A radical Islamist sect that has attacked mosques, churches, schools and government buildings at will in Nigeria appears to have added a new target for its violence: mobile phone towers. Attacks in the last day have damaged more than 30 towers operated by all the major providers in the country, further
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Huawei says it has won contracts to provide new backhaul networks for Movicel in Angola and MTC in Namibia, both of which plan to launch among the continent’s first commercial long-term evolution (LTE) networks. The Chinese company has already been instrumental in the
After switching off interconnection with state-owned mobile operator NetOne, Zimbabwe’s largest mobile operator, Econet Wireless, has been forced to reverse its decision by the Southern African country’s high court. Econet claims it is owed US$20m by its rival. Econet cut links with its rival last Thursday, claiming NetOne had
Zimbabwe is to be hooked up to the high-capacity West Africa Cable System (Wacs), the submarine telecommunications pipe that extends from SA to London along Africa’s west coast, thanks to a deal its incumbent fixed-line operator has concluded with its Namibia counterpart. The announcement was made
There are fears that Nigeria is being left behind in information and communications technology (ICT) development after US computer services giant IBM elected to build its first research laboratory in Kenya rather than in the more populous West African state. “When IBM, the US$230bn American IT
Apple has announced it will officially enter the Nigerian market and has appointed four authorised resellers in the West African country. These are iConnect and Orchard in Lagos, and Meed Networks and Cross-Energy Supply in Abuja. To date, Apple products have been sold in the region through unofficial dealers, even though
Tanzania is Vodacom’s second biggest market after SA, but the company’s Tanzania CEO, Rene Meza, says that although mobile penetration in urban areas is more than 80%, in rural areas it’s only 25%. He says this means the company must look to rural areas for growth and operators must ensure there is infrastructure there to
Consumers and operators will be inconvenienced at the end of September if a planned switch-off of counterfeit handsets takes place. Consumers will lose connectivity, while operators are set to lose revenue. An estimated 2,4m mobile phone users in Kenya use counterfeit devices. Kenya’s Communications
Kenya’s government has secured a 6bn shilling (R580m) loan from China to connect 36 Kenyan districts using fibre-optic cable. The project is intended to provide the East African nation’s government with the ability to communicate and transact digitally, even from remote areas. The project forms part of a
Kenya looks set to crack down on copper-cable thieves, with parliament introducing amended legislation that will see perpetrators facing fines of Sh5m (R500 000) or 10 years in jail. Under current Kenyan law, the destruction of electricity and power cables is punishable by a fine of Sh100 000 (R10 000), a