Author: Akin Naphtal

Ericsson has won the 5G Technological Innovations Award at the 12th Ghana Information and Technology and Telecoms Awards (GITTA) held in Accra, Ghana. The award recognizes Ericsson’s pioneering role in building more sustainable and energy-efficient 5G network infrastructures for communications service providers across Africa, and Ericsson’s role in introducing innovations that transform industries and enterprises. Richard Kweku Arthur, Country Manager of Ericsson Ghana says: ‘’We are humbled by the recognition from Ghana Information and Technology and Telecoms Awards. We are committed to ensure that the continent enjoys the innovative and limitless possibilities that 5G offers individuals, enterprises, and societies at large.…

Vertiv, a global provider of critical digital infrastructure and continuity solutions, has announced the opening of its new office and state-of-the-art Customer Experience Center in Nairobi. With an increasing demand for high efficiency critical infrastructure in East Africa, this center supports Vertiv’s efforts in offering digital infrastructure solutions to local customers. The center’s experts offer firsthand knowledge of the technologies, and showcasing of the products gives users a chance to get close to the diverse range of Vertiv’s critical infrastructure solutions for applications from the edge of the network to the cloud. Products at the center include Vertiv™ SmartCabinet™ –…

Singtel, the official network partner of Grand Prix Season Singapore 2022 (GPSS 2022), has powered seamless 5G experiences and festivities along the Marina Bay Street Circuit in early October by leveraging Ericsson’s (NASDAQ: ERIC) 5G end-to-end network slicing with Dynamic Radio Resource Partitioning (RRP) during the event. Singtel is the first communications service provider in the world to use Ericsson’s Dynamic Radio Resource Partitioning feature to deliver end-to-end network slicing in a live 5G Standalone network. Ericsson’s end-to-end network slicing solution also included cloud-native capabilities to create a dedicated slice of its network that was reserved for subscribers of Sports…

New research from Vodafone Group, Vodacom Group, Safaricom and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) indicates that the successful deployment and adoption of mobile financial services can have a direct, positive impact on GDP growth in developing markets. The econometric modelling research1 – which examined 49 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America – found that countries with successful mobile money services had an annual GDP per capita growth rate up to 1 percentage point higher than countries where mobile money platforms had not been successful or not introduced. Based on previous World Bank research on the relationship between economic…

Ericsson has announced that it has extended its Global Framework Agreement for operational services and software with Telenor to October 2024. The original agreement, signed in 2017, was aimed at creating a Common Delivery Centre (CDC) for multiple services such as Network Operations (including enhanced Network Operations Centre automation) Network Design, Planning and Optimization, First Level Operations & intelligent Field Operations, Project Management and Network Implementation Services. As part of the renewal, Ericsson will also deliver its Cognitive Software for planning and tuning. The framework agreement supports the partnerships between Ericsson and Telenor Malaysia (Digi) and Thailand (dtac) Telenor and…

Vodafone Group is working on plans with four organisations to carry out renewable power generation proof-of-concept trials across mobile access sites, following the conclusion of its Renewable Power Challenge competition announced earlier this year. What was the Renewable Power Challenge? Vodafone’s global competition invited organisations to submit innovative solutions to the challenge of powering mobile sites in rural or remote locations and without access to electricity grids, or where there are frequent power outages, while avoiding the use of fossil fuels on-site. Organisations were requested to provide submissions across two categories. ‘Technology Solutions’ covers power generation technologies, alternative fuels and…

Vodafone has announced plans to conduct a commercial pilot of 5G Open Radio Access Network (RAN) at mobile sites across two rural areas in Germany – its largest European market – starting in early 2023. This will be the first deployment of Open RAN technology in Germany that is fully compliant with the specifications and roadmap endorsed by the leading mobile operators in Europe (The Open RAN MoU group). These specifications define an architecture for the use of secure, open and interoperable multi-vendor equipment and have been adopted by industry-body Telecom Infra Project (TIP) as the blueprint of choice for…

Vodafone and Nokia have agreed to jointly work on a fully compliant Open Radio Access Network (RAN) solution, marking a significant milestone for the mobile industry and a major boost to Europe’s competitiveness. The combination of Nokia’s ReefShark advanced System on Chip (SoC) technology, developed in cooperation with Marvell, with standard Commercial-Off-the-Shelf (COTS) servers will enable the Open RAN system to reach functionality and performance parity with traditional mobile radio networks. Nokia’s ReefShark SoC boosts the Layer-1 processing capability, which is necessary to connect many users to the mobile base station and support high levels of mobile data traffic. Nokia…

Clickatell, the Chat Commerce and business messaging leader, discussed with attendees at Clickatell’s Connect Interact and Transact (CIT) annual event earlier this month on how they could drive financial inclusion and reach their revenue goals by adopting Chat Commerce. The event took place at the Radisson Blu, Anchorage in Lagos with industry experts from Clickatell, Ecobank and Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) sharing insight and tips with an audience of business and technology leaders. Werner Lindemann, Clickatell’s Senior Vice President of Enterprise Sales, Growth Markets, kicked off by pointing out how global brands, like Amazon and Uber, have built their…

Upstream, the global mobile marketing technology specialist has announced that it will be attending this year’s AfricaCom event in Cape Town, between November 8th-10th, to highlight the power of its mobile marketing platform Grow. Mobile Marketing: The Operator Opportunity Focusing on connectivity infrastructure and digital inclusion, and with an emphasis on service provider technology, along with mission-critical technologies and 5G, this year’s AfricaCom will highlight the exciting future on offer to mobile network operators (MNOs) in Africa. With the upcoming removal of tracking cookies from most web browsers, and Africa’s development as a mobile-first region, there is a great opportunity…