Josh Parolin

Josh Parolin is the Manager & Developer at awareness organisation Invisible Children, which made headlines recently with the Kony 2012 campaign that focused on the plight of Ugandan children. He will be a speaker on Day 1 at the Cloud Africa Com at the Sandton Sun Hotel in Johannesburg on 23-24 May. In this interview he shares his views on the future of cloud services in Africa.

1)     How would you describe existing ‘’cloud services’’ in Africa?

Existing cloud services in Africa continue to drive adoption within companies and homes across the continent. These services have attracted larger companies, such as RIM and Symantec, to the market and have persuaded them to begin paying more attention to what’s happening with the cloud in Africa.

2)     How would you say cloud has impacted your company?

The cloud has allowed our offices across two different continents to connect and leverage data like never before. Tasks such as reporting and data mining which were once limited by bloated software and spreadsheets are now liberated by cloud based CRM and web tools. Communication which was once limited by lofty international fees is now possible with the click of a button. At Invisible Children we’re constantly looking to adopt the next great cloud based solution in order to maximize our efficiency.

4)     Which ‘type’ of cloud would be your choice – public or private?

In our world, the private cloud allows us to share sensitive information and construct valuable reports which without, we would have little need for the public cloud. The private cloud drives our operations.

5)      How rapidly do you think the adoption of cloud will reducing capital and operational expenditure for enterprises in Africa?

I think what we currently see in the cloud market in Africa is only a fraction of the growth that we will see over the next ten years. With that, we will continue to see a rapid decline in operational expenditure across the continent. The cloud will continue to find its place in many African companies, big and small.

7)     What do you think are the three key advantages gained by companies using cloud as part of their IT services?

The three key advantages of using cloud as part of a company’s IT services are increased efficiency, increased ability to scale, and increased innovation. Efficiency is in an instant reward when adopting cloud services because it removes the static and stagnant variables that once weighed a company down, such as servers. The ability to scale allows a company to go from catering to 100 users one day to 100,000 the next day. Finally, increased innovation is a result of the increase in collaboration and learning that becomes possible throughout a company after having adopted the cloud.

8)     Which key message do you want to highlight during your participation at Cloud Africa in Johannesburg later this year?

The cloud is what you make of it. You can use it to fuel one per cent of your company or you can use it to power 100 per cent of your company. Either way, always look for ways to be innovative with your approach to meshing together different aspects of the cloud and celebrating the outcome.

"Orange Uganda's towers initiative will be closely watched by Orange subsidiaries in other markets across Africa," said Marc Rennard.

Mobile carrier Orange Uganda has entered into a 15-year passive network management partnership with emerging markets infrastrcuture specialist Eaton Towers. The deal will see Orange outsource the operation and maintenance of its existing sites in Uganda to Eaton Towers, while providing ‘build-to-suit’ new sites with a view to reducing costs and capital expenditure.

The two firms said that the large coverage of Orange Uganda’s tower portfolio combined with the ability and know-how of Eaton Towers to provide Orange with the best network quality will create a solid platform for future growth.

“The partnership will enable us to expand our network and develop new multimedia services, in particular in rural areas, helping us achieve our ambition to provide the Ugandan population with the best network coverage and high-quality services. said Philippe Luxcey, CEO of Orange Uganda.

He added that through the agreement, the firm will be able to reduce its operational costs and, at the same time, prevent the proliferation of masts thereby reducing the environmental and visual impact of our network, especially in urban and ecologically-sensitive areas.

Marc Rennard, EVP, Africa, Middle East and Asia for France Telecom-Orange, described the agreement as an important milestone in the group’s efforts to control operating costs across its footprint in the region.

“Orange Uganda’s towers initiative is the first of its kind and will be closely watched by Orange subsidiaries in other markets across Africa,” he said.

Tower sharing is a slow moving market and such deals can take up to two years to come to fruition. Activity in this area was first given momentum by Vodafone Ghana, which signed a ten-year contract with Eaton in late 2010. Although the concept of tower sharing had already taken off in more established markets, there was considerable reluctance from African operators to hand responsibility of their infrastructure to a third party.

Once the deal is in place, all the manual labour and process a company like Eaton has to go through regarding the towers, generators and security needs to be addressed. Challenges include the securing of land leases, the building of compounds, applying security and arranging refuelling for the power sources.

Read our interview with Eaton Towers CEO, Alan Harper: All along the cell towers

MTN Uganda has in excess of six million subscribers, making it the largest operator in the country. Last week, it claimed that UTL owed it 20bn Ugandan shillings ($8.6m) in unpaid connection fees that had accumulated since 2008. The telco was threatening to block all calls to and from Uganda Telecoms from the 14^th of March if the outstanding bill wasn’t settled.

Last week, MTN Uganda issued a statement saying that “Uganda Telecom Ltd has unjustifiably and persistently refused to honour their business obligation and attempts to resolve the matter of outstanding unpaid dues, thus forcing us to take this unavoidable step,” adding that it believed that continuation of its agreement with UTL was “a business risk as debt continued to grow unabated.”

UTL is contesting the bill, telling Reuters that the outstanding debt is in fact 6.2bn shillings and that while the sum was being contested in court, “the rest of the money is just a matter of reconciliation between us.”  It has also been in dispute with Airtel Uganda and Warid Telecom over unpaid termination fees.

Uganda Telecom has over 2.6 million subscribers and is 63 per cent owned by the Libya Africa Portfolio, or LAP Green Network, which is a Libyan foreign investment vehicle that also holds stakes in Sonitel Niger and Rwandatel in Rwanda. East Africa’s telecoms sector is currently undergoing significant expansion, driven in large part by rural market penetration.

East Africa Com takes place April 5-6 in Kenya. Speakers include John Barorot, CTO, Safaricom

Zain outsources East Africa to NSN

African and Middle Eastern carrier Zain streamlined its East African operations this week, with the announcement Thursday that it has awarded three network outsourcing deals to Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN).

Under the agreements, NSN will pick up a five year management contract in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, with an eye to optimising, modernising and managing 3,000 plus multi-vendor mobile sites catering to nine million customers. Upgrades to energy efficient technologies and off grid power solutions will be a key component of the deal.

This contract marks NSN’s biggest multi-vendor outsourcing case in the region and is also one of the first such deals of its kind in Africa. As part of the agreement, approximately 350 Zain employees will be transferred to NSN.

The move should free Zain Africa up to focus on its core business in the region, where sub par performance is weighing on the group’s profits. Earlier this month Zain reported that net profit for the nine months to the end of September fell 17 per cent year on year to KWD195.7m ($677m), although revenues for the period were up 24 per cent year on year to KWD1.78bn. Africa is causing much of the company’s financial pressure, with the intensive expansion of Zain’s network in key operations such as Nigeria, Zambia, Sudan, and Iraq, resulting in increases in fixed costs from depreciation and amortization, with the company being further burdened by increases in financing costs.

Read our recent Q&A with Chris Gabriel, CEO, Zain Africa

In late September, confusion reigned as a consortium of buyers that included Indian operators BSNL and MTNL were thought to be carrying out due diligence on Zain in a bid to acquire some or all of Zain Africa. But nothing came of the supposed interest and at the recent Africa Com 2009 event in Cape Town, South Africa, Chris Gabriel, CEO of Zain Africa repeated a number of times that “Zain Africa is not for sale. We are focused on our objective to become a top ten player by 2011 and we still have an appetite for expansion,” he said.

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French carrier France Telecom has expanded its African footprint under a deal with Ugandan new entrant Hits Telecom.

Under the agreement signed at the weekend, France Telecom will take majority ownership of a new entity, Orange Uganda, which will control Hits Telecom’s existing GSM network and telecom assets.

Hits Telecom Uganda acquired a GSM 900/1800 licence for the country last year, with backing from International Investment House (IIH), an investment firm headquartered in Abu Dhabi. The company’s business model includes proposals for cellular, WIMAX, international gateway, MVNO and data transmission services.

The new firm, Orange Uganda Limited, will be 53 per cent controlled by France Telecom, and will absorb all of Hits Telecom Uganda’s staff.

France Telecom said that with a rapidly growing population of around 30 million people and a mobile penetration rate of less than 17 per cent in March, Uganda offers major prospects for growth.