July 2005

11th July 2005 Nigerian operators want debt bureau: As mounting debts threatened to eliminate many telecom players from Nigeria’s boisterous telecom sector, some operators are canvassing for the establishment of a debt management bureau.

4th July 2005 IFIP brings WITFOR 2005 to Africa: Africa’s largest diamond producer, Botswana, will host the second prestigious World Information Technology Forum (WITFOR 2005) in August 2005. The first WITFOR was held in Lithuania in 2003.

4th July 2005 Ghana IXP goes into operation: Ghana Internet Exchange Point (IXP) is now up and running after a long wait. From the Kofi Annan Centre where it is already in operation, the IXP has its initial four ISPs connected.

4th July 2005 Nigeria satellite project wants cash: Nigeria’s communication satellite (NIGCOMSAT-I) slated for launch December 2006 may suffer delay. The reason is cash.

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June 2005

27th June 2005 First Atlantic Bank proves SMS banking gaining grounds: SMS Banking may not be making the headlines but it is certainly growing and fast too as one of Nigeria’s pioneer of Internet banking First Atlantic Bank has found out.

19th June 2005 ITU adds development initiative to bridge the digital divide: The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has launched a major new development drive designed to bring ICT access to over one billion people worldwide for whom making a simple telephone call remains out of reach.

19th June 2005 Cameroon hosts Commonwealth ICT business forum: Cameroon’s capital city, Yaoundé is to play host to a two-day ICT event organised by the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO).

19th June 2005 Nigeria telcos seek drug to battle death: Faced with huge debts and with liquidation staring at their faces, Nigeria’s motley crowd of Private Telecom Operators (PTOs) are considering merging with other players to improve their chances of survival.

14th June 2005 Ghana sees bigger market for outsourcing: Outsourcing is bound to grow in Ghana as the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) prepares to draw up an ICT programme to promote outsourcing in West Africa’s second biggest economy of 17 million people.

6th June 2005 Abuja hosts International Nigerian Telecommunications Summit: Abuja, Nigeria’s seat of power will be hosting the ‘4th International Nigerian Telecommunications Summit with the theme: Sustaining the Growth.’

4th June 2005 When the village taught the city IT: Rural Kafachan is a rare story of success of how ICT could change the life of a rustic community and teach the proud city a lesson on computer.

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May 2005

26th May 2005 In Ekiti, IT is on the slow lane: Like every other state in Nigeria, particularly the ‘baby states’ created less than two decades ago, Ekiti State is a mix of potentials and gross under-developments.

23rd May 2005 Governments can save more revenue: Information technology experts meeting at a recently concluded one day forum in the Gambia have told the Gambia government and other African governments that they could save more revenue and facilitate development efforts if they explore the opportunities provided by the Free and Open Source Software, FOSS.

15th May 2005 No MDGs for Africa, says World Bank: Africa would have to forget 2015 to meet the millennium development goals (MDGs) of reducing hunger, poverty and disease as a new report by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said there was still little on ground to show that the continent could tackle its decades old problems. 2015 is less than 10 years away.

12th May 2005 Thousand thronged e-NNOVATE 2005: Africa’s first ever expo on technological innovation and value added services e-NNOVATE 2005 ended up proving industry watchers right that Nigeria’s fledgling telecom sector had gone beyond mere provision of voice. Subscribers want to do more than talk.

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April 2005

24th April 2005 Bandwidth on the trail: A three-day conference on broadband access and connectivity in Johannesburg ended with participants asking that infrastructure suppliers, owners and operators offer the continent better chances of enjoying cheap bandwidth.

17th April 2005 West Africa closes in on 14 million lines: With more than 14 million lines actively connected to some dozens GSM networks in West Africa, analysts at the just ended GSM West Africa conference and exhibition beileve the number of subcribers in the sub-region would reach 39.86 million by December 2005.

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March 2005

21st March 2005 CEO Forum Holds: Regulatory and financing challenges facing the ICT sector and how the country can benefit from emerging global opportunities in the finance and technology industries would today form the fulcrum of discussions by over 50 CEOs, regulators, top ministry of communications officials and other stakeholders in Abuja.

18th March 2005 CeBit 2005: The world leading technology trade show CeBit holds with global giants such as Siemens, Samsung and Motorola displaying their latest addition to the ever changing.

10th March 2005 Convergence means that there can be only one regulator: Ghana, serene economic climate and stable political environment, appears to be winning the trust of the world and giving assurance that it has tucked its history of political upheavals somewhere into Africa's political archive.

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February 2005

27th February 2005 Time to act IT, African leaders told: It is time for less talk and more actions, African governments were told at the just ended Fourth Africa Internet Summit and Exhibition (AFRINET 2005) with the
theme “Sustaining the Growth of ICT Access in Africa.”

17th February 2005 ATCON, NCS for CEOs forum: The Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) has put its weight behind the CEO Forum scheduled to hold March 22, 2005 at the Digital Bridge Institute (DBI), Abuja.

16th February 2005 Omatek repositions, recruits new hands: Nigeria’s leading computer assembly company OmatekComputers Limited is repositioning as it turns three this year.

2nd February 2005 Africa's long road to WSIS: For West African countries, particularly Nigeria, it is still a long road to plugging into the emerging Information Society (IS).

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January 2005

31st January 2005 Building capacity to report the Information Society: More than a dozen African journalists, drawn from about six countries within the West African sub-region, have completed a four-day media training programme with the theme ‘Reporting the Information Society.’

30th January 2005 Globacom opens fibre ring: These are interesting times for network operators in Nigeria’s boisterous telecom sector as Globacom announced the commercial deployment of its fibre network in Nigeria.

26th January 2005 Ajayi goes home: Final rites of passage for pioneer Director General (DG) of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) Professor Gabriel Olalere Ajayi ends today at the sleepy town of Ilesha.

24th January 2005 Akwa Ibom puts hope on IT: Nigeria’s south eastern state of Akwa Ibom is searching for its destiny in IT.

23rd January 2005 NCC, IT Edge, NeGSt partner on CEOs forum: Over 50 chief executive officers of different leading corporate institutions are expected to attend Nigeria’s first ever multi-sectoral forum involving the telecom, financing and insurance industries.

18th January 2005 Nitel sees recovery with eyes on $12m profits: Sick Nitel may be on its way to recovery. Baring any hiccups the Nigerian public telco hopes to make about $12.5 million (about N18 billion) in a year from its 250,000 lines Lagos expansion project expected to be completed last quarter of this year.

17th January 2005 EWI gets reprieve in Econet mobile row: The gnome of Econet Wireless still haunts Vmobile (formerly Econet Wireless Nigeria) and there appears to be a long road to reaching amicable settlement in Nigeria’s longest mobile row.

13th January 2005 From ITU to Africa, 100 Telecentres: Nigeria’s neigbour Benin Republic and 19 other African countries are to benefit from a new initiative by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) to establish a network of about 100 multipurpose community telecentres (MCTs) on the continent.

12th January 2005 Ghana to network rural banks: Ghana is working on plans to connect all rural and community banks in the country to a single network by 2007. About 40 banks are expected to be computerised by 2006 while the rest would be plugged into the network the following year.

2nd January 2005 Wanted: cheap bandwidth: For over 130 million people that make up Nigeria and the over 220 million that make up the West African sub-region, costly bandwidth continues to make the Internet an inaccessible window. 

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December 2004

31st December 2004 Skirting round the big deals: Leo Stan Ekeh is not getting as popular as the Zinox brand these days. At least not in the computer hardware business.

22nd December 2004 Sensutech adds new solution for mobile aches: There are over 8.2 million mobile phones in Nigeriaand in only three years of GSM operation. The goodnews ends there. There are equal numbers of aches inthe mobile networks.

21st December 2004 Nigerian computer dealers unite against piracy:
Computers dealers inside Otigba appear to be cleaningup their act with the launch of an umbrella association Computers and Allied Products Dealers Association of Nigeria (CAPDAN).

21st December 2004 Wireless Trade trades Internet as you go: Net hungry Nigerians now only need N65, 000 entry fee and a monthly subscription of N15, 000 to stay connected all the time even when they are on the move inside Lagos infamous traffic jams.

18th December 2004 Pentascope faces sack in Nigeria: Dutch Pentascope is about to be issued the red card by its Nigerian employers reports IT Edge news crew.

16th December 2004 Visa, ValuCard partnership launched in Nigeria: Visa International and ValuCard Nigeria Plc today formally launched their Partnership Agreement, announced on 28 September 2004.

12th December 2004 Globacom, GAP add vehicle tracking solution: Second national operator (SNO) Globacom Limited has unveiled a new product with the trade name “Glo Fleetmanager”. The product, which was made public recently in Lagos, Nigeria is hinged on a partnership between Globacom and Global Asset Protection (GAP) Limited.

10th December 2004 Starcomms rolls out mobile data card: Nigeria’s private telecom operator (PTO) Starcomms has rolled out its instant Internet access via wireless mobile data card at an official launch held in Lagos at the just ended NICOMM 2004.

8th December 2004 Ghana assures on VoIP: Ghana Communications Commission say it will tighten the noose round operators using IP for call dumping but assure VoIP enthusiasts it was not against the use of IP technology.

5th December 2004 Ghana host pan-African ICT exhibition: Over 735 participants from 91 countries attended the ICANN yearly meetings.

4th December 2004 Microsoft kits Nigeria with N140million: Computer giant Microsoft has invested about $1 million (N140 million) in Nigeria as charity to assist in IT diffusion in the last 12 months.

2nd December 2004 Vodacom, Vee meet in Cape Town to renew pact: Friday this morning in the serene tourist city of Cape Town, South Africa, Vodacom would be discussing with Vmobile (Vee Network) to explore ways of investing in the Nigerian second leading mobile operator after the South African firm unceremoniously pulled out of a 51% equity stake in Vmobile some months back.

1st December 2004 ICANN sets agenda for 2005: With rampaging poverty, low level of literacy and largely underdeveloped IT infrastructures, Africa's underprivileged Internet status took the front burner at the yearly meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) taking place at Cape Town, South Africa.

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