Michael Malakata, Author at NetworkingNexus.net

Michael Malakata

Author Archives: Michael Malakata

Africa’s effort to tackle cybercrime gains momentum

Africa’s efforts to tackle cybercrime are gaining momentum as Tanzania joins African countries including Zambia, Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya in coming up with a law that includes penalties of up 10 years in prison.The law comes amid claims that Tanzania has one of the highest rates of cybercrime and social media abuse in Africa. Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete has already approved the Cyber Crimes Act of 2015, which becomes operational this week.The Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) is already warning of tough actions against cybercriminals in the East African country as a result of the new law.Critics have said however, that the Tanzanian law targets social media with the aim of regulating its use in order to silence divergent views and critics of the government.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Faced with power crisis, Africa looks to renewable energy technology

African countries, driven by the need to power base stations for mobile phone operators in the face of serious power shortages, are starting to scoop up renewable energy technology.Countries in different regions of the continent are experiencing an increasing number of power shortages, affecting the ability of businesses to run base stations, data centers, computers and other IT equipment.Energy and telecom experts have blamed African governments for not fully liberalizing the energy sector, the way the telecom sector has been liberalized, so as to encourage private investment and competition.The situation has become dire in a number of countries. Renewable energy technology is the only answer, according to Andrew Makanya, managing director at Internet Solutions Zambia.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Even among poor, mobile Web is big in Africa

Eighty-seven million people in Nigeria browse the Internet on mobile phones, according to figures from the country’s telecom regulator that confirm that even among low-income people, the mobile Web is big in Africa.Nigeria is Africa’s largest telecom market by investment and subscription, followed by South Africa and Kenya. A just-released report from the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) on April Internet usage backs up findings from other sources showing that mobile Web use is widespread, including for people in low-income households, many of them living below the poverty line.About 25 percent of the people who use mobile phones to browse the Web in Nigeria, more than 22 million users, are from low-income households, according to an NCC official.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Southern African nations team with Ericsson to develop broadband policies

The Communications and Regulators Association of Southern Africa (CRASA) is teaming up with Ericsson to encourage countries in the region to adopt national broadband policies and lay the groundwork for the growth of Internet services.CRASA serves nations in the Southern African Development Community (SADC), which are generally considered to lack the necessary expertise to formulate policies that could foster the growth of broadband services.In addition to accelerating the deployment of Internet services, CRASA’s initiative, if successful, could curb the high cost of broadband in the region, said Edith Mwale, a telecom analyst at Africa Center for ICT Development.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Power problems disrupt Africa’s telecom sector

Rampant power outages are hitting Africa’s telecom sector hard, and are likely to cause aftershocks in related industries.Southern African Development Community (SADC) and West African countries including Zambia, Nigeria, South Africa, and Malawi face an increasing number of power shortages, affecting the ability of businesses to run base stations, data centers, computers and other IT equipment.Fuel shortages in Nigeria Monday, for example, curtailed MTN and Etisalat services. The shortages also disrupted services in the banking and travel industries.Persistent power shortages have added to the high cost of doing business in Africa, as most mobile phone service providers and business process outsourcing facilities are forced to use generators to power installations. This has led operators including MTN to increase investments in renewable energy technologies in order to avoid reliance on the national grid.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Appeal goes out to UN, Africa Union over Burundi social media shutdown

Access, a global human rights group, has appealed to the United Nations and the African Union to intervene in the Burundian government’s decision to block mobile social media amid protests aimed at stopping President Pierre Nkurunziza’s third-term bid.The government of Burundi on Monday ordered the shutdown of social media applications including Twitter, Facebook, Whatsapp, and Viber on the mobile Web, according to various media reports. The country’s telecom sector regulator ordered telecom operators to block the apps, according to reports.“Although fixed-line internet does not appear to be impacted, the majority of internet users in Burundi rely upon mobile internet for connectivity,” Access noted in a letter to the UN and the African Union.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Nigerian gov’t hands over Nitel, Mtel assets to NATCOM

The Nigerian government has officially handed over the assets of Nigerian Telecommunications (Nitel) and its mobile arm, Mtel, to the NATCOM consortium, but there is general pessimism about the ultimate fate of the telecom company.NATCOM last week paid the $252 million acquisition price for Nitel and Mtel. Over the years, the government has tried multiple times to sell the former national carrier. Several groups including Omen International, Investor International London and the New Generation Consortium led by China Unicom all ended up failing to pay their bid prices for Nitel and Mtel.As in many African countries, the Nigerian government failed to recapitalize its national carrier.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Catching up to other African nations, Zambia plans mobile infrastructure initiative

As an increasing number of people use mobile phones to access the Internet in Africa, Zambia is playing catch-up. To spur Internet and mobile phone connectivity throughout the country, the Zambian government has announced an initiative to build telecom infrastructure.The Zambian government says it will spend $65 million to erect new telecom towers across the country to be used by the country’s three mobile operators in the Southern African country.There’s little doubt than in many African countries, people depend on mobile phones for Internet access. The Mobile Africa 2015 study conducted by survey company GeoPoll and World Wide Worx, a technology analysis organization in South Africa, reports that Internet browsing via mobile phone is on the rise in the countries studied—South Africa, Uganda, Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Gilat Satcom offers connectivity package for rural Africa for just $1 per month

Gilat Satcom has launched a portfolio of satellite services for rural Africa that will require subscribers to pay as little as US$1.00 per month.The Village Island portfolio of services will allow rural dwellers in Africa to access voice-over-IP (VoIP), cellular, video over IP and Wi-Fi connections via private satellite networks.Gilat said Village Island is being supported by governments, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), network operators, churches and major Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and is aimed at specified groups in rural areas.The initiative comes as the high cost of communications and Internet connectivity in the region prevent many rural Africans from using telecom and Web services.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

East Africa expands One Network Area to include data, mobile money

East Africa’s One Area Network initiative is being expanded to include data and mobile money services, a move expected to result in lower costs for subscribers.The One Area Network initiative, launched in January, has led to a decline in mobile phone communication rates across borders in East Africa.The East African Community (EAC) last year agreed that all calls between member countries should be billed as though they were local. The agreement led to a pact between Safaricom, MTN and Airtel Uganda that enables subscribers to receive calls for free while in Uganda and pay a flat rate of $0.11 for calls to other East African countries including Tanzania and Burundi.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Nigeria joins list of African countries threatening prison sentences for mobile operators

Nigeria, Africa’s largest telecom market, has joined the list of countries on the continent that will impose prison sentences on officials at mobile operators that continually fail to deliver quality services to customers.Tanzania and Zambia are among African countries imposing prison sentences on mobile operators who do not provide quality telecom services.The Nigeria Consumer Protection Council (CPC) has warned mobile phone operators that it would soon start filing criminal charges against them as a way of whipping them to order. The consumer watchdog, supervised by the Nigerian government under the Federal Ministry of Trade and Investment, said lack of strict punishment for erring companies had led to a situation where consumers no longer get value for their money in the West African country.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Kenya becomes second country in East Africa to enjoy free Wi-Fi

Kenya has become the second country in East Africa after Rwanda to offer free Wi-Fi to the public, thanks to an initiative by Liquid Telecom and the Kenyan government.As in Rwanda, the free Wi-Fi connection will give users open access to the Internet with the exception of unlawful activities such as streaming or downloading offensive content or content that violates copyright.The move is expected to raise the demand for Wi-Fi-enabled handsets in the country. In Southern Africa, only South Africa so far is enjoying free access to public Wi-Fi, also provided by Liquid Telecom.In Kenya, Rwanda and South Africa, Liquid Telecom has put in place outdoor nodes designed to withstand harsh climatic conditions to offer uninterrupted connectivity and stable bandwidth.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Visa, MasterCard partner with mobile money providers in Africa

Visa and MasterCard are jumping on the mobile payments bandwagon in Africa, a region where consumers are ahead of their counterparts in other parts of the world.Both financial powerhouses announced their expansion plans, which include partnerships with mobile money service providers, at Mobile World Congress this week in Barcelona.The African mobile money market is very attractive. The continent has a large population of people who do not have traditional bank accounts, especially in rural areas. It has also has experienced an explosion of mobile money services as operators and banks compete for customers.The increase in mobile money services has also been fueled by the rapid uptake of mobile phones on the continent, which for many people are their only Internet access devices.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Visa, MasterCard partner with mobile money providers in Africa

Millicom deal with Vodacom on mobile money in Tanzania a sign of the times

Millicom’s agreement with Vodacom to allow users of their respective mobile money services in Tanzania transmit funds to each other is part of an ongoing trend to allow interoperability among services from different networks.The agreement, announced last week, means that four million Tigo Pesa users will for the first time be able to exchange money with Vodacom’s six million M-Pesa users in Tanzania. Tigo is Millicom’s subsidiary.Last year, the company brokered a deal with India’s Bharti Airtel and Tanzania’s Zantel, a subsidiary of Etisalat, that allowed customers of the three operators to conduct mobile money transfers across their networks.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Kenya abandons school laptop project, moves to computer labs

The Kenyan government has abandoned its school laptop program, valued at more than US$600 million, following a controversy over the manner in which the contract for the project was awarded to India’s Olive Telecommunications.Kenya’s Public Procurement Administrative Review Board (PPARB) revoked the bid award last year, prompting Olive to take the matter to court.PPARB ruled after a review of the bidding that the project was wrongly awarded to Olive because the Indian company is not an original equipment manufacturer, as required by the Kenyan project requirement.Olive reportedly uses Chinese subcontractors to manufacture Olive-branded devices, and allegedly added computers to its list of products only after it was shortlisted by the Kenyan government.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Liquid Telecom raises $150 million to extend broadband in Africa

Liquid Telecom has raised US$150 million to extend its fiber networks across Africa, a sign of the growing need for broadband services on the continent.The company, controlled by African telecom company Econet Wireless, has already invested heavily in East Africa, where it is laying thousands of kilometers of new fiber-optic cable to connect Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo.The company has also already completed its East Africa fiber ring, which connects Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, in order to provide high speeds and continuous uptime across the region.Liquid will use the additional funds it raised to build fibre broadband networks in several other countries.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Huawei faces outcry over telecom towers in Zambia

China’s Huawei Technologies is facing a growing backlash in Zambia, following revelations that the company is erecting telecom towers that do not adhere to technical specifications.Lawmakers and consumer rights groups have urged the Zambian government to withhold payments to the company until it brings the towers up to the required standard.The Zambian Information and Communication Technology Authority (ZICTA), awarded Huawei a contract to construct 169 telecom towers in rural areas of the country, at a cost of over $13.5 million. It has been established, however, that the coverage of the towers extends to a radius of 1.65 km (one mile) as opposed to the 5 km specification in the contract.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Democratic Republic of Congo restores Internet throughout country

Internet connectivity and mobile communications throughout the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have been fully restored, but the country’s political turmoil is far from over.The government had moved to block communications in an attempt to quell public protests sparked by President Joseph Kabila’s political maneuvers to extend his tenure in office.The DRC government shut down Internet, social media and mobile phone communications on Jan. 19, restoring Internet service only to banks, government agencies and other corporate bodies 10 days later.People had been using text messages and social media networks to coordinate rallies to protest Kabila’s attempts to introduce an electoral bill and change the country’s constitution in order to continue his stay in office. The DRC government admitted that the debate over the bill would likely delay the next presidential election by at least one year.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here