Africa By Region
Massive Undersea Mudslide Caused Internet Problems Across Africa
Image sourced from Medium. A recent study conducted by Professor Peter J. Talling and a team from the Departments of Earth Sciences and Geography, from the University of Durham in the UK, co-led by Angola Cables and supported by the Vodafone Group, British Telecom, NERC Environmental and others, has delivered important findings presenting valuable insights for the routing and protection of future subsea cables. In January 2020, the South Atlantic 3/West Africa (SAT-3/Wasc) cable, linking Africa to Portugal and Spain was hit by a breakdown in Gabon, whilst the West Africa Cable System (Wacs) that connects South Africa to the United Kingdom saw an outage off the coast of the DRC Congo. In March, the WACS cable experienced a further break affecting international bandwidth. Whilst many I...
MTN Group Eyes Second Ethiopian Operating Licence
MTN Group CEO, Ralph Mupita has revealed that the telco would consider bidding for the second Ethiopian operating licence after initially losing to Safaricom. “We took an approach that the opportunity, as strategic as it was, needed to meet our capital allocation framework and the hurdles that we saw given the licence conditions. We were particularly focused on the lack of mobile money in the licencing regime, and there were some issues around how the telco constructs would be accommodated within Ethiopia. We certainly priced for those things and near-term risks that we saw, and we felt that the financial bid there was appropriate.” He says that although it was disappointing that they did not win the initial bid, they may take another shot at it. “There are views that the Ethiopian authori...
Why Broadband Connectivity is Crucial to Sustainable Development in Africa
Over the past year or so, digital transformation accelerated at an unprecedented rate in societies around the world. Whether we were working, learning, or staying in touch with friends and family, being online became more critical than ever. Even as vast numbers of people were adapting to their new realities, it became increasingly apparent that equally large numbers of people were shut out from being able to do so. In Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, approximately 800-million people are not connected to the mobile internet. Of those, some 520-million can access the mobile internet but don’t, because of factors such as smartphone penetration and lack of skills while 270-million cannot access the mobile internet because they don’t have the requisite coverage. Across the region, 4G broadband...
4 Steps to a Successful Cloud Migration
Sourced from InfoWorld. Migrating to the cloud can seem like a daunting task for businesses that are still at the start of their digital transformation journeys, but the costs of delaying this decision can be far greater than the initial challenges of cloud adoption. In a survey by World Wide Worx, 31% of Kenyan businesses reported spending between 51% and 75% of their IT budgets on cloud services in 2020, and 68% intend to increase their cloud spend in 2021. With so many businesses moving to the cloud, you can’t afford to be left behind. The pandemic has doubtlessly accelerated this shift toward cloud environments, and more organisations are beginning to capitalise on the various innovations that cloud can offer. If your business is about to undertake this digital migration, there are a f...
Could Digital Health Passports Boost Secure Travel Post-COVID-19?
/* custom css */ .tdi_3_635.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.tdi_3_635.td-a-rec-img img{ margin: 0 auto 0 0; } According to the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 dashboard, there are 157,973,438 confirmed cases globally, and the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) is tracking daily increases in infections pointing to a looming third wave in the coming weeks or months. Statistics show us that different countries are at different stages of their pandemic journey. In this regard, health passports are the latest step in the evolving response to the global pandemic. It is an idea that’s gaining traction too, as it seems such an obvious solution to help reopen the door to a post-COVID-19 world. However, one person’s common sense approach to halting the spread of the virus and...
Veeam Appoints New Country Manager of Africa
/* custom css */ .tdi_3_6a7.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.tdi_3_6a7.td-a-rec-img img{ margin: 0 auto 0 0; } Veeam has appointed Chris Norton as its new Country Manager of Africa. In his new role, Norton is expected to support Veeam’s continued investment and strong presence in Africa and accelerate the region’s growth with a specific focus on Enterprise. Norton will report directly to Patrick Rohrbasser, Regional VP of SEMEA and Africa. With over 25 years of experience in the IT sector, Norton has a wealth of experience working in digitally-driven businesses. Norton joins Veeam from Dell Technologies where he was Regional Sales Director for the last four years. He also held various senior leadership roles at ServiceNow, VMware, Citrix and Workgroup Distribution. “Chris is a fantastic a...
Facebook Joins Forces with Eutelsat to Expand WiFi Connectivity Across Sub-Saharan Africa
Eutelsat Communications is expanding its use of the Express WiFi platform in partnership with Facebook to provide broadband services via satellite across several regions in Sub-Saharan Africa. With Express Wi-Fi, Eutelsat aims to connect thousands of people in rural and underserved communities spanning the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Kenya, Madagascar, South Africa, Cameroon, Ghana and Zimbabwe. Express Wi-Fi is a platform developed by Facebook Connectivity that enables partners to build, grow and monetize their WiFi businesses in a scalable way while providing their customers with fast, affordable, and reliable internet access. Express Wi-Fi is used in more than 30 countries, including in multiple Asian, South American and African ...
