Safaricom to roll out faster data access

Safaricom on Thursday received a licence to roll out third generation (3G) mobile systems and services.

This will enable subscribers access to high speed data communications, which include faster access to internet, video conferencing and video phone, among others.

Safaricom, which has consistently posted huge profits in recent years, is running ahead of the competition. However, competition is expected to intensify with the anticipated entry of other players, among them the third mobile operator, Econet Wireless, which will roll out early next year.

Last Wednesday, Safaricom CEO, Michael Joseph, said the company's profits will come under pressure for the next five years as more players emerge. The roll out is hence, among the firm's strategies to beat off competition.

Last year, Safaricom posted Sh17.2 billion, the highest in the East African region.

Communications Commission of Kenya, director general, John Waweru said 3G enabled services will facilitate e-applications in medical, education and business.

He said although the 3G systems were used more in developed countries, they would assist developing countries to 'leapflog and close technology gaps with the developed countries.'

He added that CCK had requested Safaricom and Celtel to undertake trials on the third generation service in Nairobi and Mombasa, and the services have proved to be of quality.

Mr Waweru said Safaricom should introduce innovative services the like introduced in Singapore last week, where parents were enabled to monitor their children, residence and streets.

"It is my hope that Safaricom will roll out many innovative services in 3G whose uptake would be targeted across the board to meet the needs of all consumers of mobile telephone services," he said.

The licence cost $25 million (Sh1.7 billion). Mr Joseph said the firm will use an equal amount to build the infrastructure for the 3G services.

Mr Waweru said the licence fee will be used to expand Information Communication Technology (ICT)

Vodacom Tanzania: The better choice too!

The beauty of travelling is that you do get exposed to different aspects of life other than what you would consider the norm back at home. Here I am in Dar es Salaam, using my Safaricom pre-paid line on Tanzania's Vodacom platform.

What suprised on Monday when I landed here, was that pleasant suprise that the Safaricom 200 postpaid customer care line is actually accessible to us prepaid users! Now that was a shocker for me!

Anyway aside from that, the only dissapointment was that I could not surf on my Samsung E250 as the Safaricom GPRS settings here are not valid. Upon calling Safaricom customer care, they did actually inform me that they were working on that technicaility. It was good to call and sms home at the same rate as though we were back home. The only downside, Safaricom scratch cards are hard to come by here, and if you do get them, watch out for the extra service charge. Maybe one day they might operate like Celtel, where you can use the local scratch cards to top up your line.

The pleasant experience was the 3G service offered by Vodacom here. Here they offer anything from a 500 MB internet bundle per month at Ksh. 3,500 to an astonishingly 2 GIG bundle per month at Ksh. 9,600! Now that is what we have been talking about for so long. They also offer 3G HSDPA Data Card (Huawei E620) and the USB Modem (Huawei E220) to both postpaid and prepaid users, though still yet to confirm what the actual download and upload speed rates are. Apart from the traditional services they also offer support for video calls.

But not too worry Safaricom has just unveiled plans to roll out the 3G mobile platform in Kenya by December! After all, they are both subsidiaries of the UK Vodafone company, or aren't they?

Kenyan Presidential Elections War taken to the Cyberspace!

It is annoying when you try to follow the Kenya political landscape. But even more annoying is when the meaningless political squabbles as to who is the best presidential candidate is taken to the new frontiers - the cyberspace!

I am sure by now most Kenyans who use PCs either at their offices and homes and have some Internet connectivity might have heard of the Kibaki Tosha and Raila Tosha viruses that are very frustrating when it infects your computer.

First on the scene was the Raila Tosha virus, then the Kibaki Tosha virus which all copy themselves to your hard disk and display campaign messages for both presidential campaigns every 20 minutes. This seems to be the work of a few programmers, and very smart at that, compiling and distributing the virus with their installers and programs. It appears that IMs such as Yahoo! and MSN with their security vulnerabilities are the entry points into the network.

And it seems the standard anti virus programs like Norton do not detect the virus.

For tips on how to remove them, see the links below from some other bloggers who have had a similar experience and succeeded to remove it.

Seems the new age cyberspace wars are here to stay, remember the Raila and Musyoka websites?

http://www.advance-africa-forum.com/showthread.php?t=3046

And for the satirical commentary on the Raila and Kibaki viruses, visit the Diary of the Black Man blog below.

http://mweusi.blogspot.com/2007/07/raila-virus.html

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GSM Nobile Car Alarms: A cheaper alternative for guaranteed security against car theft?

We have had interesting arguments on the merits and demerits of installing a GSM car alarm. For those in the dark, this is a relatively new (though not so new globally) anti-theft car alarm system based on mobile phone technology.

And all you need is a SIM card for your car and a mobile phone to "call" the car, sending instructions to the alarm and receiving signals from the alarm. This gives the car owner control of the car, literally anywhere on earth and anytime! The possibilities of such application are wide when compared to other conventional car alarms.

With such a system installed in the vehicle, the alarm will call you on any intrusion, and after receiving such "calls" or signals, then speak and warn the intruders in the car through your mobile phone anywhere via the speaker that comes with the alarm! Imagine telling the car thieves pumbavu! I would love to see their reaction when the car speaks to them. Anyway, the system allows you cut the engine power or fuel supply so that the car is undrivable. You can close the car windows and doors through the mobile phone.

And where emergency hot lines such as the police work, even make calls to the cop station to alert them of the event.

Our argument which never came to it conclusion, was, if given a choice between GSM mobile car alarm systems and TrackIt! Car services for lack of money, where would you place your bet?

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Safaricom against prepaid subscribers?

If you were to ask me to vote the company with the worst customer care service, I would not hesitate in selecting Safaricom, Kenya's largest mobile phone provider and the most profitable business in East Africa.

For the whole of the weekend, it has been an exercise in futility trying to reach their customer care desk through the designated 100 support line for prepaid subscribers. And today, trying to call their landline on 020-427 3272 is equally more frustrating, with the service provided by their staff leaving a lot to be desired of such a company.

What I have been trying to request for was activation of my line so as to enable me use GPRS to access the Internet. For reasons given to me, and which I found to be unacceptable, was their system seems to have 'decided' to lose my settings, whatever that was. Try and call their line and mention that you are prepaid, you get patched through to their customer care department that behaves like the 100 call line. No service plenty of lip service.

After my 10th attempt today, I have resigned to the fact that there is no assistance forthcoming from them.

What a better option! Wish they had that good and reliable customer care of Celtel, who unfortunately seem to always get their tariffs wrong with hidden charges.

Where is the third option for us Kenyans with our peculiar calling habits?

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Kenyan Farmers using Mobile Information Exchange(MIX)

I was googling the Net, interested more in the benefits of Safaricom’s M-Pesa service, when googled search item was on DrumNet.

It is a project of the NGO Pride Africa and was launched in late 2002 with the objective of delivering a set of critical business support services directly to the African smallholder
farmers.
It is designed as marketing, financial and information services for mainstreaming resource-poorfarmers and combines information,commodity transaction services and financial linkages into a single business service model that provides access to markets, market information and credit for the rural poor to support sustainable agriculture and rural development.
What is interesting apart from the traditional approach of providing the poor farmer access to credit lines,market intelligence, buyers and farm inputs is the use of mobile phones. They have set up support centres equipped with a PC and a GSM-phone to link up with the central hub in Nairobi which is the main server/database and provides an access centre for the storage and retrieval of information. Each support centre is managed by an Agent, who collects and disseminates information, assists in forming farmer groups, and arranges buy and sell deals. By combining sophisticated information technology with an on-the-ground presence in rural communities, DrumNet hopes to fill the current void in the provision of critical business information and financial services for small-scale agricultural producers in East Africa.
For more information, check this link to the White African’s blog on how the technology works

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Update: Banking on a mobile phone Part 2

Looks like Safaricom's new service M-PESA is causing sleepness nights to stock investors in certain financial markets, visit the link below to go to the StockKenya website:

http://www.stockskenya.com/stkForumTopic.aspx?stk=0&top=1288

And it is equally causing excitement for those waiting and hoping that the Government offloads their shares in Safaricom soon as in yesterday. Visit the link below to go to Reuters website:

http://today.reuters.com/news/articleinvesting.aspx?view=PR&symbol=VOD.L&storyID=53511+12-Feb-2007+RNS&type=qcna

Update: Banking on a mobile phone

Source: http://www.safaricom.co.ke/m-pesa/

The M-Pesa was officially launched on 6 March 2007 and it promises to re-define the meaning of money transfer as we know it in Kenya today.

According to Safaricom’s website M-PESA is a new service that allows one to transfer money using a mobile phone. And Kenya is the first country in the world to use this service, which is offered in partnership between Safaricom and Vodafone.

M-PESA is available to all members of the public, even if they do not have a bank account which to me is the answer to the prayers of rural Kenyans that the mainstream banks have been ignoring for decades.
The charges to be levied are low as promised, as there is no charges for deposits between Kes. 100 and Kes. 35,000. sending money to a registered M-PESA user will cost you Kes 30 for amounts between Kes. 100 and Kes. 35,0000; non-registered M-PESA users will range from Kes. 30 to Kes. 400 for the same amounts.

Withdrawal charges for M-PESA users range from Kes. 25 to Kes. 170 for Kes. 100 to Kes. 35,000 withdrawals and absolutely free for non M-PESA users (as the sender is already billed for that). I can bet a dime no bank in Kenya can match Safaricom’s charges!

The M-PESA service can also be used to buy airtime too.

And Safaricom seems to have done its homework and gone ahead to license agents (though they are still looking for some more in all parts of the country too!).

So folks, go exchange your old SIM cards for the new, or even better, buy a Safaricom line to start sambazing folks in shags the loot!

Banking on a mobile phone

It has been long since I wrote anything new on this blog, but after coming across some interesting information on banking on mobile phone, decided to put this up.

First, I would like to acknowledge the sources of the information that am about to blog;

Christine Bowers, 'How banking on the mobile phone can help the poor'
Kenneth Kwama, East Standard, 'The next big thing'

The interest in this came about when I had to go for a SIM replacement from Safaricom. What struck me most, was the unsual green color of the SIM card. For some of us perenial mobile phone losers, we had gotten accustomed to the trademark black SIM card. Upon enquiry from the customer care rep at the dealer shop, I was informed this was the new generation SIM card from the 'better option'.

The menu embedded on the SIM card is more extensive, with some new features that are not yet supported by Safaricom - of which M-Pesa was of interest.

Apparently M-Pesa is an acronym for Mteja-Pesa, a low-cost money transfer that transforms your traditional phone into a banking instrumet (think of it like PostaPay!). The idea behind it is so simple! It will allow the mteja to borrow, transfer and pay money using SMS texting, and also access virtual loan accounts!

That is M-Banking or Mobile Banking, which has come of age in Kenya!

What I had not known, is that Safaricom had been running a pilot project in Thika with 400 wateja. And another 600 have tried the system in 8 dealerships in Mathare and Nairobi CBD last year.

It is expected to be launched nxt month, and what stands between Safaricom and the M-Pesa service is CBK's approval as the digital money service is financial in nature.

The possibilities of the service are staggering. Imagine what would the banks fare in the heat of the competition that is bound to be generated. For those poor Kenyans who cannot afford to open (let alone maintain) an account with the banks, this would be the most fastest ad secure means of sending money.

Reminds of the newly launched PostaPay money transfer of Posta that has taken the breathe out of the domestic money transfer service providers like MoloLine and Securicor (I know they are not meant for financial transfer ). All the customer has to do, is approach the dealer, pay the amount that you want sent to the Safaricom account, get issued with a secret code then SMS the code to the recipient, who withdraws the money from any dealer in Kenya using the secret code.

It is anticipaed that this will be low cost (rumoured at Ksh. 18 per transaction).

Life will definitely not be good for Posta and PostBank.

At the moment, enthusiasm for m-banking has outrun its implementation. For one thing, regulators break out in a cold sweat at the thought of all the overlapping issues involved. But there are success stories in other parts of Africa. Leading the way is the South Africa , with MTN Mobile Banking and Wizzit both entering their second year of operations.

These telecom companies aren't offering m-banking out of the kindness of their hearts. They like m-banking because it's a way for them to attract new customers by doing what they already do well—processing millions of tiny transactions. Banks aren't as interested, because they don't expect to profit from poor clients who won't be taking out a mortgage anytime soon. But the telecoms could start siphoning away bank customers who don't need all the bells and whistles.