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WEEKLY PUBLICATION DEADLINE: 12 pm GMT Sunday. ISSUE NO 366 Portugal Telecom to create separate African subsidiary to up its profileNext week Portugal Telecom (PT) will announce that it will set up a separate subsidiary to consolidate all of its African investments in a 1 billion euro holding company to increase its profile on the continent. PT owns five main companies on the continent and they make a significant contribution to its revenues. However PT does not yet appear to have the winning streak that it has identified in Brazil. Ahead of the announcement, Russell Southwood Russell Southwood looks at what strategy PT might adopt. Portugal Telecom is a classic European incumbent of the old school. Its former incumbent privileges, its successful businesses in Portugal and its former colonial ties have all allowed it to generate revenues that have seen it create a somewhat ragbag portfolio of international investments, including a company in Hungary. Its interest in overseas investments has waxed and waned as telecoms booms and busts have come and gone, never quite getting into its stride in Africa. It bears comparison with the pre-2005 Vivendi who first wanted to dance and then decided to sit it out but has since then made a number of significant investments. With the exception of Brazil, PT’s emerging markets investments are all in former colonies (shareholding percentage): Morocco’s Medi Telecom (32%); Angola’s Unitel (25%); Macao’s CTM (28%); Namibia’s MTC (34%); Cape Verde’s CVT (40%); Sao Tome and Principe’s CST (51%); and East Timor’s Timor Telecom (41%). In Brazil it owns a 32% stake in Vivo and a 29% stake in UOL. Not listed in its 2006 annual report are Botswana’s Mascom and its somewhat rocky involvement with the incumbent in Guinea Bissau. With the exception of the tiny CST, it has no majority stakes and although it would like to increase its shareholding in Angola’s Unitel, has been told publicly by the Government that this will not be possible. Some of the companies it owns are incumbents but others are solely mobile holdings. PT’s total revenues in 2006 were 6354 million euros. Its Brazilian investments contributed 2281 million euros (36%) and its African investments 1130 million euros (18%). Of its total overseas revenues of 3638 million euros, 63% came from Brazil and 31% from Africa. Where data is available, its mobile ARPUs are high, largely because it is focused in some of the continent’s least competitive markets. With the exception of Morocco (US$10.5), all of its other available ARPUs are in the high end of the range: Angola (US$34); Namibia (US$24); and Cape Verde (US$36). Good news but these are all markets that will become significantly more competitive in the next three years. There was a point when Telkom SA was semaphoring vigorously in the South African press that it was interested in PT’s portfolio when the company was the acquisition target of Sonaecom. The fact that Telkom was driven to announcing what it wanted to the press makes it unlikely that PT was selling. The initial report in Expresso said that the company would focus on Portuguese speaking countries which makes it hard to understand what it will do in Africa. It has minor involvements in Angola (outside Unitel) and Mozambique but are there other major significant investments? Angola Telecom? TDM? Possible but not highly attractive or currently for sale. However, there are cable operations in Angola and Mozambique that PT Multimedia might help make sense of. But other than upping its percentage shareholdings in the more major markets, there does not seem to be much left to buy in Portuguese speaking African countries. And the Portuguese speaking definition of the strategy somehow does not make sense of its investments in Botswana and Namibia. Like France Telecom, PT has to either decide to be a global company or stay in its Portuguese speaking comfort zone. But whereas France Telecom shows signs of understanding what it needs to do to act globally, PT (as an altogether smaller company) seems altogether less comfortable with making the transition.
Nigcomsat and NCC License Feud takes a political Turn in NigeriaThe House of Representatives last week queried the decision of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to deny the Nigerian Communications Satellite Company (NigcomSAT) a license to operate as a Telecommunications service provider in the country. The House of Representatives ad hoc committee on communications headed by Leo Okuwe Ogor (Isoko Federal constituency/Delta State), had earlier raised questions on the NCC's preference for Mubala, a United Arab Emirates (UAE) company to NigcomSAT, a Nigerian Company in its issuance of licenses to telecoms service providers. In a statement criticizing the NCC's decision, Ogor said "With the deregulation of the sector, government opened the door for competent telecommunications companies to move into the industry to provide quality telecommunications services to all localities in Nigeria, though to be regulated by the Nigerian Communications Commission in accordance with the provisions of the NCC Act of 2003”. "We (Representatives) are however stunned that with the spate of press war between Nigerian Communications Commission and NigcomSAtT Ltd. In fact, we can hardly decipher the area of difference. NigcomSAT says it has the capability to provide uninhibited quality of telecommunications services-last miles and end-to-end services to Nigerians at very low and affordable price, and should be granted (a) spectrum license in line with section 1(e) of the objectives, application and scope of the 2003 Nigerian Communications Commission Act. (source: The Vanguard) New Twist in Interconnection Dispute between Uganda Telecom and Sudanese GemtelThe controversial interconnection agreement between Uganda Telecom and Southern Sudan's Gemtel phone company took a new twist last week when it emerged that the two have quietly installed a satellite dish for the latter at one of Uganda's most sensitive communications facilities. The news came a few days after a committee of Uganda's parliament asked Interpol to investigate the Southern Sudan company, which has an irregular interconnection agreement with UTL under which its subscribers use Uganda's international gateway prefix, 256, as this newspaper revealed last month. The East African has now learnt that Gemtel have illegally set up a satellite dish at the Mpoma international gateway and satellite earth station, a sensitive government-owned facility in Mukono district, 21 kilometres from Kampala city. The six-metre satellite dish at Mpoma, which engineers have recently upgraded to handle larger volumes, is dedicated to handling all Internet and voice traffic from any part of the world to Southern Sudan, and vice versa. Now the Uganda Communications Commission, which regulates the telecoms sector in the country, says that the installation could be illegal. Fred Otunnu, a UCC spokesperson said: "To set up a satellite dish, the procedure requires a company to register locally, obtain a public service provider license and authorisation to use a VSAT." Gemtel has not done any of this, and Kampala officials involved in the transaction insist that the company is purely from Southern Sudan with no footprint in Uganda. Last week, a committee in Uganda's parliament asked Interpol to investigate Gemtel after Works and Transport Minister John Nasasira appeared before it and revealed that the Ugandan government does not have any information about the company's directors. The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) allows a sovereign state to lend another its international code under certain circumstances such as disasters, but only temporarily. UTL company secretary Donald Nyakairu confirmed to The EastAfrican that the new satellite dish at Mpoma satellite earth station belongs to Gemtel. "Gemtel is only co-locating its equipment needed for interconnecting with us, which is okay," he said. He added: "We were informed by the government that it was okay to give them our line. We have an interconnection agreement with them that will change as soon as the company gets its own international code." Financial details of the agreement have been scanty; initial reports indicated that Gemtel, whose chairman is listed as Augustus Caesar Mulenga, a Ugandan, was paying UTL US$50,000 a month in interconnection fees. This figure appears to have risen, with The East African learning last week that Gemtel paid UTL US$75,000 in April and US$102,000 in June this year in interconnection settlements. Gemtel is reported to have more than 12,000 subscribers, has already put up base stations in Juba, Bor, Torit, Yabio and Wau. Construction of base stations is also going on in Rumbek, Aweil, Kwajok, Malakal and Bentiu. It is building a microwave link from Koboko in Uganda through Kenya to connect Yei and Juba in Southern Sudan. (Source: East African) BTC Appeals to Mascom And Orange Not to Ditch using incumbent’s Infrastructure in BotswanaThe CEO of Botswana’s incumbent Vincent Seretse said he was trying to persuade the two mobile operators to continue using BTC’s infrastructure. This is bit like King Canute asking the waves to turn back as both are likely to put in place their own international gateways and their own microwave links on key routes. "We are persuading Mascom and Orange not to open their (own international) gateways," Seretse said at the Botswana Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and Call Centre conference held at the Gaborone Sun earlier in the week. The BTC, which enjoyed a landline monopoly until recently, is still providing the gateway for other telecommunication operators, but it fears it will lose the majority of its international voice business if the mobile operators set up their own international gateways as they almost inevitably will. Now they have a choice, mobile operators want both lower prices and service quality, something BTC may not be able to deliver. Meanwhile, Seretse told the BPO conference that the BTC "shall provide mobile services" within months. Since there is currently little or no price competition in the mobile market, a new entrant can only be a good thing for Botswana’s mobile users. (Source: Mmegi/The Reporter) ECOWAS and WATRA see Regional Roaming as next big Business for GSM OperatorsEven as mobile operators try to cope with the headache of about 98 per cent Pay-As-You-Go subscribers, boss of the West African Telecommunications Regulators Association, WATRA, is encouraging the operators to tap into the honey pot which the roaming business across the West African sub region represents. There are 45 operators across the sub-region and both ECOWAS and WATRA are of the opinion that seamless business amongst them and across countries, will present a great source of revenue and are therefore working together to ensure that roaming is fully activated in the region as it is in other parts of the world. Speaking at a conference in Abuja recently, Messrs Nnamdi Nwokike, Executive Secretary, WATRA, and Raphael Koffi, Telecom Adviser, ECOWAS, unearthed figures and possibilities within the sub region that would make it super attractive to any investor. Presenting the EU example to press home his point, Nwokike informed that roaming spend by mobile subscribers in EU countries in 2005 stood at 5bn euros while money exchanged by the operators was 3.5bn euros. According to the figures supplied by Nwokike, EU population stands at 467million, mobile penetration 439 million while subscribers who roam are 147million. Of this figure, 25 per cent are business roamers while 8 per cent roam for leisure. There are over 2.5bn GSM and 3G subscribers across the world, and about 50,000 new connections are made every hour. The region’s mobile operators currently see the challenge of implementing roaming for pre-pay subscribers as the biggest obstacle. However, MTN has already said (at GSM Africa 2006) that it want to create a roaming region across West Africa. It currently has operations along the length of West Africa except Togo. Currently there are two other roaming schemes: Comium’s between Liberia and Sierra Leone and Sonatel and Ikatel (both France Telecom-owned) between Senegal and Mali. (Source: Vanguard)
IN BRIEF:- Telkom Kenya plans major debt and project swaps to rid it of liabilities amounting to Sh68.8 billion as part of restructuring before privatisation. The parastatal says it has finalised plans to lay off a further 4,421 employees as part of the process before the end of this year. At the same time the Government has announced that it will issue a fourth mobile phone licence as it sweetens the sale of a majority stake in Telkom Kenya to strategic investors. - According to Ted Sauti-Phiri, MD of Celtel Sierra-Leone, the company spends Le 330 million (US$110,000) on fuel alone every month to run its 110 cell sites constructed across the country. On average the company spends between US$320,000 and US$350,000 to erect each of the already existing number of cell sites. - Celtel International had announced that it would move its regional office from Netherlands to Nairobi. - According to Camtel in recent months thieves have stolen about 10,000 metres of telephone cables evaluated at FCFA50 million (US$105,000), cutting off about 800 out of some 5000 subscribers of land lines. Areas in the Douala III Municipality such as Nyala, PK 10, and Logbada were hard hit by the telephone cable theft. - Over the past few months, Egypt's Mobinil has carried out tests to identify weak roaming areas and to improve roaming retainability and efficiency on its network in preparation for this summer's tourist season. Using roaming KPIs, it identified Loss of Roamers and potential subscribers' retention weaknesses mainly in touristy and coastal areas (Sharm, Urgada, Luxor, etc.). - Ethiopia will have1.2 million mobile phones available for sale to the hundreds of thousands of tourists and Ethiopians living abroad who are expected to visit the country to celebrate the Ethiopian millennium, which falls on 12 September. According to Ethiopia Telecommunication Corporation (ETC), the handsets will afford tourists access to various special services including audio and video data. Ethiopia’s own citizens are still unable to use SMS. - Mobile operator, MTC Namibia, recently reported losses in excess of N$520 000 (US$74,700) from the theft of its solar panels in the coastal area of Namibia. These losses were incurred during the week of 23rd of July 2007. - In Cote d’Ivoire, Charles Koffi Diby, President of the Board of the Fonds National des telecommunications (FNT), CI’s equivalent of a Universal Service Agency has announced that the 8 billions CFA francs (US$16 million) fund will be used to finance rural telecommunication project in the country. TELECOMS, RATES, OFFERS AND COVERAGE- MTN has now implemented its branding (blue and yellow) on the former Areeba network in Ghana. - Celtel Malawi boosted its subscriber base to half a million at the start of August from the 376,000 it had before a fire damaged its network in late March. - Mascom, a mobile operator in Botswana has launched a new mobile Internet service using EDGE. Four bundled packages are available - Surf20, Surf100, Surf500 and Surf1Gig. These allow one to sign up for a specified amount of data per month for a fixed fee. There is also a pay-as-you-surf option. - Celtel Uganda has embarked on a series of network upgrades and rolling out to new locations. The company is upgrading from GSM900 to GSM1800 which will enable it to double its capacity. The mobile operator is also expanding throughout Uganda to achieve 90 per cent coverage of the population of Uganda from the current 78 per cent. - Comium-Liberia, one of the GSM companies in the country has launched a new service featuring songs of Liberian musical artists. The service known as the Control Ring Back Tone (CRBT) will play songs of Liberian musicians when receiving a call. It will feature songs of ten renowned Liberian artists including gospel and secular songs. -Moroccan telecoms regulator ANRT has reported that the country’s fixed telephony subscribers rose by 20.48% quarter-on-quarter in April-June 2007 to 1.94 million, mostly thanks to the recent introduction of limited mobility wireless in the local loop (WiLL) services. According to the watchdog, fixed telephony penetration rose to 6.36% from 5.39% over the same period. The fixed line market had seen an unprecedented 27.24% rise in subscribers over the first quarter of the year to reach 1.61 million at the end of March, up from 1.266 million at the end of December 2006. - South Africa’s Competition Commission has ruled that cellular operator MTN discriminated against smaller rival Cell-C by charging it higher interconnect fees than it charged to market leader Vodacom. The Commission said MTN’s interconnect pricing was uncompetitive, according to a Reuters report. The ruling relates to calls made from Cell-C public payphones.
Neotel promises cheaper Bandwidth from Deal with SeacomNew operator Neotel is promising to shake up SA's moribund telecoms market by introducing cheap high-speed international bandwidth as a key partner in a privately funded undersea cable. Bandwidth fees could be slashed by up to 80% compared with the price of satellite connections once Neotel is using the Seacom cable, which will link SA and east Africa to Europe and India. As well as offering lower prices, Neotel's deal with Seacom nicely sidesteps a legal quagmire threatening to cause further delays to the government-backed but delayed Eassy cable. The new deal will see Neotel own Seacom's landing station and operate the facilities in SA. It will sell that bandwidth to other voice and data carriers such as internet service providers, livening up the market for international bandwidth that Telkom has dominated for years. The 13 000km cable will run along the east coast of Africa and through the Red Sea, with landing points in Mozambique, Madagascar, Tanzania, Kenya and the United Arab Emirates before it terminates in Italy. It will also link to Johannesburg to ease SA's national bandwidth bottleneck and let customers hop on to the cable from the city. No early price relief is in sight, however, as construction will begin only later this year with switch-on due in early 2009. Even so, that will be far sooner than the Eassy cable will materialise. (Source: Business Day) Nitel Acquires More Bandwidth From Sat-3The financially troubled Nitel has paid up its bill with SAT3 managing agent Telkom SA and for the first time in several months is ordering additional capacity. Sources from Nitel headquarters in Abuja last week said the company paid about N63 million (US$505,000) for an STM-1. If true, this works out at what seems the rather high price of US$3247 per meg duplex, particularly as this is a wholesale price. A senior manager in the technical unit of Nitel said the company exhausted the first STM-1 it acquired in 2002, due to rising demand for bandwidth. Nitel paid about N6.3billion in 2002 to co-own the SAT-3 under sea optic cable, which gives it access to bandwidth after paying a fixed amount to Cable and Wireless. (Source: This Day) IFC to Invest US$32.5 million in Undersea Fibre Cable in East AfricaThe IFC, the financing arm of the World Bank has approved investment of $32.5 million in the undersea fibre-optic link known as East African Submarine Cable System (EASSy). The International Finance Corporation's (IFC's) board approved the investment which seeks to provide high-quality Internet and international communications links to 250 million people in Africa. IFC's Executive Vice President, Lars Thunell said in press statement international connectivity prices will drop by two-thirds at outset and the cable will open access to service providers spurring competition. "Consumers along Africa's east coast pay US$200 (Sh13,400) to US$300 (Sh20,100) a month for Internet access. Reducing international communications price by 10 per cent can benefit consumers by more than US$2.5 billion," he said. He said EASSy will run 10,000 km from Africa's southern tip to its horn, connecting Kenya, Tanzania, Somalia, Sudan, Djibouti, South Africa, Mozambique and Madagascar. The fibre will be operational in 2009. (Source: The Nation) IN BRIEF:- Africa Online, the pan African information and communications technology firm, has launched a high-speed wireless Internet service for Tanzania. The InfiNet service is based on a technology known as iBurst, which is also capable of supporting voice and video solutions. The service, which is targeted at both the retail and consumer markets, became available at Africa Online dealers from the beginning of this month at a cost of US$200. - Reporters Without Borders slammed Zimbabwe’s Interception of Communications Act that finally signed into law by President Robert Mugabe on 3 August. It enables the government to intercept phone calls, emails and faxes with the declared aim of protecting national security. Internet service providers are now reportedly facing financial difficulties as a result of the bill, because of the costs of installing monitoring equipment on their platforms. Under the law ISPs have to meet the costs themselves. - Former France Telecom Mobile Satellite Communications has been rebranded as Vizada following its acquisition by Apax Partners in October 2006. - OutKafe, a cybercafe management suite distributed under the free GNU/GPL licence, has just had version 5.2.0 released. Largely a feature oriented release, the release is recommended for all users.
World Bank to Help Farmers Get Market Data in KenyaThe World Bank is launching a project to make commodity pricing information available to farmers electronically. Digitalisation of agricultural commodity prices is part of an Sh8 billion Kenya Transparency and Communication Infrastructure Project (KTCIP) whose aim is to increase the use of technology in the agricultural sector. Of the Sh8 billion funding, Sh200 million has been earmarked for development of a universal communication and information services using the Internet, short message services (SMS) and other forms of communication. Colin Bruce, the World Bank country director, said the bank's support for the initiative is informed by insight into the potential that it has to reduce the cost of doing agribusiness in the country. The agricultural sector has been identified as a key area for fast-tracking the initiative due to the progress made by the Kenya Agricultural Commodities Exchange (KACE) has made. It developed information pipeline 10 years ago to update farmers on pricing trends in their respective markets. KACE utilises a market information system to help smallholder farmers access better markets and prices for their produce. The information is transmitted through mobile phones and the Internet. Mr Adrian Mukhebi, KACE's executive director said mobile phone-based SMS services such as Sokoni allowed access to daily agricultural commodity prices, extension service messages as well as offers users the opportunity to bid or sell. Under the joint efforts of the Government and the World Bank, the main objective of the proposed funding for KACE will be to scale-up the service for a wider range of agricultural commodities including key export crops such as coffee and tea and giving more comprehensive information to farmers. Funding will be used to educate farmers in agricultural commodity markets, with recipients getting access to information detailing how they can use the service to their benefit. Plans are also underway to develop a web-services arrangement whereby the mobile service provider also pushes the data in real time to an appropriate website. (Source: Business Daily) KnowledgeTree takes off with NasaKnowledgeTree, the Cape Town based open source document management system has taken off with a number of major customers. KnowledgeTree has also been listed on the Optaros Enterprise Open Source Directory, a listing of leading enterprise-ready open source applications. KnowledgeTree last week announced that Decathlon Stores, GlaxoSmithKline, the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and DHL Global Mail have joined a growing list of companies that have chosen to implement KnowledgeTree to manage their documents. KnowledgeTree commercialised just over a year ago and has since seen significant community growth, with 25 000 registered community members, 380 000 open source software downloads and 66 community-run projects. Descibing its vision as making document management simple, its web-based and AJAX-enabled application is built on the open source LAMP (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP) stack. (Source: Tectonic) Prisoners Get Computers in UgandaUganda's biggest jail, Luzira Maximum Security Prison recently received a boost that will promote ICT use among its incarcerated residents. Uganda Telecom has donated five PCs to help promote literacy amongst prisoners. Often ignored and poorly funded in comparison to other government ministries and institutions, the maximum upper prison with over 2,400 inmates only boasted of two computers and three laptops before the uganda telecom donation. Computer classes at the prison, located about six kilometres east of the city centre commenced at the beginning of the year with candidate classes in the three categories of Uganda's formal education. For starters, the computers are being used to teach Microsoft Office and various Internet packages. (Source: East African Business Week) ITU's Report praises Tunisia’s IT progressAccording to the 2007 report of the International Telecommunications' Union (ITU) related to the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) which was released recently, Tunisia achieved a considerable progress in the field of information technologies. According to the report, Tunisia was the first African and Arab country to have been connected to the Internet (in 1991) and has the second largest subscriber penetration. The mobile network covers practically all the population thanks to the introduction of a second telecommunication company in the market, which led to an important rise in the number of mobile telephone users has now reached 64% of the population. (Source: Tunisia Online) IN BRIEF:- The International Free and Open Source Software Foundation iFOSSF, MI, USA (http://www.ifossf.org) is looking for innovative and/or outstanding projects and programmes from the community that use ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) and FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) to intervene in social and economic problems in worthwhile and innovative ways. -AMD has announced the establishment of its local office, which is located in the JSE building at the Exchange Square in Sandton. - In Uganda Orient Bank customers will now be able to access banking services 24-hours following the launch of SMS and e-banking facilities. - While South Africa has not yet legislated for the “greening” of computers, the presence of environmentally-responsible computers in the local market, coupled with many organisations' desire to reduce their environmental impact has created somewhat of a following for 'green PCs'. HP and Tarsus have announced that the local availability of the dc5750 or 'green PC' as an option for corporate customers. - As part of a new “Knowledge Communities” project, UNESCO Office in Bangkok has launched an online ICT-in-Education community: an interactive forum which welcomes educators, teachers, administrators, policy makers and others to share their ideas and opinions on topics relating to the use of ICT in education. - Algeria’s National Solidarity Minister Djamel Ould Abbes signed a contract with the National Computer System Company (ENSI) with a view to put computer systems in general use throughout all the specialised centres (258 centres in charge of children) coming under the authority of national solidarity sector.
Telkom signs US31.8 million 2010 Deal with FifaThe deal for Telkom to provide fixed-line connectivity for the 2010 World Cup soccer tournament has finally received FIFA's public stamp of approval. Last week, Telkom signed the deal to become a “National Supporter of the 2010 FIFA World Cup”. The contract, worth US$31.8 million, was signed at a ceremony in Nasrec, south of Johannesburg. The agreement requires Telkom to provide FIFA with the fixed-line network infrastructure to support the broadcast of the 2010 event. The R225 million will be presented by government as part of its estimated R5 billion technology budget for the World Cup. In essence, Telkom will enable the interconnection of important event venues, including the 10 FIFA World Cup stadiums, broadcast compounds, media centres, the International Broadcast Centre and FIFA headquarter locations. As a National Supporter of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, Telkom gains a package of advertising, promotional and marketing rights that are exercisable within the borders of SA. “Telkom chose this level of sponsorship because its dominant customer base is within the country,” says Telkom acting CEO Reuben September. (Source: ITWeb) Cell One Signs US$76.8 million financing Deal in NamibiaNew mobile phone operator Cell One yesterday signed a US76.8 million long-term financing deal with an investment-banking consortium, including the Development Bank of Namibia (DBN), Investec and Nedbank Capital. DBN will provide US$8.6 million of the total, while Investec and Nedbank Capital will split the remaining U$68.2 million equally. The company said the purpose of the long-term financing is to allow Cell One to continue with the rollout of its mobile phone network. The company estimates it will be able to invest US$143.6 million in network development over the next three years. It is however still very cagey about subscriber numbers, saying only the number is somewhere between 25,000 and 100,000 subscribers. (Source: New Era) Makamba and Mutasa buy out Telecel International’s Zimbabwe stakeTelecel Zimbabwe’s major shareholders James Makamba and Jane Mutasa have gained control of the firm after paying US$3.5 million to Telecel International for the an 11 percent stake. This brings Telecel International under the 50% limit put by the Government on foreign ownership. Telecel International held 60 percent of Telecel Zimbabwe while the remainder was in the hands of Empowerment Corporation, a local consortium comprising several individuals and groups. Under the empowerment group, Kestrel, owned by Makamba, holds 23 percent, IEG (18 percent), Indigenous Business Women's Organisation headed by Mrs Mutasa (17 percent), National Miners' Association (14 percent) and Zimbabwe Farmers' Union (14 percent). Magamba eChimurenga claims a 14 percent stake in the empowerment group. The deal has yet to be approved by POTRAZ, the Zimbabwean regulator and there is row amongst local shareholders. (Source: The Herald) South Africa’s mobile operator, Cell C Improves, But Still No Net ProfitCell C has made an operating profit of US$4.9 million in its most recent trading quarter, showing that efforts to turn the company around after six years in business are beginning to pay off. The cellular operator is still a long way from achieving a net profit. Interest payments on some high-yield bonds, issued to restructure its debts, destroyed its profit, leaving a net loss that its CEO Jeffrey Hedberg declined to quantify. "We are going to be cash-flow positive in the first quarter of next year and we are very happy that things are proceeding as we prognosticated," he said. The company's first operating profit was strong enough to appease its shareholders, so they were not planning on baling out or selling the company to a rival operator, he said. "I'd like to starve the oxygen from the merger and acquisition speculations, which create a lot of uncertainty for our customers, channel partners and staff. There is a lot of speculation about who is dancing with whom and right now we are pleased our shareholders don't want to dance," he said. "The shareholders are committed to supporting Cell C because they see we are delivering on what we say we are going to do." Cell C is 60% owned by Saudi Oger and 25% by black empowerment investors CellSaf. A 15% stake is held by Lanun Securities, a Saudi firm that bought the shares when CellSaf was struggling to pay for them. In May, Moody's Investors Service downgraded Cell C's credit rating, fearing that it may default on an $805m debt if it failed to generate enough cash to pay the interest. Cell C made that repayment in June "with no problem at all ", said Hedberg. It was paid partly from cash resources and partly by drawing US$24.7m from a US$84.8m credit facility with Nedbank, of which it has already paid back US10.6m. Results for the six months to June showed revenue was up 18% to R3.6bn and there was a gross profit of R1,3bn, up 23% from a year ago. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation stood at R346m, up 36% for the half year and up 106% for the second quarter in isolation. Cell C added 720,000 more customers and serves 3.4-million active users, which still leaves it lagging far behind Vodacom and MTN. (Source: Business Day) Chinese Invest Big Into IT and TV in RwandaA Chinese based company has officially launched a subsidiary in Rwanda to provide digital Pay-TV and broadband Internet services. The locally registered Star Africa Media Co. Ltd is a subsidiary of the Star Communication Network Technology Co. Ltd based in the capital Beijing. During the launching ceremony at the Kigali Serena Hotel recently, the CEO and chairman of the company Xinxing Pang said the company wanted to construct a wireless digital Pay-TV station based on Digital Video Broadcasting Terrestrial (DVB-T) and a laid down broadband cable in Kigali. "Construction work of a Pay -TV station will be completed at the end of this year. This is the first phase of the project," Pang said, adding that the second phase that will see the broadband system in place will commence in the first quarter of 2008. "We are going to provide internet to the people in Kigali first and they shall be accessing it using their mobile phones," Pang revealed. If the Rwanda model project succeeds, Pang said the next move would be to move into the neighbouring countries. It is not clear how the new company will compete with existing satellite Pay-TV offers. (Source: East African Business Week) IN BRIEF:- Mobinil Egypt has reported its results for the second quarter ended 30 June 2007 which show sales rose 37% year-on-year to EGP2.07 billion (US$370 million). EBITDA climbed 28.3% to EGP979 million while net income jumped 48.7% to EGP516 million. At the end of June the company claimed 11.9 million subscribers, up 1.2 million in the three month period. Average minutes of use reached 129 minutes, up 12% on the same period of 2006, while blended ARPU stood at EGP59, down EGP10 on 2Q 2006. - Celtel in Sierra Leone is one of five Celtel networks in Africa, including Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar, Malawi and Uganda that recently benefited from a US$320 million loan from the World Bank's IFC to Celtel’s owner MTC. According to Celtel’s MD in Sierra Leone, US$50 million will be invested to improve quality and further service and network development. On the other hand, Celtel Congo has been offered CFA230 billion (USD480 million) investments fund until 2012.
Time to Stop Misleading SMS Polls in South AfricaKnee-jerk SMS polls such as those fired at viewers during e.tv's news bulletins are nothing short of misleading and mischievous. They are completely out of touch with reality, with no research value whatsoever, and the only benefit, at R2.00 a pop, is to add some easy money to e.tv's bottom line in the space of a few minutes. Last week for example, halfway through e.tv's 7pm bulletin, the following question was asked: "Do you think South Africa should be helping Zimbabwe refugees?" Viewers had less than 10 minutes to send in their SMS replies and the results at the end of the bulletin were those of the 7782 respondents: 35% said yes and 65% said no. Given the speed at which viewers had to respond, it is logical to assume that those who felt the most strongly about the Zimbabwe refugee situation - the xenophobes - would be those most likely to bother to grab their cellphones and spend R2.00 on an SMS. Viewers who felt Zimbabwe refugees should be helped were equally logically not nearly as motivated to rush for their cellphones. It is called human nature. And what e.tv was doing is called moneymaking muckraking. Barbara Cooke, one of South Africa's most respected market researchers and founder of Target Group Index (TGI) in this country, said that SMS polls "are no more than a self-selected sample of interested persons, either pro or con. As such, they are representative of no real universe except perhaps a universe of persons at the extreme ends of a spectrum of opinion. "Nobody else would bother to respond. So yes, these polls are misleading. They are also statistically rubbish and could actually be very dangerous in forming the opinions of the fence sitters." (Source: Biz-Community) South Africa 'Strongest Affinity Brands' OnlineNielsen//NetRatings and the South African Online Publishers Association (OPA) today, Tuesday, 7 August 2007, released various online trend figures for South Africa which show clearly the difference between what men and woman are looking at online and should be a clear indication to marketers on how to target these ever growing and profitable segments of the market. Most male-dominant brands online concern sports, motoring and business/finance, while the most female-dominated brands come from a much wider range of sectors, according to the findings. "The list of most female-dominated brands differs from the male list in two key areas. Firstly, the female list comes from a much wider range of sectors - from food and health to property, recruitment, business, parenting and the weather. We've seen a similar pattern to this in the UK and highlights how women, perhaps, have a greater grasp of how the Internet can help with more facets of their daily lives," comments Burmaster. "Secondly, the degree of dominance within each list is markedly different. For example, men make up 69% of the audience to the 10th most-male dominated brand, whereas, the most female-dominated brand 'only' has a 64% female audience. In other words, the most female-dominated brands still have a fairly large percentage of male audience - for example 46% of the audience to parenting site Babynet is male." (Source: Biz-Community)
PEOPLE- Novell SA country manager Stafford Masie has resigned in order to establish and head up the local operation of Internet giant Google. - Nokia Siemens Networks announced that it has appointed former Alcatel-Lucent CEO Linda Khumalo as its new Southern Africa head. - IT veteran Hamilton Ratshefola, CEO of Cornastone Consulting, has been appointed as chairman of DVT. EVENTS- 2ND ANNUAL CONNECTING CONNECTING RURAL COMMUNITIES AFRICA FORUM 2007 21st-24th August 2007, Nairobi, Kenya This international event will bring together African government officials, senior figures from African regulatory authorities and international ICT experts who are leading the private sector connectivity drive. At this forum you have the opportunity to discuss and analyse best practices, share case studies and debate crucial topics If you would like to register as a delegate, please contact Marco by email: m.dekock@cto.int or telephone: 0044 208834 1577 - WI-WORLD AFRICA 2007 27 - 30 August 2007, Michelangelo Hotel, Johannesburg, South Africa. In Africa, fixed-line infrastructure is lacking and there is a major problem with copper wire theft. Wireless communication is therefore a great alternative. For further information visit www.terrapinn.com/2007/telecomza - GSM>3G MIDDLE EAST AND GULF 2-3 September 2007, Dubai International Convention Centre, UAE This 12th event features a 6 streamed agenda of 90 visionary speakers delivering crucial insights on: WiMAX, In-Building, FMC, Content, Interconnection and Pricing. Early booking discounts apply so contact us today to secure your place www.gsm-3gworldseries.com/meg - IIR's AFRICAN TELECOMS BILLING AND REVENUE MANAGEMENT FORUM 03 Sep-07 Sep 2007, International Convention Centre, Cape Town, South Africa Join us this September in Cape Town and benefit from an event offering 5 focused days of conference and seminar sessions addressing. The event will bring together leading operators and service providers to address the specific Revenue Management and Billing challenges currently being faced by African Telecoms Operators and Service For further information visit www.iir-conferences.com/atbra - IWEEK CONFERENCE 5-7 September 2007, Johannesburg, South Africa ISPA and UniForum SA are proud to state that this is the 6th year that they have been hosting and running iWeek, the Internet industry's premier conference. Registration is now open at http://www.ispa.org.za/iweek/2007/apply.shtml - CAPACITY AFRICA 2007 10 - 11 September, Cape Town, South Africa Capacity Africa 2007 provides a forum for providers from across Africa, along with the international carriers and service providers to meet and discuss the new business opportunities in the liberalising African markets including South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana and Botswana. With an extensively researched programme providing high quality content, senior level speakers and attendees, and lucrative networking opportunities, Capacity Africa 2007 is the premier pan-African wholesale telecommunications congress. For more details contact rachel.helyer@capacitymedia.com . Visit the Conference web site at www.capacitymedia.com -SATWIBB AFRICA: AFRICAN SATELLITE & WIRELESS BROADBAND CONFERENCE & VOIP FORUM West Africa: Muson Centre, Lagos, 21-23 August 2007 Theme: Broadband bridges across Africa: First and last mile solutions Local and international industry leaders will make presentations on the following topics: Efficient bandwidth delivery mechanisms
The event also includes a Masterclass on Building Wireless Communities by Paul Munnery, CEO, Wireless Digital Cities, UK To request full details, email info@aitecafrica.com or log on to www.aitecafrica.com - ICT AFRICA 2007 October 1-5, 2007, Kenyatta International Conference Centre, Nairobi, Kenya ICT Africa is an annual continental information and communications technology conference addressing all aspects of ICT development in Africa. The conference is convened by NEPAD council in collaboration with the NEPAD Kenya secretariat. The 2007 event will be organized by Global Conferences, Cape Town, South Africa. For further information contact rjacobs@globalconf.co.za - INFRASTRUCTURE PARTNERSHIPS FOR AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT (IPAD) CENTRAL AFRICA 3rd - 5th October, Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo iPAD Central Africa 2006 provides an opportunity to network directly with key partners. The event aims to facilitate regional planning and collaborations under one roof between government, the public sector and business. iPAD Central Africa 2006 is a one-stop-shop for investigating investment opportunities in DRC and the Central African region as a whole. For further information visit http://www.spintelligent-events.com/ipad-central2006/en/ CONTRACTS: WHO'S SELLING WHAT TO WHOM?Tellumat and SANDF – South Africa The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) has awarded defence ICT company Tellumat a R3.5 million contract to supply point-to-point digital microwave radio links to upgrade and expand its national command and control network. RPC Data and Kenyan Government - Kenya RPC Data Limited (RPC Data) has announced the commencement of a contract to supply a Pensions Management Information System to the Kenyan Government. The BSE-listed IT company's Executive Director Mompati Nwako says the P16 million contract with the Government of Kenya is the culmination of an exhaustive evaluation programme that included a public tender in which bidders were invited to offer.
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