ICTworks by Inveneo

Mobile phone manufacturer Sony Ericsson will finally be entering the Kenyan mobile market by partnering with Safaricom to distribute Xperia X10 line of Android smart phones, according to Capital FM Kenya.

Country Manager Jonas Gronqwist said on Tuesday that the company aims to capitalise on the mobile phone boom in the country as well as introduce internet-enabled phones that will enhance internet penetration.

"If you look at the Kenyan market there are more mobile phones than fixed lines; the internet penetration is going straight up. I believe the possibilities are enormous for the coming two to three years," Mr Gronqwist said.

All I can say is its about time. Nokia, and now Apple are already all over the Kenya market. Safaricom even launched its own solar power phones. Sony Ericsson needs to step up and join the sales frenzy.

Hat tip to Kiwanja/Ken Banks.

I was attracted by the headline of a news report on 234next.com: Commission to tackle kidnapping with technology

The spate of kidnapping in the country can be curtailed by embracing the use of telecommunications technology. The acting vice chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) expressed this view yesterday, following the release of the four recently abducted journalists.

Bashir Gwandu, addressing chief executives of the GSM, CDMA, and other major network operating companies in Abuja, lamented that kidnapping has become a serious threat to lives and businesses in Nigeria over the last one year, especially in the South-East and South-South zones of the country.

Mr. Gwandu said that "with just about 1000 naira, a multitude of crimes can be committed by purchasing multiple sim cards and misused them to threaten others via voice or text messages, and also commit other phone-assisted crimes. This has to stop."

Holding a person against his/her will is a criminal offence anywhere. Kidnapping is a despicable act. Having said that, let's analyse Bashir Gwandu's further statements.

He said the NCC has "plans to issue subsidy to telecommunications operators to install equipment on every mast and tower that could be used for triangulating between sites in order to identify real-geographical location of both GPS and None GPS-enabled mobile handsets."

Google Maps for mobile can already generate estimated location coordinates of mobile phones that have it installed, without relying on special equipment.

Assuming NCC can really pull that off, what happens to the privacy of mobile phone users? Did they sign-up for their movements to be tactically monitored by telecom operators? Why does anything need to be installed anyway when existing cell masts can already be used to triangulate the estimated location of any mobile phone (GPS-capable or not)? Google Maps already uses cell mast triangulation for its Google Map for Mobile service. Is this "subsidy" another plot to squander tax payers' money?

Mr. Gwandu stated that in addition to the triangulation project, all GPS-enabled handsets can also be tracked by low earth orbit satellites. He further stated that there are other equipment that could be deployed to tract and identify the locations of handsets being used to solicit for ransom.

This is ludicrous. Telecom operators are now law enforcement agencies. Even if the NCC was allowed to implement this absurdity, how would they access the GPS coordinates of a mobile phone since the GPS feature needs to be explicitly activated by the phone user before the phone can be tracked?

Do they plan to hack phones and turn on GPS on the phones remotely? Or, are they counting on phone users to voluntarily leave their GPS feature on all the time? By the way, GPS drains phone batteries. Tracking keeps the phone's microprocessor very busy and so consumes a lot of energy.

According to him, "once ownership of numbers can be identified, handsets can be tracked, and their geographical location becomes identifiable, then any call made to solicit for ransom will help to locate the kidnappers."

I can't help laughing. Hardened criminals like kidnappers would voluntarily register their SIM cards with their real personal details in other to make the job of law enforcement easy. Too bad, we live in a real world where that fantasy is hardly possible.

In addition to this, NCC has initiated a project that will block stolen handsets once they are reported as being stolen. The project will also be helpful in stopping criminals from using snatched handsets in perpetrating such act.

How many times are we going to read things like this? Haven't we heard this before? How many times does the NCC want to attempt blocking stolen phones? Is it not the exact responsibility of the phone owner to promptly report a stolen phone to the service provider for the SIM to be promptly deactivated? A country that cannot generate adequate power supply, that cannot hold free & fair elections, that cannot properly conduct a population census now wants to track and block mobile phones. How noble!

It is very obvious that the acting boss of NCC is pulling this stunt, to create an impression on the Nigerian public that he is very competent and on top of his game. Whilst I would not question his competence, this particular act can only be counter-productive in any enlightened society since such information (useful or not) is best shared directly with the law enforcement agencies.

The Nigeria Police, the State Security Service (SSS), the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) etc, are the best to be tutored on technology meant for tracking criminals and NOT the head of telecom companies who already understand the technologies (else, why would they be in business?) nor the media.

This post was originally published as Nigerians, NCC wants to track your movement.

Are you excitedly awaiting the newest tech-gizmo in Nigeria? Or just your usual technology equipment supply that's flown in by air freight? Then be prepared to wait as there is an air freight embargo to Nigeria airports:

Temporary Embargo to Lagos and Abuja
Due to the regulation requiring an electronic manifest for Nigeria customs, Delta Cargo is temporarily unable to accept any freight for transportation to Lagos, Nigeria (LOS) and Abuja, Nigeria (ABV). Mail is not affected by the embargo. This embargo on the carriage of freight to Nigeria will remain in place until further notice. Please continue to check deltacargo.com for further updates.

Oddly, there is no mention of this issues outside of the freight forwarder community, thought it should be of up most concern to everyone in the Nigerian business community. Air freight is a key importation method for many industries and its cessation should be causing financial pain across the country.

Back at the turn of the century, education was gripped by the diffusion of amazing hand-held devices for children. These tools, at first considered an expensive and delicate novelty, soon became standard for every child in wealthy education systems and from there defused around the world to nearly every classroom.

This is actually a description of slate tablets in the early 1800′s, but it could aptly describe the technological revolution we are seeing in education today with low-cost ICT devices.

The rise of ICT devices

From single-purpose educational aids like the Teachermate to commercial netbooks that can be re-purposed for the classroom, information and communication technology is dropping in cost while increasing in functionality and robustness. Soon, these ICT devices will be like slates in the 1800′s – ubiquitous.

Netbooks – one type of low-cost ICT device for education

In 2008, infoDev at the World Bank complied a Quick guide to low-cost computing devices and initiatives for the developing world to try and record the most prominent or promising of these devices.

Recently, the Educational Technology Debate updated this list through two efforts:

1. The list itself is now available as an editable Google Doc: Low-Cost ICT List Update.
2. ETD also highlighted some of the more interesting initiatives in their low-cost ICT devices discussion

I invite your input in both. You can modify or download the low-cost ICT devices list itself and comment on the online discussion as the mood strikes you.

Do note that this list isn't expected to be exhaustive, it’s a Quick Guide after all, and we are purposely leaving off mobile phones, as well as the plethora of devices that could be used in education, for a more targeted list of hardware devices that are used in educational systems of the developing world.

Electrical power is an issue across Africa - or more accurately, the lack of reliable, affordable electricity is one of the greatest barriers to the adoption of information and communication technologies.

But good businessmen look at barriers and see opportunity. If rural areas lack a reliable national power grid, then develop solutions that do not need that electrical infrastructure and capture market share from technology vendors still waiting for KPLC or NEPA.

Solar Power Computing

Instead of looking to government, look to the sun for electrical power and high-efficiency ICT solutions to use that electricity cost-effectively. You can even use this sample solar power computing setup:

1. Deploy eight 90W solar panels, three 200Ah deep cycle batteries, two 30A charge controllers using the Inveneo power configuration model.
2. The solar panels convert sunlight into energy, which is stored in the batteries through the charge controllers. The solar power system is designed to require an average of five hours of sunshine to fully charge the batteries.
3. Install ten Inveneo High-Performance Computing Stations, one Inveneo R4 server, a wireless LAN hub, and 7W DC lamps. At full charge, the batteries can run the ten computing stations and server for up to ten hours.

Winning Government Contracts

Now that sample setup is nice and all, but your real question is, "Who would buy solar power computing?" And for that I have a good answer and great example.

The Computers for Schools programme in Uganda is an effort by the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) to establish functional computer laboratories with modern equipment in selected schools.

In August 2009, the UCC held a competitive bidding process for a contract to supply computer labs to 52 schools. These schools are all located in regions with limited or non-existent electricity supply, so the computers must rely on solar power.

CLS, a Certified Inveneo ICT Partner, bid and won the competitive tender for 52 ICT centers by offering the best value for the UCC - deploying Inveneo High-Performance Computing Stations and the solar power to operate them using the solution described above. This March, CLS completed the installation of all 52 labs ahead of schedule.

The CLS contract is just one of many government tenders won when IT companies realize the benefits of solar power computing done right. Isn't it about time you did the same?