Safaricom, Qualcomm set for a ‘3G Experiential Tour’

Safaricom and Qualcomm have announced the launch of an 'experiential tour' for 3G products and services in Kenya which will take place from April 14 to June 31.

The roadshow will allow consumers to test-drive 3G devices and experience rich content and faster internet access enabled by 3G-enabled mobile smartphones, PCs and laptops.

"We are passionate about growing our data services, especially with 3G.

The Safaricom 3G Experiential Tour showcases the latest generation of Safaricom's mobile services and the most advanced smartphones based on Qualcomm's Snapdragon processors," said Safaricom chief executive Bob Collymore.
The tour will take place throughout Nairobi, Mombasa, Thika, Nakuru and Kisumu and will visit areas with heavy human traffic including malls, sporting events and universities.

The roadshow will take the form of two vans custom-built as 'Mobile Experience Centres.'

The roadshow vans have been fitted with 32-inch screens and laptops with dongles for users to try out 3G services. There will also be a number of live demonstrations of smartphones using Qualcomm's 'Snapdragon' processors, enabling users to do everything from social networking, HD video, speedy Web browsing and run the latest apps seamlessly.

"About 95 percent of Kenya's Internet users access the Internet on mobile networks. Qualcomm's Snapdragon processors sharpen this experience by enabling users to do more and recharge less, so they can spend more time watching videos, downloading music, playing games and interacting with friends via social networks," said Qualcomm's East Africa operations director Billy Owino.

During the RoadShow, consumers will be able to experience mobile computing with smartphones based on Qualcomm's Snapdragon processor which combines elements of a PC, TV and gaming console to provide a quick and smooth mobile computing experience.

The 3G tour is aimed to leverage on the strengths of the two firms, with Safaricom having what is billed as Kenya's widest 3G network while 25-year-old Qualcomm is recognized as a leader in 3G and next-generation mobile technologies worldwide. 

By James Ratemo

Police target Internet cafes in war on cybercrime

Cyber café operators will soon be required to keep a register of all their customers if a proposal by the Police Department aimed at arresting crimes perpetrated through mobile phones and the Internet is adopted.

CID director Ndegwa Muhoro said Parliament should enact a law that would compel cyber cafés to adopt the know-your-customer rules already in place in the banking and mobile phone sectors.

"We are proposing to this committee to help us have a legal framework that will compel all cyber shops log in their users with their identity cards and time spent on the computers registered," he told members of the parliamentary committee on education, which is investigating the cancellation of examination results for nearly 1,700 Form Four candidates from North Eastern Province.

Mr Muhoro said cyber cafes remained a missing link in recent efforts aimed at containing crime by tracking Internet use to a particular computer.

"It is difficult to pin down criminals who use cyber cafe computers at any given time unless they are logged in," he said, adding that most of the cheating during last year's examinations involved SMS on mobile phones and e-mails.

Although a conviction had been secured on a criminal who used SMSs to leak the exams, he said failure to operationalise a law requiring all mobile phone SIM card holders to register with the Communications Commission of Kenya was posing a threat to national security.

President Kibaki last year ordered that all unregistered mobile phone SIM cards be switched off to rein in crime, but there was no legal basis to back up the directive.

"To safeguard the lives of many Kenyans using mobile phones, I once more direct the Ministry of Information and Communications to ensure that there is no phone number in use that is not registered," Mr Kibaki had said.

The Communications Commission of Kenya Amendment Act, 2011, eventually addressed this loophole, but is yet to be operationalised.

Out of an estimated 28 million mobile phone users, three million are yet to register with their service providers: Safaricom, Airtel, yu and Telkom Orange.

Mr Muhoro Tuesday called for the quick operationalisation of the law to protect Kenyans from crimes associated with new technology.

"We have hit a brick wall many times where users of mobile phones are not registered or computers they used to commit crimes are in cyber cafes," he said, adding that the CID cannot block the mobile phones without attracting litigation.

The department has also recommended the setting up of secure examination storage centres with only supervisors having the keys to the vaults, which would be guarded by policemen, to curb examination fraud.

"This will certainly reduce cases of collusion between any unfaithful police officer and examinations supervisors or invigilator," Police Commissioner Mathew Iteere said.

According to him, no irregularities were detected when the method was piloted last year using containers.
He said 41 containers were used as storage centres in Coast, Eastern, Nairobi, Nyanza and Western provinces. The pilot by KNEC, however, did not cover North Eastern, Rift Valley and Central provinces.

The police also recommend that results should be released after the conclusion of investigations on irregularities, vetting of invigilators and supervisors and deterrent actions on offenders.

Mr Muhoro said all persons involved in examinations right from the setting and printing must be vetted by the CID and other security agencies.

By EDWIN MUTAI

Huawei betting on knowledge transfer, innovation to boost local ICT industry

With rapid growth in ICT infrastructure technology companies must now focus on innovation and generation of local content to grow the industry.

China technology company, Huawei, is now betting on nurturing local talent and inspiring innovation to make maximum impact locally.
Huawei regional president for East and Southern Africa, Li Dafeng, told Nation.co.ke the company has gone big on staff localization to ensure business continuity and faster growth.

"The Nairobi office has 400 employees with 60 per cent being local staff…local people Kenya's business culture which is very key for our success and there is assured business continuity," said Mr Dafeng.

The company which has operated in Kenya for the past 14 years believes Kenya is a market that cannot be ignored due to its quick growth in ICT infrastructure and expansion in mobile telephony sector.

Mr Dafeng believes Kenya's quest for industrialisation can be fast-tracked through increased innovation in ICT, especially mobile applications that have become the main drivers of business and life globally.

He said the Kenyans should get more innovative to benefit from the current technological revolution, adding that development of mobile applications has opened limitless opportunities for the tech-savvy.

"One of the key challenges we have faced is the retraining of fresh university graduates to orient them to the latest and emerging technologies not taught at the universities…the industry needs to work closely with training institutions to ensure churning out of relevant and demand-driven skills," he said.

We need to spur innovation in ICT thus we need our youth to be equipped with marketable skills…Huawei through its global ' telecom seed for the future' has partnered with Safaricom and three local Universities (Moi, Nairobi, and JKUAT) to ensure engineering students in Kenya are equipped with modern up to date skills to meet current need in telecom industry.

The MoU, signed in June 2011 entails agreement on Android Software application development, Internship/Industrial visit programs, academic curriculum reviews to meet current industry standards, training at Huawei HQ, universities and Training Center, offering expert trainers for the universities symposia and equipment donations.

Mr Dafeng said apart from partnering with the private sector to offer telecommunication solutions, it is working closely with the Kenyan government to expand ICT infrastructure in the rural areas.

Recently the company partnered with Mobicom to grow its retail outlets for its products including modems and mobile phones.

"Initially, Huawei focus was more on the telcos, but now we have more business groups such as carriers, enterprise and consumer.

As a change in our business strategy, we have therefore developed a channel targeting enterprise and consumer.

The partnership with Mobicom symbolizes a milestone of Huawei's new strategy, a shift from business-focused to customer-oriented and a march into open channels that entail operators, resellers, and retails, increasing the accessibility of Huawei-branded smart devices in the mass market," explained Mr Dafeng.

"We are in partnership with the Ministry of Information to impropve coverage of telco services in the rural areas. We have been deploying network equipment to ensure end users benefit from the latest mobile broadband trechnologies," said Dafeng.

"Globally Huawei posted $33bn in profits last year emerging as the world number two telecommunication services provider…we moved our regional headquarter to Kenya last year since Kenya is becoming an undisputed ICT hub and potential for growth is high," he said.

Mr Dafeng said Kenya now needs to encourage investors to concentrate more on local content and mobile apps development for maximum utilization of the existing Internet broadband.

"We must pay much attention to development of apps and local content…education and knowledge transfer is also very important to ensure a critical mass of skills to sustain the growing ICT industry," he advised.

He said Huawei has so far trained over 4500 students in relevant and latest technologies and is planning to expand the training programme to cater for more university graduates.

We are also focusing on supporting mobile application challenges among students to ensure development of apps relevant to Africa.

In order to mediate the software skills gap, the Kenya ICT Board also recently unveiled Chipuka software certification program in partnership with local and international universities to ensure companies have an easy and reliable way to identify skilled software developers in Kenya.

Chipuka will be the first "authentic" examination that would be attuned to the needs of the industry in general and incorporate a broad selection of professional tools.

A pilot exam will be ready by March 2013; the certification should be fully operational in Kenya by October 2013.

The move is informed by a study carried out in 2011 by the Kenya ICT Board and IDC which revealed a software skills gap in Kenya.

"Although there is a high demand for software development in Kenya, few companies source these skills locally. At least a quarter of companies surveyed said they were not satisfied with the quality of IT professionals in the local market…," partly reads a statement by the Kenya ICT Board.

In a past interview Vision 2030 director-general Mugo Kibati said ICT is a key pillar in the Vision 2030 and asked universities and software developers to think outside the box. "We cannot develop to a middle-level economy without innovation," he said. "And that innovation has to be original which means we must invest more in research and development."

He said innovation backed by research would solve the problem of commercializing service-oriented solutions.

He said projects like Konza City and Lamu Port-Southern Sudan-Ethiopia Transport Corridor (Lapsset) presented markets for app developers.

"As the old generation thinks about property around these areas, young people should be looking at how they can use technology to service these areas and create jobs."

Mobile usage has grown tremendously with over 70 per cent of Kenya covered by mobile networks and over 24 million people hooked to them. This makes mobile applications very critical in accessing services.

"Mobile phone is considered the computer of Africa and the de facto medium of communication," said Mr Kibati.

He noted that Kenya is ranked 56 out of 139 countries worldwide in terms of innovation by the World Competitiveness Report for 2010/11, putting the country at par with Asian tigers.

"Our problem in Kenya has always been that innovation is not turned into concrete products for the market soon enough. We need to close the innovation-implementation gap to increase our overall global competitiveness.

By James Ratemo

Safaricom to double broadband capacity

Mobile service provider Safaricom will double its broadband capacity next week opening a new battle front in the data market just weeks after its main rival Airtel launched a 3G network.

"The network will run at 42mega bits per second (mbps) from the current 21mbs and it will be the fastest network in the whole of East and Central Africa," Safaricom CEO Mr Bob Collymore said.

The firm has been under pressure to diversify its revenue streams away from voice following last years price wars. But its quest to control the data market has in the recent past witnessed increasing competition especially from Telkom Orange and Airtel as more telcoms invest in the service.

Airtel rolled out its 3G network in February putting it at par with Safaricom.

Safaricom's move to double its capacity can therefore be read as geared towards differentiating itself from rivals.

"We are already receiving the modems to support the new network," Mr Collynore said.

However the rollout will begin from Nairobi and its environs before going national.

Mr Collymore was speaking at the connected Kenya Summit 2012 in Mombasa that began on Tuesday.

The summit is in its fourth year and is the brainchild of the Kenya ICT Board in collaboration with industry players and government.

The annual forum is a platform for collaboration, capacity building and knowledge sharing between the government and the ICT stakeholders.

This year's summit--themed Knowldege and beyond--has attracted over 500 delegates including captains of the ICT industry, IT practitioners and officials from the vision 2030.

The four day conference will see players discuss how to build the knowledge economy, how to take advantage of the open data, linking innovation and trade.

Players will also discuss how to involve citizens in the growth of the sector, and the opportunities in e-commerce and retail trade. Companies will also showcase their latest products and services.

Information and communication permanent secretary Bitange Ndemo is expected to present the National ICT Masterplan 2017, which outlines the government's blue print for ICT on Thursday.

Companies attending this year's summit include Safaricom, HP, Ericsson, Huawei, IBM, Orange and Jamii Telcom. Others include Seven Seas Technologies, SAP, Accenture and EMC among others.

By PAUL WAFULA