Author: Cyrus

Safaricom has given up on unlimited internet bundles. We fought but the queen bee is determined not to have her clients enjoy the services. So now everyone is planning a migration because for an economy like Kenya, unlimited data bundle will better the bottom line of the subscribers earnings which means that they might have more to spend on mobile network services. This is the only way average revenue per user  (ARPU) for the mobile operators might increase. ARPU is decreasing so fast all over. The problem is that our network providers would rather be leeches than seek to empower…

Zuku has announced key projects for 2012, including the production or co-production of a number of new local programmes, the introduction of a Swahili Movie channel and a regional basketball tournament. “As a local brand it makes absolute sense for us to invest in originating fresh, relevant and highly entertaining programming for the East African region” said Mwananchi Group CEO Richard Bell at the launch event. Zuku launched in Nairobi (on its cable network) in 2009 and countrywide in Kenya and Uganda in late 2011 and Tanzania in 2012. Up to 400,000 people are now able to watch its channels.…

Huawei, a leading global Information and Communication Technology (ICT) services provider today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Makerere University, to offer scholarships and specialized ICT training to top performing students. The partnership is part of Huawei’s global ‘Telecom Seed for the Future’ knowledge transfer programme which will be implemented in partnership with MUK Collage of Computing and Information Sciences and which will see selected students acquire specialized ICT skills in Huawei Centers in Uganda, Kenya and South Africa including an opportunity to study at the Huawei University in China. The signing ceremony was witnessed by the Director of…

Now they have an agreement. They have been the fiercest of competitors. Safaricom and Airtel are reported to be in an agreement to lay down a multi-million shilling national fibre optic network. According an article appearing on Business Daily, the two not so best of buddies have decided to invest in an infrastructure “to cut their reliance on third parties for wholesale internet.” Safaricom has had a long-term plan to lay the national fibre link with the company top honchos believing that the money they spend paying to third-party providers like JTL and KDN are hurting their books. Safaricom was…

For the umpteenth time in the last few months, Kenyans are witnessing degraded data services after the East African Marine Cable System (TEAMS) suffered what appears to be a major cable cut 5.3 Km off the coast of Mombasa. It is sad that Kenyans have to even feel the cut when the country is served by 4 cables now. All the major data operators have reported degraded services prompting most subscribers to ask why the same operators always claim that data charges are as high as they are because “the operators are forced to invest in at least 3 fibre optic cables…

People love sports and so do tweeps. So the recent Champions League Game between Chelsea and Barcelona has broken Twitter record of the most tweeted sporting event. The record which was previously held by Super Bowl at 12,233 tweets per second was broken when the two teams met with 13,684 tweets per second being witnessed through the Twitter monitoring system. The conversation was made interesting when John Terry was sent off and later when Torres rounded the Barcelona goalkeeper to score a late decider. Tweets of disbelief and surprise followed. Few believed that either Real Madrid or Barcelona would be beaten…

KIE and Intel joined by Microsoft have today entered a partnership deal which will see them establish a “State of the Art Centre” to showcase best ways of ICT usage in Kenya’s education transformation. Intel Corporation has joined forces with KIE to roll-out a state of the art technology innovation centre expected to advance the quality of education in Kenya. The companies joined by Microsoft will be collaborating to establish the School Technology Innovation Centre in Nairobi – a model that has been promoted in other countries through the Microsoft Partners in Learning Program. Microsoft’s partners in learning program might not…

The Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) has again postponed the deadline it imposed to operators to switch off fake mobile phones in the networks. This is the third time the regulator is postponing the deadline. CCK has now pushed the date of switch-off to August which many doubt will ever happen considering how high in campaign spirit our politicians will be and so anything which will render over 2.3 million without communications will just not be a favourtite subject. According to a statement from CCK, the August deadline will be the final time the regulator postpone the switch-off. CCK indicates…

Orange Kenya has today announced that its bundled offer Holla is now a permanent tariff. “Due to the positive response from Orange customers during the promotional period, we have decided to transform Holla into a permanent tariff,” said Telkom Kenya Chief Executive Mickael Ghossein. Holla a 24-hour, daily bundled tariff targeting the youth is part of Telkom Kenya’s strategy to aggressively tap into this market segment. Rechargeable via a daily KSh10 subscription, the bundled tariff will allow Orange pre-paid customers to enjoy round-the-clock, free on-net calls, free on-net SMSs, 20 free off-net SMSs and 10free MB of mobile data daily. The Holla tariff will also allow for free and complete access to social networking site, Facebook. To reward its loyal customers, Ghossein also announced that the company would enable all its active Orange mobile pre-paid customers to enjoy the benefits of Holla for free this Friday, April 27, 2012, through a free…

HP today said that World Intellectual Property (IP) Day, which takes place on April 26, is a reminder of the need to heighten business and government cooperation in Kenya to protect patents, copyrights and trademarks as well as intensify efforts to stop counterfeiters. Kenya is among the countries where the manufacture and distribution of fake printing supplies and other illicit merchandise is widespread. Over the last year, HP’s cooperation with officials in different African countries has eliminated nearly 150,000 illegal printing consumable items, including ready-for-sale laser and inkjet print cartridges, boxes and security labels. Throughout 2012, in addition to greater…

Millions of dog owners in Britain will have to pay for their pets to be fitted with a microchip, under plans set to be announced in the next few days. British Ministers are expected to introduce rules that require every newborn puppy to be fitted with a device giving details of who they belong to. The information about the dogs will reportedly be kept on a central information database which can only be accessed by British police and the country’s RSPCA. The government is looking to use the information to trace owners of violent dogs in case of attacks, cases of which have…

A group of countries always referred to as BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) are planing to build a US$1.6billion undersea cable to provide direct Internet connections between themselves. The countries plan the 34 000-kilometre long undersea cable to link the five countries that currently account for 40 percent of the world’s population and 25 percent of global GDP. The announcement was made by South Africa’s President, Jacob Zuma, last BRICS Summit in the Indian city of Delhi. Zuma also revealed that the group also plan to establishing a development bank. The bank is planned to rival both the World Bank…

Google has just launch Google Drive, its much rumoured cloud storage service. Free Google Drive accounts get 5GB worth of Cloud Storage space but there are upgrade options of  25GB for $2.49 a month, 100GB for $4.99 a month, and 1TB will see users spend $49.99 monthly. Upgrading your Google Drive to a paid account will boost the available storage space on your GMail account to 25GB. Before announcing the launch of the Google Drive, the company also made announcement where it upgraded free storage on Google to 10GB and Google Docs to 5GB. Today, we’re happy to announce that we’re increasing everyone’s…

South Africa’s Pay TV, DStv, has been fined 10,000 rands (approx. Ksh 120,000) by the country’s Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa (BCCSA) for showing a man’s penis and full frontal male genitals during a TV game show with a PG13 rating. According to News24, Dstv was broadcasting the TV game-show, Banzai, on Sony Max channel 126 when viewers were given a chance to guess “who has the biggest package.” The contestants were five young men dressed in small, tight-fitting Speedos of different colours. Each contestant was given a chance to step forward and put their hands in their boxer short.…

Nearly 61% of IT security professionals worldwide fear the day when the Anonymous Hacker group will strike their networks. The group also believe that the hacktivists will strike their networks in the next six months. The IT professionals also fear state sponsored hacks from China and Russia more than anything else with 55% fearing China while 48% fear and see an imminent attack from Russia.  In the survey done by Bit9, only 28% suspect that “disgruntled employees” might target their companies. Harry Sverdlove, Chief Technology Officer of Bit9 said: “The survey results put a spotlight on an interesting contradiction: on the…