CELTEL Malawi says its customer base has surpassed 500,000 mark, meaning that more than half a million Malawians are now switched to the Celtel network.

Speaking Tuesday during a press conference in Lilongwe Managing Director Charles Zouzoua said the company has the largest number of customers compared to their competitors.“From our surveys, what this translates to is that for every 10 people who use a mobile handset in Malawi, six are on the Celtel network,” Zouzoua said.In 2002, he said, three people out of 10 used Celtel network.“The latest development is testimony that Malawi’s telecoms industry has made a major leap forward,” he said.Adding: “We at Celtel are therefore proud to be associated with the development of the country’s telecom sector, which in turn should go a long way to assist in economic growth.”
He said Celtel covers 84 percent of the total population and has pioneered a number of services in the country like Prepaid billing and Me2U airtime sharing.

The Rest @ The Daily Times, Malawi

Bandwidth Cost Estimations Resulting from Seacom

[ Cape Town ITWeb, 6 August 2007 ] - East coast cable company Seacom will charge 80% less for bandwidth compared to Telkom, it says.This, if realised, could knock the socks of SA's incumbent telecommunications operator and government-sponsored rival Infraco.

Seacom, a privately-financed venture, is surveying the planned route for its cable that should connect all countries on the East African seaboard to Sicily, in Europe, and India to the international telecommunications grid.

• It says its cable will have an initial capacity of 1.28Tb, four times as much as planned for rival Eassy (East African Submarine Cable System).
• Working out the exact comparative pricing proposed by Seacom, with potential rivals such as Telkom and Infraco, is difficult because all players keep this a closely guarded secret. However, Seacom representatives have been canvassing local Internet and telecommunications providers to gauge their reaction.

Connectivity Pricing

According to an industry source who has attended one of these briefings, Seacom is offering connectivity from Johannesburg to Sicily on the basis of an indefeasible right of use (IRU) – the exclusive right reserved for a client.

• It also offers a lease for STM-1, the standard telecommunications unit for a 155 Mbps chunk of bandwidth – rising to STM-4, through to STM-64, amounting to 10Gbps.
• “If a client takes the equivalent of STM-64 on an IRU that is based on 20 years of ownership, this works out at R475 per megabit per month,” the source says.
• Telkom's equivalent fee is about R100 000 per megabit per month, but the source cautions this is not an exact comparison.“
• Whatever the rate, it seems as though Seacom will be pegging itself far lower than Telkom and even that of Infraco, which has so far indicated it will be only 20% cheaper than Telkom.
• This should knock socks off,” the source says.
• Seacom has admitted it is looking to supply bandwidth at 80% cheaper than prevailing market rates and says:
• “The Seacom [investors] believe there is a large amount of pent-up demand in the market.
• They expect a fundamental shift in how international bandwidth is procured and expect that the actual volumes will be substantial enough to encourage and support a low and declining bandwidth price.”

SA Government Response

• Industry and government have become increasingly critical of the high bandwidth costs associated with doing business in SA.
• This is the major reason given by the Department of Public Enterprises for the creation of Infraco, which will become a broadband wholesaler to rival Telkom.
• Hearings into the law that will govern Infraco are under way in Parliament. The department's rationale is that the situation is the result of a market failure at the facilities level and that a strategic intervention is required by government to rectify the issue.
• Among Infraco's projects is to lay two 3Tb cables – one to Brazil and one to Europe.“Eighty percent of our Internet costs are because of international connectivity charges,” says Raven Naidoo, chairman of independent telecommunications consultancy Radian.
• “Say an individual subscriber's costs are 10c per megabyte, and Seacom's pricing is right, then the cost should go down to about 4c. Infraco's pricing will mean that it will only go down to 8c.”
• However, whether SA would be allowed to enjoy the benefits of a private cable company is open to question, as the Department of Communications seems to be lukewarm to the idea.
• Communications department director-general Lyndall Shope-Mafole stated last week the country would give priority to the Nepad Broadband Infrastructure Network, that guidelines for landing foreign cables have not been drafted, and that it feels private ventures would not necessarily reduce the cost of telecommunications.
• Seacom believes its model meets the requirements of an open access, non-discriminatory cable system based on a low-cost, high-volume business. Related story: Telkom price cuts take effect

See the rest @ IT Web

Zimbabwe Passes New law: All Media, Phones, Internet to be Monitored

Fri 3 Aug 2007, 14:57 GMT

By Nelson Banya

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has signed into law an act enabling state security agents to monitor phone lines, mail and the Internet, a government notice published on Friday said.

Officials have said the new law is designed to protect national security and prevent crime, but human rights groups fear it will muzzle free speech under a crackdown on dissent.

In the government notice, Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet Misheck Sibanda said Mugabe had agreed to the Interception of Communications Act, which was approved by both houses of Zimbabwe's parliament in June.

The law gives police and the departments of national security, defence intelligence and revenue powers to order the interception of communications and provides for the creation of a monitoring centre.

-Postal, telecommunications and internet service providers will be required to ensure that their "systems are technically capable of supporting lawful interceptions at all times".

Critics have said the law is a government ploy to keep tabs on the opposition at a time when political tensions are mounting and Mugabe is deflecting growing criticism from Western powers.

Zimbabwe is suffering a severe economic crisis, marked by the world's highest inflation rate, 80 percent unemployment and persistent food, fuel and foreign currency shortages.

The southern African country, once viewed as a regional bread basket, cannot feed itself and faces severe shortages of basic consumer goods after a government-ordered price freeze in June that has emptied shop shelves.

Mugabe -- Zimbabwe's ruler since independence from Britain in 1980 -- denies controversial policies such as the seizure of white-owned farms to resettle landless blacks have ruined the economy, and blames Western sanctions for the economic turmoil.

The Rest @ Reuters.

World BVank IFC invests in EaSSy Submarine Cable Project

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The World Bank's International Finance Corp. on Thursday said it was investing $32.5 million in a fiber-optic cable project that will provide Internet and international communication services for 21 African countries.

IFC, the private-sector arm of the World Bank that focuses on investing in emerging-market economies, said the cable project should improve telecommunications access for 250 million Africans and cut costs for individuals and businesses.

The project, called the East African Submarine Cable System, is to run 10,000 kilometers from the continent's southern tip to the African horn. It will connect South Africa, Mozambique, Madagascar, Tanzania, Kenya, Somalia, Djibouti and Sudan.

Another 13 countries will share the system through land links. They are Botswana, Burundi, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Chad, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Malawi, Rwanda, Swaziland, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Mohsen Khalil, IFC's director of global information and communications technologies, said in an interview the project's total cost will be $235 million and said it is a cooperative effort between private and public interests designed to ensure that prices do not fall under monopoly control and rise.

"Consumers along the east coast of Africa typically pay between $200 and $300 a month for Internet access," the IFC said. "As a result of this project, prices for international connectivity will drop by two-thirds at the outset and the number of subscribers will triple."

Some 26 telecommunications operators will be partners in the cable and most of them are African firms, Khalil said.

Construction is to start within weeks and the cable is scheduled to be in operation by early 2009.

The Rest @ Reuters Africa

EaSSy unlikely to land in South Africa

US 700m sea cable to cut Web costs
Thabiso Mochiko Business Report
01 August, 2007
Email


To: Bcc: Your email address: Message:
Print
del.icio.us
Digg this
Like it?


(0 votes)


Adjust font size:
SA's new submarine cable could be the answer to bandwidth capacity
South Africa is planning a $700 million (R5 billion) submarine cable to cut the costs of accessing high-speed internet. The cable, to run from Durban to South America and London, will increase international bandwidth capacity.
The initiative is being driven by the department of public enterprises as an international leg of Infraco, the state-owned broadband infrastructure firm formed last year to lease capacity exclusively to Neotel for four years. But the international part of Infraco will be open to other telecoms firms including Telkom, which is said to be interested in a big slice of the project.
Due to the lack of undersea cables, Africa has mainly relied on the Sat3 cable that is partly owned by Telkom.
Sat3 members have exploited this by charging huge fees, which has led to strong criticism from the government as the high costs deterred foreign investments and led to slow internet roll-out in rural areas. Sat3 will compete with Infraco's west coast cable.
With the huge demand of internet bandwidth and the expected demand from the 2010 soccer World Cup, South Africa needs a cable system that offers high capacity as Sat3 could be running out of capacity.
Department director-general Portia Molefe said the goal was to have one leg of the Infraco submarine, likely in Brazil, running by 2009. The project would be funded by the private sector and the government.
Running parallel with the Infraco cable is the controversial Nepad Broadband, focussing on the east region. The Nepad Broadband was established after a fallout between the South African and Kenyan governments when they built the $280 million East African Submarine Cable System (EASSy).
EASSy was expected to run from KwaZulu-Natal to Port Sudan, with landings in seven countries. The tiff, which was over a cost-based model and open access initiated by South Africa, led to Kenya and South Africa forming new cable projects separate from EASSy.

But the EASSy cable is unlikely to land in South Africa. Lyndall Shope-Mafole, director-general at the department of communications, said EASSy was not a priority for the government as it did not contribute to its development. "I am not saying we will bar [EASSy], but we will have guidelines for companies that want to land in South Africa."

The Rest @ My ADSL News

Somalia Telecoms

There is no national telecommunications operator in Somalia - the telephone network was completely destroyed during the war. Currently there are about 25000 lines in the capital, Mogadishu.

Phone Service

• Barakat,
• Astel
• Nationlink

Hormuud

• Hormuud Telecom Inc.[HorTel] claimed to bethe leading telecommunication services provider in the southern Somalia.
• Hormuud Telecom Inc. owns and operates a telecommunication network covering the entire territories of the southern Somalia; it provides national and international telephone services.
• HorTel is a privately owned company that was established in April 2002, in Somali capital, Mogadishu.
• HormTel has its headquarters in Mogadishu, the capital city of Somalia,
• Provides fixed and mobile solutions to its customers.

Internet: Somalia was the last country in Africa to obtain a local Internet service.

• Barakat, Astel Nationlink -- joined forces to form an ISP called the Somali Internet Company. The service links to the Internet at 128 kilobits per second via a satellite link from ArabSat.

Somali Telecom Group (STG) Recently the Somali Telecom Group (STG) was formed.

• Having no recognized government in the country means there are no licenses awarded or needed, and STG was recently able to negotiate direct access with Intelsat.
• STG has a presence in all sectors of the telecom industry - ISP, GSM and fixed lines.
• Cities served: Ba'adweyn, Berbera, Bosaso, Burao, Burtinle, Erigabo, Galkiao, Garowe, Goldogob, Hargeisa
• Suite B-803, Baniyas Complex
• Al Nasir Square,
• Deira, Dubai
• P.O. Box 39130
• Tel: (+9714) 229 - 2117/8
• Fax (+9714) 229 - 2119
• Email: info@stg.ae
• Web Site: www.stg.ae

Africa Telecom Business News Update 7-23-07

Maghreb
West Africa
North Africa
East Africa
Southern Africa
Submarine Cable Projects