Mobile and Telecoms
MTN Donates $25 million to the African Union’s COVID-19 vaccination programme
Sourced from TheTechieGuy (https://thetechieguy.com/) MTN is donating $25 million to support the African Union’s COVID-19 vaccination programme. This is expected to secure up to seven million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine for health workers across the continent, which will contribute to the vaccination initiative of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC). “The devastating impact of COVID-19 has been unprecedented and profound. Public and private partnerships are needed if we are to succeed in the fight against the pandemic and restore social and economic norms for our continent and our communities,” says Ralph Mupita, President and CEO of MTN. South Africa’s President and Chairperson of the African Union, Cyril Ramaphosa announced that the African Union ha...
Vodacom Business Enables Businesses to Digitise their Supply Chain Network
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to create significant challenges for the manufacturing and retail industry globally, the need for a resilient and agile supply chain network has never been greater. Vodacom Business has developed various digital solutions to help businesses achieve a true connected supply chain network to help improve efficiencies and withstand disruption and unpredicted hurdles in the future. Today’s supply chain network is more complex than ever. It has become a digital ecosystem of suppliers, logistics companies, customers and other value chain partners that stretch across the globe. The supply chain network relies on the synchronised movement of thousands of interrelated parts to meet the ever growing customer demand for better, more innovative products and on-time, l...
Showmax Partners with MTN Nigeria to Launch Mobile Data Deal
Showmax and MTN Nigeria have teamed up to launch a special data deal for mobile subscribers. The deal that includes the monthly subscription and 2.5GB data – enough to stream 25 hours’ worth of movies, sports, series, kids’ shows and more. A Showmax Mobile subscription gives access to the full Showmax catalogue on a data-enabled mobile device and is available for N1250, including MTN data. Sports fans can get Showmax Pro Mobile and MTN data for N2100. Showmax Pro features all Premier League, Serie A and La Liga matches plus a wide range of live sport from SuperSport including pro boxing, international marathons and IAAF athletics on top of the full Showmax entertainment catalogue. “Keeping up with our digitally savvy, always-on-the-go customers is an exciting challenge that is made easier ...
Lesotho and Zimbabwe Implement Telco Traffic Monitoring System
The Lesotho Communications Authority (LCA) and the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ) have begun the implementation of a system to monitor national and international telecommunications traffic. The system is expected to help increase revenue assurance, combat network fraud and enforce billing integrity across all communication networks available in the countries and shall be provided by leading regulatory technology developer and Big Data Analytics organisation Global Voice Group (GVG). “With these partnerships, GVG enables solid telecom metrics for tax collection purposes, fraud detection and market compliance with regulations to protect consumers and operators in Lesotho and Zimbabwe,” says James Claude, GVG CEO. “The RegTech solution provided by GVG ...
SIM-based Locking: How Telcos Can Reinvent Their Device Financing with NuovoPay
Device financing has been a catalyst in increasing the penetration of smartphones across developed countries. Several telecom carriers have taken the plunge into device financing in recent times, also bringing into focus the previously underserved markets of smartphone financing- in the African, LATAM and APAC regions. Traditionally, the smartphone financing model, especially the one that comes pre-bundled with a telecom service is a win-win for both the consumer as well as the telecom companies. With device financing, individual consumers as well as businesses can leverage the latest technology at their disposal, have an easy upgrade, pay lower total upfront costs and get a telecom service, with voice and data packages. For telecom carriers, smartphone financing enables tapping into...
Cell C has Started to Migrate Subscribers off its Network
Image sourced from Town Press Cell C has started migrating its customers to MTN’s cellphone tower infrastructure while it prepares to decommission its own towers. “Our strategic vision is to differentiate ourselves by focusing on innovative products and services without being owners of capital-intensive infrastructure. This creates more flexibility and capacity to deliver the right quality of service to our current and future customers,” says Cell C CEO, Douglas Craigie Stevenson. “Cell C is pioneering the evolution of the MNO space in South Africa by becoming a significant wholesale buyer of network capacity and infrastructure services. It is a win-win as the individual operators deliver segmental expertise to the benefit of everyone in the industry.” In response to a vastly changed busin...
MTN Offers Free Data to Users for Downloading the COVID-19 Alert App
Sourced from TheTechieGuy (https://thetechieguy.com/) In an effort to rally South Africans to download and use the COVID-19 Alert app, MTN has zero-rated its use and will also give customers 1GB of free data for an hour after download as a reward for their efforts in fighting the pandemic. The COVID Alert SA app, which was designed by Discovery for the National Department of Health, uses Bluetooth contact-tracing technology to let people know when they have been in contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19. It does this in a way that always preserves app user privacy and anonymity. “One of the critical aspects of combatting COVID-19 is the ability to detect positive cases early and to isolate as many contacts as possible. The COVID Alert SA app gives every smartphone user i...
South Africa’s Best and Worst Mobile Networks Revealed
MTN has been named South Africa’s best mobile network by the 2020 Mobile Network Quality Report. The report is based on 1.2 million speed tests which were performed by 41,000 MyBroadband Speed Test App users across South Africa between 1 January and 31 December 2020. The research shows that South Africa had an average download speed of 29.33Mbps and an average upload speed of 11.24Mbps last year. MTN had the highest average download speed at 52.84Mbps, followed by Vodacom on 29.39Mbps, Telkom on 21.58Mbps, Cell C on 17.46Mbps, and Rain on 11.90Mbps. During 2020 the average network speed of South Africa’s mobile operators increased significantly despite higher data usage. This was made possible by temporary spectrum which was issued to Vodacom, MTN, Telkom, and Rain by the Independent Commu...
NuovoPay for Handset Leasing in the Telecom Industry
Sourced from Getty Images. Mobile phones are no longer a luxury, even in the geographies that were once underserved in terms of technology. The proliferation of mobile phones across diverse avenues has led to a transformation that was inconceivable, a few years ago. Mobile phones- the new normal for Africa In Africa, the mobile phone market is heavily driven by the large population of the youth, today have access to a smartphone. According to a study by the World Bank and African Development Bank report, there are more than 650 million mobile users in Africa. Clearly, the African market is more than ready for a revolution that not only subsidizes the cost of mobile phones, which will curb the digital divide within the continent but also opens up new avenues to the growth of the local youth...
NuovoPay for Handset Leasing in the Telecom Industry
Sourced from Getty Images. Mobile phones are no longer a luxury, even in the geographies that were once underserved in terms of technology. The proliferation of mobile phones across diverse avenues has led to a transformation that was inconceivable, a few years ago. Mobile phones- the new normal for Africa In Africa, the mobile phone market is heavily driven by the large population of the youth, today have access to a smartphone. According to a study by the World Bank and African Development Bank report, there are more than 650 million mobile users in Africa. Clearly, the African market is more than ready for a revolution that not only subsidizes the cost of mobile phones, which will curb the digital divide within the continent but also opens up new avenues to the growth of the local youth...
Ericsson to Lay Technical Foundation for 6G in 2021
Ericsson has joined Hexa-X – the 6G flagship research project that brings together a strong consortium of major ICT, industry and academic stakeholders. The project will begin on 1 January 2021, with a focus on developing the vision for future 6G systems and developing key technology enablers to connect human, physical and digital worlds. In its Outlook for 6G research paper, Ericsson identifies four key drivers which will emerge in what it calls “the 2030 era” and which the project will seek to address: trustworthiness of the systems, sustainability through mobile technology efficiency, accelerated automatization and digitalization, and limitless connectivity. Part of the EU’s Horizon 2020 Program The Hexa-X project, which is commissioned to run until June 2023, will be awarded ...
