Top Stories
Uganda Starts Mass Production of its First Smartphone
Sourced from Gadgets Africa. Uganda will begin manufacturing its first smartphones through SIMI – a brand of smartphone makers that are said to have the average customer specifically in mind. The phones currently focus on one major aspect, battery life. The ‘regular’ non-smartphones can last up to at least two weeks and can charge via Solar power too. The smartphones have a battery capacity of at least two days. Currently, SIMI has the capacity to make 2000 phones a day. SIMI has already flagged off an 18,000 phone consignment that Uganda is exporting to Morocco sometime soon. The company also wants to involve university students in the development of apps and software for the handsets. Together with the production of the smartphones comes new regulations in the country, where phone import...
MTN Ranked as the Most Admired African Brand
MTN has again been ranked as the ‘Most Admired African Brand’ based on spontaneous consumer responses in Brand Africa 100: Africa’s Best Brands 2020 survey. The survey, which was released on Monday, shows that MTN is also the only African brand in the rankings of the ‘Most Admired Brands in Africa’. Covering 27 countries, representing around 80% of the population and the GDP of Africa, the group is now also considered one of the continent’s most admired media brands. MTN Mobile Money – through which MTN provides more than 35 million Africans access to financial services – remains one of Africa’s most admired finance brands. The Group also maintained its top position in the telecoms provider category. “We are thrilled to receive these accolades as the continent celebrates Africa Day,” says ...
The Major Benefits of All-flash Storage
Fred Saayman, Huawei BU Executive at Pinnacle Since flash storage debuted into the mainstream storage arena, its uptake has been skyrocketing in data centres across the globe, and shows no signs of slowing down. This isn’t surprising as more and more storage and speed is needed in the age of big data, and all-flash arrays are the ideal solution, particularly as the cost isn’t nearly as high as it was a decade ago. This is according to Fred Saayman, Huawei Business Unit: Executive, at Pinnacle ICT, SA’s leading local ICT distributor. “All-flash storage has many benefits over hybrid solutions. Perhaps the most compelling is its latency, as all-flash arrays usually see sub 1ms latencies on a mixed workload, and peak latency above 5 ms is highly unusual. If you compare this with SANs, for...
UK Cybersecurity Review May Mean the End for Huawei 5G Deal
Sourced from Getty Images. The UK’s National Cybersecurity Agency is expected to conclude that US sanctions against Huawei will make it impossible to use the Chinese company’s technology as planned for implementation of 5G throughout the country. Announced on Sunday, this emergency review is designed to pave the way for the country’s government to push for the total elimination of Huawei equipment in British phone networks by 2023, while also having the political consequence in dispersing a Conservative backbench revolt. The Guardian reports that this move will amount to a hasty reversal of the policy announced by ministers in January to limit Huawei to 35% of the British 5G network supply. The move likewise may irritate China, and add hundreds of millions in costs to UK-based BT and other...
Mining Sector Set to Lead Economic Recovery in Zambia
Sourced from Lusaka Times. Despite a challenging business environment in many sectors across the globe, Zambia’s wealth of natural resources continues to open the door for new investors and opportunities. As the world begins its recovery and gradual reopening in the face of the pandemic, traditional industries require energy, innovation and reinvention. ZCCM Investments Holdings Plc. – the mining conglomerate whose major shareholder is the Government of the Republic of Zambia – is signalling its intention to take on a leadership role in Zambia’s recovery with its announcement this week that they are partnering with a new strategic mining play – Array Metals. This company has an estimated inferred resource by JORC standards of 3 million tonnes of gold ore in Mumbwa, with 2.53.5grams per ton...
Is Technology Africa’s Biggest Undiscovered Gold Mine?
Technology has the potential to fundamentally transform societies. Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and broadband are becoming central to the societal developments around the world – enabling rapid improvements to industrial production and societal services, positively influencing the way we live and interact with our environment. Africa is home to over a billion people and the population is expected to grow in the coming years. It is projected to grow from 17% in 2020 to 26% in 2050 and 39% by 2100 of the global population while the share of Asia will fall from 59% in 2020 to 55% in 2050 and 43% in 2100. It is also a continent with the most growing economies and many from a low base; 9 of the 20 fastest growing in 2020 according to the IMF with rates above 6% of GDP (not ad...
Competition Commission Approves Cell C Recapitalisation
Image sourced from Town Press The Competition Commission announced that the proposed acquisition of Cell C assets by Gatsby SPV has been conditionally approved. “The Commission has recommended to the Competition Tribunal to conditionally approve the proposed transaction in which Gatsby SPV intends to acquire certain assets of the mobile network operator, Cell C,” the Commission in an official statement. Weekly Media Statement : @CompComSA gives #CellC deal a conditional approval pic.twitter.com/LjfWtDAlvs — CompComSA (@CompComSA) May 21, 2020 “The Commission found that the proposed transaction is unlikely to result in a substantial prevention or lessening of competition in any relevant markets – further found that the proposed transaction does not raise any other public interest concerns,”...
Konnect Africa Offers Free Internet to Clinics in South Africa during Pandemic
Konnect Africa, a subsidiary of Eutelsat Communications, is offering its services to the South African authorities to help them manage the COVID-19 health crisis. The communications company says that it will provide temporary free broadband connectivity to eight clinics in the Mpumalanga province where terrestrial networks are not able to provide appropriate bandwidth. Each site will benefit from 300GB of monthly data for several months, renewable if necessary. The deployment was undertaken by Konnect Africa’s local ECNS-licensed distributor, Logical Wireless, which has been authorized to operate during the lockdown as an Essential Services provider. /* custom css */ .tdi_3_400.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.tdi_3_400.td-a-rec-img img{ margin: 0 auto 0 0; } “This operation demonstrates ...
Mobile Connectivity: Staying Flexible is Key During Uncertain Times
As many companies in South Africa scramble to keep their employees working from home, the reality of connectivity costs, control and flexibility is becoming more important than ever. In the traditional office environment, managing connectivity and data use was not such a serious issue for IT managers, as data costs were essentially a part of overall fixed network infrastructure. Now, with many employees being forced to work from home, using mobile data where home fibre connectivity is not available has become costly and difficult to manage. Mobile data use has shot up while trying to keep employees connected and productive. Furthermore, many traditional mobile connectivity options such as corporate APN’s are not ideal for certain uses due to high data costs, not hav...
Free Webinar: How to Sell Faster and More To Your Digital Customer
Over the last few years, more and more consumers have opted to engage with brands and businesses digitally. This technological evolution — while very beneficial for consumers — is extremely valuable for organisations, and it has only been fast-tracked by the impact of COVID-19 on social and economic activity. In these uncertain times, potential clients will interact with your company by phone, instant messaging, email, mobile app or social channels — providing a deep treasure trove of data that your sales team can utilize to close deals. This means that now, more than ever, it’s important to not only use but also properly understand the wealth of data within your organisation. With this in mind, leading call centre software company, Genesys wants you to join the virtual convers...
5G Connections in Sub-Saharan Africa will Reach 28-Million by 2025, Says GSMA
The Global System for Mobile Telecommunications Association (GSMA) has stated that about 28-million devices in Sub-Saharan Africa – representing a total of 2.7% of total mobile connections – will be connected to a 5G network by 2025. Akinwale Goodluck, Head of Sub-Saharan Africa for the GSMA said this during a Huawei online interview. He explained that when 5G eventually comes to Sub-Saharan Africa, it will be more for the enterprise market as opposed to the retail consumer market. “We will see little 5G hotspots in countries like South Africa. I know that some operators have started some of those, but the ultimate goal will be for us to fill up the 4G pipes. Then when 5G comes there will be a sort of limit in terms of wireless roll-outs, but the bottom line is governments need to aggressi...
Twitter is Testing a New Tweet Reply Feature
Image sourced from Twitter Twitter is testing a new feature that will allow users to choose who can reply to their tweets. Essentially, before posting a tweet, users will be able to select one of three options: everyone (standard Twitter, and the default setting), only people you follow, or only people you mention – thereby controlling who can (or cannot) reply to a specific tweet. This new setting is all a part of Twitter’s plan to give users more control over their conversations across the platform. “Twitter is where you go to see and talk about what’s happening. But sometimes, unwanted replies make it hard to have meaningful conversations,” says Suzanne Xie, Director of Product Management at Twitter, in an official blog post. “Being able to participate and understand what’s happening is...
