Connectivity Across Africa Thread

entrepr

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Hi

I have an interest in connectivity in various countries in Southern Africa, even Sub-Saharan Africa, and would love to see an active thread around this, both for SA users wanting to know about other countries, and for users in other countries who don't have the wonderful myBB service.

For a start there are so many international cables going in and satellites being deployed it would be great to track these. I know the actual submarine progress and plans are tracked elsewhere (ie Steve Song's excellent blog) but this can add a useful "Forum" flavour to it.

There are also a number of 3G/HSPA and Wimax deployments in various countries and users there need to know where to share ideas and information.

Kenya, for example, is very active on the HSPA front and has two international cables imminent. Soon they could put SA to shame in terms of subs and traffic growth.

Zain's planned single tariff for data and Blackberry roaming also has awesome potential and could teach our local mobile operators a thing or two. If it went live in Zambia, you could well have South African's taking out a Zain contract!

One benefit of such a forum would be to increase awareness of the business opportunities that exist in such countries. Many SA companies are making tentative forays into other countries, but the potential is huge.

I hope this thread gets some good support!
 
Zain selloff?

First question on this thread: I read about rumours that Zain was planning to sell its Africa ops. I also heard (even more rumour-ish sources) saying that they needed to resolve an urgent cash issue.

Anyone know anything more concrete about this?
 
I've also been told that Zain is selling off all African shares/interests and so far Orange has shown interest in aquiring said interests. Watch this space...
 
Chatted to a Zain employee today, they still employ locals in Senior positions, I thought they would have sent staff down from Middle East

Connecting via iConnect in Zambia with 512k wireless (Not in the 802.11a/b/g range).
Use Linksys Wireless devices as the Internal gateway and its gets asigned a public routable IP thru the Wimax bridge.

Service is more like 64-128k. They seem popular but you can forget about an honest answer out of their helpdesk
They connect via PCCW Global and Taide Norway Satellite. 2Mb/s satellite connection cost Coppernet $13000/month
a couple of years according Balancing Act article


The Post in Zambia (newspaper) has opened up an ISP.
 
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I've also been told that Zain is selling off all African shares/interests and so far Orange has shown interest in aquiring said interests. Watch this space...

The rumours are their but the puzzling part is why they would want to build up a network across Africa, declare their intention to be one of the top global players, set up such a successful "One World" concept, and then after all that sell off their ops in a market which is defying the global slowdown?
 
I've also been told that Zain is selling off all African shares/interests and so far Orange has shown interest in aquiring said interests. Watch this space...

This rumour is still alive. The latest news seems to be that Vivendi is interested ($11 billion).

Still puzzled about why they would want to sell?
 
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