the crises. If Nigeria does not accelerate her engagement to promote and develop Indigenous Software (Software Nigeria), our information crisis with multiple into what I had described many years back in my book “e-Knowledge – time is Running Out” as ‘Information Overload’
“The Ministry should therefore make software strategy, policy and legislation the highest priority. This will create an estimated three million jobs and fire the national economy. With over 100million mobile phones, we may have failed if we cannot fire the sector with Nigeria content/software,” the ISPON President explained.
Challenge for CT Ministry
The most robust way the CT Ministry can be more effective in the penetration of ICT in the country, Uwaje continued is to make software strategy, policy and legislation the highest priority. With over 100million Mobile Phones, we may have failed if we cannot fire the sector with Nigeria content/software.
In the opinion of Ajayi,“to increase PC usage, there must be a deliberate effort to facilitate Computer ownership for Nigerian students. I believe it is most appropriate for government to provide all Nigerian students from primary school university level with a mobile computer (e.g tablet) which could be used not only to access the internet but to store the electronics version of the books they need in schools. This should be a priority for government.
“The potential impact on the future of the students and by extension on the future of the country is enormous. I believe this is the fastest route to leapfroging Nigeria into a developed country. Our developmental growth rate is largely determined by the level of development of our human capacity. Contrary to what some people may think, funding may not be as difficult as it looks. There are a number of funding sources that could be re-directed to the project. These include funds from USPF, NITDEF, SURE-P, PTDF, among others,” he explained.
Controversy
As the year ended, a controversy engulfed the entire ICT sector. The cntroversy was ignited by a bill in the House of Representatives seeking to make NigComSat an independent corporation that would operate outside the purview of the communications regulator. What many saw as surprising was the fact that the bill had virtually been passed by the Housee of Representatives (it had passed the third reading), awaiting only the imprimatur of the Senate to become law. The Senate, has since held a hearing, at which the industry regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission opposed the bill. Further developments in this regard will unfold as the new year progresses.

Monday, August 6, 2012

Technology News from Nigeria

Ispon begins nationwide search for software talents

The Nigerian Sftware Lion has roared

Bandwidth Nigcomsat links up main one

Thursday, August 2, 2012

watch out for our giveaway tomorrow

RIM finally launches The Blackberry Playbook

We've been hearing rumors non-stop for weeks now, and it looks like the 4G BlackBerry PlayBook is finally upon us. The new PlayBook supports 4G LTE networks and is available first in Canada with other regions including the US and Europe to follow. While there is no mention of price, the 4G LTE PlayBook will be available in with 32GB of memory from Bell, Rogers and TELUS in Canada on August 9, 2012.

Press Release

WATERLOO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - August 02, 2012) - Research In Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ: RIMM)(TSX: RIM) today launched the new 4G LTE BlackBerry PlayBook tablet with built-in support for cellular networks. The new 4G LTE BlackBerry PlayBook maintains a sleek and ultra-portable form while delivering overall faster performance over the original BlackBerry PlayBook, as well as support for blazing fast 4G LTE networks. Launching in Canada first, the new 4G LTE BlackBerry PlayBook allows customers to work more productively and connect to the Internet, as well as access their email, on-line apps, media and content, from more places than ever.

"We're excited to bring customers the first BlackBerry PlayBook tablet with support for 4G LTE networks," said David J. Smith, Executive Vice President, Mobile Computing at Research In Motion. "The new 4G LTE BlackBerry PlayBook offers a broad range of premium features, including a stunning 7 inch display, front and rear facing HD video cameras, HDMI out and stereo speakers, and it also offers premium performance on high speed cellular networks, helping customers to be more productive than ever and to make the most of their time on the go."

Featuring the latest BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2 software, the 4G LTE BlackBerry PlayBook tablet gives customers access to high speed mobile networks around the world (LTE and HSPA+)(1) and offers an exceptional, high-fidelity, fast web experience that supports more HTML5 functionality than any other native tablet browser on the market(2). The powerful unified inbox allows users to easily manage multiple personal and work email accounts, as well as messages from Twitter®, Facebook® and LinkedIn, all in one place. The built-in Calendar and Contacts apps offer features to help customers better manage schedules and prepare for more effective meetings. Plus, the apps' unique integration with social networks can provide customers with a wealth of information about their contacts at their fingertips.

The 4G LTE BlackBerry PlayBook tablet is also enterprise ready. It can be easily managed with BlackBerry Mobile Fusion and includes BlackBerry® Balance technology, which allows a user to use a BlackBerry PlayBook for both work and personal purposes by keeping business information highly secure and separate from personal information.

Out of the box, the 4G LTE BlackBerry PlayBook tablet comes preloaded with the tools customers need to be productive as well as to have fun, whether in the office, at home or on the road. Thousands of apps for work and play are also available on the BlackBerry App World storefront, such as the recently launched BlackBerry Video Store for all PlayBook customers in Canada, bringing additional functionality and value to customers. The BlackBerry Video Store offers a catalog of thousands of movies and TV shows. Customers can begin watching media as soon as they start to download a file, so they won't have to wait for the entire file to transfer before they can begin enjoying great entertainment on the tablet's high resolution display or on an HDTV using the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet's HDMI output. Canadians can download the free Video Store app on BlackBerry App World.

The 4G LTE BlackBerry PlayBook tablet will come with 32GB of memory storage and will be available from Bell, Rogers and TELUS in Canada on August 9, 2012. Additional variants of the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet supporting various high speed cellular networks are expected to be available in the coming months from carriers in the US, Europe, South Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.

For more information about the 4G LTE BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, please visit:http://ca.blackberry.com/playbook-tablet.html. Data plans are sold separately.(3)

(1) LTE connectivity is currently only available from a limited number of carriers in specific countries. Where LTE is not available, the 4G LTE BlackBerry PlayBook tablet can automatically adjust to connect on HSPA+.

(2) As measured by the independent HTML5 test site athttp://html5test.com/results/tablet.html

(3) Check with your wireless service provider for availability, terms and conditions.

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Nokia lumia 900 95000NGN

This machine has A big, quality screen, fluid and stylish OS and premium build are all sprinkled with Nokia's magic in a package that's made to impress. We've been there already - and we don't mean the review we have of the Lumia 900 for AT&T. After all, it's a Lumia 800 all over again, only the screen got bigger. And yet, we are delighted to meet this smartphone again - and we'll give it that, it looks stunning in white.

You'll also be happy to know that this time around we're putting the Lumia 900 to all our usual tests. AT&T's Lumia 900 was reviewed away from the office but this one will not simply walk in and out of our labs without getting a taste of our torture routine.

Key features

Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support
Quad-band 3G with 42 Mbps HSDPA and 5.7 Mbps HSUPA support
4.3" 16M-color AMOLED capacitive touchscreen of 480 x 800 pixel resolution
Scratch resistant Gorilla glass display with anti-glare polarizer
8 megapixel autofocus camera with dual LED flash, 720p@27fps video recording and fast f/2.2 lens
1MP front camera
Windows Phone 7.5 OS (Mango), upgradeable to WP 7.8
1.4GHz Scorpion CPU, Adreno 205 GPU, Qualcomm MSM8255 chipset, 512MB of RAM
Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n
Non-painted polycarbonate unibody
GPS receiver with A-GPS support and free lifetime voice-guided navigation
Digital compass
16GB of on-board storage
Active noise cancellation with a dedicated mic
Built-in accelerometer and proximity sensor
Standard 3.5 mm audio jack; FM Radio with RDS
microUSB port
Bluetooth v2.1 with A2DP and EDR
Impressively deep and coherent SNS integration throughout the interface

Main disadvantages

Won't get WP 8
No USB mass storage (Zune only file management and sync)
No native video calls
Non-user-replaceable battery
No memory card slot (and no 64GB version like the N9)
microSIM card slot
No native DivX/XviD support, videos have to be transcoded by Zune

The newly announced Windows Phone 8 has given us plenty to look forward to, but a WP8 upgrade is not on the cards for the Nokia Lumia 900. WP 7.8 is coming later this year to all compatible single-core devices and it will be the last update they are about to get. Both Nokia and Microsoft promise to continue the support though they will most likely be focusing their efforts on multiple-core WP8 smartphones.