Huawei claims $500m yearly investments on cloud technology . To drive 5G growth with $600m by 2018

CHINESE technology firm with global reach—Huawei spends over $500 million yearly in investments in cloud technology business across its markets.

   Huawei, which linked Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth in emerging markets including Nigeria, to more investments in Information and Communications Technology (ICT), noted that technology was no longer a support, but product factor for developments.

    The firm, which recently gathered over 20,000 participants from across the globe in Shangai, China for the 2015 Huawei Cloud Congress, said it was developing new solution and cloud architecture expected to help businesses, individuals and governments drive agility in their respective operations.

    According to the Executive Director of the Board and Chief Strategy Marketing Officer, William Xu, while emphasizing the importance of the adoption of cloud technology to business growth, noted that there would be many cloud infrastructures across the globe in the future. He stressed that some of the clouds will either be global or regional depending on need.

    Xu, who said most of Huawei’s cloud technologies are still limited to China, disclosed that in foreign countries, including those in Africa, it offers cloud technology and solutions through the telecommunications operators, stressing that this has been the foreign tradition of the firm long before now.

   According him, Huawei needed to ensure its cloud solutions become more efficient, as such the need for more partnership with partners across the regions.

   In addition, Huawei’s Sales Director, Enterprise, Germany, Jorg Kapinsky, said the global IT space was currently experiencing changes that are disruptive in nature, stressing that the future of cloud technology will be like the mobile phones, where it has become easier for users to use apps to define so many functions.

    Kapinsky noted that in the future, cloud will become a convereged infrastructure. He disclosed that the firm invests yearly over $500 million in the development of cloud technology solution, “Huawei is the only global company that provides complete cloud technology solution.”

   According to him, in the near future, say by 2020, cloud technology will become simpler and familiar, with Huawei delivering a complete solution.

  President of Huawei's Corporate Marketing Dept, Kevin Zhang, said: "After years of experience in the IT market, Huawei has made many innovations and achievements in IT architecture, hardware, software, and services. Together with our partners, we hope to explore new benchmarks for cloud transformation. This reflects the main idea of this year's HCC: Transforming with Cloud, Setting New Benchmark."

   Meanwhile, the Chinese firm revealed that it began 5G research in 2009, stressing that currently; it has over 300 5G engineers and expected to invest $$600 million in 5G by 2018.

   Besides, Huawei, which claimed to be the first company to provide a 4.5G solution that supports smooth evolution to LTE, said the solution will become commercially viable in 2016.

   Still on LTE, the firm said it has rolled out 132 commercial EPC networks and 174 commercial LTE networks, which serve nearly half of the world's LTE subscribers. It added that its networks have covered more than 100 capital cities and nine major global financial centers worldwide.

   In the areas of broadband development, Huawei has constructed 1,500 networks worldwide. It has deployed over 100,000 new sites and reconstructed over 700,000 sites. The backbone networks Huawei has built span more than 130,000 kilometers.

NIPOST bars 10 illegal courier operators, shuts two

By Bankole Orimisan

THE Courier Regulatory Department (CRD) of NIPOST in Lagos, has shutdown operations at two courier companies, allegedly rendering services without licences in the country.‎

   The Senior Assistant Post-Master General of NIPOST and Head of CRD, Dr. Simon Emeje, disclosed that the two illegal operators were closed for not pass through licences processing of the CRD of NIPOST.

  He said the two illegal operators are OJ Transports, located in Jibowu and Happy Family Motors, situated at Ojuelegba, Lagos

  He said that the clampdown on was a national assignment and essential for the sanity of the courier sub-sector.

   According to him, the companies have not gone through the CRD's licensing process, hence, their operation is detrimental to the sector.

   Similarly, NIPOST revoked the operational licence of 10 courier companies.

   Emeje, said that the operational licences were revoked for non-renewal.

  According to senior assistant postmaster general, the courier companies had refused to renew their licences for up to a period of five years running.

   He regretted that the CRD has been so magnanimous and given the companies a lot of grace period, because it wants indigenous courier company to grow, but they refused to heed to advice.‎

‎   He listed the companies whose licences were revoked to include, Candid Care, Delta Line Courier, Don Chris Integrated, Edo Courier and Impex Worldwide.

‎   Others are Izu Courier, KTA Freight Service, KSP Shipping and Logistics, Service Solutions and Speedmark Courier.

   ''The 10 courier operators hereby seize to operate courier business in the country because of their involvement in unethical practice, which the regulatory body frowns at.

  ''The general public should take note of this and desist from doing courier business with the listed companies in the country,'' Emeje said.

   On the clampdown, he said the action was justifiable because of the critical nature of the sector to the nation’s economy.

   He said that the courier sub-sector also needed to be sanitised in the interest of investors.

   Emeje said that the licensing fee for indigenous courier company was N2 million, while multinational licence was N10 million.

   According to him, the sector is very viable, but only 20 per cent of the market has been tapped, while 80 per cent remained untapped.

   ''The asset worth of the industry is about N300 billion and there is need to protect and boost it.

   ''We are saying this to encourage investors both national and international to tap into the industry,'' Emeje said.

   CRD also urged the general public to beware of those they give their parcels for delivery

   According to Emeje, customers, who still do business after the revocation orders were doing it at their risks.

   He added that the operators can be visited at any time by the surveillance team from the department, who will confiscate all items found in their offices.

  The CRD Boss warned that if the courier companies continued to operate, the department would proceed to prosecute them.

   According to him, renewal of licence fee is once a year and it costs N350, 000 to renew the licence of a domestic courier operator, N500, 000 for indigenous international operator and N1.5 million for an international operator.

   ''By law, a courier operator who refuses to renew his or her licence, is as good as operating without licence and this is tantamount to unethical practice, because they know the law but refuse to abide by it,'' Emeje said. 

   He said that the companies lacked credibility in their operations, such as non-delivery of items and giving out their licences to other companies for courier services.

NBC targets 22m television households in new digital transition drive

By Funmilayo Adetayo

THE new push by the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) for the transition from analogue to digital broadcasting in Nigeria is expected to redefine television viewing for about 22 million households that are currently not digital.

    After a comprehensive study of the number of television households in the country by the NBC, it discovered that there were 37.3 million households in Nigeria, with 26 million priviledged to have televisions, but out of these, only four million are currently on digital, leaving 22 million on analogue radar, which is now the focus of the commission.

   The NBC, which rued the country’s failure to meet the digital switch Over (DSO) deadline of June 17, set by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), as agreed to member nations at the Geneva 2002 meeting in Switzerland, said Nigeria, like other Economic Community of West African Countries (ECOWAS), now hoped to fully transit by June 20, 2017.

   As such, the commission affirmed that all hands are on deck, to ensure what happened in June did not repeat itself again in the country.

   Speaking at a media briefing in Lagos, the Director-General of NBC, Emeka Mba, who recalled that Nigeria, actually failed to transit in June because of lack of funding, noted that all other plans were actually on ground.

   “The ITU deadline was not met due to lack of fund essentially and other myriads of challenges before the NBC such as aggregate conent development, distribution and production and availability of Set Top Boxes (STBs).

   “We actually approached the last administration for DSO budget of N70 billion, it was however, pruned down to N51 billion and we were mandated to source for part of the money.  We could not raise any money then. But the story has changed. Nigeria’s DSO plans is back on course as we have been able to raise N34 billion through the licensing of the 700 MHz frequency spectrum band to telecommunications operator—MTN Nigeria to use part of the frequency to rovide digital pay TV broadcasting services.

   “I am pleased to inform you, also, that through this singular move, Nigeria has once again pointed the way for other African countries struggling with the effort of finding financing for their own digital switchover programmes.

  “With all the arrangement put in place, we have secured more than half of our budgetary needs to transit, and as we explore other avenues, we are confident that the new date is achievable”, Mba said.

   The NBC DG disclosed that work has started in earnest for the DSO, as there would be a pilot programme scheduled for first week in November in Jos, Plateau state.

   Mba explained that from the survey carried out by the commission, “there are 26 million television household in Nigeria, out of which only four million are digital. The plan now is to ensure that the remaining 22 million analogue viewers transit to digital by the new ECOWAS date of June 20, 2017.”

   In addition to meeting this challenge, Mba said Nigeria will need about 30 million STBs in the next two years for a successful DSO transition.

   As such, he said about 14 indigenous companies have been licensed as at April 1, to manufacture STBs, stressing that by ending of October, first sets of STBs would have been available.

    According to him, manufacturing of STBs in the country would create over 30, 000 jobs in the next two years.

    He also informed that three Signal Distributors including ITS, Pinnacle and MTS have been licensed to also put Nigeria on the right track to meeting the new DSO date.

   “Off-shore mass production and delivery of initial sub vented boxes for Jos pilot project is envisaged to be completed by the end of October, while the local manufacture of the set top boxes is expected to begin in April 2016.

    “There would be a re-launch of the DSO in Jos by the first week of November and about 500,000 STBs would be deployed at that pilot stage. Jos has 316, 000 television homes and was chosen for the pilot programme because of the topograpghy of the state”, he stated.

NIPOST revokes 10 courier operators’ licences

By Bankole Orimisan

The Nigeria Postal Service on Thursday announced the revocation of the licences of 10 courier operators and the shutdown of four others for operating illegally.

The Senior Assistant Post-master General and Head of the Courier Regulatory Department, Dr. Simon Emeje, made the announcement in Lagos.

The courier operators that had their licences revoked include Associated Bus Company, Arrowhead Courier Limited, Evergreen Worldwide, Imo Transport Company Limited and MDS Logistics Limited.

Others are MIGFO Express Courier Limited, Montesine Limited, NACFA Express Limited, Quadral Express Limited and Tide Express Link Limited.

Meanwhile, Royal Ryders Express, Success Transport, Kwara Express and Kasmag Express of Kasmag Transport have been shut down for illegal operations.

While Royal Ryders Express, Success Transport and Kwara Express are located in Kwara State, Kasmag Transport is located in Ijora, Lagos State.

With the development, the number of registered courier operators in the country has been reduced to 283, according to NIPOST.

Emeje explained that the 10 courier operators’ licences were revoked after they had been severally notified to renew the licences.

According to him, NIPOST, in its magnanimity, waited for four years before taking the action.

He warned that customers who were doing business with the blacklisted operators after the revocation order stood a big risk, as the CRD would confiscate all items found in their offices.

Emeje said, “Should such happen, we will not only confiscate the items but we will proceed to prosecute the operators if found operating behind sealed doors.

“We are mandated to play on a level playing ground for all operators, which we have been pursuing without fear or favour. The 10 courier operators had been warned severally in the last four years to come and renew their licences. We deem it unethical and unhealthy for the public to continue to patronise them, because they have lost touch with realities in the industry.

“For you to continue rendering courier services, you have to obtain a licence and renew the licence every year. That allows NIPOST to continue to monitor your operations and ensure you do not lose touch with the operational guidelines in the industry.”

On the other four operators whose offices were shut, Emeje said the department would ensure that they remained shut until the owners regularised their operations by registering with NIPOST.

Emeje told journalists that the government had lost about N500m to the illegal operators in the last four years and would continue to lose more revenue “as long as courier companies refuse to renew their licences.

“To ensure that the current government does not lose twice of what was lost again in the next four years, the CRD, with its limited resources and facilities, has continued to expand its surveillance to ensure that no operator whose licence has been revoked continues to render services to the public,” he said