Chinese mobile Phones , a bittersweet drug for Ugandan consumers

Mobile Phone usage in Uganda has come a long way. In the 1990s, owning a mobile phone was more of a sign of prestige, since very few people could afford to own and use mobile phones. Owning a mobile phone meant that one had to deal with paying the high monthly subscription fees, which has since been scrapped with increased competition. To be honest, mobile phone subscribers have never been ripped off, like they were at the time when competition wasn't stiff. Figures from Uganda Communications Commissions show that there has been an enormous growth in telecommunications subscriber base over the years. The Telecommunications sector is so far one of the most competitive in the country thus far.

The continued growth in the Telecommunications sector has also seen the introduction of new services, as industry players fight to get an edge over their competitors. In the past, subscribers were mainly using the Voice Service, which in one way or another has been affected by the introduction of other means of communication like Whatsapp, Viber, Facebook among others. One of the new services that has been so convenient for the subscribers is the Mobile Money platform, which enables users to send and receive money using their mobile phones.

All seemed to be going well until the industry was also penetrated with many Mobile Phone brands. For an industry so robust like telecommunications, challenges in controlling the quality of mobile phones imported into the country begun to manifest. With so many complaints over fake mobile phones on the market, Uganda Communications Commission came up with guidelines on how consumers can detect phones that were not genuine. However, the phones just keep flowing into the country every other day.

The Chinese finally identify opportunities, a fresh market with desire for cheap products. Over the years, there has been an influx of Chinese mobile phones into the Ugandan market, slowly side lining the original Nokia phones that had dominated the market. My first personal experience with a Chinese mobile phone was that of love-hate. First, the phone produced music as loud as that of an outdoor Music speaker, which was impressive since I like music. Secondly, it could access the internet, had a camera, well life was good. Just a few months after purchase, the phone begun to freeze. My little darling started to play hide and seek with me. It nagged me to a point that I had to throw it against a wall(Just kidding, who could?). This kind of experience has not been exclusive to me alone, many other people have expressed the same. These complaints keep growing as time passes by. However, with he growing complaints, people still buy these Chinese mobile phones because of affordability. Who wouldn't want a cheap touch screen that has dual sims? Who wouldn't want a cheap smart phone that has a Radio? I certainly cannot answer these questions but the Chinese are here to stay.

Why Digital Migration in Uganda will face hurdles

     Digital migration was adopted by the Ugandan government by virtue of its being a signatory to the Geneva 2006 Agreement which resolved that all countries signatory to the agreement were supposed to migrate from Analog to Digital broadcasting by June 2015. The Ugandan government, under the ministry of Information and Communication Technology set a deadline of December 2012 to have Digital migration implemented. With the broadcasting media growing rapidly, this can be seen as a positive step towards improving quality and streamlining the sector since it offers high quality Video and audio among other benefits. However, this might not come easily as one might think due to the fact that there are structural requirements and clear policies that need to be developed and implemented for the smooth operation of Digital broadcasting.
     During a stake holders meeting some time this year, players in the broadcast media complained over the decision by the cabinet to choose UBC as the sole signal provider with many saying it is not competent and prepared enough for the task ahead. A statement from Mr. Godfrey Mutabazi, the Uganda Communications Commission Managing Director was also in line with the fears expressed by the players. While appearing in parliament, Mr Mutabazi said that despite the fact that UBC was chosen as the sole signal provider, it does not have the money to fund the migration process. This also comes at a time when the economy is facing serious challenges that have caused cut backs in certain expenditures just afew months after the National Budget was passed. With all the above challenges, it still remains to be seen whether the December 2012 deadline set by the government of Uganda to implement Digital broadcasting will be achieved.

A Facebook and Twitting African generation

Facebook and twitter are not strange terms to the ears of many urban African youth. It is a common phenomenon to find a young man or woman, in their 20s asking another whether they are on facebook or have a twitter account. Social networking using twitter and facebook is on a growing trend in Africa and the future even looks brighter for this means of communication. In the past, Africa’s history reveals that communication was made in various ways, among which using local instruments such as drums. The modern day Africa has since adopted other communication means like Telecommunications, Radio, TV, Print publications, the internet among others. 

According to a publication by Socialbankers.com on January 19^th 2011, the top ten African countries on facebook were;

1. Egypt with Total Facebook users: 4,882,560, Penetration of population: 6.07%, Penetration of online population: 28.62%
2. South Africa with Total Facebook users: 3,350,640, Penetration of population: 6.82%, Penetration of online population: 63.22%
3. Morocco with Total Facebook users: 2,642,920, Penetration of population: 8.36%, Penetration of online population: 25.31%
4. Nigeria with Total Facebook users: 2,508,720, Penetration of population: 1.65%, Penetration of online population: 5.70%
5. Tunisia with Total Facebook users: 1,970,200, Penetration of population: 18.61%, Penetration of online population: 54.73%

Going by the above figures, usage seems to be low but promising due to the continued growth of the internet in many parts of Africa. One good example is the SEACOM submarine fibre optic network system which seeks to connect South Africa to Eastern Africa. The project is under way and some of the countries like Rwanda have completed installation of the fibre optic cable. Two of the countries in the list of top ten African countries have had revolutions that led to change of governments in the first quarter of 2011. In both cases, there were an overwhelming number of twitter and facebook updates on what was happening. Secret videos were also posted on YouTube. Before the revolutions in those western and Northern African states, the power of social networking sites; facebook and twitter were underestimated. The fact that the majority of users have been found to be in their youth, one can only say it’s just the beginning. As the internet penetrates further into the population, social networking could be ‘the next big thing’ and a vital tool for mobilizing the masses.

Uganda caught in the rush to achieve MDGs

Hon. Aggrey Awori, Uganda's ICT Mininster

Uganda is one of the countries that adopted a global action plan to achieve the eight anti-poverty goals by  2015.
Ensuring environmental sustainability, Reducing child mortality, Halve between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than one dollar a day and Combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases were among the eight goals adopted at the UN summit for Millennium Development Goals in September 2000. With just about four years left, Uganda could be caught in a rush to achieve the MDGs. In the year 2010, a ban on the importation of used electronic equipment was effected by the Ugandan government. The ban stirred alot of debate on several public forums and communities like iNetwork Uganda which is an ICT for Development forum. Many argued that the ban was too premature and that there were better ways of dealing with waste management and environmental sustainability. The ban came at a time when the student to computer ratio in schools is still high, with some rural schools having a dozen computers being shared by all the classes and staff members. This ban also contradicts target 18 Goal 8 of the MDGs, which aimed at making available benefits of new technologies especially ICTs and have more people access personal computers. It is important to note that Uganda is a developing country and levels of poverty are still very high among the communities. We should also have it in mind that even a computer that has been used for only one day is already second hand, but is it in such a condition that one cannot use it?. Many families are struggling to get basic essentials of life and for such a family, equipments like computers may seem like a luxury they cannot afford. When the government goes ahead to effect such a ban on importation of used electronic equipments then it becomes almost impossible for such people to own a computer. As for now, petitioners against this law can only watch and pray that the president intervenes.

Internet Protocol Version 4 exhausts, Version 6 in the offing

In the recent past, Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4) was reported by many sources to be on a rapid depletion. The exhaustion of the IPv4 addresses will in turn lead to deployment of Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6). Internet protocol is a set of rules and conventions that govern communication of computing devices over the internet whereas an IP address is a unique number assigned to a computing device such as a computer that is interconnected with other computing devices in a network.  The Internet Protocol (IP) space is managed by Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), the Regional Internet Registry (RIR) and local Internet Service Providers (ISPs). The fundamental advantage of IPv6 over IPv4 is that the former offers more addresses than the latter.  Should IPv4 addresses exhaust before implementation of IPv6, end to end connectivity that is required by certain applications will not be universally available on the IPv4 Internet. In East Africa, internet usage has been on the increase due to price reductions on voice and data service providers in a battle for supremacy. News about exhaustion of IPv4 addresses has been on the rise on the internet and foreign press but not much of this publicity can be seen or heard on local media. One wonders whether Internet Service Providers and the governments in East Africa have put in place mechanisms for the transition from IPv4 to IPv6. Some of the mechanisms suggested for transition from IPv4 to IPv6 were; Dual IP stack and IPv6 over IPv4 tunneling.

Rwanda completes construction of fiber optic network

Rwanda has completed construction of a 2,300 kilometre fibre optic telecommunications network across the country to link it to the undersea cables running on the East African coast. This was revealed by Ignace Gatare, the Rwanda Information and Communication Technology minister. The minister said that the fibre optic project will initially be operated by an independently-managed government entity on an open access model to accommodate infrastructure sharing with the private ICT service providers. He added that the goal was to progressively transfer the business to a private business. The project, which began in October 2009 at a cost of $95 million, was set up to boost access to various broadband services, boost electronic commerce and attract foreign direct investment through business process outsourcing. The ICT minister revealed that Internet access in Rwanda was estimated to be at 12% of the population and revenues from the information and communication industry amounted to 87 Billion Rwandan francs in 2009. "Initiatives to activate the links have been launched and discussions between Rwanda telecommunication operators that include MTN Rwanda, Tigo Rwanda and Rwandatel and regional cable operators are ongoing," the minister said. With an economic growth rate that accelerated from 6.1% in 2009 to 7.5% in 2010, the completion of the fiber optic network only paints a bright future for Rwanda.

Google launches free web to mobile sms service for Uganda

Google launches the Gmail to SMS, Uganda’s first PC-chat-to-mobile-text service which allows Gmail users in the country to send and receive chat messages for free in the form of text messages. Elijah Kitaka, Google's Business Development Manager said that the launch of the service in Uganda followed successful launches in Senegal, Ghana and Kenya. Mr. Kitaka also added that Google's launch of the service in Uganda was to make the internet more useful to Ugandans on a daily basis due to the vibrancy of the country's ICT sector. With the Gmail to SMS chat, a Gmail user sends a text from the desktop interface directly to a mobile phone via SMS. The recipient of the text message then responds to the text message and the response will appear in the Gmail interface of the PC chat sender. The service is currently available for subscribers of MTN, UTL and Orange but will eventually support all cellular networks and standard network charges will apply for any communication from the phone to desktop, but SMS in Gmail chat is free from desktop to phone. By default, SMS in chat is enabled for Gmail users depending on their settings, but in the event that it isn’t active in your account, you can activate it for free by going to Settings, Labs, then enabling the SMS options and saving changes.