Author: ITPulse

  Nigeria’s Telecom House,  Medallion Communications Limited last night went home with three separate awards at the Instint Wave and the Association of Telcom Companies of Nigeria organised Nigeria Tech Innovation and Telecoms Awards (NTITA) 2018. The awards are ‘Telecom Solutions Provider of the Year’ and ‘Data Center Provider of the Year’, while the company’s Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Ikechukwu Nnamani went home with ‘Telecom Industry Personality of the Year’ award. Given the awards to Medallion separately, the organisers noted that Medallion deserved the awards as the company has been able to champion innovations and growth for the industry, which…

  Counterpoint Research has estimated that smartphones with glass back cover will possibly hit a target of 26 percent by the end of 2018 and 60 percent by the end of 2020 respectively. The report attributed this new trend to a competitive smartphone market where Original Equipment Manufacturers are differentiating their offerings in the crowded smartphone ecosystem. “Smartphones with glass backs have already penetrated the premium segment (80%). Almost all the premium smartphones launched in 2018 came with a glass back and the trend is likely to stay for rest of the 2018 and beyond,” the report noted. With average…

  The Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN), today said it has grown traffic on its  network by over 10, 000 percent in the last five years, and is currently exchanging over 110 gigabits per second of traffic. The Chief Executive Officer of IXPN, Mr. Muhammed Rudman, who disclosed this in a statement in Lagos, explained that the measurement of this growth in traffic is from 2013-2018 and is largely attributed to the connection of some international content service providers to the exchange point. He said,  recently Facebook, Akamai, China Telecoms, Angola Cables and a huge number of the service…

  The major GSM operators in Nigeria, which include Glo, 9Mobile, Airtel, MTN Nigeria, and Ntel have inaugurated the financial inclusion committee, which it says will help drive financial services to the unbanked and semi-banked population in the country. The mandate of the committee, which will operate within the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), includes driving awareness programme that will deepen financial literacy across the country, within the next three months, leveraging the committee’s assets in order to deliver the promised access to financial services to 90 million Nigerians over the next 30 months, through a combined mobile base,…

  The GSMA has called on Women 20 (W20), the official engagement group of the G20 that advocates for policies towards gender equality to include women’s digital inclusion in the W20 final communiqué. GSMA believes this will help to address gender gap in Internet access and use, saying the inclusion of women is crucial for a digital economy. The Final Communiqué was delivered to Heads of State, represented by the President of Argentina Mauricio Macri, during the W20 Summit held on October 1-3 in Buenos Aires. The document includes recommendations to implement policies in four areas of action: digital inclusion,…

  The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has released a draft guidelines for the regulation of more payment service banks it has set to licence in order to boost financial inclusion in Nigeria. The guideline, which was seen on the website of the apex bank, indicates that the new rural banks would not be allowed to grant any form of loans, advances and guarantees. They are also expected to have a minimum capital base of N5 billion, with capital adequacy ratio of 10 per cent or as may be prescribed by the CBN from time to time. The essence of…

  Google announced on Monday (Oct. 8) that it plans to shut down the consumer version of its Google+ social network over the next 10 months. In a blog post, Google disclosed that the social network has low usage and that 90% of user sessions last less than five seconds. It will live on as a “secure corporate social network” for businesses, said Google, adding that it will share more news about the enterprise version of Google+ in coming days. Google’s decision follows the Wall Street Journal’s revelation also published on Oct. 8, that the company exposed hundreds of thousands…

  A cyber security expert, Mr. Remi Afon has stated that Nigeria faces a chronic shortage of cyber security professionals that will be able to combat the rising wave of cyber crime activities in the country. Quoting the 2017 Africa Cyber Security Report by Serianu CyberThreat Intelligence Team in collaboration with Demadiur, Afon, who is also the President of the Cyber Security Experts Association of Nigeria (CSEAN), disclosed that with an estimated population close to 200million, the number of certified cyber security professionals in Nigeria is 1800. This, he described as very poor considering Nigeria’s population, and the rate at…

  The Association of Telecom Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) has sealed a partnership deal with the Nigerian government owned satellite company, Nigcomsat to organize a strategic business interactive session for its members. Specifically, the session will aid members of ATCON, which is an umbrella body of all telecom companies in Nigeria to forge business relationship with Nigcomsat, especially in the areas of broadband deployment via satellite across Nigeria. “The continuous existence of our members is paramount to us, and so we have designed a strategic business interactive session with the sole aim of fostering a mutually beneficial business relationship between…

  Social media giant, Facebook has disclosed that it is planning to spread its fact-checking program across Africa in the coming months. The essence of the fact-checking program, which it has started in Kenya, is to flag fake news stories with the help of users and third party fact checkers and to improve the quality of news people find on its platform.. “We will work with independent fact-checking organization Africa Check along with the French news agency AFP to assess news accuracy and stem the flood of misinformation,” it said, emphasizing that though the program will apply only to Kenya…