Author: Cyrus

Airtel Kenya has launched two new ultra-modern Airtel Xpress shops in Embakasi, off Old North Airport Road and in Commerce House along Moi Avenue in Nairobi. The operator looks to continue offering high quality services and relevant mobile solutions to its customers at their convenience. The new outlets will provide a range of services among them Airtel data settings, Airtel Money, post-paid activation, bill payments, selling of prepaid lines, airtime, modems and handset sales.  Airtel customers will get to enjoy discounts on various handsets and access to all of Airtel’s  new range of products and offers as part of the celebration of…

A new payment processing solution called Paygate has been launched. Through the system, users in Kenya and Tanzania can now use M-Pesa for online shopping for goods and services. According to Robin Philip, Marketing Director for PayGate, “There is very little e-commerce activity in many African countries. But that’s not because people don’t want to be able to buy online – they just haven’t been given the right payment options.” Though other factors like lack of awareness and trust on virtual shopping affect the use of the same, Paygat believe that it is the lack of proper payment solutions which is…

The case of Royal Media Services (RMS) vs Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) is not as complicated as we would want it to look. The recent shutdown of more than 6-booster transmitters in in Nakuru, Narok, Mukuyuni (Makueni) and Mabrui (Malindi) was not a purely regulatory matter as Ndemo would love us to believe. This is how it started. In 2005, President Kibaki was informed by the intelligence that the Banana (YES) side was going to loose to the Orange (NO) side in the referendum. The ground was tilted in favour of Raila, Kalonzo, Ruto and other opponents of the new…

CCK has now shut down six Royal Media Services broadcast transmitters in Nakuru, Narok, Mukuyuni (Makueni) and Mabrui (Malindi) which were being operated without a licence and using unauthorized or ‘grabbed’ frequencies. According to CCK, “the six are part of 17 transmitters put up illegally by Royal Media Services in the recent past without a licence from CCK, and therefore in contravention of the law.” Some of the transmitters are located in non-designated broadcasting sites thus causing interferences to other critical services including aviation.  A further 22 FM and 2 TV unauthorized frequencies that Royal Media Services acquired in the…

Twitter has suspended the account of Somalia’s Al Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab insurgents, just a few days after they posted photographs of a French commando they killed and threatened to execute Kenyan hostages. The account cannot be accessed now and Twiitter has not commented on it. The action was effected on Friday. Twitter’s terms of service indicate that does not allow specific threats of violence against others in its posts. However, Somali and Arabic-language accounts of the terror linked organisation has not been suspended. Al-Shabaab termed the suspension of their English account as, “evidence of the freedom of expression in the West.” On…

I bumped on the Show Election website on Facebook. I checked the Facebook page and then headed to the Kenyan sub-domain of the website. This is one great idea this time that Kenyans want to decide who should lead them. The campaign to succeed President Kibaki is heated both online and offline with Kenyans online taking sides while others who are never good in getting down to vote, complaining about everything but taking no definite side. The platform allows you to vote for you candidate through http://kenya.shadowelection.com/ link. You then have the opportunity to invite up to 50 Facebook friends on…

Find the final ODM list here. Full of fraud but you need to look at it to understand the Orange party. ODM_Aspirants_Final_IEBC_A_2013

Google is in a PR disaster management in Africa after one of its Street View cars apparently hit and injured a donkey in Botswana. Botswana is the second country after South Africa to have Google street view cars deployed. An image on Google street view generated by cameras mounted on the said car, shows a seriously injured donkey writhing in pain. A twitter user  @TheRealSheldonC  tweeted the image of the donkey lying down as if it is dead. Initial shots of the donkey show it by the roadside while later images show the animal lying down and writhing in pain. I think google…

France Telecom, Orange, has signed a and exclusive partnership with Chinese internet company, Baidu, to develop a co-branded internet browser for smartphone customers in Africa, the Middle East and Asia (AMEA). This is the Chinese company’s first global partnership but the deal is part of Orange and Baidu’s aim to make the mobile web available for all in emerging markets. Orange has a mobile customer base in AMEA of nearly 80 million customers which is very enticing to companies like Baidu. Smartphones use in the market is also increasing with Android registering a double of its penetration in Egypt alone.…

GUYS, I RECEIVED THIS EMAIL FROM A FRIEND. READ FOR YOURSELF AND JUDGE. I HAVE THE ALBUMS. I WILL SHARE.  Happy new year. I am …………………………………. Over the weekend I was in Nyandarua County, Nyahururu town on a work mission , and I came across this Kikuyu Music by a guy walled “ Sovinga Wa Bibiana” , which is using very graphic images of violence, that to me look like Rwanda Genocide. This music is being sold to the rural areas and the singer has created a scene like that’s how PEV was and unless the Kikuyu Community comes back…

I received this mail. I don’t have much info about the company. Calls are not being answered and the author of the email has not got back to me. Read and judge for yourself Hi,    I would like to expose a case of modern day apartheid right here in Kenya. This happens at Razco ltd, Baba Dogo Road, the makers of Lyons Maid ice cream. Last Saturday, the Managing Director Mr. Raza Jagani TOLD ONE OF THE WORKERS THAT INSTEAD OF HELPING AN AFRICAN, HE WOULD RATHER HELP A DOG!  He was asked on Monday 7/1/2013 if he made…

Orange Kenya in partnership with PesaPal has today launched a service which allows its subscribers to purchase airtime through the payment processing solution provider. Pesapal will provide the payment solution to the subscribers wishing to purchase airtime. Since Pesapal supports even Safaricom’s M-Pesa payments, this means that Orange subscribers will be able to purchase airtime through M-Pesa. Not bad but………………. Through Pesapal, Orange Kenya customers will be able to choose a preferred mode of payment – either via PesaPal’s e-wallet, credit and debit cards (VISA and Master Card) or through mobile money transfer solutions(M-Pesa and Airtel money included). Company CEO…

CCK claims that more than 1.28 million unregistered SIM cards have been suspended by the 4 mobile services operators from service since the deadline of the registration exercise. Safaricom leads the pack with 800,000 unregistered SIM cards already off-air. Yu and Orange have suspended 290,000 and 120,010 unregistered lines from service, respectively. Airtel on the other hand has switched off 70,830 unregistered SIM cards. CCK Director General Mr. Francis W. Wangusi attributed delays in disconnection of the more than six million unregistered SIM cards to verification of registration data received from mobile line dealers and agents countrywide. “The verification exercise is…

Safaricom has announced that it has switched off 800,000 unregistered SIM cards in a phased exercise. The exercise seeks to comply with the newly published Government regulations on mandatory SIM card registration. According to a statement from the giant mobile network operator, it conducted the first phase of the switch off on Thursday evening after the system had been updated with registrations that came in on the 31st of December 2012. Company CEO Mr. Bob Collymore said, “We have been doing our best to update the electronic records after the last minute rush that saw a huge number of customers register…

A very unfortunate way the government want to handle the issue of SIM card registration. We need not have a government full of people who cannot face the real problems and solve them. First the government allowed porting of numbers. When few dominant operators sabotaged the whole exercise, Ministry of Information and Communication PS Bitange Ndemo was on the side of the saboteurs issuing threats to the operators which were complying with the regulations. Then the digital migration exercise where all media players were expected to move their broadcast to the digital regime. The mainstream media sabotaged the whole exercise…