Thoughts from Leigh Smith, MD of World Telecom Labs, on the future of VoIP in Africa appeared in Developing Telecoms’ prestigious 2015 trends report are here.
Three different clients featured in The Economist
Over the last year we have worked with three different Economist journalists on three different continents to secure major editorial in the print magazine (also used online) which have both increased awareness and sales queries.
Cabling Africa’s Interior – a two page overview in print and online with photo and map detailing Liquid Telecom’s progress in building Africa’s largest fibre network. Read it here.
Lighting rural India; Out of the gloom – an Economist news piece about our Indian client, OMC Power, is here.
DIY Telecoms: Fed up with the failings of the big operators, remote Mexican communities are acting for themselves – another Economist piece about our Canadian client, Nuran Wireless, and its deployments in rural Mexico is here.
New wire service for Africa
On 5 March Media24 anounced that it has developed a newswire to replace SAPA (South African Press Association which will close on 31 March.
It will be called News24Wire and will provide a newswire and daily diary service from 1 April.
According to Media24, “A 16-strong, national reporting team is being built by veteran editor and News24 editor-in-chief Andrew Trench and will be a resource for the country’s press.
World Economic Forum Technology Pioneers
Every year the World Economic Forum produces a list of Technology Pioneers, companies that are the most innovative technology start-ups with the potential to transform the future of business and society.
Previous Technology Pioneers include Google (2001), Wikimedia (2008), Twitter (2010) and Kickstarter (2012).
And our clients too – OMC Power this year and VNL in 2010.
We prepared and submitted applications on behalf of both companies whose businesses and global brands were both strengthened by acknowledgement of their achievements and vision by the World Economic Forum.
A piece about VNL and the World Economic Forum also appeared in TIME magazine which you can read here: http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1948486_1948485_1948477,00.html
We are currently crafting submissions for various clients for the 2015 list.
More details about the awards are here: http://www.weforum.org/community/technology-pioneers
Busy, Busy, Busy!
The last few months have been extremely busy here at TelecomsPRAfrica.
Our client base continues to grow and we are proud to work for companies which are building the telecoms infrastructure which Africa needs and deserves.
This month we are working on all kinds of stories which show how our clients continue to invest and innovate.
For those of you who have found that trade shows are a good way to cement existing relationships and build new ones, then you might be interested in submitting a speaker proposal for next year’s Mobile World Congress.
This is not traditionally an event which focuses much on Africa and emerging markets. The GSMA usually hosts some side-show seminars about m-power, m-money, m-women etc but the main conference is focused on the issues in established markets such as 5G, social media and M2M.
You can see more information here: http://www.mobileworldcongress.com/call-for-papers-overview-2015/
The deadline for submitting a proposal is 12 September.
May 2014 already!
Barely a day goes by without an African front page story in an international paper. Oscar Pistorius, troubles in Nigeria, the internet being shut down in Somalia, the list goes on and on…
But those of us working in Africa with entrepreneurs and influencers know plenty of inspiring stories about people who are working tirelessly to build Africa’s infrastructure.
At TelecomsPRAfrica we also work hard – to ensure that the international media knows about the success stories in Africa and to put our clients in front of their customers and prospects.
This month we are working a whole raft of marketing activities: EastAfricaCom, the telecoms trade show for East Africa; a media tour in Nigeria; a product launch in Cameroon as well as our usual bread and better of media and analyst relations.
We’ve also started working with a Swedish power company which has developed a machine which converts bio-mass to electricity. Not our usual telecoms speciality but an exciting company with its eye on the African market.
Before we know it, it’ll be June and time to start working on award entries for AfricaCom and Capacity!
TMT Africa looking for speakers for London 2014 conference
TMT’s events are always worth attending as the team there puts a lot of time and effort into researching what’s relevant in the market, who the interesting and innovative players are – and then persuading influencers to both speak and attend.
The 5th TMT Finance & Investment Africa 2014 Conference will take place in London in June 2014 and “will bring together the most important leadership from telecoms, finance, government and advisory active across Africa to assess the latest opportunities for investment and partnership”.
TMT are open to receiving speaker proposals. More details here:
Webinar on Africa and ME – Pyramid Research
Pyramid Research – which is owned by the same group as Light Reading – is hosting a free webinar about Telecoms In Africa and the Middle East – unique opportunities in diverse markets.
Might be worth tuning into. Details on their website and here’s their synopsis:
Today, Africa and the Middle East is the second largest region in the world in terms of mobile subscriptions. This is a foundation which is poised to rise even higher in the future and one upon which new value will be created through improved infrastructures and advanced services. However, capturing the untapped potentials in the region is not an easy task if the diversity of the region is not recognized and the individual markets are not treated with respect to their particular necessities.
In this webinar, we describe some of the unique opportunities and challenges in a region that hosts economies ranging from the wealthy states of the Gulf to the populous sub-Saharan nations.
Findings that will be explored in this upcoming webinar include:
- Mobile Internet revenue will maintain an explosive growth rate in the AME region and it will double in size to represent a $25bn opportunity by 2018.
- Today, there are slightly more than 5 million households with FTTH broadband in AME. By 2018, this figure will have risen to more than 16 million.
- In 2018, one in every two subscriptions will be running either on LTE or on 3G networks. Today, it is one in every four subscriptions.
- Thanks to relatively liberal licensing regimes that partly offset the economic uncertainties of the region, commercial LTE services can be found in close to 10 sub-Saharan countries already.
It is no doubt that AME is a region of high risks and high returns, and therefore in its markets, information is the most valuable resource. That is why we would like to invite you to this webinar, where you will find insights drawn from our AME research, which has expanded to cover 44 countries, corresponding to 95% of the GDP in the region.
We are pleased to be offering this webinar at two separate times:
Dec 3 2013 – 12 midday SA/10am GMT/6pm UTC + 8 hours. Register here:
Dec 3 2013 – 11am EST/8am PST/4pm/6pm SA GMT. Register here.
Zamir Telecom
We started working with wholesale carrier Zamir Telecom a couple of months ago to help raise its profile in Africa, the Middle East and Europe.
Our first announcement was on October 1 2013 about Zamir’s expansion into Africa and partnership with Exchange Telecom of Nigeria. There was lots of interest and here are some of the stories:
BizTech Africa – Zamir expands wholesale VoIP network into Africa
Capacity Africa – Zamir expands African presence
Developing Telecoms – Zamir upgrades London to Bangladesh route
Telegeography – Zamir expands to Africa via partnership with Nigeria’s Exchange Telecom
Next stop was the annual GITEX show in Dubai:
ITP (leading tech news site in the Middle East) wrote this story.
OMC Power – an Indian company. Mixing it up!
At TelecomsPR Africa we specialise in helping vendors raise their profile with operators, enterprises and governments throughout Africa as well as consumers. However, that doesn’t mean to say we can’t turn our hand to other continents…
For example, OMC Power is an Indian company which has built solar-powered micropower plants in rural areas in India where the electricity grid will never reach.
It is the first power company to transform the provision of electricity in rural India into a commercially viable, sustainable and scalable business.
We have been working for OMC for almost two years from pre-launch to present day.
Here are some of our highlights:
Huffington Post, November 2012 – Solar in India story.
Forbes India, May 2013 – Four page feature about OMC.
The Economist, July 2013 – Lighting up rural India.
The Times of India, August 2013 – OMC named as technology pioneer by World Economic Forum.
New York Times, September 2013 – overview of the OMC story.
An OMC micropower plant in Uttar Pradesh.
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