Russian carrier VimpelCom said Monday it has agreed to sell a majority stake in its lucrative Algerian unit, Djezzy, to the Algerian state for an undisclosed sum.
Vodafone Group has appointed M-Pesa pioneer Michael Joseph as its new managing director for mobile payments. Joseph was instrumental in establishing the M-Pesa money transfer service in Kenya, Tanzania and Afghanistan in his previous role as Safari Telecom’s chief executive. Safaricom is a Vodafone affiliate.
Ahead of the Broadband Middle and East and Africa conference, taking place on the 25-27th March 2012 at the Westin Mina Seyahi Beach Resort and Marina, in Dubai, UAE, we speak to the UN Special Advisor for Africa, High Representative Cheick Sidi Diarra.
Still three weeks out from MWC and the news has already gone colder than most of Europe. The mercury in the thermometer outside the Informer’s hovel has gone south of zero for the fourth time this week but it’s nowhere near as cold as for some of our cousins further east.
If mobile government services in Africa are to be more sustainable than previous e-government initiatives, they must benefit all stakeholders. Today, the business model is uncertain. To put it bluntly, governments have limited budgets and the end users with most to gain from mobile government are often living in poverty in remote rural areas. As a result, telecom operators anticipate only modest, if any, return for providing low-cost connectivity and backhaul for these services.
According to the E-Government Survey published by the UN in 2010, although African countries generally lag behind other markets in the rankings of e-government implementation, there has been improvement in the region since the 2008 survey, particularly in northern Africa. Tunisia and Egypt were two of the highest-ranked countries in Africa alongside Mauritius, South Africa and Seychelles.
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This year’s AfricaCom conference and exhibition, which was put on by Informa Telecoms & Media in Cape Town on 9-10 November, was bigger and busier than ever before, demonstrating the vibrancy and potential of Africa’s telecom market.
But the regional industry isn’t just growing – it is also beginning to undergo some potentially profound changes, as data services become ever-more important and new, non-operator players take an increasingly prominent role.