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Zambia National Commercial Bank (Zanco) has ease payement procedures for its account holders. Zanco launched a mobile banking service dubbed Xapit. This mobile banking service allows its customers to make payments via cell phone. Zanaco managing director Mark Weissing, said that the facility will initially be made available only to the bank’s customers but will later be extended to over 2 million people who have mobile phones but no bank accounts. Weissing further said that Xapit enables mobile bill payments, airtime purchases and fund transfers. Only Zain Zambia subscribers can avail this service. The motive to rollout this service is to improve the business activities of the bank and its customers.

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According to MTN spokesperson Nozipho January-Bardill, the operator will focus on investment in Africa and take advantage of the ongoing deregulation of the telecoms industry in many countries. Bardill further said in line with the vision to be the leader in telecommunications in the emerging markets, we are continuously seeking value enhancing opportunities that meet the company’s investment criteria in existing and new territories. Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda and Zambia are among the 16 African countriers where MTN is alreday operating.

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MTN and Zain Zambia have refused to share their infrastucure for rural expansion in Zambia, claiming that it’ll will be difficult to maintain quality assurance.
The Communications Authority of Zambia (CAZ) has been insiting on companies to share infrastructure to quicken the rural expansion programs. MTN customer services manager Chimfwembe Mzyece said the company is ready to accomplish its nationwide expansion program on its own.
Zain Zambia also stands ready to expand on its own and not through shared infrastructure, said company public relations manager Bridget Nundwe.
“It is quite taxing for Zain to take mobile services to rural areas due to the power shortage that the country is experiencing,” Nundwe said. “However, Zain shares the same view with MTN on the sharing of infrastructure.”
Zain has been asking the Zambian government to provide tax incentives for expansion to rural areas, claiming that expansion is not worth the high cost of operations.

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An effort to boost the subscriber base from 2.3 million to 2.7 million, Celtel Zambia has announced plans to spend some $70 million on its network.  The firm reported  net profit for the 6 months rose to $34.3 million compared to $29.9 million in the same period last year.

The company, which controlled by Zain, offered 20% of its stock for the floatation. The sale was three-times oversubscribed from both domestic and overseas investors. The current shareholder profile is 78.9% held by Zain - via Celtel International, 20% in free float and 1.1% held by the International Finance Corporation (IFC).

“Customer numbers exceeded 2.3 million in June. We are optimistic we will reach our target of 2.7 million, said Celtel Zambia MD David Venn. High taxes on imports of network infrastructure kit of 25% is hampering the company’s plans warned Venn. The company is lobbying the government to have this tax lowered, and also on licenses for 3G services.

Statistics shows that Celtel ended last year with just under 2 million customers - and a market share of nearly 78%. The country itself has a population penetration level of just 21% and two other operators, Zamtel and MTN.

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The atmosphere appears friendly and jovial at a five-star hotel in Nairobi, where a collection of academic dons fawn fondly over their young scholars basking in the media spotlight.

But beneath the warm, fuzzy feeling in the room, there is an underlying spirit of cut-throat competition disguised by friendly smiles and hearty pats on the back.   The guests— mostly university students and their dons— are gearing up for the second round of the Celtel Africa Challenge television game show, where up to Sh16 million in university grants is up for grabs.

“We are already gearing up for our second win.  The competition shows that quality education is an important tool for poverty reduction and we are glad that the effectiveness of our education system is being proven,” said Prof James Tuitoek, vice-chancellor of Egerton University. The university won last year’s edition of the inter- university quiz show.

For participants in what was a hit on TV airwaves last year, the Celtel Africa Challenge re-created a new form of educational competition last seen in the days of the Voice of Kenya’s educational competitions, which pitted high school students against each other in the eighties.

A modern version of the televised educational test of wits, Africa Challenge, pulled surprisingly big  audiences to become the  most- watched television programme in its category. It  beat other more publicised shows such as Tusker Project Fame and Popstars in ratings.

“These students are stars in their own right.  I think they are even bigger celebs than those on the other shows because they have to be all-rounders — they don’t have just one area of expertise,” said Adrian Onyando, a lecturer at Egerton University’s Department of Literature and the team liaison  for the university’s representatives to the TV show.

Although watching nerdy students answer difficult questions may not necessarily beat the glamour of discovering  a singing sensation , the Challenge still managed to become the most watched show for the 15 weeks it ran last year.

As a measure of how university students are able to think and reason on their feet, the  game show provides viewers and more importantly, prospective employers, with a practical yardstick to gauge youths’ knowledge .

Analysts say more consumers are warming up to the game show trend as loca  consumers’  viewing habits  evolve to satisfy a more sophisticated customer who wants to get intellectually stimulated from what he watches.

“Watching a bunch of people vie  for money has a timeless appeal.  The bigger the stakes, the better, but in general most viewers want interactivity with their television sets; they want that ‘ah ha’ moment when they feel smarter than who’s on the TV,” said Suzanne Scott, an independent ratings analyst based in the United States.

This season, Celtel Kenya is spending a hefty Sh277 million to produce the second  contest as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility programme.  The firm says the show helps employers gauge the education levels of prospective employees.

The first season of the Celtel Africa Challenge was won by the team from Egerton University, who collected the attractive US$ 50,000 university grant and US$5,000 per student prize kitty.

During the competition, students were given Sh35,000 if they correctly answered questions such as “which single celled animal propelled by pseudopods begins and ends in an A?”

“We had to get input from all kinds of sources to prepare for the competition.  We were only able to train for two months for season one.  For the second season— we extended that to three months,” said Mr Onyando.

The students even trained while the post election violence was going on—that is how seriously we take the game,” he adds.

He says although his team is confident of a second win this year, he spends sleepless nights wondering about the competition.  He expects the University of Nairobi and Strathmore teams to give his team of four stiff challenge this time around.

The show, which is televised simultaneously across Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda on Nation Television, ITV and Uganda Broadcasting Corporation, started last Sunday.

This year, the show has been expanded to include Malawi and Zambia, with more universities participating.  Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda will be represented by four universities each while Malawi and Zambia, which are competing for the first time, will have two teams each in the Celtel Africa Challenge Championship.

Good teams are formed of smart students who know the rules of the game and understand how to play; but great teams understand how team mates play, which combinations of players are the most successful and which strategies are necessary, says a guideline sent to universities to help them prepare for the show.

“This is definitely not a one-man show—we needed to work as a team to win the competition.  We hope that our unity will see us through to the end,” said Mr  Onyando.

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The World Bank’s International Finance Corp (IFC) has announced it will invest USD32.5 million in a fibre-optic cable project that will provide internet and international communication services for 21 African countries. The IFC, the private-sector arm of the World Bank that focuses on investing in emerging market economies, said the cable project should improve telecommunications access for 250 million Africans and cut costs for individuals and businesses. The project, called the East African Submarine Cable System, is to run 10,000 kilometres from the continent’s southern tip to the African horn. It will connect South Africa, Mozambique, Madagascar, Tanzania, Kenya, Somalia, Djibouti and Sudan. A further 13 countries will share the system through land links. They are Botswana, Burundi, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Chad, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Malawi, Rwanda, Swaziland, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Mohsen Khalil, IFC’s director of global information and communications technologies, said in an interview the project’s total cost will be USD235 million and said it is a cooperative effort between private and public interests designed to ensure that prices do not fall under monopoly control and rise. ‘Consumers along the east coast of Africa typically pay between USD200 and USD300 a month for internet access,’ the IFC said. ‘As a result of this project, prices for international connectivity will drop by two-thirds at the outset and the number of subscribers will triple.’ Construction is to start within weeks and the cable is scheduled to be in operation by early 2009.

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Zambian ISP Zamnet Communication Systems launched a mobile wireless broadband service in co-operation with US-based Navini Networks. Zamnet said the service was ‘the first truly mobile wireless broadband internet solution on the Zambian market’. Customers can plug in Navini’s WiMAX Rabbit modem to their PC, activating it like a mobile phone. Zamnet said the service was available in most parts of Lusaka, Kitwe and parts of Kalulushi. It plans to cover most of Lusaka and Kitwe by the second half of 2007 and then introduce it to other towns.

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AllAfrica writes…Lovine Ntege, a resident of Buwama village in Mpigi district, used to transact business on her mobile phone. She would crush shells and sell them to firms that make poultry feeds.

However, due to the high cost of airtime, she stopped transacting business on phone. Ntege says communicating with her customers via the Internet is a dream because she does not know how to use it. Worse still, the nearest Internet centre is in Mpigi town, seven kilometres from her village.

 ”My people are disappointed because the price of everything is going up, they cannot access information communication technology (ICT) because it is not accessible in rural areas,” she laments.

According to a research by the Global System for Mobile Communication Association, Uganda is second to Turkey in having the highest costs of telecommunication services. “Uganda is second, followed by Brazil, Syria, Zambia, Tanzania, Argentina, Ecuador, Kenya and Ukraine,” says Dr. Johnson Nkuuhe, the UNDP coordinator for the Millennium Development Goal. According to the report: “Uganda raised mobile phone airtime duty from 10% to 12% and value added tax from 17% to 18%, while in June last year, the Government introduced a five percent duty on landlines.

“The Government needs to review the telecom policy with an objective of reducing the costs to enable people in rural areas to use ICT for income generation. But if the taxes are high, the digital divide between rural and urban areas would widen.” Despite the need to review the policy, which aims at reducing costs, growth in investment in the telecom sector has boosted employment.

Currently, the telecom industry employs about 290,000 people.

The ICT minister, Dr. Ham Mulira, says the number of fixed and mobile customers by March last year was 107,992 and 1,937,109, respectively. “The total private investment in the sector since January 2004 to-date, is estimated to be $180m compared to $15m generated between 1999 and 2000 and a total sector turnover of $810m has been registered since 2004 to date,” he adds.

Mulira said there is network coverage of telecommunication services in 745 of the 926 sub-counties in the country, amounting to 80% of geographical coverage.

According to the researchers, there are three mobile cellular operators, 145 private radio stations of which 122 are operational, 22 courier service-providers and 10,925 pay phones. Over 10,000 public pay phones are operational.

The research also revealed that there are 25 private television stations of which 14 are operational. Several projects that have been implemented include Internet centres in 52 districts, 54 training centres, 50 Internet cafes, establishment of information portals for all districts and a national portal, www.ugandaweb.net.

However, despite the developments, MTN’s marketing manager Eric van Veen says: “Government needs to revise the telecom policy because presently, costs have risen by 40% as generators run longer hours and add to the costs of maintenance.”

The policy has also been criticised in a research project on ICT infrastructure in 14 African countries on the theme “Towards an African e-Index”. The research reveals that Uganda’s policy implementation has been dogged by tension and conflicts among the concerned parties, leading to a document that has had no significant impact and will be out of date before it is implemented.

“When implemented, the policy would lead to full liberalisation of the sector and greater public investment in infrastructure development through public private partnerships,” the research revealed.

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