Category: Telecommunication

Orange gets 5G spectrum in Egypt

Orange Egypt has gained new frequencies. The National Telecom Regulatory Authority (NTRA) offered 30MHz in the frequency space of 2,600MHz with a Time Division Duplex (TDD) system. The frequencies were acquired for $440 million. While the government is expected to use this revenue for mobile phone services, Orange can deploy both 4G and 5G services on the network.

The company was part of the group that secured the allocation of new frequency bands 80MHz within the 2,600MHz band, through TDD. Other companies involved include Etisalat Egypt, Egypt Telecom (WE), and Vodafone Egypt. This scheme resulted in an income of $1.61billion for the government.

Read Also : South Africa: Lawsuit will not stop the spectrum auction

The strategic focus of this exercise is to improve the quality of telecommunication services. It is believed that Egypt would experience a rise in network-readiness level.

“In fact, this process would help to meet the increasing demand on telecom services in Egypt’s market, would also uphold digital information and pave the way for Digital Egypt.” (NTRA)

In 2020, local media asserted that Orange missed the acquisition of new frequencies. They were the only telecommunication company that missed the opportunity. In that bid, Orange lost out in the auction to Etisalat. Hence, competitors such as Vodafone Egypt bought two 20-MHz bands, while Telecom Egypt and Etisalat Misr got two 10-MHz bands each.

Orange Egypt is the second biggest mobile operator in Egypt. The company has 27 per cent of the market according to Omdia with Vodafone Egypt having 43 per cent. Of the market. While Etisalat had 22 per cent.

February 16, 2022
South Africa: Lawsuit will not stop the spectrum auction- Ramaphosa

The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) has stated that the spectrum auction will be proceeding in a short while, despite Telkom announcing that its lawsuit opposing the process will commence in April. This announcement was further supported by the South African President – Cyril Ramaphosa that the planned auction will begin in the next three weeks. This comment emerged from the President’s annual State of the Nation Address (SONA) for 2022.

“Our communications regulator, Icasa, will commence with the process of auctioning the communications spectrum in about three weeks from now. This will unlock new spectrum for mobile telecommunications for the first time in over a decade.” – Ramaphosa

This comment demonstrates the government’s support for high-frequency communications. One surprising deduction is how the President ignored the litigation associated with the exercise. Local operator Telcom SA has filed an urgent interdict on the 5th of January, 202s asking the high court to suspend the December 2021 published “Invitations To Apply (ITA).” Telkom is unhappy with how Icasa is conducting the spectrum auction process. Discussions between the industry (including Telkom) and Icasa have not stopped the litigation. In addition, a broadcaster e-tv is challenging the process in court, with the hearing slated for March.

On the other hand, industry specialists have accused Telkom of deploying tactics involving regulatory support to defeat the competition. For example, Christoff Klein, MD of dotadvisors, pointed out that Telkom usually wants to “achieve through regulatory lobbying what it cannot achieve by means of competing in the market.” The lawsuit has been perceived as a tool for shrinking competition and gaining an undue advantage in spectrum allocation. In this case, the court has failed to yield the request of Telkom SA, which demands the earlier hearing of the case, and shifted it to the week of April 11-14, 20202.

Read Also : Orange Gets 5G Spectrum in Egypt

Six operators have submitted their applications and wish to participate in the auction process. Despite the litigation, Telkom is among the six applicants, including Vodacom, Liquid Intelligent Technologies, Rain, Cell C, and MTN. The auction spectrum includes 700MHz, 800MHz, 2.6GHz and 3.5GHz bands.

Also, the President stated the government support to expedite the rapid installation of broadband infrastructure through the entire South African municipalities. This will be achieved by deploying a standard model for issuing municipal permissions. This move has gained massive support by harmonising the rules required for infrastructure roll-out. Previously, individual cities, towns, and municipalities formulated their rules resulting in inconsistency and overall challenge for fiber network operators.

February 16, 2022
The Impact of Internet Disruption on African economy

The government ordered internet outages; the intentional disruption of electronic communications, rendering them inaccessible or effectively unusable for a period determined by the government.

These Internet outages occurred in 21 countries, lasting over 30,000 hours and costing Africa’s economy $237.4 million in 2020. This is according to a report by Netblocks’ (an internet monitoring organization) which developed a tool to estimate the cost of internet shutdowns for different countries and regions using several development indicators.

Africa’s Internet Connectivity

Internet connectivity has dropped dramatically in Africa as a result of these Internet outages. Tanzania restricted access to the internet and social media applications during elections in October 2020.

The government of Uganda in 2021, issued an order to ISPs (Internet Service Providers) to block social media platforms, then on the night before the election day, told them to block all internet connectivity.

Ethiopia imposed an internet shutdown which lasted for close to a month after unrest that followed the killing of a prominent Oromo singer and activist Hachalu Hundessa.

Read Also: The Drive for Digital Transformation in Cameroon

The Nigerian government suspended Twitter on June 4 2021 after it removed a post from President Muhammadu Buhari that threatened to punish regional secessionists. Telecoms companies subsequently blocked access to users in Nigeria.

Zimbabwe, Togo, Burundi, Chad, Mali and Guinea also restricted access to the internet or social media applications at some point between 2020 and 2021.

How African Governments Order Internet Outages.

Internet service providers are instructed by the government to cut out particular internet services.

URL-based blocking, which is a filter that prevents access to a list of banned sites is one popular way the government clamps down on internet access. A user trying to access a site might see messages like “server not found” or “this site has been blocked by the network administrator”.

Read Also Zambia is set to move from using Analogue satellite to Digital satellite

Another method is called throttling. This severely limits traffic to specific sites, giving the impression that the service is slow, thereby discouraging access.

Impacts of Government Ordered Internet Outages on African Economy.

The impacts of a temporary shutdown of the Internet grow larger as a country develops and as a more mature online ecosystem emerges. It is estimated that for a highly Internet-connected country, the per day impact of a temporary shutdown of the Internet and all of its services would be on average $23.6 million per 10 million population. With lower levels of Internet access, the average estimated GDP impacts amount to $6.6 million and to $0.6 million per 10 million population for medium and low Internet connectivity economies, respectively.

The impact of these internet outages are heavy on the African economy.

By 2025, the internet’s contribution to Africa’s GDP could grow by as much as 10% or $300 billion. The possibilities the internet provides are numerous. Continuous internet interruption places Africa’s economic development in a chokehold.

Conclusion

The spread of the mobile internet has helped Africans achieve key development aims, and access to education, health services, insurance, and employment opportunities.
It is very obvious that the internet disruptions are hampering Africa’s economic development.

February 15, 2022
Vodacom to contest the ‘please call me’ judgment

The high court, sitting in Pretoria, has sided with Vodacom’s former employer, Nkosana Makate, regarding the “please call me” idea. The constitutional court recently decided this long-running legal battle in favour of Makate as the inventor of this idea, thereby entitled to a settlement. The judgement found that Vodacom underpaid him and must decide on a suitable figure.

According to Vodacom, “Please Call Me” is a free SMS service that allows you to send “Please Call Me” messages to other subscribers. A subscriber can send 10 such messages a day to other subscribers requesting them to call back.

According to IOL News, Vodacom’s CEO Shameel Joosub was given a month to determine the overall amount due to Makate based on the court’s issued guideline. With this judgement, it is expected that Vodacom will spend more than the previously offered R47million. This is based on the ruling by Justice Wendy Hughes that Makate is entitled to 5 per cent of the total revenue from the “please call me” over 20 years.

Nkosana Makate (source: Jacques Naude/African News Agency)

Initially, Makate has requested at least R10billion in compensation from the telecommunication company. However, Vodacom has decided to appeal the judgement. In a statement from a company’s spokesperson to TechCentral, the company has resolved to appeal based on what was viewed as an offer of good faith premised on the April 26, 2016 court order.

Makate and Vodacom

Makate is a typical town boy that grew up in Katlehong, east of Johannesburg. He started working for Vodacom in 1995 through a government effort initiative requiring telecommunications businesses to teach employees in accounting

Makate had the “please call Me” concept in November 2020 and presented it to his manager, who forwarded it on to Vodacom’s director of product development, Philip Geissler. Makate claims there was a verbal agreement with Geissler to be compensated for the idea.

The concept was launched in March 2001 as about 140 000 users took up the service on the first day. Vodacom refused to compensate Makate until he left them in 2003. However, the case reached the High court in 2014.

February 10, 2022
Kenya Telecom Giant Safaricom Takes A Shot At Spotify With Baze Music
Kenya telecom giant Safaricom, which accounts for 63.6% market share of the mobile telecom operator in Kenya, takes a shot at Spotify after announcing the expansion of its Baze platform to include music, enabling its customers to enjoy a mobile-first, ad-free, music streaming experience from as little as KES 10 per day.

Baze was initially launched as a subscription-based mobile-first, video-on-demand service more like TikTok, YouTube, and Netflix all-in-one platform and offering a wide selection of local and regional short-form videos in entertainment, music, news, and sports, placing entertainment Kenyans longed for at their fingertips. The platform also provides a medium for Kenyan local content creators to share their original video works and earn revenue.

As of November 2021, Safaricom CEO Peter Ndegwa announced introducing streaming to the Baze platform.

“Our goal is to provide Kenyans freedom, choice and control over the content they consume, and I am delighted that our customers have enjoyed a variety of content on Baze since the platform was launched in May 2021. To further enhance their experience, we are introducing Baze Music, which will also provide Kenyan artists with a new avenue for monetizing their music in addition to the Skiza platform,” said Peter Ndegwa.

He further accounted on his official Twitter account that –

“Adding music will increase the popularity of Baze and enable Kenyan musicians to earn from their talent courtesy of a revenue share model that sees 60% going to the artists. Baze now joins Skiza as a key earning platform for content creators. #MoveToBaze”

Should Spotify be worried at this shot? Finger crossed.

While we anticipate what the future holds for Safaricom move with Baze music, let’s not neglect that similar action has been made before. Back in 2018, Safaricom introduced Songa music streaming app. It was massively launched in Kenya with adverts nearly everywhere and signed huge deals with different artists to make the platform widely accepted. It, however, failed to take off and slowly faded away.

Perhaps, could this be the resurrection of Songa reborn as Baze music? Or perhaps, this a signal to show that the Baze platform seems to be working amazingly? Does Safaricom have high faith for the music streaming to sort of work in Baze music? We wait and see.

Here Are Things You Can Do With The App (For Kenyans)
- You get a one-week pass (unlimited streaming) if you use the app for the first time. This includes 500 MB for free. You can still stream for free even if you exhaust the free allocation.
- Signing up is easy. All you need is your Safaricom number to create an account.
- The platform has 4 million songs, a couple of videos, albums and curated playlists.
- The app can create unique daily mixes akin to what Spotify does.
- You can create your playlists too.
- You can set songs as Skiza tunes.
- You can save songs for offline streaming.
- There are no ads on the Baze music platform, unlike Spotify.
- The screenshot below shows the cost of its different packages
As shown above, Safaricom is not only giving you access to their library of music at an affordable rate, they’re also looking to solve a hindrance to music streaming in the country, which remains data. So with the pass, you also get to have data to help you pour the music.

Spotify currently has the largest pie of the streaming music market in the country, followed by Apple Music, Deezer, and others. Spotify has a Freemium subscription model – accommodating both free and paid users, so it will be interesting to see which models have a magical outcome and who gets the big numbers in the end.

We wait to see what the users prefer – Spotify or Baze Music model:
- The freemium Spotify model with ads and a great set of apps for mobile, tablet, tv, cars, etc. OR
- Safaricom’s Baze music sub-premium daily pass with no downloadable apps – just web apps – and offering data to use for the streaming.
As a way of promoting and supporting Kenyan talent, Safaricom says Baze Music will feature a vast collection of local music genres, including gospel, gengetone, urban local, reggae and Bongo Flava, with over 45,000 local songs and 1.1 million international tracks available.

Among the key artists whose content is on Baze Music include Two-time Afrima Award Winner Nikita Kering, Gospel artists Daddy Owen & Guardian Angel, Trio Mio, Jua Cali, Bahati, Mejja, Nviiri The Storyteller, Femi One and Ohangla maestro Prince Indah among others.

Safaricom explains that the launch of Baze Music is a continuation of its commitment to growing Kenya’s creative and music industry.

Looking at this, I anticipate what this Kenya giant telecom makes of Baze music as the year progress.
January 29, 2022