afrique for commerce africa - communications africa

Afrique

Fibreconnectionsfor commerce

Base StationsReducing operational

costs with UMTS

BroadcastingHow free-to-air satellite

platform services work

TechnologiesDes télécommunications d'urgence

et la gestion des catastrophes

Europe m15 - Kenya KSH300 - Nigeria N400 - South Africa R20 - UK £10 - USA $16.50

Bell Labs initiates debate on thetransformation of economies andsocieties with The Future X Network

Africawww.communicationsafrica.com

Issue 1 2016Édition 1 2016

FEATURES: � Internet � Mobile � InfrastructureREGULAR REPORTS: � Bulletin - Agenda � Solutions

CAF 1 2016 - Cover_Layout 1 12/02/2016 08:29

S01 CAF 01 2016 - Start_Layout 1 12/02/2016 08:22

http://www.measat.com/

Afrique

Fibreconnectionsfor commerce

Base StationsReducing operational

costs with UMTS

BroadcastingHow free-to-air satellite

platform services work

TechnologiesDes télécommunications d'urgence

et la gestion des catastrophes

Europe m15 - Kenya KSH300 - Nigeria N400 - South Africa R20 - UK £10 - USA $16.50

Bell Labs initiates debate on thetransformation of economies andsocieties with The Future X Network

Africawww.communicationsafrica.com

Issue 1 2016Édition 1 2016

FEATURES: � Internet � Mobile � InfrastructureREGULAR REPORTS: � Bulletin - Agenda � Solutions

A note from the EditorTHIS ISSUE OF CommunicationsAfrica/Afrique offers insights intoterrestrial fibre connectivity,managed services for corporatecommunications, and work towardsincreasing network resilience. Itassesses, also, UMTS technologies, inrelation to operational costs. Itanalyses the coverage and capacitychallenges faced by operators. Thisissue also addresses thermal imagingfunctionality for smartphones andtablets, delivered by app developers.Read, too, of developments insatellite broadcasting, with respect tothe provision of free-to-air platformservices provision.

Une note du rédacteurCETTE ÉDITION DE CommunicationsAfrica/Afrique compris des articlessur le TIC, l’équipment, et le film. Ily a un article sur le deuxième Forummondial de l'UIT sur lestélécommunications d'urgence, et lerôle des télécommunicationsd'urgence dans la gestion descatastrophes. Il y a un article sur lacroissance des importations mondialde l'information et descommunications ralentit à basdepuis cinq ans. Il y a un article surl’’Institut français de Madagascar etla préservation du patrimoineCinémathèque Africain.

Bulletin 4

Events 8

Agenda 9

Solutions 31

FEATURES

Fibre 18How terrestrial fibre connectivity is taking off on the back of subsea cable growth and new funding; managed services for partof a high-quality corporate communications portfolio serving varied vertical sectors; and how to dramatically boost networkresilience with hardware-accelerated shared mesh protection

Base Station Management 22An overview of UMTS technologies, which connect the continent at relatively low energy usage and operational costs

Test & Measurement 24The challenges faced by mobile network operators as they work to deliver improved coverage and capacity; and FLIR's thermalimaging accessory adds functionality to smartphones and tablets, and offers new opportunities to iOS and Android appdevelopers

Satellite Broadcasting 28A year of free-to-air platform services provision to markets dominated by terrestrial channels

ARTICLES

TIC 17Le deuxième Forum mondial de l'UIT sur les télécommunications d'urgence, et le rôle des télécommunications d'urgencedans la gestion des catastrophes

Equipement 23La croissance des importations mondial de l'information et des communications ralentit à bas depuis cinq ans

Film 30L’Institut français poursuit son soutien à la préservation du patrimoine Cinémathèque Africain en collaboration avec larégion Ile-de-France et L’Institut français de Madagascar

CONTENTS

www.communicationsafrica.com Communications Africa Issue 1 2016 3

Managing Editor: Andrew Croft - [email protected]

Editorial and Design team: Bob Adams, Prashanth AP, Sindhuja Balaji, Hiriyti BairuMiriam Brtkova, Andrew Croft, Ranganath GS, Georgia Lewis, Rhonita Patnaik, Nicky ValsamakiLouise Waters and Ben Watts

Production: Nikitha Jain, Nathanielle Kumar, Nelly Mendes, Donatella Moranelli and Sophia Pinto Email: [email protected]

Publisher: Nick Fordham

Publishing Director: Pallavi Pandey

Magazine Sales Manager: Steve Thomas - Tel: +44 (0) 20 7834 7676, Fax: +44 (0) 20 7973 0076, Email: [email protected]

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Subscriptions: [email protected]: Derek FordhamPrinted by: Buxton Press Printed in: February 2016Communications Africa/Afrique is a bi-monthly magazine ISSN: 0962 3841

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1 1 12:07

Communications Africa Issue 1 20164

BULLETIN

Anritsu showcases latest test andmeasurement developments for aconnected futureAT MOBILE WORLD Congress (MWC) 2016 in Barcelona,Spain, Anritsu is demonstrating a range of key productand technologies in its test and measurement offeringthat support the latest 3GPP and IoT technologydevelopments and network deployments; in particular,the company will be focusing on some of the emergingtest and measurement issues within 5G, LTE-A Pro,Connected Home and M2M device testing.

ACE stretches cable from Sao Tomé &Principe to Cape TownORANGE, TOGETHER WITH the other members of theACE consortium, have begun work on the second phaseof the Africa Coast to Europe (ACE) submarine cablesystem, extending the cable system to 17,000km withpotential or actual high-speed access available to 25countres; today, nearly 12,000km of fibre optic cableare already used to connect 18 countries - France,Portugal, the Canary Islands (Spain), Mauritania,Senegal, Gambia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Côted’Ivoire, Benin, Ghana, Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and SãoTomé & Príncipe - with two landlocked countries, Mali and Niger,connected via a terrestrial extension.

Huawei makes MWC a force for behind digitaltransformation across all industry sectorsGUIDED BY THE vision of Building a Better Connected World, Huawei iscommitted to driving business and industry advancement throughtechnology innovation, fostering a robust industry ecosystem throughopen collaboration, and helping global carriers and enterprisecustomers achieve agile innovation, rapid transformation and businesssuccess in the digital era; at MWC 2016, Huawei's senior executives andtechnology experts are sharing the company's vision and growthstrategies for 2016, and unveiling new products in key technology areassuch as wireless, IoT, and a range of vertical industry solutions.

Study shows increasing security risks to paymentdata and mobile payment methodsWITH ACCEPTANCE OF mobile and other new forms of paymentsexpected to double in the next two years, a global study shows a criticalneed for organisations to improve their payment data security practices;this is according to a recent survey of more than 3,700 IT securitypractitioners from more than a dozen major industry sectorsindependently conducted by the Ponemon Institute on behalf of digitalsecurity specialist Gemalto.

City of Cape Town works with ADVA FSP 3000CloudConnect for 400G metro network trialADVA OPTICAL NETWORKING and the City of Cape Town in South Africahave successfully transmitted data rates of up to 400Gbit/s across CapeTown’s metro transport network; the trial combined existing ADVA FSP3000 infrastructure and the latest CloudConnect 400Gbit/s technologyto connect the townships of Nyanga and Mitchells Plain.

FREQUENTIS and ND SatCom collaborate on ATM-grade voice communicationCONTROL CENTRE SYSTEMS supplier Frequentis has deepened apartnership with satellite communication systems integrator ND SatComfor IP-based ATM-grade voice com munication over satellite networks;both companies committed to expanding their partnership to deliverhighest voice quality through to dynamic delay compensation, resulting

in a high availability solution that will serve all future customers incompliance to the standards of the International Civil AviationOrganization (ICAO).

CTO celebrates 115 years of communications industrycollaboration, support ad leadershipACTIVITIES TO MARK the 115th anniversary of the CommonwealthTelecommunications Organisation (CTO) in 2016 include an anniversarylaunch ceremony attended by over 120 member country representatives,diplomats, industry executives and journalists; speaking of theorganisation’s role today, Secretary-General Sharma noted, “The CTO isworking closely with the Commonwealth Secretariat to advocate for ICTaccess for all, and helps governments and the private sector to utilisetelecommunications as means of connection and inclusion.”

The MMIX at MWCREFLECTING THE EXPLODING demand for mobile content globally, TheMMIX at Moble World Congress encompasses a four-day programmethat includes the full-day MMIX Summit sponsored by MixRadio, andkeynote and track sessions in the MWC conference; the MMIX Summitkicks off with a keynote from Scott Mirer, vice president, device partnerecosystem at Netflix and features sessions examining subjects such asthe future of film, TV and broadcast, as well as developments in digitalmusic, mobile games, social video and mobile media - with executivespeakers from key connnectivity corporates including CNN, GettyImages, Google, Next Games, Rovio, Sony Mobile Communications,Telefónica-Movistar+, Telenor, Viacom International Media Networksand Warner Music Group.

Connected Women speak on imcreasing inclusivity atMobile World CongressSEVERAL PROGRAMMES AND events focused on increasing diversity anddriving inclusion in mobile communications at Mobile World Congress2016, ranging from 'Accelerating Digital and Financial Inclusion forWomen' to 'Women Leadership Accelerating the Digital Age' to'Connected Women in Technology'; launched in 2010 as a GlobalDevelopment Alliance, a partnership with USAID, DFAT, GSMA and Visa,GSMA Connected Women works with mobile network operators and theirpartners to take action to reduce the gender gap in connectivity andimprove access to mobile money services by overcoming barriers towomen’s ownership and use of mobile phones.

Anritsu addresses test and measurements of the new 5G air interface R&D

www.communicationsafrica.com


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Exterity showcases integrated digital signage and IPvideo at ISE 2016ENTERPRISE IP VIDEO solutions provider Exterity has demonstratedArtioSign, which combines digital signage with IP video, at the recently-held 2016 edition of ISE in Amsterdam, The Netherlands; ArtioSignenables businesses to stream TV and video alongside live news updatesand tailored messages to strengthen their communications.

AG mobile introduces its devices to Nigeria’s mobilemarketAFRICAN MOBILE TECHNOLOGY brand AG Mobile has launched inNigeria; recognised as one of the continent’s first ODM (original designmanufacturer), it was the first South African brand to release its ownmobile device in 2007.

A network of new digital experiences opens with thelaunch of Visa DeveloperVISA INC HAS has launched Visa Developer, an open platform that willdrive innovation in paymentsand commerce, allowingsoftware applicationdevelopers to have openaccess to paymentstechnology, products andservices by Visa; the newplatform is designed to helpfinancial institutions,merchants, and technologycompanies meet the demands of consumers and merchants, whoincreasingly rely on connected devices to shop, pay and get paid.

Millicom set to sell its Tigo DRC mobile networkoperation to OrangeTELECOM AND MEDIA company MIllicom has signed an agreement forthe sale of its Tigo business in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)to Orange SA, subject to regulatory approvals; Mauricio Ramos, CEO ofMillicom, said, “Proceeds from the sale will strengthen our balancesheet allowing us to reinvest in our existing Latin American and Africanmarkets, improving earnings and cash flow and reducing leverage.”

Growing industrial sector cybersecurity concerns fuelgrowth for PASSOFTWARE SOLUTIONS COMPANY PAS generated record-breakinggrowth across its business units in 2015, with its cybersecurity businessunit growing the fastest, returning a 48 per cent increase in orders yearover year; Eddie Habibi, PAS founder and CEO, said, “With the number ofcyber incidents on the rise, industrial companies depend on PASsolutions to detect unauthorised activity deep within the proprietarycontrol systems, which IT-based tools fail to identify.”

MTN Zambia Launches AMAVIP service inpartnership with KirusaTELECOMMUNICATIONS COMPANY MTN Zambia has launched a social service in partnership with Kirusa, specialist in voice and social mediasolutions for mobile users; Kirusa’s AMAVIP service gives celebrities andtheir fans an opportunity to interact with each other in a more personalway, by record and access voice blogs anytime and anywhere.

Report suggests business applications will driveaugmented reality and wearable technologyWHILE MUCH OF the hype around augmented reality (AR) and wearabledevices has been focused on consumer technology, a report fromBeecham Research entitled ‘Augmented Reality and WearableTechnology – an operational tool for the enterprise’ suggests that it will

be business applications that drive growth over the next five years; thereport points to manufacturing, logistics, healthcare and retail as someof the most dynamic markets, where AR offers a new way for people tointeract with information hands-free, to provide a greater depth ofcontrol and access to knowledge.

Intracom Telecom presents innovative solutions for‘Smarter Connected Societies’ at MWCTELECOMMUNICATION SYSTEMS AND solutions vendor IntracomTelecom presents a range of new products and solutions at Mobile WorldCongress 2016 in the areas of wireless access & transmission, telcosoftware and IoT enabling solutions, as well as cloud solutions withemphasis on ehealth, all serving and powering the smart, connectedcity; more specifically, Intracom Telecom is presenting its newestStreetnode millimetre-wave product as a gigabit-to-the-home solution,emphasising the convenience of installation of wireless terminals on therooftops of served subscribers, so ISPs can expand their access networkdown to remote residences and provide the highest quality of end-userexperience by operating in the license exempt spectrum.

Facebook Helps West African businesses connectwith customersSOCIAL NETWORK FACEBOOK recently hosted a roundtable withenterprises from Ghana and Nigeria as part of its effort to supportentrepreneurship in West Africa, focussing on how Facebook can helpsmall businesses reach exactly the right customers; Nunu Ntshingila,head of Africa for Facebook, said, “As more and more people turn tosmartphones and the web to discover and connect with businesses,Facebook is the best platform for African SMEs to promote their brands.”

Friend MTS launches automated IPTV anti-piracyservice at CABSAT 2016CONTENT AND PLATFORM security specialist Friend MTS is once againramping up the fight against video piracy with the launch at CABSAT2016 of Viper, the first technology-led anti-piracy solution specificallydesigned to tackle the growing threat from illegal IPTV set top boxes;Friend MTS CEO Jonathan Friend said, “Viper will finally enable operatorsand broadcasters across the globe to effectively fight this increasingthreat and work towards shutting it down for good.”

Enensys ready to launch new DTT solutions forbroadcast industry at NABDIGITAL TV TRANSMISSION systems manufacturer EnensysTechnologies is introducing equipment for a new DTT transmissionstandard; as with its DVB successes, Enensys’ initial products – a ROUTEser ver, the ATSC3.0 Scheduler and an ATSC3.0 modulator – sit betweenencoding and transmission, and broadcasters can use them to deliverlive streams directly from an encoder outputting DASH segments, whilemanaging the ATSC3.0 physical parameters: MultiPLP allocation, SFNsynchronisation, and so on.

The Visa Developer homepage


BULLETIN


Technology based on Enensys’ well-known modular platform HDc has beendeveloped to comply with the new DTT standard, allowing broadcasters andnetwork operators to take advantage of the benefits provided by it


Communications Africa Issue 1 2016 7

BULLETIN


L’expérience proposée aux participants du MobileWorld CongressLA GSMA A lancé son programme MWC Tours, offrant une série de visitesguidées pour répondre aux besoins spécifiques des différents publicsdu Mobile World Congress 2016; conduits par des experts, les toursdonneront un aperçu de grands axes prioritaires du secteur comme la5G, l’IdO, les médias, le commerce de détail et la sécurité, avec desvisites virtuelles basées sur webinaire.

Deux nouveaux cours de Mooc Lab Inria sur desbases de données relationnelles et des villesintelligentesDEUX ANS APRÈS avoir créé ses premiers MOOCs (Massive Open OnlineCourses), Inria a publié un premier retour d’expérience et annoncel’ouverture de deux nouveaux cours; le premier est dédié à une meilleurecompréhension des bases de données relationnelles, le second porterasur des défis technologiques et sociétaux des villes intelligentes.

xriveSavers offrira un service de récupération dedonnées pour les clients de Kingston TechnologySPÉCIALISTE EN LA récupération de données, de l’eDiscovery et dessolutions d’investigation numérique, DriveSavers a annoncé unpartenariat élargi avec Kingston Technology Company dans le cadre deson programme de satisfaction de la clientèle KingstonCare; lepartenariat offre désormais un service étendu de récupération desdonnées pour les entreprises basées en Europe, au Moyen-Orient et enAfrique (EMEA), et est spécialement conçu pour certains disques SSD declasse entreprise.

Ammeon s'associe à Mirantis pour déployer MirantisOpenStack en EMEAL'UN DES PRINCIPAUX intégrateurs de systèmes pour le secteur destélécommunications dans la région Europe Moyen-Orient Afrique(EMEA), Ammeon s'est associé à Mirantis, l'entreprise pure-playerOpenStack, en vue de livrer Mirantis OpenStack dans toute la régionEMEA; Fred Jones, diercteur général d'Ammeon, a déclaré à ce propos : «L'adoption OpenStack connaît un essor fulgurant auprès des entreprises

de télécommunications dans la région EMEA, et Mirantis est sansconteste en pointe de la technologie. »

Orange, partenaire de la 6ème édition deMyFrenchFilmFestival.com, en Europe et en AfriqueA L’OCCASION DE la 6ème édition, et pour la deuxième annéeconsécutive, Orange s’est associé avec UniFrance en renouvelant sonpartenariat avec le 1er festival mondial de cinéma français en ligne«MyFrenchFilmFestival.com »; l’engagement d’Orange dans le cinéma setraduit ainsi par sa présence à toutes les étapes de la vie des films,depuis la coproduction jusqu’à la sortie en salles et la distribution ennumérique sur tous les écrans via son offre de vidéo à la demande quicontinue d’innover et propose depuis 2014 des films à l’achat.

Une étude des Bell Labs annonce jusqu’à 40 % deréduction de coûts d’exploitationLES BELL LABS, l’unité de recherche d’Alcatel-Lucent, révèlent dans uneétude que les fournisseurs de services de communications peuventdiminuer jusqu’à 40 % leurs coûts d’exploitation en « virtualisant » dansle cloud les fonctions complexes déployées sur les passerellesrésidentielles; Enrique Hernandez-Valencia, directeur des Bell Labs etl’un des auteurs du rapport, a déclaré : « S’il est indispensable deréduire les coûts pour maintenir une croissance rentable, disposer d’unearchitecture de passerelle résidentielle virtualisée est une conditionrequise pour permettre aux fournisseurs de services de prolonger leréseau domestique dans le cloud de façon harmonieuse. »

Des partenaires du monde entier se réunissent àDavos pour connecter ceux qui ne le sont pas encoreUN NOUVEAU PARTENARIAT mondial, ayant pour ambition de connecter1,5 milliard de personnes supplémentaires, a été mis au point dans lecadre d'une séance spéciale de la Commission des Nations Unies "Lelarge bande au service du développement durable", tenue au Foruméconomique mondial de Davos; cette séance s'inscrivait dans le cadredes efforts déployés par la Commission pour créer une dynamique etdemander aux dirigeants mondiaux de faire figurer la connectivité largebande en tête de leurs priorités.

DANS UN NOUVEAU rapport publié par l'UIT etpar le géant des réseaux Cisco, l'Internet desobjets (IoT) est décrit comme ouvrant, àl'échelle mondiale, d'immenses possibilitésde développement susceptibles d'améliorer lavie de millions d'habitants de la planète etd'accélérer spectaculairement les progrès surla voie de la réalisation des Objectifs dedéveloppement durable fixés par les NationsUnies.

Le rapport "Harnessing the Internet ofThings for Global Development" (Mettrel'Internet des objets au service dudéveloppement dans le monde) décritcomment l'IoT pourrait radicalement changerles choses dans des domaines comme laprestation de soins de santé et l'éducation àl'échelle locale, ce qui transformerait enprofondeur les communautés à une échéancequi aurait encore été inimaginable il y aseulement quelques années.

La thèse de ce rapport conjoint est que lademande soutenue de technologies IoT a

entraîné la création de toute une série dedispositifs IoT facilement accessibles, bonmarché et adaptables aux pays endéveloppement, offrant ainsi un moyenoptimal de galvaniser la croissance dans leséconomies émergentes et d'améliorersensiblement la qualité de vie des habitants –moyennant un investissement minimal.

Par Internet des objets, on entend, dans lesgrandes lignes, le nombre croissant dedispositifs qui sont connectés à l'Internet etpeuvent communiquer avec d'autresdispositifs, bien souvent sans interventionhumaine.

Le rapport conjoint UIT/Cisco soulignequ'indéniablement, l'Internet des objets ad'ores et déjà des conséquences importantesdans les domaines de la santé, de l'éducationet des programmes visant à améliorer lesmoyens d'existence (par exemple laproductivité agricole) dans les pays endéveloppement. Il cite trois grands facteursqui pourraient, avec un appui, aboutir à créer

une 'révolution de l'Internet des objets' dansces pays:Accessibilité: Les dispositifs IoT sont déjàcouramment employés, bon marché etfacilement remplaçables sur les marchés despays en développement. Les infrastructures debase nécessaires (Wi-Fi, cybercafés, etc.)existent déjà dans de nombreux pays endéveloppement, et la connectivité mobile debase est pratiquement universelle.Accessibilité financière: Les coûts de larecherche-développement dans le domaine del'Internet des objets continuent à êtreabsorbés par la forte demande sur lesmarchés des pays développés, et les légersajustements apportés aux dispositifs IoT pourles pays en développement ne coûtent pasgrand-chose.Capacité d'adaptation: Les dispositifs IoTsont conçus pour être adaptables. Nombred'entre eux offrent déjà des fonctions 'plug &play' très simples, sans qu'il soit besoin defaire appel à des techniciens expérimentés.

L'Internet des objets pourrait être la 'clé' qui transformera les pays en développement



AGENDA

8 www.communicationsafrica.com

THE UNITED NATIONS agency for information and communicationtechnologies, ITU is working with the National Telecom RegulatoryAuthority of Egypt (NTRA) to host the 2016 Global Symposium forRegulators (GSR) in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, from 11 to 14 May 2016.Organised by ITU and hosted by the Government of Egypt, the event willwelcome world-class speakers with a dynamic programme focusedaround the hot topics challenging today’s ICT regulators.

“ITU’s Global Symposium for Regulators has quickly grown into theworld’s pre-eminent gathering of the global ICT regulatory community,”said ITU secretary-general Houlin Zhao. “A transparent, best-practiceregulatory framework is indispensable to the growth of new ICT marketsand services. The GSR offers a unique opportunity for regulators to engagein a dialogue around priorities and concerns directly with industry leaders,to showcase their successes, and to learn from the experiences of otherpolicy-makers tackling similar challenges. This is what makes GSR a must-attend event for the global ICT policy-making community.”

The director of ITU’s Telecommunication Development Bureau,Brahima Sanou, expressed his thanks to the Government of Egypt and tothe National Telecommunication Authority of Egypt (NTRA) for havingoffered to host GSR-16.

He said, “I am impressed with the event venue and the facilities, aswell as the dedication of the host country team who are doing theirutmost to stage a successful GSR and ensure a memorable and safe visitfor all GSR-16 participants.”

Mustafa Abdul Wahid, acting Chairman of the NTRA, signing theagreement on behalf of the Government of Egypt, commented, “This HostAgreement is a confirmation of the good cooperation and longrelationship between the NTRA and ITU. The NTRA looks forward toimplementing more projects with ITU.”

A series of GSR pre-events will take place on 11 May, including aThematic Pre-Conference ‘Global Dialogue on Digital Financial Inclusion’held with the support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and incollaboration with other partners. A Regional Regulatory AssociationsMeeting and a private-sector Chief Regulatory Officers Meeting will alsobe held on 11 May. The theme for GSR-16 is Be Empowered, Be Included:Building Blocks for Smart Societies in a Connected World.

May 12 and 13 will host the sessions of the Global Regulators-IndustryDialogue (GRID), which are open to regulators, policy makers andmembers of ITU’s Development Sector. On 14 May, there will be twoparallel tracks, a Regulators’ track, open only to regulators and policymakers, and an Industry track, open to ITU-D sector members. The finalclosing ceremony will be open to all participants.

GSR-16 allows regulators, policy makers, industry leaders and otherkey ICT stakeholders to share their views, engage in interactivediscussions and identify best practices moving forward, not only in theICT/telecommunications sector, but also in terms of howICT/telecommunications interacts with other regulation in today’sincreasingly interconnected and collaborative ICT-based environment.

Egypt to host ITU’s 2016 Global Symposium for Regulators

FEBRUARY/FÉVRIER2-3 Next Generation Optical Networking Africa Cape Town, South Africa africa.nextgenerationoptical.com

17-18 eCommerce Africa Cape Town, South Africa www.ecommerce-africa.com

22-25 Mobile World Congress Barcelona, Spain www.mobileworldcongress.com

MARCH/MARS1-2 Cards & Payments Africa Johannesburg, South Africa www.terrapinn.com

8-10 CABSAT Dubai, UAE www.cabsat.com

14-15 Oil and Gas Telecommunications London, UK www.smi-online.co.uk

15-16 Big Data and Smart City (ICBDSC) Muscat, Oman www.mec.edu.om

15-17 Design of Reliable Communication Networks (DRCN) Paris, France drcn2016.lip6.fr

20-24 Optical Fiber Communication (OFC) Anaheim, USA www.ofcconference.org

APRIL/AVRIL3-6 IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking (WCNC) Doha, Qatar wcnc2016.ieee-wcnc.org

10-15 IEEE Computer Communications (INFOCOM) San Francisco, USA infocom2016.ieee-infocom.org

11-12 Cloud MENA Dubai, UAE mena.cloudworldseries.com

11-15 MVNOs World Congress Amsterdam, The Netherlands mvnosworldcongress.com

13-14 AITEC Southern Africa ICT Maputo, Mozambique aitecafrica.com

25-29 IEEE/IFIP Network Operations and Management Isttanbul, Turkey noms2016.ieee-noms.org

MAY/MAI2-6 WSIS Geneva, Switzerland www.itu.int

11 WorldDAB Automotive Brussels, Belgium www.worlddab.org

11-13 Networks, Computers and Communications Hammamet, Tunisia www.isncc-conf.org

11-14 ITU Global Symposium for Regulators (GSR) Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt www.itu.int

23-27 IEEE Communications Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia icc2016.ieee-icc.org

Events/Événements 2016

S02 CAF 01 2016 - Agenda_Layout 1 12/02/2016 08:32


AGENDA

9

CAN THE NETWORK of the future be defined today? BellLabs president Marcus Weldon and his team comeclosest to approaching an understanding of thetechnologies and architectures in place and in prospect,and their service to human existence, in The Future XNetworks (http://www.bell-labs.com/our-research/future-x-book/#).The book is organised around numerous themes, each

of which addresses core aspects of daily lives. ThroughMr Weldon and his fellow authors, Bell Labs offersinsights into network performance and efficiency,augmented intelligence and automation, technologicaldevelopments and universal connectivity, and thecommercial and social benefits to emerging andestablished markets of "Future X Network" deployments.

A new network, a new worldThis is the first book that Bell Labs has published. "Wethought it was about time the industry had a betterdialogue about the future," Mr Weldon said. He seeks toopen up an agnostic debate on the possibilities of atechnological revolution that will fundamentally changesociety. No products are mentioned; it is vendor-free.It is a book for discussion, not a book with answers. "There are lots of things herethat are highly speculative," Mr Weldon said.

Interconnectedness, interdependenceCollectively, Bell Labs senses a new era, defined by automation, in whichtechnologists are developing the capacity to transform economy and eventuallysociety. It may be revolutionary. It may be eventually defined as a revolutionarypoint in human history. This is to be an era of digital interfaces and data analysis.Of automation, Mr Weldon said, "This is not going to be an era of Big Data. It is goingto be an era of small knowledge."The Automation Age follows the Information Age, the last industrial revolution,

in which commerce has been transformed by connectivity and new ways of sharingexperiences and products. This extends now into contextual automatedexperiences and new forms of user-generated content. Everything becomesconnected over time, and it is over this period of time that economies and societiesare transformed. Individuals and institutions become increasingly interconnectedand interdependent.

Responses, projectionsLatency is going to be a key driver of development of new network architectures.Application processing times and network resources must maintain satisfactorybalances in order to add value to services. Latency matters, particularly asapplications and networks become more sophisticated, whether service providersare handling special cases such as financial trading or general cases such asgaming. The network has to be scaled with a massively distributed cloud, in orderto deliver sufficient response times. Latency impacts bandwidth. TCP throughputrelies on a balance between TCP window size and round-trip latency.Mr Weldon observed, "Edge clouds for latency and bandwidth are going to be the

new key paradigm."Edge cloud and access technology are critical components in enabling the

transformation to new digital realities. They will allow for huge amounts of dataprocessing and ubiquitous connectivity, serving increasingly automated and self-aware economies. As Mr Weldon observed at the 2015 edition of Mobile World

Congress, the objective of new technologicaldeployment is to create or save time, so that more canbe achieved. Time is the true unit of value in the digitalworld.Regardless of how else the new era is defined, the

ability to create or save time with new networktechnologies - with "Future X Network" deployments - isa key defining factor in the new Automated Ageaddressed by Marcus Weldon and Bell Labs.

Enterprise revolutionsMost of the revolution will happen in healthcare,transportation, education and governmental entitiesand activities. These areas above all are moredisconnected than others, and thus more in need ofchange, and proportionately more open to change thanmature service sector operations and enterprises. Theimplication in this projection is that assets will beconverged and consolidated to deliver moretransformation at local levels. In such scenarios, thecloud must be the edge cloud, closer to the site ofdevelopment. These edge clouds must have very lowlatency and high performance, serving the core or metro

cloud, in a new form of architecture optimised around energy.There will be a new sort of alliance between global and local services, driven by

economic or cost imperatives, driven by the sheer volume of data managementand associated infrastructure requirements. Mr Weldon traces this development viathe development of computing from the mainframe world through interactive anddedicated processing to deep cloud networks and now edge cloud technologies andcontextualised network access and utilisation.Massive device scaling in the cloud and improvements in software and signalling

solutions and energy management make the edge cloud possible and viable. Near-field virtualisation (NFV) and software-defined networking (SDN) complement theedge cloud and operate through new IT architectures to deliver cost-efficiencies,performance and personalisation. And, interestingly, everything becomes part of acorporate virtual private network (VPN), where everything is, as Mr Weldon put it,"instrumented and controlled". Imagine a logical conclusion beyond currentcapabilities, in which all things - organic and artificial - may be tracked andanalysed, made more productive and more valuable.Describing the possibilities and probabilities of the Future X Network, Marcus

Weldon observed, "We are in a new capacity world of machines...and we need tobuild a brand new network.

Augmented network intelligence in a new human framework


Bell Labs initiates debate on thetransformation of economies and societies

with The Future X Network

xx


Satellite operator Eutelsat Communications and telecom infrastructure specialist Camusat are working inpartnership to enhance turnkey connectivity solutions for mobile operators in Sub-Saharan Africa. The twoentities aim to drive further the growth of mobile communications in sub-Saharan Africa, and particularly inunder-developed remote rural areas - where over half of Africa’s population lives. In the vast territories yet tobe covered, terrestrial infrastructure would require heavy investment over several years to link unconnectedcommunities to mobile networks.

A dynamic partnershipEutelsat can deliver satellite coverageof all African territories. Camusatprovides expertise in telecominfrastructure deployment - includingbuilding, providing electrical powerand maintaining towers for mobiletelephony networks.

Michel Azibert, Eutelsat'scommercial and developmentdirector, said, "This partnership marksa new step in our collaboration withAfrica's mobile telephony operators.In addition to regular lease of satellitecapacity to support networkdevelopment, our new partnership with Camusat equips us to offer solutions covering the entirecommunication chain with maximum flexibility and irrespective of location."

Camusat CEO Richard Thomas added, "This new partnership with Eutelsat in a tremendously dynamicmarket represents a future growth driver from which our mobile operator clients will be able to derive maximumbenefit by extending the limits of their markets. This agreement will ensure connectivity for communities whohave remained beyond reach of mobile networks."


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MOBILE NETWORK SECURITYspecialist AdaptiveMobile,which works with 22 mobileoperators across 18 countries,is promoting the success of itsGrey Route Controls solution,which identifies, mitigates andprotects against mobilesecurity threats and shieldsoperators from financialexploitation.Operators in the region are

using the solution to identifyand shut down grey route trafficand recapture millions of dollarsin revenue each month. Tangiblebenefits they are seeing includea significant decrease in thevolume of customer complaintsand billable time handlingconcerns. In addition the insightgained through the software isenabling MNOs to identify newrevenue streams in verticalmarkets as well as gain marketshare over competitors.

NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE SPECIALIST Siemon hasinstalled cabling solutions in the 3,500m² MainOnedata centre located just outside of Lagos, Nigeria.The 600-rack facility is the largest co-locationfacility of its kind in West Africa and deliversconsistent high-level performance, data storage anddata security to support leading businesses fromacross the region.MainOne is the only data centre in West Africa built toUptime Institute Tier III specification, whichguarantees 99.98 per cent availability and means nomore than 1.6 hours of downtime per year. Fullycompliant with the TIA 942 data centre standard,Siemon"s high bandwidth cabling systems ensurethat MainOne has the most solid and future proofcabling infrastructure foundation to support itsgrowing customer base."To successfully establish a facility of this scale, itwas crucial to select top quality products from best-

in-class suppliers," commented Gbenga Adegbiji,head of capital projects at MainOne. "We needed tospecify products that would fully supportapplications today and well into the future to allowfor growth and expansion, and we chose Siemon toenable us to achieve these important objectives."Siemon and its certified installed partner, Lagosbased DBH Solutions, collaborated on the process ofdesigning the cabling infrastructure, whichcomprises the high performance XGLO fibre opticsolution with OS2 singlemode and OM3 multimodefibre, and the Z-MAX end-to-end Category 6Ashielded copper cabling system.Ideal for next generation backbone applications,XGLO exceeds all ANSI/TIA/EIA and ISO/IEC insertionloss and return loss requirements to provideMainOne with 10Gb/s performance and beyond.Meanwhile, the Z-MAX shielded system combinesconsistent best-in-class performance with securityand robust noise immunity to easily support 10Gb/s.It also provides the highest margins on allperformance requirements for Category 6A/Class EA,including critical alien crosstalk parameters.A combined total of more than 2,400 XGLO opticalfibre links, using 1,200 pairs of OM3 and 1,200 pairsof OS2, were installed for the backboneinfrastructure, which connects every cabinet toCisco Nexus 7000 series core switches located ineach of the two main network rooms. Z-MAX wasused to connect servers and work area outlets toaccess switches and, given the challenging

schedule, it provided significant advantages interms of product handling and ease of installation."We are confident that with the high performanceSiemon cabling solutions we have deployed in ourstate-of-the-art facility, we will be able to providequality and reliable services to our customers," saidFunke Opeke, CEO at MainOne.Steven Foster, managing director at Siemon EMEA,observed, "The availability of high performance datacentre facilities in West Africa is critical to its abilityto achieve future growth and profitability. MainOne issetting the standard in this region and we are pleasedthat our technology is playing a critical role insupporting the development of the digital economy inthis rapidly developing part of the world."

(L-R) Michel Azibert, Eutelsat's deputy CEO and commercial & developmentdirector, and Richard Thomas, Camusat CEO

Siemon supplies West Africa with data centre cabling solutions

AdaptiveMobile boostsMTN revenue control

Eutelsat and Camusat set out to serve MNOs


XGLO fibre jumpers and pigtails from Siemon

Siemon's Z-MAX Cat6A shielded cabling


TELECOMMUNICATIONS SERVICE PROVIDER Bharti Airtel Africa hasintroduced innovative consumer services for merchants and contentproviders across the continent, working with IMImobile.

The new Airtel Tap2Bill service innovation enables content providersand merchants to utilise Airtel’s billing infrastructure to charge and billtheir customers. The service will be available via a secure portal that willhelp content providers and merchants grow their business across Africa,without the need to invest in costly billing and payment capabilities.

Airtel Africa chief executive officer Christian de Faria said, “We are verypleased to announce this new customer payment innovation to themarket. It will support the growth of content services and enable contentproducers and merchants across Africa to share and benefit from Airtel'sscale, market and technology."

Airtel Africa has worked with IMImobile since 2011 on mobile serviceprovision and innovation.

IMImobile chief executive officer Jay Patel commented, “Ensuring theconstant growth of choice and variety of mobile services is key acrossAfrica and Airtel recognise that they are in a unique position to helpcontent providers and merchants."


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TELECOMMUNICATIONS SOLUTIONS SPECIALIST MATRIXXSoftware and industry cloud apps company Vlocity haveformed a strategic partnership and launched Go Digital, acloud-based solution that helps communications and digitalservice providers (DSPs) deliver a differentiated customerexperience and grow revenue from video and musicstreaming, roaming passes, lifestyle applications and more.Built for agility, the MATRIXX-Vlocity solution can belaunched in less than three months.Consumers’ service expectations are increasingly shapedby their experiences with digital companies like Amazon,FitBit and Uber, which provide consumers personalizedservice, adapt to their changing needs, and put them incontrol. Go Digital is based on the Salesforce platform andcombines Vlocity Communications Industry Cloud apps andthe MATRIXX Digital Commerce platform. With Go Digital communications customers can define theirown experience: they can easily try, buy and manage digitalservices such as video and music streaming, track theirusage in real-time, receive smart alerts which allow one-click purchasing of top-ups, share selected balances withfriends, add roaming passes on-the-fly and consumeservices in bite size chunks to better match their needs.Further, they receive a consistent service experience,regardless of device or channel of engagement.Go Digital includes a virtual “control centre” allowing thecustomer to manage all of their digital services. Service

providers deploying Go Digital can offer an elegant, one-click customer experience, with multiple payment optionsfor additional mobile services.MATRIXX and Vlocity combine decades of experience indigital strategy, eCommerce, CRM and communicationsindustry-specific cloud apps to help communicationproviders transform their customer experience. Go Digitaldelivers a ‘new and improved’ customer acquisition-to-cashsolution that can be deployed in less than three months. Itutilises Salesforce cloud infrastructure, a common datamodel, and does not require complex integration to existingIT infrastructure. The solution is immediately available forleading telcos, with Swisscom, Telstra and Sky Italia amongthe first to have access.Dave Labuda, founder, CEO and CTO of MATRIXX Software,said, “Legacy platforms are preventing service providersfrom executing on their digital agendas. MATRIXX andVlocity have developed a new solution to meet theaggressive go-to-market strategies of telcos addressingdigital disruption head on.”David Schmaier, CEO and founder of Vlocity, said, “TheMATRIXX and Vlocity partnership brings a uniquecombination of technology and transformation assets totelcos wishing to engage their customers in dynamic, digitalways. The Go Digital solution creates a significant newrevenue opportunity for communications providers, onethat can be rapidly deployed in any carrier or DSP.”

MATRIXX Software and Vlocity launch digital industry cloud solution for telcos

MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS, PARTICULARLY in the fast movingconsumer goods (FMCG) sector, and informal merchants can nowbenefit from reduced costs, increased security and greaterefficiencies around payments, following an initiative by MTN’sbusiness and switching house for a cashless payment solution.

“This solution is aligned with MTN’s efforts to deliver digitalservices to our multinational clientele, while at the same timeserving the underserved,” said Debbie Minnaar, general manager:products and services, group enterprise business unit at MTN.“We estimate that around 70 per cent of informal merchants in

Africa are not able to make and receive electronic payments, andtherefore recognise the value of inclusive payment solutions. Thisswitching payment solution will enable MTN to increase theeconomic participation of informal cash only merchants in Africawhile allowing users to safely transact in a digital space, to benefitboth FMCGs and consumers.”

PART OF GONDWANA InternationalNetworks (GIN), AfricaOnlineGhana Ltd is rolling out its newRadwin Network in Accra, the capitalcity of the West African country,offering superior reliable high speedbroadband for its corporate clients,based around a symmetrical fixedwireless broadband infrastructure.

The company has confirmed thatit has plans to extend the service toperi-urban areas in the next phaseof deployment as well as to citieslike Kumasi, Takoradi and Tamalewhere radio connectivity is alreadypresent.

Kwadwo Ohemeng Asumaning,MD of AfricaOnline Ghana,commented, “We believe that ourlong-term presence in Ghana,serving major key corporates andSMEs gives us the experience andcompetencies to better understandthe needs of our customers andrecommend appropriate solutionsto their requirements.”

AfricaOnline Ghanauses Radwin Network

Bharti Airtel Africa improves customer engagement with IMImobile service

MTN connects enterprises and informal merchants

with digital payments and services solution


“Ensuring the constant growth of choice andvariety of mobile services is key across Africaand Airtel recognise that they are in a unique

position to help content providers andmerchants." - Jay Patel, chief executive

officer, IMImobile

“Around 70 per cent of informalmerchants in Africa are not able to make

and receive electronic payments, andtherefore recognise the value of inclusive

payment solutions.” - Debbie Minnaar,general manager: products and services,

group enterprise business unit, MTN


WORLD TELECOM LABS (WTL) has been appointed byMkulima African Telecom Company Limited (MTC-Amotel) to bring voice and data connectivity to remoterural villages close to Lake Tanganyika in Katavi, inTanzania. Services will be established later in othervillages in Kigoma, Njombe and Kilimanjaro.

In June 2015 Amotel became the first licensedmobile virtual network operator (MVNO) in Tanzania.The company has since entered a business agreementto operate as an MVNO through national telcoTanzania Telecommunications Company Limited(TTCL). Amotel will now deploy WTL’s new Vivada(Village Voice and Data) system to build low OPEX, lowCAPEX networks in three villages that are not currentlycovered by any kind of network, as part of a proof ofconcept project with finance from the UniversalCommunications Service Access Fund (UCSAF).

Professor Robert Mabele, board chairman of MTC-Amotel, said, “We know that connectivity in rural areasleads to economic development and improvements inthe quality of life. Amotel is a company which takes itsresponsibilities very seriously and we are determinedto make a difference. We evaluated a number of ruralsystems and WTL’s Vivada was consistently top acrossour scoring criteria. The build has already started and

we are extremely impressed with the experience andenthusiasm of the WTL team.”

Delivering voice and data to villagesVivada provides everything an operator needs todeploy cost-effective and sustainable GSM and datanetworks in rural areas. It runs on less than 200Wwhich can be supplied by solar with battery back-up.

Vivada recognises that multiple revenue streamswill ensure a sustainable business model. It candeliver services to all types of pre and post-paidcustomers with varying telecoms budgets includingGSM for every type of handset; WiFi connectivity forsmartphones, tablets, laptops and PCs – andconnectivity to cybercafés and hotspot call cabins.

Vivada includes a micro GSM base station, WiFirouters and modems, backhaul integration, billingsoftware, VoIP switches and an SMS server.

Traffic from the village is validated by WTL’s real-time charging system and voice calls are thenconverted into VoIP and compressed using WTL’saward-winning VoIP SBC which uses patentedtechnology to minimise the amount of backhaulbandwidth required. Calls are transferred to a hub inDar es Salaam where a WTL switch routes it onwards.


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GLOBAL WHOLESALE CARRIERfor voice, mobile data andcapacity services, BICS haslaunched RouteFlex, anautomated business continuityand optimisation solution thathas been developed to addressthe need for enhancedconnectivity in Africa. Thesatellite solution enablesoperators to manage QoE andsecure an optimal trafficbalance.RouteFlex provides an

intelligent and cost-efficient IPover Satellite (IPoSAT) back-upsolution, supported by an SDN(Software Defined Network)which enables operators tohandle high volumes of IP dataacross satellite by applyingend-to-end differentialtreatment to different types ofaggregated data flows duringpeaks or outages.

EAST AFRICAN OPERATOR Tigo Tanzania has accumulated a million followers onFacebook, the highest such figure in Tanzania, effectively reinforcing Tigo’sposition as a leading digital lifestyle enterprise in the country.Tigo’s Facebook page was created in June 2011 and has grown to become an idealplatform for interaction for its customers, where they learn about the company’snew products and services and latest innovations. In a recent TanzaniaLeadership Awards ceremony, acknowledging Tanzania’s best organisations andindividuals, Tigo won two trophies - for 'The Hall of Fame in Brand Excellence'and 'The Best use of Social Media in Marketing'.The upsurge in the use of social media in Tanzania has spurred the use ofFacebook in the country in recent years. According to analysts at marketingcompany Socialbakers, Tanzania currently has 4,144,040 Facebook users. So, asTigo general manager Diego Gutierrez said recently, these numbers effectivelymeant Tigo has nearly a quarter of the total Facebook users in the country. MrGutierrez commented, "Our platform on Facebook and our official twitter handle(Tigo_TZ) have become essential tools for us to listen and learn from ourgrowing technology-savvy customers and the public in general. We are proud tohave reached this milestone and thank our customers for their evangelisticloyalty to us. Tigo Tanzania will continue to cater for its customers’ digital needsand offer even richer and more interactive digital content.”

Increasing community engagement in KiswahiliThe interest in Tigo Facebook followers was buoyed by the launch, in 2014, ofFacebook in Kiswahili, Tanzania’s national language. Tigo customers are able toaccess Facebook in both English and Kiswahili through their mobile phoneswithout incurring additional data charges. Tanzania has over 130 ethnic groupsthat constitute its 45mn population, over 80 per cent of whom speak fluentKiswahili in addition to other local dialects. Spoken by 120-150mn people globally,Kiswahili is the national language in both Tanzania and Kenya and it is alsogaining ground in Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. Being the lingua franca in muchof Southeast Africa, Kiswahili has been adopted has one of the workinglanguages of The African Union (AU) and of the East African Community (EAC).

Tigo Tanzania makes a million on Facebook

COMMUNICATIONS SOLUTIONS SPECIALIST Anritsu Corporation hasintroduced three new measurements software packages expanding thefunctions of the Universal Wireless Test Set MT8870A to supportmanufacturing tests of IoT/M2M applications. With these new releases,Anritsu has added support for 802.11p, Bluetooth DLE, and Z-Wave to itsmeasurement software product line for the MT8870A, covering afrequency range from 10MHz to 6GHz.

The rapid expansion of the IoT/M2M applications market is increasingthe need for wireless testing of communications terminals and modules.The majority of these products support both mobile wireless systems,such as LTE and W-CDMA, as well as short-range 802.11a/b/g/n/ac andBluetooth in one unit, requiring a fast, all-in-one, test set for measuring

multiple wireless systems.The Universal Wireless

Test Set MT8870A has beenspecifically designed for thehigh volume manufacturingtest of all common cellularand short range wirelesstechnologies. An MT8870Ainstrument mainframe cancontain up to four TRX testmodules MU887000A/01Aeach capable ofindependent control by anexternal PC. Each modulehas an integrated vectorsignal generator (VSG) andvector signal analyser (VSA)to perform both transmitterand receiver RF tests.

BICS launches dynamicIPoS solution in Africa

Tanzanian MVNO Amotel selects WTL to establish network connections

Anritsu launches software solutions to supportmanufacturing tests ofIoT and M2M devices


Universal Wireless Test Set MT8870A nowoffers support for 802.11p, Bluetooth DLE andZ-Wave, covering a frequency range from 10MHz to 6 GHz


SCALE AND EXECUTION have become critical success factors as telecomindustry is disrupted by the advent of new paradigms such as softwaredefined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualisation (NFV),with vendors seeking to either arrange a buy-out or partner, as witnessedby the recent Cisco/Ericsson alliance. So, to the Nokia acquisition ofAlcatel-Lucent, and Nokia’s de-facto control of Alcatel-Lucent after itsEUR15.6bn (US$17bn) all-share offer.

The NOK/ALU merger has been discussed as a possibility since the daysof Nokia Siemens Network (NSN), given the companies’ geographicrevenue breakdown synergies and the mostly complementary nature oftheir product portfolios. This possibility of a combination of the twocompanies started getting more attention since the Mobile World Congressof 2014, when rumors were circulated that execs had been meeting eachother over some tapas in Barcelona to explore such an option.

Nokia’s strides on margin and cash flow, coupled with Alcatel-Lucent’s successful execution of its SHIFT plan, have enabled the dreamto become a reality. But before that, Nokia had to earn all regulatoryapprovals, first from the US and finally last October from France. Thenegotiations at the highest level (between Nokia’s CEO Rajeev Suri andFrance’s Minister of Economy, Industry and Digital Affairs EmmanuelMacron) proved to be quite challenging and Nokia had to agree toseveral caveats required by the French government, such as placingALU’s French facilities at the forefront of key future technology researchprogrammes in the new entity. Moreover, Nokia also has to keep backinga number of French government technology initiatives that Alcatel-Lucent is currently engaged in, such as the 'Industry of the Future'programme, the funding of academic tuition and the placement ofleading technology experts at the French facilities.

Source: Frost & Sullivan


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THE AWARD-WINNING MINID developed by RAD, part of itsService Assured Access (SAA) solution portfolio forcommunications service providers, has become the firstminiature network interface device (NID) to receive MEF CE2.0 certification.RAD’s SAA solutions for mobile, business and wholesale

service providers are designed to improve the way theycompete: service agility to minimise time to revenue,complete visibility of network performance for greateroperational efficiency and better QoE to reduce churn.With this certification, operators can now instantly

upgrade their infrastructure to support premium CarrierEthernet 2.0 certified offerings for business, mobilebackhaul and wholesale services without expensiveinvestments in network forklifts.“This certification is yet another milestone for RAD’s

innovative technology and further positions the field-programmable, patented MiNID as the leading product of itskind in the market,” said Ulik Broida, vice president ofmarketing and business development at RAD. Together withRAD’s central-site performance monitoring controller andRADview management system, MiNID provides a powerfulperformance monitoring (PM) overlay, which enablesoperators to run full-scale Carrier Ethernet and IP serviceactivation and online diagnostics over any network, evenone featuring a mixed assortment of equipment fromvarious vendors.

“What makes MiNID unique is that it easily adds powerfulPM capabilities to any existing device,” Broida explained.“This, together with its versatility in enabling CE 2.0 networkupgrades and simplicity, make it extremely attractive toservice providers.”Regardless of the application for which it is used, MiNID,

by re-using existing hosting equipment, reduces CapEx bydoing away with box-size demarcation devices, which is alsoa major advantage when additional shelf-space is limited oralready unavailable Moreover, MiNID reduces OpEx byeliminating installation, power and maintenance costs.

RAD gains MEF Carrier Ethernet 2.0 Certification with MiNID

AN INDEPENDENT PROVIDER of next generation service assurance,automation/orchestration and analytics solutions, MYCOM OSIattended the most recent AfricaCom, Africa’s bigggest technologyevent, in November 2015 to showcase its solutions to the continent’scommunications service providers (CSPs).The AfricaCom conference and expo was attended by an

estimated 10,000 players in the African digital world, with 350influential speakers and more than 375 telecom solution providersparticipating. The 2015 event was its 18th edition and was themedaround ‘Innovation, Transformation & Leadership for Digital Africa’.MYCOM OSI was formed in 2014 by merger of telecom industry

service assurance software providers MYCOM and OSI. MYCOM’sexpertise in network performance management, and OSI’sexperience in fault management, served both entities in thedevelopment of aervice management capabilities. Today, MYCOMOSI provides deep telecom expertise and solutions in areasfundamental to network and service quality, the primary contributorto customer experience, loyalty and churn.The executive team at MYCOM OSI highlighted how the

company’s service assurance platform has helped tier 1 CSPsoptimise their network and service quality whilst reducingoperational and capital expenditure and customer churn. Inaddition, at AfricaCom 2015 MYCOM OSI talked about its business inAfrica and the appeal of its solutions.At AfricaCom, the company also offered insights into 5G

technologies, its quality of service (QoS)-driven NFV Orchestrationsolution, its networks analytics and networkautomation/orchestration solutions, and its solutions for multi-domain network performance, fault management, and servicemanagement.

COMMUNICATIONS COMPANYOOREDOO Group has selectedmobile payments and marketingsolutions provider GoSwiff as itspartner for the implementation ofits international mobile point ofsale (mPOS) platform.The partnership will cover ninemarkets covering Algeria,Indonesia, Iraq, Kuwait, Myanmar,Maldives, Oman, Qatar and Tunisia.It will include recruitingmerchants to the platform, fromlarge corporates to micro-merchants.GoSwiff is providing an integratedmulti-payment solution includingmPOS, mobile money and airtimetop-up for Ooredoo’s merchantclients. GoSwiff also providesvalue added services includingmerchant reward programmes, toencourage a greater volume oftransactions, and consumerloyalty tools to enable Ooredoo tobetter engage with its customers.

Ooredoo opts forGoSwiff for mPOS

Nokia/ALU merger creates comettitveadvanntage from scale and execution

MYCOM OSI showcases new product capabilitiesand solutions at AfricaCom


“What makes MiNID unique isthat it easily adds powerful PM

capabilities to any existingdevice. This, together with itsversatility in enabling CE 2.0

network upgrades and simplicity,make it extremely attractive toservice providers.” - Ulik Broida,vice president of marketing and

business development, RA


Communications Africa Issue 1 201614 www.communicationsafrica.com

IT IS POSSIBLE now to gain automaticdiagnosis of malaria on an iPhone. xRapid isthe first commercially available mobileapplication that has the functionality todiagnose a major disease quickly andaccurately. \xRapid utilises a \portablemicroscope and a pattern recognitionalgorithm to identify the malaria parasite

quickly, accurately and at a lower cost thanother current methods. With an App Storerelease and distribution underway, xRapidheralds a new direction in disease casemanagement and mobile health as anindustry.

Malaria is a truly global disease. Not onlydo 3.2bn people live under the threat of

contracting it, it is often fatal to childrenunder five and is a major contributor topoverty. Malaria has also been a big topic inthe news in 2015. The rise of drug resistantstrains in South East Asia has been aconstant concern. On a more positive notehowever, we have seen the progress theworld has made against malaria in line withthe Millennium Development Goals. Addedto this, a Nobel prize for Tu Youyou, theChinese researcher who invented the mosteffective and widely used treatment formalaria, shows increasing recognition of theneed to tackle the disease on a global scale.

Methods to fight malariaxRapid is looking to disrupt the currentmethods of testing by creating a strongersolution. Testing is vitally important inmalaria case management as it links thechallenges of treatment, drug resistance andvaccine research. Treating malaria patientsearly and avoiding the over prescription ofdrugs relies heavily on testing, whilst theefficacy of a vaccine can only be qualifiedthrough screening programmes.

Testing for malaria needs to be fast,accurate and cheap. The problem withcurrent methods is that they can either beslow, expensive and time consuming orinaccurate and unstable. xRapid bringstogether the strengths of current methodswhile avoiding the flaws; it provides speed,accuracy and accessibility in its method anda lower cost per test than anything else onthe market. Add this to all of the smartpotential of mobile phone applications andusers begin to see a very competitiveproduct.

Improving diagnostic testing is animportant breakthrough in the managementof any disease. However, there is potentialfor xRapid beyond individual results andeven beyond testing for malaria alone. Theretention of information that smartphonetechnology allows makes for a powerfuldisease mapping tool, and if apps likexRapid are used widely the data collectedcould contribute towards predicting futureoutbreaks. The pattern recognition methodalso has the potential to spot other diseases.

xRapid CEO and co-founder said, “This isjust the beginning; we are already workingon expanding xRapid to test and diagnoseother diseases from tuberculosis to Lymedisease. Right now we are very excited to bethe first iPhone app to diagnose a majordisease like malaria.

Half of the global population is at risk, andwe are very proud to be doing our part inimproving the lives of those affected. ThemHealth revolution is starting to help peopleall over the world.”

Attacking malaria with an app

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15www.communicationsafrica.com

LES PLUS DE 500 participants de 70 paysassistant au 2ème Forum mondial UIT sur lestélécommunications d'urgence: Sauver des vies(GET-2016, Koweït, 26-28 janvier) ont mis enavant l'importance des TIC dans l'alerte avancéeet les secours en cas de catastrophe, avec lelancement, à l'échelle mondiale, de deuxnouvelles initiatives majeures, à savoir le RéseauUIT de volontaires pour les télécommunicationsd'urgence et le Fonds mondial pour uneintervention rapide en cas d'urgence.

Les participants au Forum GET-2016, qui setenait au Regency Hotel de Koweït, ont débattu del'évolution de la situation et des dernièresinnovations technologiques, des mécanismes definancement, des études de cas par pays, desdifficultés rencontrées pour déployer les TIC dansles zones frappées par des catastrophes, desquestions liées aux changements climatiques etdu rôle du secteur privé et d'autres partiesprenantes non étatiques. Ce Forum a égalementété le cadre d'une série d'expositions proposantdes solutions pour une utilisation optimale desTIC en situation d'urgence.

Les TIC jouent un rôle déterminant dans laréduction des risques de catastrophe. Auparagraphe 33 du Cadre d'action de Sendai pourla réduction des risques de catastrophe, il estsouligné à quel point il est nécessaire, non

seulement d'investir dans les systèmes d'alerteavancée, la prévention des risques, lescommunications d'urgence, les technologiessociales et les systèmes de télécommunicationpermettant de surveiller les risques, mais ausside développer, d'entretenir et de renforcer cessystèmes. Ce texte souligne aussi la nécessitéd'améliorer la résilience des nouvellesinfrastructures TIC.

"Ce Forum a été un grand succès", a affirmé leSecrétaire général de l'UIT Houlin Zhao. "Chaquejour ou presque, une catastrophe se produit dansle monde. Le nombre élevé de participantstémoigne de notre volonté commune d'unir nosforces pour contribuer à atténuer les effets descatastrophes."

Les documents finals adoptés par le ForumGET-2016 offrent des orientations stratégiques àla communauté internationale comme auxdifférents pays et auront pour effet de mieux faireconnaître le rôle que les différentes entitéspourraient jouer pour faire destélécommunications/TIC l'un des pivots de lagestion des catastrophes et de l'atténuation deleurs effets.

"Les participants à ce Forum ont adopté desstratégies concrètes qui renforcent nos capacitésd'intervention en situation d'urgence," a déclaréle Président du Forum GET-2016, Salim

Alozainah, Président-Directeur général de laCommunication and Information TechnologyRegulatory Authority (CITRA) en présentant lerapport final du Forum.

"Nous sommes tous réunis ici au Koweït pourexploiter au mieux l'immense potentiel destélécommunications et des TIC, qui permettentde sauver des vies lorsque survient unecatastrophe", a dit Brahima Sanou. "Ce Forum apermis de nouer des partenariats qui serontessentiels pour concrétiser nos ambitions."

S'exprimant à l'occasion du lancement duRéseau UIT de volontaires pour lestélécommunications d'urgence et du Fondsmondial pour une intervention rapide en casd'urgence, M. Sanou a invité toutes les partiesprenantes à contribuer aux initiatives quipermettent de sauver des vies.

Siaosi Sovaleni, Premier Ministre adjoint desTonga, a déclaré ce qui suit: "Tous lesparticipants au Forum ont convenu que les TICétaient l'une des clés de la gestion descatastrophes. Ils ont en outre mis en lumière lanécessité d'adopter une approche multipartite etont manifesté leur appui sans faille aux initiativeslancées par l'UIT, qui aideront grandement lespays à renforcer leurs capacités et fourniront desressources accessibles pour atténuer les effetsdes catastrophes naturelles et sauver des vies."

ORANGE ET BHARTI Airtel International (Netherlands) BV (Airtel) ont signéun accord portant sur l’acquisition par Orange des filiales d’Airtel au BurkinaFaso et en Sierra Leone.Orange va acquérir 100% des actions des deux sociétés. Le chiffre d’affairesconsolidé des deux sociétés est d’environ 275 millions d’euros. Orange réaliseraces opérations en partenariat avec ses filiales en Côte d'ivoire et au Sénégal.Le montant de la transaction pour Orange sera construit sur un multiple de 7,9fois l’Ebitda de ces deux filiales d’Airtel à la fin de leur exercice annuel au 31 mars2016. La finalisation de ces transactions reste soumise à l’approbation desautorités compétentes.Ces acquisitions s’inscrivent dans le cadre de la stratégie de développementinternational d’Orange, qui vise à accélérer sa croissance en pénétrant denouveaux marchés émergents à fort potentiel.A travers ces opérations, Orange va renforcer ses positions en Afrique enajoutant deux pays à sa couverture et en augmentant sa base clients mobile deprès de 5,5 millions de clients. Confirmant sa stratégie offensive sur sesmarchés, Orange marque une nouvelle étape de sa croissance et couvrira 20pays en Afrique en 2016.Ces acquisitions font suite à l’accord initial signé entre Airtel et Orange en juillet2015 concernant l’acquisition potentielle des opérations d’Airtel au Burkina Faso,Sierra Leone, Tchad et Congo Brazzaville. Les accords portant sur desacquisitions potentielles dans les deux pays restants sont arrivés à échéance.Les conseillers pour ces transactions sont Lazard et la Société Générale pourOrange, et Arma Partners LLP pour Airtel.Présent dans 28 pays, Orange servait 263 millions de clients dans le monde au30 septembre 2015, dont 200 millions de clients du mobile et 18 millions declients haut débit fixe. Orange est également l'un des leaders mondiaux desservices de télécommunications aux entreprises multinationales sous la marqueOrange Business Services.

Orange va acquérir deux filiales d’Airtel auBurkina Faso et en Sierra Leone

LA PREMIÈRE COMMUNAUTÉ mondiale en ligne des villes intelligentes,lancé récemment, vise à aider les acteurs de la ville à créer des villesintelligentes et durables. Cette nouvelle communauté cherche àidentifier les principaux "points faibles" du développement urbain.

Le lancement de cette plate-forme communautaire s'inscrit dans ladynamique préparatoire du premier Forum mondial sur les villesintelligentes, qui sera organisé par la CEI, en partenariat avec l'ISO etl'UIT, à Singapour le 13 juillet 2016, en même temps et au même endroitque le Sommet mondial des villes www.worldcitiessummit.com.cg et laSemaine internationale de l'eau www.siww.com.sg.

"La création de villes intelligentes et durables est devenue l'un desgrands thèmes qui préoccupent aussi bien les administrations dans lemonde entier que les institutions des Nations Unies", a déclaré HoulinZhao, Secrétaire général de l'UIT. "La prise en compte du potentiel desvilles intelligentes va de pair avec la prise de conscience suivante:introduire des éléments d'intelligence dans une ville existante, ouencore créer à partir de rien une ville intelligente, est une tâchecomplexe qui nécessite de renforcer la coopération et d'harmoniser laprise de décision entre les différents acteurs de la ville et lesorganismes internationaux de normalisation tels que l'UIT, la CEI etl'ISO".

D'ici 2050, selon les estimations, 66% de la population mondialevivra en zone urbaine. Pour les municipalités, le défi est d'envergure:il leur faut fournir à ces habitants des ressources de base (denréesalimentaires et eau salubres et ressources énergétiques ensuffisance), tout en assurant une durabilité globale sur les planséconomique, social et environnemental. Les villes doivent s'efforcerd'améliorer considérablement l'efficacité de leur fonctionnement etde leur utilisation des ressources.

Autour de TIC et des stratégies visant à atténuer les conséquences des catastrophes naturelles

Une nouvelle plate-forme mondiale pour faciliterla création de villes intelligentes et durables


QUOTES

“In the information security field, CIOsare focusing on maximising theirbudgets without compromising

security. This is driving a move towardsthe next generation firewall, which does itsjob efficiently, while the cost justificationis perfect. Within networks, we can expectenterprises to look more closely at trafficfiltering and move away from applyingeverything to everything.”

- Perry Huttonregional director for Africa, Fortinet

“While CIOs and security professionalsmay feel safe with large investmentsin firewalls, virus detection and other

perimeter defenses, the on-the-groundreality is that today’s hackers continue toget better at their jobs and will easily getaround these protections through a virtualside-door without ever being spotted.There are so many basic vulnerabilitiesthat organisations need to address, andbecause of this it is increasingly importantfor companies to lock-down internal accesscontrols and protect the data from inside.”

- David GibsonVP of strategy and market development,Varonis

“Digital financial services haveexpanded rapidly in recent years,especially in Sub-Saharan Africa,

extending financial services to many ruraland low-income communities that werepreviously excluded. The challenge now isto make sure products and services areimproved to meet the specific needs ofnew customers.”

- David Crushprogramme manager for the Partnership forFinancial Inclusion, IFC

“In 2014, South Africa had an Internetpenetration rate of about 40 per cent.There is a significant growth but it

tends to be concentrated in the ‘golden’cities like Cape Town, Johannesburg,Durban and East London. Mobiletechnology has been a game changer:people have at least a mobile phone evenin the most remote rural areas, but weneed to go beyond using it as areplacement for a fixed line and develope-services. Our target (Government) is toachieve 100 per cent broadbandpenetration by 2020 as well astransforming 70 per cent of all front-lineservice to e-Service by 2019.”

- Hon Prof Hlengiwe MkhizeDeputy Minister, Department ofTelecommunications and Postal Services,Republic of South Africa

“We are at the crossroads of a hugechange in communications networks,with the advent of 5G Wireless and

cloud networking underway. Operators andenterprises alike will see their networkschallenged by massive increases in traffic.”

- Marcus WeldonCTO, Alcatel-Lucent; president, Bell Labs

“Africa offers a great potential forgrowth, as satellite communicationconnects previously isolated

communities in the region more efficientlyand cost-effectively than before. Gilat iswell-placed to drive rural broadbandsolutions in Africa, and become the bestpartner to the new HTS providers whoplan to deploy their services across thecontinent.”

- Dov Baharavinterim CEO and chairman of the board,Gilat Satellite Networks Ltd


S03 CAF 01 2016 - Report 01_Layout 1 12/02/2016 08:32

Le deuxième Forum mondial de l'UIT sur les télécommunications d'urgence, et le rôle destélécommunications d'urgence dans la gestion des catastrophes

Utiliser les TICpour sauver des vies

TICGET-2016

LE DEUXIÈME FORUM mondial sur lestélécommunications d'urgence (GET-2016, Koweït, 26-28 janvier) accueillitdes dirigeants des secteurs public et

privé, des universitaires, ainsi que desreprésentants d'organisations nongouvernementales et d'institutions desNations Unies.

Des objectifs de développementCe Forum est l'occasion, pour les décideurs etles autres participants, de débattre etd'adopter des stratégies concrètes pour définircomment les technologies de l'information etde la communication peuvent contribuer à lamise en oeuvre de la Déclaration et du Cadred'Action de Sendai pour la réduction desrisques de catastrophes pour la période 2015-2030, à la réalisation des objectifs énoncésdans le Programme de développement durableà l'horizon 2030 et à l'atténuation des effetsdes changements climatiques, conformémentà l'Accord de Paris adopté par la Conférencesur les changements climatiques réunie endécembre 2015.

"Tout l'intérêt de ce Forum est de rassembleren un même lieu des leaders d'opinion pourtrouver comment mobiliser les nouvellestechnologies, non seulement pour sauver desvies, mais pour améliorer la vie quotidienne detous", a déclaré le Secrétaire général de l'UITHoulin Zhao. "L'UIT va poursuivre sa mission,qui consiste à fournir en temps utile auxcollectivités frappées par une catastrophe, auxéquipes de premiers secours, aux pouvoirspublics, et aux entités s'occupant de gestiondes catastrophes, des moyens decommunication fiables et adaptés.”

Des actions humanitairesOrganisé par l'UIT, l'institution spécialisée desNations Unies pour les télécommunications etles TIC, ce Forum est accueilli par leGouvernement du Koweït. Il réunit desdélégués du monde entier: ministres,régulateurs des TIC, responsables de la gestiondes catastrophes sur le plan national,chercheurs, entreprises du secteur privé,Nations Unies et ONG.

"C'est une grande fierté pour l'Etat duKoweït d'accueillir cette importantévénement", a affirmé Sheikh MohammadAbdullah Al-Mubarak al-Sabah, Ministre d'Etat

pour les Affaires du Cabinet et Ministre parintérim de l'Electricité et de l'Eau du Koweït."L'Emir du Koweït s'est vu remettre en 2014 unPrix décerné par les Nations Unies enrécompense de l'action humanitaire de sonpays, et je suis très heureux que ce Forum setienne alors même que nous fêtons le 10èmeanniversaire du couronnement de notre Emir.”

Le programme du Forum comprendra touteune série de débats axés sur les nouvellestendances et les innovations technologiques,les mécanismes de financement, les études decas, les difficultés rencontrées pour déployerdes moyens de télécommunication/TIC aprèsune catastrophe, les questions liées auxchangements climatiques et le rôle du secteurprivé et d'autres partenaires non étatiques.

"Ce Forum de trois jours offre une occasionexceptionnelle d'examiner de près le rôle destélécommunications/TIC au service del'atténuation des effets des catastrophes etdes secours en cas de catastrophe", a ditBrahima Sanou, Directeur du Bureau dedéveloppement des télécommunications del'UIT. "Nous voulons, au cours de ce Forum,lancer des programmes concrets quichangeront les modalités du déploiement et del'utilisation des ressources detélécommunication/TIC au service de lagestion des catastrophes, en particulierpendant la phase d'intervention.”

La Forum compris une table rondeministérielle sur l'amélioration de laplanification préalable et l'efficacité dessecours dans l'optique du développementdurable, ainsi que d'un Dialogue entre hautespersonnalités sur le thème des questionstechnologiques, réglementaires etopérationnelles.

Une série d'expositions présentant dessolutions et des utilisations concrètes des TICen situation d'urgence a été inaugurée aucours d'une cérémonie spéciale.

L'ouverture officielle du Forum a étéprécédée, le 25 janvier, de deux manifestationspréalables centrées, l'une sur la Convention deTampere, et l'autre sur le rôle des TIC dans laréduction des risques de catastrophe.

Le ForumLes plus de 500 participants de 70 paysassistant au 2ème Forum mondial UIT sur lestélécommunications d'urgence: Sauver des

vies ont mis en avant l'importance des TIC dansl'alerte avancée et les secours en cas decatastrophe, avec le lancement, à l'échellemondiale, de deux nouvelles initiativesmajeures, à savoir le Réseau UIT de volontairespour les télécommunications d'urgence et leFonds mondial pour une intervention rapide encas d'urgence.

Les participants au Forum GET-2016, qui setenait au Regency Hotel de Koweït, ont débattude l'évolution de la situation et des dernièresinnovations technologiques, des mécanismesde financement, des études de cas par pays,des difficultés rencontrées pour déployer lesTIC dans les zones frappées par descatastrophes, des questions liées auxchangements climatiques et du rôle du secteurprivé et d'autres parties prenantes nonétatiques.

Ce Forum a également été le cadre d'unesérie d'expositions proposant des solutionspour une utilisation optimale des TIC ensituation d'urgence.

Les TIC jouent un rôle déterminant dans laréduction des risques de catastrophe. Auparagraphe 33 du Cadre d'action de Sendaipour la réduction des risques de catastrophe, ilest souligné à quel point il est nécessaire, nonseulement d'investir dans les systèmesd'alerte avancée, la prévention des risques, lescommunications d'urgence, les technologiessociales et les systèmes de télécommunicationpermettant de surveiller les risques, mais ausside développer, d'entretenir et de renforcer cessystèmes. Ce texte souligne aussi la nécessitéd'améliorer la résilience des nouvellesinfrastructures TIC.

"Ce Forum a été un grand succès", a affirméle Secrétaire général de l'UIT Houlin Zhao."Chaque jour ou presque, une catastrophe seproduit dans le monde. Le nombre élevé departicipants témoigne de notre volontécommune d'unir nos forces pour contribuer àatténuer les effets des catastrophes.”

Les documents finals adoptés par le ForumGET-2016 offrent des orientations stratégiquesà la communauté internationale comme auxdifférents pays et auront pour effet de mieuxfaire connaître le rôle que les différentesentités pourraient jouer pour faire destélécommunications/TIC l'un des pivots de lagestion des catastrophes et de l'atténuation deleurs effets. �

Communications Africa Issue 1 2016 17www.communicationsafrica.com


How terrestrial fibre connectivity is taking off on the back of subsea cable growth andnew funding

The trend towardscontiguous networks

FIBRE Terrestrial

THE RISE IN the number of underseacable projects in sub-Saharan Africaover the past few years is providing areal boost for the continent’s many

terrestrial fibre projects. In December 2015,Liquid Sea, an offshore subsidiary of LiquidTelecom, announced that it is to lay newsubsea cable off Africa's eastern coastline.The project will run some 10,000km fromSouth Africa to the Middle East. It isdesigned to enable a reliable and affordableinternational connectivity service to bothcoastal and landlocked countries in Eastern,Central and Southern Africa.

Understanding the growth trendLiquid Telecom already has a substantialcommunications technology presence inAfrica and it hosts the continent's largestsingle contiguous network. CommunicationsAfrica/Afrique interviewed Liquid Telecom,as well as a number of companies active inthe sector, to assess their understanding ofthe growth trend. Liquid Telecom expectsthat Africa’s terrestrial fibre sector is set toundergo record breaking growth in 2016. Acompany spokesperson said, “In addition tothe sea cable, Liquid Telecom is laying100km of new fibre every week.”

Leading figures at MainOne - the leadingprovider of innovative telecom services andnetwork solutions in West Africa –concurred. Funke Opeke, chief executive

officer of MainOne, and MainOne'smarketing operations supervisor TemitopeOsunrinde point to a number of newdevelopments in the sub-region, whichcombined, make it second only to SouthAfrica. The company affirmed, “We see moreengaging and relevant use of technology byAfricans. And we haven’t yet scratched thesurface."

MainOne believes that the increase interrestrial fibre and other connectivetechnologies will have significant benefitsacross all areas of the digital economy. Thecompany told CommunicationsAfrica/Afrique, “The increased roll out offibre infrastructure across Africa also assistsin Data Centre developments since it allowscompanies host their systems off premises.Financial Services organisations havecontributed significantly to this growth,particularly in terms of rise in adoption of

banking services, especially mobile, socialand internet banking.”

Investing in fibreNearly double the numbers of terrestrial fibreprojects in Africa were announced, as ofDecember 2015 compared with full year2014. New projects, comprising over22,000km of fibre and over US$730mn ofinvestment, were launched in 19 Africancountries. Indeed, virtually every country onthe continent has embarked on nationalfibre backbone projects, spurred by thedevelopment of undersea cables. And thiswave of investment is triggering investmentin metropolitan fibre networks includingfibre to the home (FTTH).

At least ten FTTH projects were eithercommenced or announced last year. Theseinclude:• Cote d’Ivoire, where FTTH is to be

expanded in the capital city, Abidjan,under the ‘Kouzin Distributor’ franchise.

• Kenya, where Liquid Telecom will spendUS$13.7mn to complete the FTTH projectsthat the former owners of the companyKenya Data Network (KDN) had started.

• Rwanda, where Liquid Telecom isinvesting more than US$35mn in layingRwanda’s first FTTH network.

• By the end of 2016, FTTH is expected toreach 15,000 homes in the followinggeographies:

Most of the developmentsin municipally-driven metrofibre – with the exceptionof South Africa - have beenconfined to Africa’s capitalcities


INTERNATIONAL SUBMARINE CABLE system SEA-ME-WE 5 has completed its shore end at Telecom ItaliaSparkle’s landing station in Catania, Sicily.

With a design capacity set at 24 Terabit persecond on 3 fibre pairs deployed for a total lengthof 20,000 km, the new cable system will providelowest latency connectivity through 17 countries -Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Myanmar,Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Qatar, Oman, UAE,Yemen, Djibouti, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey,France and Italy - offering an additional networklayer of diversity and resilience for the heavilyloaded Asia to Europe route.

Telecom Italia Sparkle SpA is the wholly ownedsubsidiary of Telecom Italia Group with the missionto develop and consolidate the Italian telco’s

international services business. As a leading globalcarrier and through a global backbone of around570.000km of fibre, TI Sparkle offers a full range ofIP, data, cloud, data centre, mobile data and voicesolutions to fixed and mobile operators, Internetservice providers, media and content providers andto multinational enterprises. Its sales force isactive worldwide and distributed over 39countries.

TI Sparkle’s connectivity solutions out of Sicilyon SEA-ME-WE 5 will be available through its nextgeneration data centre in Palermo Sicily Hub, anopen and complete service marketplaceinterconnected with all international cableslanding in Sicily, where customers can also peerdirectly with content providers or publicly through

DE-CIX. SEA-ME-WE 5 is the first cable in theEurope-to-Asia route to provide advancedconnectivity solutions on a POP-to-POP basis fromopen telehouses in Europe - such as TI SparkleSicily Hub - as well as in Singapore, in a decisiveeffort to effectively address today’s demand for IPand capacity services.

With its participation in the SEA-ME-WE 5consortium, TI Sparkle has secured its leadershipin the fast growing Asia to Middle East and Europeroute, enhancing its proposition with a diversifiedand low latency route to and from Asia.

And with the recent opening of the Sicily Hub,located in Palermo, Sparkle is furtherstrengthening its role as leading European hub inthe Mediterranean.

SEA-ME-WE 5 completes shore end in TI Sparkle’s Sicilian landing station



FIBRETerrestrial

South AfricaIn Cape Town MTN commenced its first FTTHdeployments outside Gauteng at the end oflast year. Thousands of homes are now beingconnected in the Western Cape

In Johannesburg, residents of the suburbof Blairgowrie voted last year in favour oftelecommunications start-up Vumatel rollingout FTTH broadband in their neighbourhood.Vumatel has already rolled out fibre to othersuburbs in the city

In Durban MTN launched FTTH in KwaZulu-Natal last October. The FTTH projectconnects about 439 homes to MTN’s highspeed fibre network and is said to deliverInternet speeds of up to 100 Mbps

Zambia is host to a Liquid Telecom’s FTTHproject launched last year that now deliversfast broadband speeds of up to 100Mbps toaround 8,000 homes and businesses in thecapital, Lusaka

ZimbabweIn Victoria Falls the Fibroniks service is nowoffered by ZOL Zimbabwe - part of The LiquidTelecom Group. Superfast 100mbpsbroadband is now available to homes andbusinesses in Victoria Falls

In Harare, TelOne has now connected9,500 homes on fibre

Meanwhile, in Ghana, Google will by theend of 2016 have finished laying a 1,000kmfibre network in Accra as part of its landmark

initiative, ‘Project Link’. This project is aimedat providing increased metro fibre in Africa toprovide greater broadband access. When itgoes live, Accra will become Google’ssecond African super fast broadband cityafter Kampala, Uganda. Project Link, unlike‘Google Fiber’ which sells high-speedInternet directly to consumers in a handful ofUS cities, sells broadband capacity to otherInternet service providers and mobilecarriers.

At present, most of the developments inmunicipally-driven metro fibre – with theexception of South Africa - have beenconfined to Africa’s capital cities. But lastyear saw the spread of metro fibre outsideof the capital cities and into secondarycities. An example is Liquid Telecom’s fibreinvestments in Kilifi, Kenya. Unsurprisingly,South Africa leads the way in providingbroadband access outside of the capital.Metropolitan fibre networks in Cape Town,Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ethekwinidwarf those seen elsewhere on thecontinent.

Funding for fibre networksOn the technology and investment supplyside, China dominates sub-Saharan Africa’sterrestrial fibre network. One way or another,it is involved in at least nine of the fibreprojects announced for Africa. Huawei, theShenzen based global information and

communications technology (ICT) solutionsprovider, and China Telecom are thecontractors for six of these. They include:520km in the Republic of Congo (Huawei);4,000km in Guinea (Huawei); 3,000km inSenegal (Huawei); 400km in Sierra Leone(Huawei); 200km in Togo (Huawei); and428km in Malawi (China Telecom). Inaddition, China’s EximBank, the Chinesegovernment and China InternationalTelecommunication ConstructionCorporation (CITCC) are investing in a furtherthree projects totalling 3,875km of fibre.

Yet despite these very real advances,connectivity remains a major issue. It isestimated that fewer than 16 per cent ofAfricans have access to the Internet,compared with 63 per cent of Europeans and79 per cent of North Americans. In addition,the price for bandwidth in Africa is muchhigher than elsewhere.

Researcher Les Cottrell estimates thatwhile a university in Germany might payabout US$4,000 per month for 1 gigabit persecond of bandwidth, a school in Kenya canexpect to pay US$200,000 for the sameservice. That said, Africa is at last starting tofeel the real impact of fibre infrastructure -and with it for the first time comes thepromise of a genuine, world class high-speed internet service on the continent. �

Nnamdi Anyadike


NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE SPECIALIST Siemon haslaunched new SkinnyPatch 6 modular patch cords inAfrica, delivering category 6 performance with areduced diameter for improved pathway fill, airflowand increased flexibility in high density patchingareas.

With a 28 AWG stranded copper construction thatenables a smaller cable diameter of just 4.0 mm (0.16inches), SkinnyPatch 6 modular patch cords offer asignificantly tighter bend radius for easier cablerouting and enhanced cable management tofacilitate moves, adds and changes in tight spaces.The overall smaller diameter provides pathwaysavings in racks and cabinets whilst maximisingairflow for improved equipment reliability.

“Whilst the use of 28 AWG patch cords requiresusers to be aware of slightly shorter channel reach,airflow is much more of a concern than length intoday’s data centres and telecommunications spaceswhere high density patching areas arecommonplace,” said Stefan Naude, technicalmanager Africa at Siemon.

“Our new SkinnyPatch 6 modular patch cordsprovide the same exceptional category 6performance that our customers have come toexpect from Siemon, whilst offering them a smallerdiameter to improve airflow, accessibility, routing

and space savings in these tighter spaces.”SkinnyPatch 6 modular patch cords exceed ISO/IEC

11801:2002 and ANSI/TIA-568-C.2 performancestandards as confirmed by Intertek, an independent

third party test lab. SkinnyPatch 6 plug technologyfeatures Siemon’s patented cross pair isolator forexceptional NEXT performance and innovative 360-degree crimp for excellent plug-to-cable strain relief.

Siemon’s new SkinnyPatch modular patch cords

SkinnyPatch 6 modular patch cords exceedISO/IEC 11801:2002 and ANSI/TIA-568-C.2

performance standards


Managed services for part of a high-quality corporate communications portfolio servingvaried vertical sectors

How high linearity helps supportrestoration services

FIBRE Terrestrial

ADIVERSIFIED COMMUNICATIONSENTERPRISE, the Onlime Groupinvests heavily in network facilitysolutions and corporate

infrastructure. Onlime's core commitment isto the provision of high quality, secure andreliable business communications across amultiplicity of vertical sectors - includingmining, enterprise, government, military, oil& gas, banking, and non-governmentalorganisations.

Onlime's extensive satellite reach - acrossEurope, Africa, the Middle East and CentralAsia through the Caribbean and South America- is complemented by dedicated access to agrowing network of fibre links. The underlyingphilosophy is one of being 'closer to thecustomer' with a dedicated team ofprofessionals. African enterprises,, inparticular, benefit from contact with Onlime'soffices in Sierra Leone, Angola, DR Congo,Uganda, and South Africa. Outside thecontinent, the group's technical hub inGermany is a fully-manned disaster recoveryfacility with a help desk running 24/7 to enablebusiness continuity at all times.

Onlime's high power C-band modular HPAfrom General Dynamics SatCom Technologies,for example, provides substantial uplinkcapacity on MEASAT's AfricaSat-1asatelliteswith high reliability and switchlessredundancy - DVB-S2X READY. The high-powerModuMAX amplifier is installed on the 15m C-band antenna, making it the most reliableuplink on AfricaSat-1a satellite, thanks to thelargest uplink antenna looking at this satelliteand the latest technology powerful amplifier.

The new HPA allows for a switchlessredundancy, configurable RF output power andextremely low MTTR using interchangeable RFplug-in modules. High linearity makes it ideal forfibre restoration services, in particular, using ahigher spectral efficiency supported by DVB-S2X.

Paul Ziegler, Onlime CEO said, "OurEnterprise clients rely on us to deliver theirbusiness critical connectivity and our newinvestment adds extensive uplink capacity toour growing data services business acrossAfrica. C-band has always been used wherereliability is paramount and we are pleased todeploy cutting edge technology and introducenew higher levels of reliability and quality ofservice for our customers."

Faster fibre restoration servicesOnlime's commitment to satellite-basednetwork support during fibre restoration is ofparticular value to network operators andvertical sector players. Fibre optic systemsenable high bandwidth, long-distancecapabilities and their continual operation andsecurity is of paramount importance. Fibrecarries data with minimal signal degradationand optimal reliability, and often carry the mostcritical data, applicable to utility networkmonitoring and control, surveillance CCTVsystems, traffic control systems, and airportmonitoring and security, and many otherhighly-sensitive scenarios. Sooner or later,fibre-based systems need to be restored, andthe impact of restoration must be minimised.Each network is unique, and each networkneeds a complete plan based on any individualsystem. However, it is also necessary to have

trusted partners in the restoration process. Forfibre networks, a back-up solution is critical tosecuring continuing communications. Fibrerestoration via satellite is ideal to ensuresecurity and Onlime can provides a cost-effective solution. The group offers an end-to-end fully-managed service with MPLS circuits ifrequired, which includes 24/7 monitoring,monthly reporting and service levelagreements guaranteeing availability.

Backhaul is a particular concern. Amongstthe biggest obstacles to extending access tonetwork communications is the cost andpracticality of constructing a seeminglyendless array of towers and base stations toenable backhaul. Onlime works with partnerssuch as iDirect to enable high-capacity point-to-point links for Internet service provision bymobile operators, ISPs and other forms of toenterprise with high data requirements.

Cellular providers, in particular, can benefitfrom the cost-effective backhaul capabilityprovided by iDirect's IP-based D-TDMA hub,which allows carriers to share network capacityacross multiple locations, allocatingbandwidth on demand to maximise efficiency.iDirect's enables cost-savings and cost-efffective quality network operation. Byexploiting the efficiencies of an IP-basedplatform and iDirect’s shared topology,operators can reduce operating expenses andexpand network reach. �

Onlime's commitment to satellite-based networksupport during fibre restoration is of particular value

to network operators and vertical sector players

Each network is unique, andeach network needs a

complete plan based on anyindividual system; however,it is also necessary to have

trusted partners in therestoration process



How to dramatically boost network resilience with hardware-acceleratedshared mesh protection

Moving towards moreintelligent transport networks

FIBRETerrestrial

FIBRE CUTS HURT businesses and hurtthe economy — and the increasingnumber of natural disasters andmanmade fibre cuts has made it

increasingly vital for rapid recovery, oftenwithin 50 milliseconds, so that services arenot interrupted. Understanding howimportant fibre networks are to theircustomers, service providers are movingtowards mesh-based transport networks toprovide more backup path options, includingstandards-based Shared Mesh Protection.These technologies leverage an intelligentGMPLS control plane so a meshed transportnetwork can recover from multiple local andnetwork-wide failures while lowering costs byavoiding the need to dedicate backupbandwidth for every active circuit.

Increasing network resiliencyOutages aren’t mere inconveniences. The lossof connectivity can cause significant losses tobusinesses and communities because nearlyevery business process is now completelyintertwined with network connectivity.

As bandwidth continues to grow atstaggering rates, estimated at 40 per centgrowth year-over-year globally, a single outageof just 50 minutes in a year drops networkavailability down to four nines, or 99.99 percent. Whatever the reason for network outages,it falls to the service provider to fix theproblems. In this effort there are generally twoapproaches:• Protection. This must occur within 50ms of

the failure (the accepted “gold standard” forrapid recovery). In order to achieve this rapidresponse, network operators typically pre-computed a failover path for protectioncircuits. Protection capacity may bededicated, or it may be switched. However,there are quite stringent limitations fortraditional switched protection protocols interms of topology and scalability, and theremay also be limitations on protectingagainst multiple failures.

• Restoration. In a restoration operation, thefault is detected, a new path is computed,and connections are taken down from theworking path and reestablished on thebackup path. Restoration is common inpacket networks, and while it may becomparatively slow (typically measured in

seconds to minutes), it allows protectioncapacity to be shared, and will almostalways find a way through as long as abackup path exists. Restoration is alsopossible at the digital transport layer, wherethe performance can improve fromhundreds of milliseconds to a few seconds— falling far short of the sub-50ms failurerecovery requirement.

Strengthening resilienceToday, the above approaches are realisedusing the below resilience techniques:• SONET/SDH: 1+1 and Sub-Network

Connection Protection (SNCP) usesdedicated protection bandwidth to provideguaranteed sub-50ms protection for allpayload types (SONET/SDH, Ethernet, SAN,video). This protection is used in thetransport networks of many carriers today.This type of protection meets the sub-50msobjective, but does not offer protectionagainst multiple failures. The way protectionis implemented normally means that theexcess network capacity cannot be sharedby other services, thus, increasing costs.

• Digital OTN/GMPLS: Software MeshRestoration is provided by newer intelligentoptical cross-connect switches as analternative to using dedicated bandwidth forprotection. When a failure occurs, thesedevices use intelligent control planes toreroute the affected services using software-based tables that use unallocatedbandwidth in the network. Since allunallocated bandwidth is available as ashared pool of restoration bandwidth, thismechanism is typically 20-35 per cent moreefficient in terms of network resources ascompared to dedicated protectionbandwidth. In addition, because GMPLS

mesh restoration dynamically reroutes afailed service based on availablebandwidth, this procedure can be repeatedin the case of multiple failures in thenetwork. However, the multi-stage,software-only approach can take seconds torecover and overall restoration time willincrease with the complexity of the networktopology, the number of links, and thenumber of restorable connections.

• Packet IP/MPLS: Fast Re-Route (FRR) is arouter-based protection used in data-centricnetworks. Like GMPLS mesh restoration,MPLS FRR uses shared protectionbandwidth for network efficiency and canrecover from multiple failures. One of thegoals for MPLS has always been to offerenhanced resilience compared toconnectionless IP networks. MPLS FRR(sometimes referred to as MPLS LocalProtection) allows a Label Switch Router(LSR) the possibility to react within 50mswith a local detour once it detects a fault onthe working path. MPLS FRR uses pre-computed Label Switched Paths (LSP) andlabel values, so all that has to be done isthat an LSR uses a new label and directs thetraffic out of a different port. MPLS FRRallows an arbitrary topology to be used andis a shared protection technique. Thedrawbacks with MPLS FRR are that sub-50ms operation is not fully deterministicbecause it is only local and once the failureoccurs, the entire network may need to re-converge taking several seconds or minutes,and that it makes use of additionalexpensive IP/MPLS router ports to achieveresilience. �

Geoff Bennett director solutions andtechnology, Infinera

Service providers are moving towards mesh-based transportnetworks to provide more backup path options, including

standards-based SMP; these technologies leverage anintelligent GMPLS control plane so a meshed transport

network can recover from multiple local and network-widefailures while lowering costs by avoiding the need to

dedicate backup bandwidth for every active circuit



An overview of UMTS technologies, which connect the continent at relatively low energyusage and operational costs

The nodes ofa popular network

BASE STATIONS UMTS

MOBILE TELECOMMNICATIONSNETWORK base stations are thenodes of any mobile system, thepoints of signal intersection and

the points from which signalling branchesout. Base stations provide coverage over aclosely-defined area, operating at very lowtransmission strengths, ranging from 10 to50 Watt.

Areas covered by base stations are not allthe same size, varying from a few hundredmetres in city centres to several kilometres inrural areas. Often, universal mobiletelecommunications system (UMTS) networkscover markedly small distances as UMTS usesvery low transmission power. UMTS specifiesthe universal terrestrial radio access network(UTRAN), which is composed of multiple basestations, possibly operating different airinterface standards and at differingfrequencies.

There are less than 60 UMTS networks inAfrica at present, but they are spread aroundthe continent. The most notable operatingenterprises include airtel Africa, Etisalat, MTN,Ooredoo, Orange and Tigo. airtel providesUMTS services in Burkina Faso, Chad, Ghana,Kenya, Madagascar, Nigeria, Rwanda, SierraLeone, the Seychelles, Tanzania,, Uganda andZambia. Etisalat works in Egypt and Nigeria.MTN operates with UMTS technology in Ghana,Guinea, Nigeria, South Africa, Sudan Ugandaand Zambia. Ooredoo has deployed UMTSnnetworks in Algeria and Tunisia. Orangeprovides UMTS services in Guinea, Kenya,Madagascar, Reunion, and Tunisia. Tigo workswith UMTS in Ghana and Tanzania.

RNCs and Node Bs for UMTSOperators working with UMTS technology willneed radio network controllers (RNCs) tomanage the UTRAN. The RNC enables resourcemanagement, a measue of mobilitymanagement and encryption.

The basic core network UMTS architecture isin fact based on GSM/GPRS network standards- although all equipment has to be modified forUMTS operation. As mentioned, air interfaceaccess is provided by the UTRAN. And whereother networks based on the GSM 3G standardrely on base transceiver stations to connectcommunications equipment, UMTS networks

utilse Node Bs, which are alsomanaged with RNCs. In Africannetworks, as with all networks otherthan in China, node Bs utilisewideband code division multipleaccess (WCDMA) air interfacetechnology. A key point too note is thatNode Bs and UMTTS devices requiremuch less power than their GSMequivalents to operate effectively.

A UMTS Node B site comprises anantenna mast, an antenna, and acabinet containing optional equipmentsuch as power amplifiers, signalprocessors and batteries. Typicaldeployment entails a set of NodeBsassigned to a single RNC. Node Bequipment manufacturers ad softwaredeveopers include Ericsson, Huawei,and Nokia Corporation (the entityresulting from the merger of Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia Networks). Notableportfolios include Huawei's SingleRANproducts for mobile network operators,which allows GSM networks to offerGSM simultaneously with UMTS orindeed long-term evolution (LTE)services. The product also aims toprepare operators for future evolutionof technology. �

Network base stations are the nodes of any mobile system,the points of signal intersection and the points from whichsignalling branches out


NETWORK TECHNOLOGIES INTEGRATOR NEC Corporation is collaborating with Intel Corporation todevelop the ‘Cloud-Radio Access Network (Cloud-RAN) solution’ for virtualising the functions of mobilebase stations. Both companies will start a joint proof of concept trial from early 2016 to verify thecapabilities of the Cloud-RAN solution.

Mobile base stations are comprised of a digital unit (DU) that handles data processing and a radiounit (RU) that sends and receives radio waves. The Cloud-RAN solution separates the DU functions frommobile base stations, and enables the functions to be run on general-purpose servers equipped withIntel's multi-core processors. This makes it possible to centralize the DU functions, allowing formultiple units of the RU to be centrally controlled from one general-purpose server.

The solution improves the communication performance of mobile base stations through moreprecise control of radio interference between the RUs, while cutting down on power and spaceconsumption by consolidating the DU hardware. This in turn contributes to a reduction in the total costof ownership (TCO) of base station equipment.

"We have been working with Intel on the virtualization of mobile core networks and customerpremises equipment (CPE) and are very pleased to extend our collaboration in network functionsvirtualisation (NFV) to mobile base stations," said Nozomu Watanabe, general manager, mobile radioaccess network division, NEC Corporation. "Looking forward, NEC will further strengthen itsrelationship with Intel for the advancement of NFV, which is the core technology supporting 5G andother forms of next generation wireless communication."

NEC and Intel collaborate in mobile base station virtualisation


La croissance des importations mondial de l'information et des communications ralentità bas depuis cinq ans

Autour des exportationset des importations

ÉQUIPEMENTCommerce

LES IMPORTATIONS MONDIALESde technologies de l'informationet des communications (TIC) lesmarchandises n'a augmenté que

de 1% en 2014, la dernière année pourlaquelle des chiffres sont disponibles, letaux le plus bas de croissance parrapport aux cinq années précédentes,les données de la CNUCED nouvellementlibérés montrer. Les pays endéveloppement et les pays passantd'une économie planifiée à uneéconomie de marché, représentaientplus de la moitié (57%) du total desimportations mondiales, qui ont atteintune valeur de $ 2,1 trillions.

Des secteurs électroniquesLes importations mondiales de matériel de communication etcomposants électroniques ont été les deux seuls secteurs qui ontaugmenté légèrement en 2014 - en hausse de 3% et 2% respectivement- par rapport à l'année précédente. Les importations mondialesd'électronique grand public, quant à lui, a poursuivi une baisse dequatre ans, la chute de 4% en 2014, tandis que les ordinateurs et lesimportations de matériel périphériques étaient à plat. En conséquence,

les importations de matériel de communication correspondaient à cellesd'ordinateurs et d'équipements périphériques, chacun avec une valeurglobale estimée à 520 milliards $.

En 2014, les exportations et les importations de biens de TIC chinoissont venus à une halte, après de nombreuses années de croissance.Parmi le Top 10 des importateurs de biens de TIC, la Chine et Singapourétaient les seules économies avec la baisse des taux en 2014, en baissede 4% et 3% respectivement. En revanche, les importations ontfortement augmenté dans la République de Corée (11%), Hong Kong, laChine (+ 9%) et en Allemagne (+ 8%). Du côté des exportations, lacroissance a été nulle pour les biens des TIC de la Chine, mais Taiwan etde Hong Kong, la Chine a maintenu des taux de croissance significatifs.

Des économiesLes économies les plus fortes baisses de biens des TIC importationsen 2014 comprenaient: l'Ukraine (en baisse de 34%), l'Argentine (enbaisse de 23%), le Paraguay (en baisse de 18%), la Biélorussie (enbaisse de 18%), le Chili (en baisse de 17%), le Kazakhstan ( en baissede 15%) et la Hongrie (en baisse de 13%). Les plus fortes hausses dansles exportations de biens des TIC ont été notées pour la Fédération deRussie (jusqu'à 80%), de Philippines (40%), en Lettonie (+ 30%),l'Afrique du Sud (jusqu'à 25%), en Pologne (+ 21%), la Finlande(jusqu'à 13%) et l'Australie (+ 12%). Au total, les biens des TICreprésentaient 12% des importations mondiales de marchandises en2014. Cette proportion variait entre 44% pour Hong Kong, Chine, environ20 à 24% en Chine, en Malaisie, aux Philippines et à Singapour et moinsde 1% en Afghanistan et Mauritanie. �

Electronic components

Computers and peripheralequipmentCommunica!on equipment

Consumer electronic equipment

Miscellaneous

900

800

$ bi

llion

700

600

500

400

300

200

100

200020012002200320042005200620072008200920102011201220132014


Un ensemble de données complet pour 2000-2014 sur le commerce des produitsdes TIC peut être consulté gratuitement à http://stats.unctad.org/ict3ict4. Lesdonnées pour 123 pays sont disponibles, y compris par partenaire commercial etpar type de bien échangé. Dans le cadre du Partenariat sur la mesure des TICpour le développement, la section analyse des TIC de la CNUCED publie desdonnées pour plusieurs indicateurs de base liés à l'économie de l'information.Cette série de données reflète la définition de biens des TIC de l'OCDE et estbasé sur la base de données COMTRADE des Nations Unies.

Tableau 1. Top 10 des économies en termes de biens de TIC exportations et des importations, millions $ et une croissance annuelle

Les importations de biens de TICTop 10 des économies 2014 2012-2013 2013-2014Chine 386184 13% -4%Etats-Unis d'Amerique 306422 1% 3%Hong Kong 261396 7% 9%l'Allemagne 94065 -4% 8%Japon 91486 0% 1%Singapour 89668 4% -3%Pays-Bas 65550 5% 3%Mexique 65349 7% 0%République de Corée 59996 6% 11%Royaume-Uni 54272 3% 5%

Les exportations de biens des TIC

Top 10 des économies 2014 2012-2013 2013-2014Chine 607581 9% 0%Hong Kong 238467 7% 7%Etats-Unis d'Amerique 145225 0% 4%Singapour 122726 6% 0%

Province chinoise

de Taiwan 116814 5% 11%République de Corée 113410 14% 6%l'Allemagne 67718 -1% 8%Malaisie 67263 2% 4%Mexique 63653 -1% 3%Pays-Bas 61837 4% 5%

Source: UNCTADstat, stats.unctad.org/ict3ict4. Note: Y compris les réexportations et le commerce entre les Etats membres de l'Unioneuropéenne (commerce intra-UE)


The challenges faced by mobile network operators asthey work to deliver improved coverage and capacity

Testing timesfor advanced networks

TEST & MEASUREMENT LTE

BEING SLOW IS not always adisadvantage – as the proverbialtortoise will confirm vis a vis theproverbial hare. So, when it comes

to mobile network improvement andexpansion in Africa, which has progressed ata relative ‘tortoise pace’ compared to the‘hare-racing’ pace of progress in other partsof the world, it’s a slow progress that has,nonetheless, not done African operators toomuch harm. It has, for one, enabled them tomake use of the latest, ‘tried-and-tested-elsewhere’ infrastructure technologies intheir roll-outs: from intelligent multi-sector /multi-band antennas supporting high andlow bands on the same system -- 3G at900MHz, LTE at 1800MHz, LTE 800MHz or LTE2.6GHz – to the latest in base stationtechnologies. Indeed, some of Africa’snetworks are often as advanced as moredeveloped regions’ at time of rolling out. Butthat’s not to say they don’t face other, similarchallenges, faced by everyone else. Such isthe case when it comes to interferenceissues, including the ubiquitously occurring,Passive Intermodulation, or PIM. Notechnology is immune from this issue, whichis often caused by the most seeminglyinsignificant of equipment failures, such assimple as a rusty connecter, or sand ingressinto what should have been a tightconnection. Such a simple defect canseriously degrade the quality of service (QoS)of an entire network.

So, whether in the heart of Africa orelsewhere, what network operators need to doin the face of almost guaranteed PIM effectsthat will occur at some stage within theirnetwork, is to invest in PIM analyzers in order tooptimise their networks, regularly. Suchinvestment will deliver ROI within a matter ofmonths, if not weeks. Whereas poor networkperformance due to an undetected PIM sourcewill lead directly in lost revenue.

That’s why mobile operators need to havean effective PIM strategy, particularly as MNOsincreasingly share the latest RF infrastructure atthe cell site. Such a strategy, involvinganalysers and test procedures, will negate theeffects and PIM issues and MNOs will be ableto prevent this interference from causing QoSissues on their networks and deliver goodcustomer experience with one end result beingcontinued subscriber loyalty.

Whilst PIM has always existed, now thatmore spread-spectrum technologies, such asLTE are being rolled out in Africa, it’s an issuethat can no longer be avoided and it’s one thatis likely to occur with greater frequency. So, theway forward for operators is having a PIMstrategy that will minimise its impact bylooking carefully at such things as thehardware within the RF path, with networkcomponents and the quality of the installationhigh on the list of priority items to be checked.

Dangers of no PIM strategyIn order to maintain highest throughput, any

interference such as PIM will affect themodulation scheme and compromise thenetwork’s maximum transmission rates, thusreducing data throughput, which in the case ofLTE would be disastrous. Indeed, by allowingan LTE network to sustain the effects of PIMwithout implementing an effective strategy canincrease Bit Error Rate (BER). In the case of LTEhigh-data-throughput expectations, this willresult in data packets being interrupted andthen requiring re-send requests, with the re-sent data then reducing available bandwidthfor other subscriber services.

With a higher BER detected, more droppedcalls and increased noise levels, these will bethe first indicators of PIM problems at the basestation. Depending on the degree of PIMdistortion, subscribers will see slower datarates with their smartphones and tablets. Withmore serious cases, calls may be dropped andin extreme scenarios, PIM distortion can renderthe base station receiver inoperable; it will nolonger be able to receive meaningful signals.Modern PIM analysers measureintermodulation with continuous 2x20Wsignals and can detect all PIM issues in thesystem. Such analysers have the capability,not only to measure levels of PIM, but also topinpoint relatively quickly where the cause islocated, thereby allowing technicians to delivera quick fix of any base station.

Sharing sites, sharing problemsWhen it comes to site sharing mentioned

There are many common challenges as mobilenetwork operators work to deliver improved

coverage and capacity over 3G, 3G+ and now LTE



earlier, the probability of PIM is significantlyincreased. The more frequencies andtechnologies combined on the same RFinfrastructure, the greater the probability therewill be of performance impacts caused by PIM.Intermodulation actually occurs when two ormore signals are combined; the proximity ofmany different spectrums and more channelsin band, can increase the statistical likelihoodof PIM. However, site sharing can also be seenas an opportunity to improve PIM performanceon legacy equipment by taking the opportunityof upgrading the quality of components andinstallation.

One effect of PIM is to degrade the basestation receiver, which results in handsetsbeing unable to communicate to the basestation properly. PIM affects the uplink. Whatthat means for the subscriber is that whilehe/she may have 5 ‘bars’ of signal strength onthe phone showing, signifying good downlinkquality, they will nonetheless be unable tomake calls, or their calls will often drop out. Insuch a case, the base station should be able todetect dropped call rates and uplink powerlevels and, by using a good field PIMtester/analyser, cable and antenna checks canbe made and PIM levels confirmed. Suchanalysers are marketed from the likes of AWTGlobal, Anritsu, CCI Products EMEA, Kaelus andRohde & Schwarz. Using such PIM analysers, afield team typically connects to the RFinfrastructure at the point where it wouldconnect to the radio head. Two

high power tones (43 dBm per carrier asspecified by IEC 62037) are typically injected atfrequencies in the transmit/downlink band andthe IM3 power is detected in the receive/uplink band. Most operators specify anacceptable IM3 level of -97 dBm (-150 dBc),though more stringent acceptance levels areexpected showing a 3-dB improvement onthose figures.

Detecting PIMTo find out the PIM performance ofcomponents, cables, connectors or antennas,using a PIM analyser, which conforms toIEC62037, to measure readings, is necessary.When PIM can be down to something as simpleas dust or sand in a connector, (or even a rustynail!), these must be absolutely free of dust orother alien bodies and blowing connectorswith compressed, moisture-free air and wipingthem with alcohol goes a long way to solvingthe PIM issues of such a component. But as RFcables at base stations and in-buildinginstallations are typically assembled in thefield, the greatest care has to be taken whenassembling them. When it comes to testingthem for PIM, static and dynamic PIMmeasurements have to be performed at everysegment of the installation. If the results afterthe measurements are satisfactory, the RFsegment has to be sealed. When taking PIMmeasurements at a site, however, it canactually prove very difficult to distinguish PIM

energy generated as a result ofinternally transmitted carriersignals from externalinterference signals comingfrom outside the antenna.PIM testing is intended tobe performed within asite’s transmission linepath from the radio to theantenna. When antennamanufacturers testantennas for PIMp e r f o r m a n c e ,measurements are takenin an anechoic chamber,where the presence of

external interferencesignals is not

possible. Inthe field,

however, external interference signals canoften be construed as PIM signals, becausethey occasionally fall within the up-link receiveband and they can come from sources such asadjacent cell sites, old TV transmitters, or thepresence of metallic structures near the site.Adjacent cell site or TV transmitter interferencecan be identified using a spectrum analyserand comparing spectrum responses betweensectors.

Two test forces come togetherHaving mentioned CCI and R&S as two playersin this area it is worth noting that they teamedup earlier this year in the fight against PIM inorder to provide a comprehensive LTEinstallation and maintenance test solutionincluding PIM test. The development is aimedat improving LTE base station installation andmaintenance using complementary solutionsfrom R&S and CCI that combine cable andantenna measurement with PIM test.

The two aim to provide operators and testservices providers with a comprehensivesolution for base station installation andmaintenance including PIM testing. Theapproach is to combine the RF VSWR, cableloss, distance-to-fault and powermeasurement capabilities of the R&S ZVHhandheld cable and antenna tester, with thePIM test capabilities of the CCI PIMPro TowerSeries PIM analyser. This ‘marriage’ is largelyspurred on by the march of LTE, includingacross Africa (where both companies haveactivities). In a statement, the companies saidthat the migration of cellular networks to LTEand LTE-Advanced, the adoption of newfeatures such as MIMO, beamforming and HetNets, all bring benefits to network operators asthey build capacity to address expandingsubscriber demand for bandwidth. However,these same features contribute to complexityin the RAN and increased vulnerability of thenetwork to base station faults, such as poorantenna isolation, component faults and PIM.All these will degrade network performanceand impair subscriber QoS. They said that thechallenge facing field service teams is toensure efficient, fault-free installation of cellsites and rapid troubleshooting if faultsdevelop.

R&S claims that the R&S ZVH handheldcable and antenna tester is adaptedspecifically to this application and features‘fast and accurate’ distance-to-fault, one-portcable loss and antenna matchingmeasurements. Complementing itscapabilities is the CCI PIM Pro, which provideslightweight and rugged full power PIM testingand is said to be ‘ideally suited’ for LTEnetworks, of which there are a growingabundance in Africa. �

Tim Guest


TEST & MEASUREMENTLTE

With PIM, environmental challengespresent themselves frequently



FLIR's thermal imaging accessory adds functionality tosmartphones and tablets, and offers new opportunities toiOS and Android app developers

How devicescan detect heat

TEST & MEASUREMENT Thermal Imaging

FLIR SYSTEMS' NEXT generation FLIR ONE thermal imager is nowavailable for purchase worldwide. With versions for both iOSand Android device platforms, the versatile and pocket-sizedFLIR ONE transforms a mobile device into a powerful thermal

imager that sees heat and accurately measures temperature.Providing users with the incredible ability to see temperaturevariations smaller than a tenth of a degree, the technology enables ahost of practical applications, from identifying energy inefficienciesand water leaks in a home, to enabling safe and enjoyable outdoorexploration.

The new FLIR ONE utilises either a micro-USB connector for Androiddevices or a Lightning connector for iOS devices to offer a compactaccessory that easily connects to a smartphone or tablet. The FLIR ONEis powered by an internal battery and utilises FLIR’s latest generationLepton thermal camera core, which features four times the resolution ofthe previous version. Images are further enhanced with FLIR’s patentedmulti-spectral dynamic imaging (MSX) technology, which embosses theedge details from FLIR ONE’s visible camera onto the thermal imageproducing high fidelity images.

FLIR also announced that it will release an updated iOS softwaredevelopment kit (SDK) and a new Android SDK to enable developers tobuild and launch creative apps for both mobile device platforms. Twonew programmes will support the app developer community and endusers of the FLIR ONE products:

The “FLIR Certified Developer” programme offers developers trainingin thermal imaging technology and the use of FLIR ONE developer tools.

The “FLIR Approved Application” programme offers developerspublicity through FLIR marketing programmes and the “FLIR Approved”distinction.

“Last year, we successfully introduced the world to the FLIR ONE, theworld’s first thermal imaging accessory for a smartphone. This nextgeneration FLIR ONE builds on this success by offering higherperformance, broader compatibility, and a compelling valueproposition,” said Andy Teich, President and CEO of FLIR Systems. “Andwith the launch of our new application developer support programmes,

we expect to see new applications and use cases emerge for this newFLIR ONE platform.”

A new world of app creationFLIR ONE can help isolate places of possible warm or cold air leaks tooptimise your home’s energy efficiency; identify wet areas and potentialleaks in ceilings, walls and floors before mold starts, and spotoverloaded electrical connections at the source. The FLIR ONE Appuniverse is expanding, too. Apps include: Comfort Tracker for conductingsimple and accurate insulation audits on a property by utilisation of theFLIR ONE; the FLIR ONE Thermometer, which aligns the cross hair into azone to measure to display temperature in the LCD screen; ThermalSentry, which utilises the FLIR ONE in order to create the functionality ofa thermal motion detection sentry; the FieldLens Thermal FLIR ONEprofessional construction job management tool, which uses thermalimaging to identify various jobsite problems and team collaborationtools to manage repair processes; and the Thermal Monitor utility app,which monitors 3D print jobs and protects them from temperature failureusing thermal imaging, sending warnings to operator when boundaryconditions are exceeded. �

FLIR ONE transforms a mobile device into a powerful thermal imager


Images are enhanced with FLIR’s patented multi-spectraldynamic imaging (MSX) technology



Power for telecoms

PROFILEFG Wilson

FG WILSON HAS announced a new range of generator sets, specificallyfor the company’s telecommunications customers.

Following consultation with operators, tower companies and hybridmanufacturers, the new range delivers reliable power for extendedrunning periods of up to six months between service and fuelreplenishment intervals.

To minimise site visits, 600, 1,000, or 2,000-litre fuel tanks and anextended service interval option can reduce operating costs for thegenerator set by up to 50 per cent.

Using market-leading control modules, including built-in mainssensing and changeover systems, the generator sets are designed to beeasily and quickly deployed.

Complete with the latest Deep Seacontrollers, the new FG Wilson Telecom range can be tailored to meet

all technical requirements, from configurable alarms and protections, toremote monitoring, control and preventative maintenance.

Plug-and-play options allow upgrading on site when required. Withsecurity in mind, the range conceals all fuel pipework and fuel fillingconnection protecting against fuel theft and optional security featuresinclude lockable door latches and GPS tracking devices. With a newrange of acoustic enclosures at different sound attenuation levels, therange is suitable for all applications and locations. And when a generatorset needs to be moved to a new location, its modular designed

enclosures can easily be upgraded to ensure it meets all local noiseregulations.

Customers now have the choice of two reliable products at differentprice points.

The new range has also undergone rigorous validation testing toensure it is built to run for many years. The new range comes with class-leading aftermarket support from 370 FG Wilson dealers spread across150 countries, all fully trained in technical, maintenance and servicesupport, with ready stock of parts and supported by a 59,500m2 partsfacility, carrying more than 11,500 product lines and dispatching overthree million genuine parts per year. �


COMMUNICATIONS AFRICA READERS who haveattended NAB, IBC or their national broadcast tradeshows in recent years will be well aware of theongoing push for higher television display quality.This began nearly four decades ago when, in 1967, theScience & Technology Research Laboratories ofJapan's state broadcaster, NHK, proposed a majorupgrade from the 525-line NTSC system.

Bigger and better display screens One of the most useful indicators of broadcastindustry progress is the Consumer Electronics Showheld each January in Las Vegas, in the USA. This iswhere the television display manufacturers exhibittheir latest prototypes. Starting prices tend to behigh, even astronomic, with Sharp currently quotingaround US$133,000 for its 85 inch Super-Hi-Visiondisplay. Samsung exhibited one-piece Super Hi-Visiondisplays in a range of sizes plus what it claims is theworld's largest, with a diagonal screen size of 170inches. The latter is a combination of several screenpanels though the joins are reported only to bevisible at very close viewing range.OLED remains a promising display technology, not

least for its inherently wide dynamic range. LGdemonstrated at CES 2016 65 inch and 77 inch OLEDs,described by one enthusiastic reporter as"impossibly thin".An essential requirement for every modern 4K

consumer television display is the ability to upscaleincoming live video or files to match the screen

resolution. This makes the device equally useful forviewing content from other media such as SD cards,USB memory chips or directly connected digital discdrives. This feature will obviously also be includedSuper-Hi-Vision screens.

IP networking IP-based video and audio networking has attractedstrong attention at broadcast industry conferencesover the past three to four years, including proposalsdesigns for complete production facilities based onIP signal routing. BBC Research & Developmentpresented at paper at IBC 2015 describing a live ultra-high definition outside broadcast made using end-to-end IP for the duration of the 2014 CommonwealthGames in Glasgow. Live video and audio weredelivered from three games venues to a publicexhibition at the Glasgow Science Centre andbroadcast via the department’s trial of UHDdistribution. This provided a test of a live productiondistributed and synchronised wherever it was neededfor viewing and broadcast distribution.

Virtual devicesThe transition from dedicated hardware tools tosoftware-based virtual devices continues in justabout every category of broadcast-related product,fuelled by continuing advances in the power andprocessing speed of desktop computers. Manyoperators nevertheless still prefer to use traditionaltactile control surfaces, however, particularly when

working on a live show. A notable exampleintroduced in 2015 was the latest vision switcher inthe EVS DYVI series which is based on enterprise-grade IT elements. Capable of handling HD or UHD, itallows switching and control to be performed fromany location via an IP link. Alternatives to traditional capital investment

became increasingly evident during 2015. Examplesare the CloudAir broadcast channel branding andplayout software announced at IBC by PlayBoxTechnology. Available either on a standard licensingor software-as-a-service basis, CloudAir is designedfor start-up ventures, established television channelsand anyone who wants to deliver content, from asingle event to a full-scale television channel. TataCommunications announced during the same showthat it had chosen CloudAir to support a new cloud-based broadcast playout service.

Resolutions for the futureA key question for 2016 is whether Super Hi-Visionproducts will become available sufficiently quickly toovershadow UHD in the same way that 1080-line highdefinition overshadowed 720p. Maybe it will proveacademic. Television is becoming increasinglyresolution-independent, particularly for viewersusing small-screen portable viewing devices. As ever,the main driver will be affordability. Plus, as ever,informative and entertaining programmes.

David Kirk

Electronics feeds key broadcasting industry trends in the run-up to 2020


A year of free-to-air platform services provison to markets dominatedby terrestrial channels

Working forWest African audiences

SATELLITE Broadcast

AS WEST AND Central Africa experience unprecedented levelsof economic and developmental growth, the region isincreasingly viewed as dynamic and exciting for mediaservices entities and broadcasters. Demand for high-quality

services is likely to grow. However, the market is dominated byterrestrial access. While the move to digital has been on the agendafor some time, the transition is yet to gain momentum.

SES has sought to play a key role in establishing satellite television inthe region. SES Platform Services marked the beginning of 2015 bysetting up an independent English-language TV platform withturnaround services. The platform, which is delivered via the SES Astrasatellite on the orbital position of 28.2°E, is geared towards English-language channels for West African countries, as well as internationalchannels hoping to branch out across the continent. SES PlatformServices was responsible for the entire development of the platform fromplanning to realisation.

Access to West AfricaA year on from its launch, the platform continues to offer many benefitsfor TV broadcasters. It provides access to the West African market fornew channels, while well-known and established channels, which haveso far mostly been broadcast via terrestrial infrastructure, can use theplatform to reach new audiences in an affordable way and open up newbusiness opportunities. Other broadcast services can be flexibly added,meaning the platform is always attuned to the needs of SES PlatformServices’ customers. Channels using the platform include the popularSunshine TV, MoneyMartTV and Joy News ventures.

The platform is based on SES Platform Services remote mediaplatform, a DVB platform which re-multiplexes the incoming IP or L-bandsignal and can encode them if required. It models the signal as an L-band signal and subsequently sends it to the uplink. In terms ofequipment, the remote media platform consists of standard racks, fittedwith high-end IRDs and multiplexers, which can also re-encode, ifrequired. There is also a modulator which sends the final signal to thetransmitting antennas. The multi-viewer monitoring system featuresautomatic error detection and alarm functions which are analysed in amaster control room in Munich, Germany. Each of the two technical set-ups have a total capacity of between 26 and 30 standard definitionchannels in MPEG 4.

Positioned on two teleportsSES manages its services to West Africa at teleports in Ghana andNigeria. The K-Net facility in Accra is used by Multi TV, a popular free-to-air platform operating ten channels on the SES Astra 2F satellite. TheComputer Warehouse Group facility in Lagos is well-established foroperations across West, East and Central Africa. The Ghanaian teleporthas a connection speed of 2 Mbit/s, while the one in Lagos runs at 10Mbit/s via VPN. These connection speeds can support configuration,monitoring and maintenance of the West African platform directly fromthe SES Platform Services playout network operations centre in Munich.

Building a business platformSES Platform Services has been busy in the year since it lanuched theWest African platform. In June 2015 it unveiled a new service, FluidMedia,which allows all companies producing or distributing video content toconvert their content easily and conveniently, as well as deliver it toInternet or video on demand (VOD) platforms. In July it enabled ashopping channel called pearl.tv to begin broadcasting in ultra highdefinition (UHD) via satellite and the Internet. Also in July 2015StarTimes, the fastest-growing digital TV operator in Africa, begandistributing TV channels for its direct-to-home (DTH) subscribers acrossSub-Saharan Africa via SES Platform Services’ broadcast facility inGermany. In September SES and an American venture called FashionOne Television LLC launched the world's first global Ultra HD channel,Fashion One 4K. Also in September 2015 SES Platform Servicesshowcased Liquid VOD, a new solution for video-on-demand services(VoD) via satellite. The same month it launched the Lucid online videoplatform (OVP), a solution comprising all the building blocks a customerwould need to launch an online video offering, from setting up anInternet-TV channel to on-demand services. And then in October SESPlatform Services revealed a comprehensive range of services forInsight, a European ultra-HD channel run by Television EntertainmentReality Network (TERN). �

ASTRA 2F delivers next generation broadcast, VSAT and broadband servicesin Europe, Middle East and Africa, and carries Ku- and Ka-band payloads atthe prime orbital location of 28.2 / 28.5°E

SES manages its services to West Africa atteleports in Ghana and Nigeria. The K-Netfacility in Accra is used by Multi TV, apopular free-to-air platform operating tenchannels on the SES Astra 2F satellite. TheComputer Warehouse Group facility in Lagosis well-established for operations acrossWest, East and Central Africa.



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FILM Cinémathèque Afrique


L’Institut français poursuit son soutien à la préservation du patrimoine CinémathèqueAfricain en collaboration avec la région Ile-de-France et L’Institut français de Madagascar

Les professionnellesdu cinéma en Afrique

L’INSTITUT FRANÇAIS, À travers laCinémathèque Afrique, poursuit sonsoutien à la préservation dupatrimoine cinématographique

africain. Un cycle consacré à Madagascar : «Cinéma Malagasy – Kolosary » est présentéle 13 novembre 2015 à l’Institut français deMadagascar à l’occasion de « Cinéma Afrika2.0 », les rencontres professionnelles sur lecinéma en Afrique et dans l’Océan Indien àl’heure du numérique, en préfiguration dulancement du cycle à Paris en 2016.Initié par la Cinémathèque Afrique de

l’Institut français, « Cinéma Malagasy –Kolosary » propose 11 films de 10 réalisateursen version multilingue (version originalemalgache, sous-titré français et anglais),disponibles sur 5 DVD pour une diffusion noncommerciale à l’international.

la qualité du cinémaCe cycle permettra de révéler la qualité desfilms de patrimoine restaurés à partir dufonds de la Cinémathèque Afrique mais aussid’assurer la promotion du cinéma malgached’aujourd’hui avec des films récents de lanouvelle génération de cinéastes.Des fictions, un documentaire et des

courts-métrages de fiction et d’animationnous montreront la richesse de la créationcinématographique d’hier et d’aujourd’hui àMadagascar de 1972 à nos jours.Pour ce travail de collaboration Nord/Sud,

la Cinémathèque Afrique de l’Institut françaisa confié les travaux de restauration et denumérisation à l’association Fl@h pour qu’ilssoient réalisés à Madagascar. L’InstitutFrançais de Madagascar et l’associationRencontres du Film Court de Madagascar ontmené sur place les travaux d’édition et ontparticipé à la conception du programme.Ce projet a été initié en 2013, dans le

cadre de la convention de partenariat entrel’Institut français et la région Île-de-France,qui avait déjà permis en 2009 la réalisationdu coffret Femmes d’Afrique, 3 films dupatrimoine du fonds de la CinémathèqueAfrique restaurés et numérisés.

L’Institut français et la Cinémathèque AfriqueOpérateur du ministère des Affairesétrangères et du Développementinternational, au service de la diplomatieculturelle, l'Institut français est aujourd'huiune marque unique en France et dans 96pays. Il assure la promotion à l'étranger desartistes, des idées, des œuvres et des

industries, tout en favorisant les échangesartistiques et le dialogue des cultures.Créée en 1961, la Cinémathèque Afrique

conserve l’une des collections les pluscomplètes de films africains au monde :gérant plus de 1,600 titres dont les 10,000copies existent sur différents supports : 16mm, 35mm, Béta SP, DVD, Blu Ray et DCP.Elle dispose des droits de diffusion noncommerciaux pour 700 films (courts et longsmétrages de fiction, animation,documentaires) qu’elle met à la dispositiondes organismes à vocation culturelle, socialeou éducative en France et à l’international. Àtravers la réalisation de rétrospectives etd’hommages ou de cycles thématiques, laCinémathèque Afrique contribue à lasauvegarde du patrimoine africain.S’appuyant sur un vaste réseau departenaires, elle demeure l’acteur majeur dela diffusion internationale du cinéma africaintant pour les œuvres de patrimoine que pourla création contemporaine, dans plus de 110pays. �

La Cinémathèque Afrique conserve l’une des collections lesplus complètes de films africains au monde; elle dispose des

droits de diffusion non commerciaux qu’elle met à ladisposition des organismes à vocation culturelle, sociale ou

éducative en France et à l’international

L’INSTITUT FRANÇAIS, EN partenariat avec laNetscouade et Courrier international, aréalisé son premier web-documentaire surles jeunesses engagées du monde arabe. Cegrand format numérique donne la parole àd’anciens participants du programmeSafirLab. Il est diffusé en avant-première à laGaîté Lyrique, en novembre 2015.Réalisé par l’Institut français, en

partenariat avec la Netscouade et Courrierinternational, « Tamkin, les jeunessesengagées du monde arabe » est un grandformat consacré au courage de celles et ceuxqui se mobilisent et entreprennent.À la suite des soulèvements

démocratiques qui ont parcouru l’Afrique du

Nord et le Moyen-Orient depuis 2010, lesparticipants de ce web-documentaire ontdécidé de devenir des acteurs de cechangement. À l’initiative de projetsambitieux dans le domaine de la santé, dudroit des femmes et des minorités, del’éducation, du développement durable,qu’ils représentent le nouveau visage dessociétés civiles arabes.C’est au travers de leur engagement

concret que ces jeunes femmes et hommesprésentent au grand public leurs points devue, leurs inquiétudes et leurs espoirs pourleur pays. Le web-documentaire permetégalement de suivre le devenir des projetsqu’ils ont initiés, à travers un format

numérique innovant.Témoins et acteurs des transformations de

leurs sociétés, les jeunes dont cedocumentaire fait le portrait ont aussi encommun d’avoir participé au programme «SafirLab, le laboratoire du changement » quel’Institut français et Canal FranceInternational (CFI) pilotent conjointementdepuis 2012. Ce programme a accompagnéune centaine de porteurs de projets dessociétés civiles d’Égypte, de Jordanie, deLibye, du Maroc, de Tunisie et du Yémengrâce à un suivi personnalisé de leursprojets, alternant conférences plénières,tutorat individualisé et rencontresprofessionnelles.

Le monde Arabe en grand format numérique

S06 CAF 01 2016 - Solutions_Layout 1 12/02/2016 08:39


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A SPECIALIST SUPPLIER of integrated revenueand customer management solutionstocommunications service providers, ElitecoreTechnologies attends 2016 Mobile WorldCongress (MWC) with its product portfoolioinceasingly geared towards African territories.

Portfolio and product development alignedwith African telcos' revenue channelsIn recent years, African telecommunicationmarkets have undergone substantialtransformations. Transformation today meansfulfilling the growing demand for digitalservices and innovation with data connectivityover fixed, mobile, and Wi-Fi data networks.Elitecore has a deep presence in the Africanmarket and has worked with leading Africannetwork operators to enable innovative next-generation services resulting in enhancedcustomer experience. Mobile voice serviceshave dominated operator revenues across theAfrica - but, looking at new trends ofaccelerated growth in mobile data revenues,data will soon overtake voice revenues.Moreover, the growing potential of 4G/ LTE andWi-Fi hotspot networks in that region haveturned focus to data monetisation andassurance of delivering seamless high-speeddata connectivity, either as standaloneservices or in convergence with existing mobileservices for bouquet of use cases. Elitecoremeets CSPs’ requirements by working withthem to meet their O/BSS goals. Driven by itsin-house product development and R&D andpartner network, Elitecore caters to the growingdemand of mobile broadband, 3G andgreenfield LTE and WiMAX-to-LTE roll-outsthrough its integrated revenue and customermanagement platform (IRCM), which includesconverged billing, integrated policy andcharging, big data analytics, 360 omni channelcustomer care, provisioning, and singleproduct catalogue. Elitecore is also aligned tothe rising demand of hotspot Wi-Fi and mobile

data offload in Africa through its modular andflexible Wi-Fi service management platform(SMP) and monetisation solution, whichsuppport aims at realising the carrier Wi-Fimodel efficiently. In fact, a leading networkequipment provider (NEP) to select Elitecore’sWi-Fi Service Management Platform (SMP) forits SP Wi-Fi projects which are operationalacross 10 countries in Africa (Gabon, Niger,Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Tanzania, Congo, DRC,Zambia, Ghana and Morocco). Elitecore SMPenabled the operator to extend data servicesthrough a network of Wi-Fi hotspots. Theplatform allows walk-in users through voucherbased Wi-Fi access at hotspots like cafes,airports, lounges, universities. The voucherscan be purchased online using paymentgateways on the move using their own currencyvia online banking options and/or mobilemoney.

Operators’ need to become more agile in anincreasingly digitised marketplaceToday’s increasingly connected users haveaccess to unique and innovative digitalexperience which is driving the need for theCSPs to keep upgrading and engage thecustomers in a satisfying experience. Digitalexperience involves quickly finding the rightinformation online, compare multiplepackages, make online purchases, get instantand automated delivery, real time contextualoffers to the relevant end user on which theycan act immediately, share plan and usageexperiences, use self-care or self-provisioningsolutions and self-configurable services anddevices. Elitecore helps CSPs to cater to thesedemands of the users, as it becomes amandate for operators to make their ecosystemfaster, leaner and agile to keep themselvesahead in the race. They have to be able topackage services for convenience and thendeliver an experience that is quick and efficientat a cost that users are willing to pay. Within

the network there is the requirement toaccelerate the planning, roll-out, integrationand optimisation of new and existing networks.That increases both the technological andorganisational complexity from planning toprovisioning. They should offer and go fromidea to implementation via an automated,seamless process. It is possible to roll-out andcreate service features in minutes that userswill be able to see on their smart devices.

Increasingly flexible and responsive tonetwork eventsDigitisation goes beyond the convergence ofnetworks and services and involves changes inways operators interact with their customers,use analytical intelligence adapting to cloudsolutions and reinventing business processeswhile keeping customers at the center of itsuniverse. With an aim to offer real-timedigitisation services operators require aplatform that enables to quickly launchservices with faster time to market. Elitecoreoffers a pre-integrated, modular and flexiblenext-generation O/BSS platform that easilyaddresses the operator’s migration,transformation and new services launchrequirements leading to reduction indeployment time, reduction in TCO, faster planroll-out, reduction in hardware and storage andlesser cost of operations.Elitecore’s association with the telcos in that

region and its expertise in enabling BSS,packet core and Wi-Fi solutions along with itsprofessional and managed services hasempowered its operator clients to realise rapidservice innovation and network excellence overcompetitors. As an end-to-end solutionprovider, Elitecore leverages over 15 years oforganisational expertise in delivering OSS &BSS solutions, solution design, consulting, andsystems integration to deliver comprehensivesolutions for African network operators andtheir customers.

An increasingly agile product portfolio for Africa, on show at MWC


LOW POWER RADIO pioneer Radiometrix hasdelivered a boost for designers of solar orbattery-powered telemetry systems with a newhigh-sensitivity narrowband receiver that canbe kept 'always on' without drawing excessivepower.

The Radiometrix RX1L’s low operatingcurrent of just 1mA allows the system toremain constantly ready to receive data suchas remote sensor information or softwareupdates, eliminating any software overhead orlatency associated with a wake-up procedure.

The receiver is easy to design-in thanks toits standard footprint and pin-out, and compactdimensions of 59mm x 38mm x 7mm. In addition, the wide supply-voltage

range of 3.1V to 9V DC allows direct connectionto various standard battery voltages or logicrails such as 3.3V or 5V. The module is also fullyshielded against external interference, and iscompliant with the ETSI EN 300 220-2 (radio)and EN 301 489-3 (EMC) standards.

Whether the application is data logging,industrial telemetry, smart-building control,security or fire-safety sensing, or anautomotive device, Radiometrix’ 10mW TX1or 300mW HX1 transmitter is the ideal

partner to the low-power RX1L receiver.Packaged as an easy-to-use 7-pin SIL device,the HX1 integrates a 300mW RF amplifier for a

usable range of over 3km, taking advantage of the receiver’s high sensitivity.

Radiometrix RX1L radio receiver combines‘always-on’ convenience with long battery life

Radiometrix telemetry radio receiver combines ‘always-on’ convenience with long battery life



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SYSTEMS MANUFACTURER COMPRION has enhanced its EMVCo portfolio byoffering an EMVCo PICC analog test solution for mobile phone approvalaccording to EMVCo standards. EMVCo facilitates global interoperability andacceptance of secure payment transactions. The solution consists of theconformance test system UT³ platform, a Kawasaki robot in a safety celland additional EMVCo test equipment, such as antennas. The new testsystem, for which qualification will start in December 2015, was introducedat CARTES 2015. The UT³ platform simulates a POS terminal in order to testa bank card or a cell phone used for mobile payments. The integrated robotpositions the card or mobile phone with high precision and repeatability asrequired by EMVCo.With an execution time of approximately 1.5 hours for the EMVCo Type A

tests, the new system is the most efficient test solution. Swantje Missfeldt,EMVCo product manager at Comprion, said, “We are very proud of the speedconsidering the high number of positions, repetitions and the necessarycalculations as well as measurements.”The highly automated system works very accurately thanks to a six-axis

Kawasaki robot that is able to position the mobile phone or bank card at allangles imaginable. Missfeldt commented, “The Comprion solution is the onlyone with an integrated oscilloscope, saving extra hardware and calibrationcosts.” The Comprion EMVCo solution is the result of the increasing convergence

of the telecommunication and banking industries driven by the growingmobile payment deployments. Handset manufacturers that want to enablemobile payment services on their devices need to prove – also as part of theGSMA TS.27 NFC Handset Test Book requirements – that they conform to

EMVCo standards. Otherwise, their devices will not be approved for themarket. Missfeldt explained, “As many of our customers, such as handset-and chip manufacturers as well test laboratories, already use the Comprionconformance test system UT³ platform for GCF and NFC Forum mobile phonetype approval, we have been asked to also offer the new EMVCo tests on thesame system – in the known high quality.“

TEOCO, PROVIDER OF engineering, assurance and analytics solutionsto communications service providers (CSPs), has released the latestversion of its Mentor suite for network optimisation, Mentor 9.4. The new version of Mentor features the provision of enhanced LTE

optimisation capabilities and includes new features that answer thegrowing demand from operators for more automation in complex multi-vendor and multi-technology networks. Mentor 9.4 also integrates withTEOCO’s other market-leading engineering solutions for improvedsmall cell planning and performance optimisation. Among its newfeatures, Mentor 9.4 enables network elements to automatically sendperformance alarm notifications according to user-defined networkperformance thresholds.

Improving network performanceThe new threshold-crossing alarms (TCA) module enables an operatorto identify and examine cells with KPI values that violate pre-definedrules. In this way, the operator can focus on the problematic cells in itsnetwork. The rich threshold-crossing rules can be defined via the webinterface of TEOCO’s TrafficGuard, a component of TEOCO’s Helix suite.Engineers can better anticipate and take action more quickly to resolvenetwork performance issues before subscribers’ quality of experiencesuffers.Another new feature is the integration of the new Mentor 9.4 offering

with TEOCO’s purpose-built automatic small cell planning solution,ASSET Design. The combination of automatic cell planning (ACP) andradio access networks (RAN) optimisation further streamlines the useof accurate geo-located measurements for better small cell planningplus general optimisation to boost network performance.The Mentor suite of tools also uniquely integrates RAN analytics and

optimisation over a single platform to assist radio engineers in theirdaily tasks across 2G, 3G and 4G networks. In addition, Mentor 9.4 nowincludes enhanced and far-reaching multi-technology and multi-vendor

support, allowing operators to use it regardless of the infrastructure intheir network. Mentor 9.4’s flexibility and interoperability also includessupport for the new multi-vendor MRO format for exporting networkdata.Daniel Ramirez, director of RAN Products at TEOCO, said, “Mentor

9.4 is the latest addition to the suite of Mentor releases that have cometo offer smarter RAN Management to operators globally. “With its new automation and integration capabilities, plus

enhanced multi-vendor and multi-technology support, Mentor deliverson its promise to lower total costs of ownership (TCOs) for operatorswhile boosting the efficiency of their networks.”

A market-leading ASSETTEOCO, towards the end of 2015, was awarded a contract to deploy itsASSET tool by IHS Towers, the largest mobile telecommunicationsinfrastructure provider in Africa, Europe and the Middle East. IHSTowers is Africa’s leading mobile infrastructure provider, owning andoperating more than 23,100 towers and guaranteeing 99.9 per centnetwork uptime reliability to a range of African mobile networkoperators (MNOs). IHS will leverage the full capabilities of ASSET,TEOCO’s market-leading network planning tool, to enable moreefficient and effective tower-sharing agreements among its multipleAfrican mobile operator customers. Using ASSET, IHS will merge sitesfor a number of operators in order to reduce CAPEX and OPEX, whilemaintaining and guaranteeing quality of service for customers.ASSET is TEOCO’s radio network planning tool. The most recent

release is ASSET 9.0, which is a complete solution for planning all partsof the radio network while fully integrating with the wider OSS/BSS eco-system. It supports all radio technologies, including Wi-Fi, and iscapable of analyzing large data sets presented from more than 750,000cells across Africa. These consist of a wide range of radio technologies,multiple carriers and complex antenna systems.

TEOCO’s Mentor 9.4 further automates radio access network optimisation

Comprion’s EMVCo L1 analog test solution


s

Comprion's EMVCo L1 analog test solution



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THE FLASHNET CONTENT management system,exhibited at CABSAT 2016 by content archiveand storage management solutions providerSGL, delivers highly evolved and efficientarchives to broadcasters throughout theMiddle East, including: AD Media, MBC, QatarTV, Al Baghdadia, Al Aan, Al Kass and manyothers. SGL’s open system architectureprovides broadcasters, post productionfacilities, and news/sport organisations withreliable, scalable solutions with substantialcost and workflow benefits.AT CABSAT, SGL highlights and discusses

the following solutions:The latest version of FlashNet, which

includes a number of new features that providebroadcasters and content owners with greaterflexibility when managing their archives.Customers will now be able to allocate a pre-defined number of drives within their library fora specific role such as archiving Avid jobs only,or restoring/archiving material at a certain timeof day. This allows larger broadcasters withmultiple drives to further improve operationalprocedures. FlashNet archive control, updated to provide

support for Avid Web Services and Sony OpticalDisc Archive (ODA). Whilst the fullyimplemented Avid Interplay Archive provides a

seamless user experience, smaller work groupsmay require a paired down version. SGL’ssupport for Avid Web Services means thatcustomers can use the archive capabilities thatthey currently require but can deploy AvidIntegrated Archive at any time in the futurewithout the need to re-archive any content.SGL’s integration with Sony ODA opens up aworld of workflow possibilities, from disasterrecovery solutions to management of archivematerial over disparate geographic areas. WithSGL’s experience of managing multiple storagedevices within production, news and sport,Sony’s Optical Disc Archive can sit anywherewithin a workflow, not simply as an ‘end ofprocess’ archive.

Disaster recovery (DR) workflows enabled byFlashNet’s uniquely scalable architecturemeaning that valuable assets are protected,automatically, whatever the scope of DRrequirements. Rules-based implementationsprovide fully-automated data duplicationacross multiple storage layers and locations.FlashNet enables multi-site operations tomirror and synchronise data, across the globe.If one site becomes inoperative, it can berebuilt entirely from data that has beenreplicated to other sites. FlashNet is also fullyintegrated with Aspera allowing broadcastersand content owners to transfer media to thecloud at a guaranteed speed, providingalternative storage and disaster recoveryworkflows.Support for LTO-7 specifications, for tape

cartridge native storage capacity of over 6TB,more than twice the compressed capacity ofthe previous generation, and tape drive datatransfer rates of up to 750Mits/second for over2.7 terabytes of storage performance an hourper drive. As with previous generations, LTO-7drives will provide backward compatibility withthe ability to read and write LTO generation 6cartridges and read LTO generation 5cartridges, helping to preserve mediainvestments and ease implementation.

NIGERIA IS THE launch market for a new service developed by Sliide Airtime. Theservice provides users with a new and innovative way to access content fromtheir mobiles and simultaneously earn free airtime.

Nigerian users will be able to download the Android app from the Google PlayStore or directly from sliideairtime.ng from March 2016. After enteringinformation about their age and interests (for example: business, celebrity,football, style, music), users will receive personalised content when unlockingtheir phone, including news and stories handpicked from media sources both inand beyond Nigeria, and updated 24/7/365. They will also see a selection ofbranded content delivered through a partnership with Twinpine, the largestmobile advertising network in Africa.

Sliide Airtime users will receive free airtime simply by having the app on theirphone. Additional airtime can be earned by completing in-app offers and, for alimited time, users will be able to earn 100N for every friend they sign up. SliideAirtime users simply give their friends their unique promotional code (given toeach person upon registration), and they will both earn 100N when the friendjoins.

Sliide Airtime is a privately-held technology company with offices in Lagos andLondon. Its content delivery platform is changing the way people interact withtheir phones by subsidising their airtime.

The team brings years of experience in the mobile, software, and advertisingindustries, along with a company-wide entrepreneurial spirit that spursinnovation and disruption.

Sliide Airtime’s founder and CEO Corbyn Munnik was born in South Africa andgrew up in Botswana where his family still lives. Corbyn said, “Sliide Airtime is anew and innovative way of funding mobile Internet access in countries where datacharges are high.

“In Nigeria it will help overcome the problem of expensive data and givesadvertisers a smart new way of targeting and reaching consumers withcustomised content.”

Sliide Airtime also enables mobile operators to integrate the app within newdevices and establish their own content streams, thus providing a new mobileadvertising revenue stream.

The Nigerian marketAccording to the GSMA’s ‘Digital Inclusion and the Role of Mobile in Nigeria’report published in October 2015, mobile connectivity in the country now reachesmore than 83mn unique subscribers, or 45 per cent of Nigeria’s population.However “Affordability is a concern for many Nigerians, particularly those withlower incomes. The cost of using a mobile phone represents around five per centof personal income in Nigeria, which significantly exceeds the cost in many otherdeveloping countries.”

‘Africa Market Outlook’, published by research company Ovum in November2015, says that “Nigeria has the largest mobile market on the continent in termsof subscriptions with 139.3 million subscriptions at the end of 2014.”

The team at Sliide believes that with services like WhatsApp, Facebook,Instagram, Twitter and Eskimi all growing in popularity in Nigeria, there is anincreasing need to find new ways to help Nigerians pay for internet access. TheSliide Airtime service gives consumers the ability to earn free airtime, whilst alsokeeping up-to-date with all their favourite news and gist. Adrian Wood, the formerCEO of MTN Nigeria, is on the board of Sliide Airtime. He said, “Accessing theinternet from a mobile device is expensive for many Nigerians. The Sliide Airtimeapp provides them with a straightforward way to subsidise their surfing and getaccess to content that they not only find useful, but is carefully targeted and non-intrusive.”

Prior to the Nigerian launch, the Sliide Airtime app was extensively tested inthe UK where the company received financial backing from a number oforganisations including UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) and Draper DarkFlow (a Silicon Valley venture capital fund for African startups) established by TimDraper, whose venture successes include Skype, Baidu, and Hotmail.

Sliide Airtime launches Africa’s first lock screen content delivery platform

SGL improves control, recovery and capacity with FlashNet




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34

LE MICROSOFT LUMIA 550 est un smartphone 4Gaccessible offrant le meilleur de l’expérience Windows 10pour encore plus de productivité. Il équipé de Windows 10et de ses innovations, synchronisé au PC de son utilisateurvia One Drive, il est pensé pour faire les choses vite et biengrâce à Cortana, Edge ou encore le multitâches.

Avec Windows 10, une nouvelle ère s’est ouverte, oùprofiter du meilleur de la technologie sur des écrans detoutes tailles est plus que jamais une réalité. Lesnouveaux Lumias permettent aux utilisateurs de libérerleur potentiel pour accomplir toujours plus,naturellement. Toutes les innovations de Windows 10accessibles sur des smartphones à la pointe de latechnologie, pour encore plus de productivité.

Le Lumia 550 est le compagnon idéal d’un PC ou d’unetablette Windows 10. Les applications Microsoft Offices’adaptent à son écran HD de 4,7 pouces et permettent deconsulter, créer et éditer des documents en toute mobilité.Avec Cortana, être prêt et organisé en permanence devientnaturel grâce à ses rappels délivrés au bon moment, aubon endroit, sur tous les appareils Windows 10.

Avec sa connexion internet 4G ultra rapide combinée àla puissance du processeur quad-core QualcommSnapdragon et de 1Go RAM, le Lumia 550 offre le meilleurde Microsoft aux utilisateurs à la recherche du meilleurprix sans faire de compromis sur la qualité et l’innovation.

Lumia 550, le smartphone Windows 10 utile et rapide

Company .................................................................................... page

ACE Cable Consortium ....................................................................35

Comviva Technologies Ltd. ..............................................................36

F G Wilson Engineering Ltd ..............................................................5

MEASAT Satellite Systems Sdn Bhd..................................................2

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