I have been getting complaints from users of various communication services. I got this from one Nokia phone user. The guy is basically highlighting what most people who visit such care centres go through. Since Nokia know that they are losing the market, they never give a f$%^# about what you think of them.

Read for yourself and judge.

Hi Robert,

Good Afternoon.

Ever seeked the services of the Nokia Care Center (at Hilton Hotel Ground Floor on Mama Ngina Street)? I was there on Monday, and I asked this lady at the service counter a simple question: How much would you charge me to back-up my Nokia Phone contacts to my Flashdisk? Just then as I was asking her I received a phone call; I picked it and told my caller I’ll return his call later. I continued my query to the lady and she responded that she would need to ask the technicians at the back office.

She went back there, opened my phone battery backside purporting she was looking for the memory card, all this while my phone was On, and without asking for my permission to open my phone. She came back and told me that was not possible, but then I looked at my phone which is a dual-sim, one SIM card was not reading. at first I thought she’d removed the SIM Card, but it was there. So I removed it, put it back, but still not reading sim 2 which was my main access line. I switched SIM cards on both slots and realized slot 2 was not reading.

So I asked the lady: Did you open my phone while it was On, she said NO. She lied. She just said she opened my phone and brought it back to me while still On. My phone would asked her for my SIM 2 PIN. The sim slot 2 wasn’t reading the SIM. The minute she realized her mistake, she started being overbearing in her speech and couldn’t let me talk. Feeling disrespected I requested to talk to the Branch Manager. A lady came over and assumed to be in-charge. I talked her thru my ordeal with her colleague/staff, but it fell on deaf ears & pointless. All she did was support her all the way.

Feeling discontent and angry at the disrespectful manner I was treated I left cause it could get worse than it was. I couldn’t make calls and couldn’t receive any. I missed a dinner date as my new found lady friend couldn’t raise me on phone. She sent me a text message which I never received in that space of time as we were yet to agree on where in Westlands we would do dinner. I’m not sure suing Nokia for my headache is something I should consider, but all I know is Never I’m I spending my hard earned money on a Nokia Experience.

What makes me so mad I’d that this Nokia Care Center Branch Manager – the least she could do is have my phone checked and resolve the malfunction the customer care lady caused, by, without permission opening up my Nokia phone and lying about it. Now I can’t afford to buy another phone at the current state I’m in, and since I’ve been so loyal to Nokia, I’m not sure it’s a better option, considering this is the after-sales service I’ll experience.

I narrated my yesterday bad experience to our Office Taxi Driver today, and to my surprise he had a response to it: he had a similar experience at the same Nokia Care Service Center, having spent more money to repair his boss’s expensive phone than it actually cost. Now, I realized they tampered with my phone to get repair business money from me – not happening! Not even after fantasizing about the new Lumnia 920.

Please post this, as I don’t want someone else to go thru what I was put thru.

Thank you.

Jonathan.
+254727570276
Sent from my iPad

What do you think? This is real.

Nokia and Airtel have announced a partnership agreement across Africa to drive closer collaboration and deliver increased consumer value. The agreement, which incorporates areas such as the provision of Nokia Life services, Xpress Browser and Nokia Store Operator Billing for purchases from Nokia Store in key countries, makes it easier and more cost effective for Airtel subscribers to access a range of value adding services.

A key part of the agreement is the provision of Nokia Life services, already available in Nigeria and launching in Kenya this month. The services, which are delivered as richly formatted SMS messages, bring relevant, timely and personalised information to consumers at a far lower cost than other sources. Information is customized and designed to meet basic needs in areas such as education, agriculture, healthcare, livelihood and even spirituality. The content brings real benefits, such as information for expectant mothers in rural areas who may not have regular access to clinics or pre-natal care.

Since its launch in India, Nokia Life has been experienced by more than 95 million people in 18 local languages including those in Nigeria. Nokia and Airtel looks to extend the Nokia Life experience to the East African market, starting with Kenya.

Airtel and Nokia have also partnered to offer integrated billing solutions for Nokia Store in both Nigeria and Kenya. Customers will be able to download top local and global paid apps and games from Nokia Store and pay for their downloads as part of their monthly mobile phone bills or have the amount deducted from their pre-paid balance. Payment for the downloads will be in local currency.

The two providers will also collaborate in the provision of Nokia Xpress Browser for Airtel customers in Nigeria and Kenya. Xpress Browser is Nokia’s cloud-based platform for delivering a better internet experience on a number of mobile devices, including the new Asha range. The cloud-acceleration technology compresses information by up to 90% to increase download speeds, reduce data costs and render pages in a format specially designed for mobile phones.

As many African consumers will experience the internet for the first time from their mobile phone, the customised Nokia Xpress Browser is a valuable tool for Airtel subscribers in Kenya and Nigeria, whether they are seeking basic information, running their small business, or using social media to stay in touch.

Through the trial, Google and the partners looks to demonstrate that TVWS can be used to deliver affordable broadband and Internet services without interfering with TV reception while also increasing awareness of the potential for the technology in South Africa and across Africa.

During the trial, the partners will regularly update ICASA, Sentech, the Joint Spectrum Advisory Group, broadcasters and other constituents on trial outcomes, including spectrum measurements and reported interference.

The TVWS network, consisting of multiple base stations located at Stellenbosch University’s Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences in Tygerburg, Cape Town, will deliver broadband Internet service to ten schools within a 10 kilometer radius. The ten schools have been pre-selected based on proximity to the base station, local IT and network support, and other connectivity requirements.

Each school will receive dedicated 2.5 Mbps service with failover to ADSL in order to prevent downtime during school hours.

Through the trial, the partners look to establish whether interference is caused. An interference will be reported by TV viewers through their broadcasters who will then report back to the partners.

The network will use a local version of Google’s spectrum database

IMG

List of Data Entry Clerks (Names blacked Out to protect them from harm)

The server (KENCALL IP: 196.1.26.40) running Windows Server 2008 gave access to the 21 data entry clerks employed by TNA. The same data entry clerks, receiving calls from TNA agents, entered data into IEBC database. The IEBC database had 16 columns including a column called User_ID which had who among the 21 data clerks entered the data. The TNA database called (MARKET RACE) was also hosted on this same server but it lacked the User_ID column.

Rights of the the 21 clerks on the IEBC database

Rights of the the 21 clerks on the TNA database

Data entered by the 21 clerks on the TNA server

Same data mirrored on the IEBC server

MAC addresses and LOGs of the phones used to call the 21 data clerks based at Kencall

When CORD discovered this and went to the media (Raila’s press conference around 11am on March 16th), Kencall proceeded and shutdown the IEBC database leaving the Market Race database (TNA database) running because the name could not raise suspicion by anyone.

IEBC database shutdown log

Kencall Hosted IEBC and TNA Data on the same Server

#KenyaDecides: IEBC Chairman Admitted on LIVE TV that Their System Was Hacked

Safaricom’s Statement Regarding IEBC’s System’s Failure is Unconvincing

The Twitter account belonging to the BBC’s weather service was hacked on Thursday, the British broadcaster has confirmed.

The pro-Assad hackers and online activists, “Syrian Electronic Army”, claimed responsibility. The same group previously claimed responsibility for hacking Barack Obama’s Facebook page. The group previously targeted the website and Twitter account of  Human Rights Watch and that of the French news service France 24.

The group used the BBC Weather Twitter feed to post offensive and sometimes humorous messeges related to Syria and Middle Eastern politics.

One tweet declared: “Long Live #Syria Al-Assad #SEA.”

The group then tweeted;

“@BBCarabicOnline & @BBCWeather & @Bbcradioulster was hacked by Syrian Electronic Army #SEA #Syria,” the group said in a tweet.

The group’s tweets have since been cleaned from the BBC Weather account and replaced by a tweet apologising to followers.

CORD leader and a presidential contender in the disputed March election Raila Odinga has raised pertinent questions regarding the installation and management of IEBC servers. According to a sworn affidavit filed before the Supreme Court of Kenya on Saturday, Raila questioned why IEBC had an KENCALL (call centre company) co-host IEBC’s server and that of The National Alliance (TNA) ( a political party of one of the candidates declared President-elect).

UPDATE: According to a source at IEBC, the electoral body hosted TNA and IEBC’s data on “the same server” mirroring IEBC data on to TNA’s website.

Coincidentally, Kencall founder and owner, Nicholas Nesbitt, sits on the board of Commercial Bank of Africa (majorly owned by the Kenyatta family).  Safaricom, with major business interests with the Kenyatta family through CBA, provided the VPN which sources at IEBC revealed as hacked during the tallying. M-Pesa and M-Shwari mobile money and banking deposits  are all exclusively resident at the Kenyatta owned CBA.

Raila argues that co-hosting the two servers may “compromise the integrity of the electoral process but at the very least gives the very real impression that the TNA has access to all sorts of information which is at the very least initially confidential to the First Respondent ( IEBC).”

According to an article on The Standard on Sunday, Raila believes the IEBC, as well as its Chairman Issack Hassan, failed to establish systems, which are accurate, secure, verifiable, accountable and/or transparent.

The article further states – Raila says that IEBC declared results, “which in many instances had no relation to votes cast at the polling station and developed methods, which were opaque and intended to manipulate the results in the course of which the petitioners’ representatives were altogether excluded from the process.”

IEBC chairman admitted during the tallying at Bomas that the electoral body’s tallying app was hacked and a rogue code, which multiplied votes by 8, added into the application.

Safaricom’s Nzioka Waita was at pains last night trying to make me look like I created the mess they are having with the IEBC in the Results Transmission System (RTS). Nzioka deviated from the official paths without provocations calling me names and desperately trying to say that IEBC is PERFECT, Safaricom is PERFECT and I am the problem.

First his history, after campus, Nzioka Waita joined Safaricom. He has worked NOWHERE else and is not well informed as he might want you to believe. He is not even aware of what technically happens when Safaricom say they have deployed a VPN for IEBC which supports over 31,000 transmitting stations. Again Nzioka Waita was at Safaricom when Mobitelea owned a good chunk of the company. He together with other employees who were later promoted, were privy to the details of what happened there. In a nutshell, Nzioka is part of the extremely dirty remnants of the old, corrupt and arrogant Safaricom management. Ask any former or current employee of Safaricom who can be honest with you.

He was then not honest enough to admit or reveal the illegal shareholding structure. He was dishonest and comfortable in the dishonesty to stay mum and defraud Kenyans as long as he earned salaries. That is why he MUST not pretend that he is some angel who is going to be honest with Kenyans and reveal to Kenyans when Safaricom’s VPN deployed to support IEBC’s RTS fail the integrity test. No Nzioka is not that honest.

I have more info which I will not fail to deliver should need arise but the information I have, Nzioka does not have. He has my contacts and can ask me what I have. He chose to rant on social media so that he could gain followers which he has been desperate to have (he has called me severally to retweet his tweets).

A former senior employee who worked at a level higher than Nzioka Waita describe him as “kiddish and having inflated ego since he rose so fast up the management ladder at Safaricom.” The former engineer at Safaricom also reveal that Safaricom HAS NEVER before this election deployed a VPN anywhere.

Safaricom has failed to invest in a robust system which ensure the smooth operation of its voice, data and M-Pesa systems. M-Pesa and data fail every other day. You wonder how IEBC even saw them as a reliable provider. Profitability can be through conmanship so it must not be what is used to judge a provider. Mission critical systems need knowledgeable provider. On deploying one-way systems, Safaricom is not a reliable provider.

Again Safaricom’s association with the Kenyatta family (shareholding and major business partnerships). Safaricom has in many previous occasions acted in a corrupt manner to satisfy individual interests. You can get this from the time Safaricom was only owned by Vodafone, Mobitelea and the government. When they were about to go public, some of the statements which were being made by the CEO then, Michael Joseph, were more political than purely business.

He said;

“They have never deployed those one way channels anywhere before and coupled with the fact that IEBC did not know what they wanted and Safaricom saw the opportunity to make money, they grabbed the opportunity.”

One engineer currently working at Safaricom has also revealed to me that the problem was on the Results Transmission System (RTS), the serve and Safaricom’s delivery channel. He said that Safaricom’s claim that they normally observe over 3,000 MBps “is hogwash since a VPN depend on a specially designed channel with own specifications. Otherwise it wouldn’t be a VPN.”

Below is Safaricom’s statement;

Following numerous queries from the media and in response to public concern, leading integrated communications service provider Safaricom Limited wishes to clarify its specific role with respect to the conduct of the historic  March 4th, 2013 General Elections.

1.       Safaricom was one of several service providers contracted by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission “IEBC” to provide network connectivity for the electronic transmission of electoral results.

2.       In accordance with the terms of our contract with the IEBC , Safaricom’s responsibilities were twofold, the first was to provide the virtual private network (VPN) for the conveyance of the results from polling stations across the country previously identified as having sufficient mobile coverage to the IEBC’s constituency, county and national tallying center infrastructure.

The second was to deliver 17,900 original manufacturer warranted handsets to the IEBC for use by polling staff for purposes of transmitting electronic results.  Safaricom was neither involved in the supply of the software to be used on the mobile handsets nor the distribution and storage of the devices.

3.       The observed traffic on the VPN provided by Safaricom did not exceed 3.5 Mbps at any time. When put in to context this is a small fraction of the 3,000 Mbps traffic we observe at any time in our network.

4.       The total number of mobile devices provisioned to be used by the IEBC polling staff to relay results on the Safaricom VPN were 32,000, this represents only 2% of the 1.5 million devices connected to our data network at any given time.

5.       Further, it must be clarified that during the entire election period

 a.      Safaricom’s role is simply to provide connectivity between the mobile devices and the IEBC tallying centers. Safaricom did not and does not have any role in the technical design, management or specification of the servers, the mobile software application nor the graphic presentation of the results data used by the IEBC.

b.      The Safaricom mobile and virtual private network has remained robust with 100% uptime in all areas where coverage was to be provided.

c.       Safaricom has provided unrestricted access to representatives of the 8 presidential candidates to assess and monitor its network performance. All of them were and still are confident in our network quality.

As a responsible corporate citizen, Safaricom appreciates and takes seriously its assigned responsibilities and will continue to play its part to support the IEBC in its duties.

Bob Collymore

Chief Executive Officer

According to the Cisco Visual Networking Index Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast for 2012 to 2017, in the Middle East and Africa (MEA), there will be 849,226,090 mobile users in 2017. The expected steady increase in mobile traffic is partly due to continued strong growth in the number of mobile Internet connections (personal devices and machine-to-machine applications), which will exceed the world’s population (United Nations estimates 7.6 billion) by 2017:

2017 VNI MEA Highlights:

• In Middle East and Africa, mobile data traffic will grow 17-fold from 2012 to 2017, a compound annual growth rate of 77%.
• In Middle East and Africa, mobile data traffic will reach 861,298 Terabytes (0.86 Exabytes) per month in 2017, the equivalent of 215 million DVDs each month or 2,374 million text messages each second.
• In Middle East and Africa, mobile data traffic will account for 17% of Middle Eastern and African fixed and mobile data traffic in 2017, up from 8% in 2012. (An official Cisco VNI fixed IP traffic forecast through 2017 will not be released until June 2013.)

Business Mobile Traffic in MEA:

• In 2012, Middle East and Africa’s business mobile data traffic grew 1.7-fold, or 69%.
• In Middle East and Africa, business mobile traffic will grow 11-fold from 2012 to 2017, a compound annual growth rate of 60%.
• Business will account for 12% of Middle East and Africa’s mobile data traffic in 2017, compared to 19% at the end of 2012.

Video in MEA:

• In Middle East and Africa, mobile video traffic will grow 27-fold from 2012 to 2017, a compound annual growth rate of 93%.
• Video will be 72% of Middle East and Africa’s mobile data traffic in 2017, compared to 47% at the end of 2012.
• Video reaches half of Middle East and Africa’s mobile data traffic by year-end 2012

Consumer Mobile Traffic in MEA:

• In 2012, Middle East and Africa’s consumer mobile data traffic grew 2.1-fold, or 110%.
• In Middle East and Africa, consumer mobile traffic will grow 19-fold from 2012 to 2017, a compound annual growth rate of 80%.
• Consumer will account for 88% of Middle East and Africa’s mobile data traffic in 2017, compared to 81% at the end of 2012

During the 2012 to 2017 forecast period, Cisco anticipates that global mobile data traffic will outpace global fixed data traffic by a factor of three. The following major trends are driving global mobile data traffic growth:

• More mobile users: By 2017, there will be 5.2 billion mobile users (up from 4.3 billion in 2012).
• More mobile connections: By 2017, there will be more than 10 billion mobile devices/connections, including more than 1.7 billion M2M connections (up from 7 billion total mobile devices and M2M connections in 2012).
• Faster mobile speeds: Average global mobile network speeds will increase seven-fold from 2012 (0.5 Mbps) to 2017 (3.9 Mbps).
• More mobile video: By 2017, mobile video will represent 66 percent of global mobile data traffic (up from 51 percent in 2012).

Impact of Mobile Devices/Connections

• Smartphones, laptops, and tablets will drive 93 percent of global mobile data traffic by 2017.
• M2M traffic (such as GPS systems in cars, asset tracking systems, medical applications, etc.) will represent 5 percent of 2017 global mobile data traffic.
• Basic handsets will account for the remaining 2 percent of global mobile data traffic in 2017.
• In 2012, 14 percent of all mobile-connected devices/connections (1 billion) were IPv6-capable.
• By 2017, 41 percent of all mobile-connected devices/connections (4.2 billion) will be IPv6-capable.

Traffic Offload from Mobile Networks to Fixed Networks

To address the rise in demand for mobile Internet, and to address the lack of available new mobile spectrum and the expense and complexity of adding new macrocell sites, service providers are increasingly looking to offload traffic to fixed or Wi-Fi networks.

4G Adoption and Mobile Data Traffic Growth

Many global mobile carriers are deploying 4G technologies to address consumer and business users’ demands for wireless services. In many emerging markets, carriers are creating new mobile networks with 4G solutions. In mature markets, carriers are supplementing or replacing legacy (2G/3G) networks with 4G technologies. The Cisco Mobile VNI study now projects the growth and impact of 4G.

Two Chinese firms, ZTE and Huawei, are currently embroiled in a serious fight for tenders in Kenya. The two companies which have also been fighting each other in South Africa, are fighting to win the Kenyan government’s  multi-billion shilling National Surveillance, Communication, Command and Control systems tender that was recently cancelled by Head of Public Service Francis Kimemia.

Now ZTE wants to institute contempt of court and defamation charges against the Civil service boss. Kimemia cancelled the tender over graft and exaggerated costs claims. Huawei went to court claiming that it quoted a fee which is Ksh 8 billion lower than that of ZTE. Kimemia further alleged that the process “was conducted unprofessionally.”

Huawei is very close to senior government officials including the PS of Ministry of Information and contacts in the Office of the President. It was surprising that they did not win the contract. It was expected that Huawei would eventually win the war through senior contacts in the OP. So the moves by Kimemia are not surprising to anyone who has known how Huawei operates in Kenya.

Meanwhile, the Chinese government owned ZTE Corporation has contracted lawyer Donald Kipkorir and issued a statement published in the newspapers today blaming Huawei and Kimemia for its woes. ZTE affirms that they use 3rd generation technology unlike Huawei which they claim, uses 2nd generation technology.

ZTE terms the claims by Kimemia as “malicious and irresponsible” further stating that they were made while there is an ongoing court case on the same. ZTE further demands an “immediate withdrawal” of the letter and “in any event before the end of today, in default, whereof our instructions” they promise to institute criminal and civil contempt proceedings against Kimemia.

The White House yesterday announced a new initiative to fight the theft of Intellectual Property (IP) in the US. The new initiative has been created in coordination law enforcement agencies in US including the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Justice, and State.

• The initiative which has been detailed in a 141-page document, focuses primarily on 5 action points;
• Diplomatic efforts
• Cooperation with private industry
• Enhanced law enforcement operations and legislation
• Public outreach

The White House has promised that the Obama administration “will continue to act vigorously to combat the theft of American trade secrets that could be used by foreign companies or foreign governments to gain an unfair commercial advantage.”

Ericsson has provided the network infrastructure and services to bring voice and data communications to the Millennium Village Project (MVP) in Koraro located in a remote part of northern Ethiopia.

With access to 3G connectivity more than 4,000 students and their teachers at two schools involved in the Connect To Learn initiative will now have access to modern learning and teaching resources through Ericsson’s cloud-computing solution.

In addition, community health workers in the Millennium Villages will be using mobile phones provided by Sony Mobile and broadband access provided by Ericsson to deliver life-saving health care services directly to households to collect health information for improved monitoring.

Elaine Weidman-Grunewald, Vice President and Head of Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility, Ericsson says: “Education is key to ending poverty and ensuring a better life for people. ICT can play a vital role in providing access to quality classroom resources for both teacher and student, and fostering social awareness and global understanding which has become a necessity nowadays in secondary education.

“Many of the residents in this area rely on the community clinic for health care, with otherwise little or no access to the most fundamental aspects of health care. Connecting the health clinic in Koraro is one part of a new joint continent-wide campaign that aims to train, equip and deploy one million community health workers throughout rural sub-Saharan Africa by the end of 2015, reaching millions of underserved people.” Weidman-Grunewald continues.

The deployment of Ericsson’s cloud computing solution in Connect To Learn at Koraro, Masho Secondary School and Megab Secondary School, includes netbooks and wireless terminals that enable both students and teachers to access educational resources on the Internet, along with basic ICT skills training for teachers.

Awash Teklehaimanot, Professor at Columbia University and Director of Millennium Project in Ethiopia said “the Koraro Millennium Village had limited access to communications technologies, however, with the support of Ericsson, the people in Koraro Cluster has benefited from 3G connectivity and Connect To Learn facilities. Students in two secondary schools are connected to the rest of the world using Ericsson donated laptop computers, which will be critical to advance education in the area. Mobile phones are used by community health workers and health extension workers to advance community health efforts. With these facilities and development of our staff, the Koraro cluster will serve as a center of excellence and a model for scaling up of ICT solutions in Ethiopia”

Though it is on the decline, still roughly 10 percent of children die before reaching the age of five in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2010, there were 500 maternal deaths for every 100,000 live births. Many people suffer unnecessarily from preventable and treatable diseases, from malaria, malnutrition and diarrhea to tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS.

In Koraro, community health workers use the Open MRS (medical record system) and a smartphone-based health-data management system to collect information and report on malaria and other diseases, the number of births, and the incidence of malnutrition and the health status of pregnant women during household visits. Many of these residents would otherwise have little or no access to the most fundamental aspects of health care services.

In all, Ericsson has provided connectivity to Millennium Villages in 11 countries: Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania Uganda and Liberia.

Albert Einstein once said, “to raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and it marks real advancement.” These words contain in them a message and a philosophy that we at Safaricom uphold; that to truly add value to the lives of our customers we have to be innovative.

The launch of a new product is commonplace for many companies. For us, a new product means new solutions, new possibilities, and real advancement.

For Safaricom, our satisfaction is in seeing our customers’ lives transformed by our products. We listen closely to our customers so that we can provide viable solutions for them. That is how we measure advancement.

We brought you M-PESA, which singlehandedly revolutionized how 15 million Kenyansmove money around. We are proud of what M-PESA has done and continues to do. Butnow Ladies and gentlemen, we are looking beyond M-PESA. We are creating solutions to other existing problems.

Today, we are proud to be introducing our new life-changing product. In the past few years, we have spoken proudly of financial inclusion in Kenya. However, the numbers on the ground seem to contradict our excitement. In a population of 20 million adults, only 10 million Kenyans have access to formal financial services. This means that almost half of the adult population in the country does not have access to the important ingredient necessary for economic growth.

Research suggests that only 6 million Kenyans hold the 12 million bank accounts we have. What these figures do not capture is the funds that do not make it into the formal banking system. I am talking about money that is hidden away in the layers of the mattresses, lockboxes, and some even buried away in the ground.

What is even more startling is the amount of unbanked money. Research indicates that a staggering 200 billion shillings remains unbanked, not earning interest and not generating much value to their owners. . More importantly however, these funds are not safe.

Financial inclusion is as fundamental a human right as any other. We are all well aware of the link between financial inclusion and poverty alleviation. The fact that half of our adult population cannot access formal financial services is dispiriting in the country’s journey towards Vision 2030.

Looking at all this, one would confidently argue that there indeed is a gap staring at us even as we speak proudly of ‘financial inclusion’. It is said that inclusive societies are accessible societies. We therefore need viable ways to help the unbanked save efficiently and safely.

The product we launch today provides an answer to all these issues. This product is a starting point to getting this money out of the mattresses and placing it where it generates interest and adds value to its owners. Safaricom is proud today to present M-Shwari.

M-Shwari, an innovative tool that enables people to save and borrow money using their mobile phones. We have partnered with Commercial Bank of Africa (CBA) to bring you a product that will give poor Kenyans access to affordable loans based on their savings.We believe that it will transform lives by providing financial access for all and enhancing the culture of saving among Kenyans while providing the poor with access to affordable credit.

This is a product that will make our customers’ money work for them, no matter how little or how much.  With M-Shwari, one can save as little as 1 shilling and borrow as low as 100 shillings.

M-Shwari will go long way in sustaining many poor Kenyan families by providing a seamless avenue to save, earn interest, and borrow without loss of dignity. We know that the future is never ours to predict, and that emergencies like sickness or death are inevitable. For those with access to formal banking services, banks often come to the rescue. However, for the millions of the unbanked, shylocks and the kiosk owners are the redeemers. On tough days, M-Shwari will be there to provide micro-credit services at a minimum of Ksh100 anytime. The loan shall be transferred instantly to the customer’s M-Pesa account.

Many unbanked adults talk about distance from the banks and opening balances as impeding factors. M-Shwari will require no minimum balance. There will be no charges for moving money from M-Pesa to M-Shwari and vice-versa. There will be no need to fill in a paper, form or produce identity cards to access these services. Simply put, there will be no excuse for anyone to save money under a pillow, in a mattress or lock box

Financially inclusive societies create and unleash the potential for all to contribute to prosperity and stability in development. That is what we at Safaricom want to achieve with our M-Shwari product. We know the possibilities for the creation of wealth and reduction of poverty. We know the difference it can make if the millions of men and women who are excluded from financial services have access to them.

That is why we are proud of M-Shwari because it will ensure that financial services are not an exclusive preserve for a few, but an accessible service for all.

As I conclude, I would like to thank Commercial Bank of Africa for walking this journey with us. Without them, this product would not be possible. CBA has always taken a chance with Safaricom from when we launched what would become our most celebrated product, M-PESA to today when we are launching an equally transformative product. CBA, we are grateful for your partnership and just as equally thankful for the role you have played in bringing financial inclusion to all Kenyans.

I would also like to thank the Government of Kenya and particularly the Central Bank of Kenya and ministry of Finance.  These two government vehicles have been forward thinking in harnessing the power of mobile technology for financial inclusion. To the Ministry of Information and Communications, thank you for fostering an innovative ICT sector.

Thank you all for encouraging mobile operators to be more innovative in delivering products that add value to our lives.

Asanteni sana.

The Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) ha today announced that the Mobile Termination Rates (MTR) are going to go back to the glide path which was agreed upon. The glide path was suspended in 2011 after Safaricom and Orange Kenya appealed to the President to suspend the implementation of the same.

CCK has therefore lowered the MTR to Sh1.44 from the current Sh2.21 and backdated it to July 2012. This means that the operatrs will enjoy only a four month reprieve and not the 16 months which were wasted during the suspension of the MTR glide path. Two mobile operators, Essar Telecom (yuKenya) and Airtel, would benefit most from this development.

However, CCK Director General Francis Wangusi revealed that the operators are not obliged to reduce call charges in response to the low MTRs which have just been announced. The regulator also threatened “any operator which would use the new MTR to kill competition that they would be punished.”

The regulator was however silent on what will happen to operators which use political connections to stop the implementation of the MTRs.

The new MTRs mean that the operators will have to adjust the fee which they are owed by the competitions since July 2012.

But part of the statement by the CCK boss reads, “As an evidence-based regulator, CCK, shall if necessary, adjust the MTR in line with the findings of the network cost study expected to be carried out in the next financial year.”

This means that CCK might have to pay a consultant to do another study before applying the next MTR rate next year.

Computer storage manufacturer, Western Digital (WD) has appointed Mitsumi Distribution as its new partner for Africa. WD looks to cater to the rising demand from Africa’s growing storage market. Mitsumi will serve both the enterprise and home users providing better availability of the range of storage, networking and entertainment solutions offered by WD.

Mitsumi Distribution is WD’s first Africa-focused partner.

Mitsumi Distribution, one of Africa’s leading IT distributors, will cover the Central, East and West African regions for WD’s component and branded products. WD’s component products include internal storage products such as desktop, mobile, SOHO NAS and enterprise hard drives, while the company’s branded products comprise external storage devices, home entertainment solutions, small business storage, and networking solutions.

“Africa’s storage market, while rapidly growing, is still underserved. This presents immense long-term growth opportunities to WD,” explained Khwaja Saifuddin, Senior Sales Director India, Middle East, Africa and Turkey, WD. “Mitsumi Distribution was appointed to focus specifically on the Central, East and West African regions in countries such as Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia, Congo, Algeria, Tanzania and Uganda. We partnered with Mitsumi owing to its healthy regional reach and strong in-country presence, as well as its wide customer base.”

Mitsumi operates in 19 countries in Africa, but will cover the key markets of Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Ghana, Ethiopia , Congo  and Algeria. Mitsumi Distribution will also provider customer support via its in-country service centers.

Mitesh Shah, Managing Director of Mitsumi Distribution added, “Strengthening our product portfolio is one of our key focus areas for 2013, so we are very excited to be working with a world-renowned brand like WD. The partnership will help us diversify the product portfolio of our partners as we can better equip them to cater to the growing storage demands in Africa. Since Mitsumi has domain expertise and a pan-Africa footprint, we are confident the relationship with WD will be fruitful.”

AccessKenya Group has today announced that it plans to spend Kshs 120 million in 2013 to expand its fibre network. This pales in comparison to Ksh 2 billion which Safaricom is going to spend in building its data network.

Access Kenya MD Kris Senanu says that the company has faith that fibre networks will solve the poor connectivity problems in the country. The company is looking to spend the Kshs 120 million in 2013 towards expanding fibre solutions majorly focused at the corporate sector in Kenya.

Senanu said;

“We continue to sign up clients onto our fibre network and our expansion is entirely demand – driven. This not only underscores the need for strategic investment in the deployment of fibre technologies, but also signals the maturity of the Kenyan market in internet usage and consumption.” 

Senanu also revealed that the increase in the uptake of fibre among the Kenyan corporate and high-end residential clients has driven the AccessKenya’s turnaround seeing the company make profit for the first time in a few years. Senanu also revealed that Access Kenya Group is also going to focus on product diversification and enhanced customer service so as to firm its grip on market share.

Fixed internet connectivity rose by 81.7 percent in the second quarter of 2012 compared to the previous year, according to CCK. Internet subscription in Kenya now stand at 7.7 million up from 4.2 million in 2011. Mobile internet still dominate the subscription with Fixed networks struggling.

According to the statistics, fibre subscription has grown by 26.7 percent to reach close to 50, 000 subscriptions up from 22,000 in the same period in 2011.

AccessKenya spent over Ksh 100 million from late 2011 to early 2012 while extending to over 400 Kms in Nairobi and Mombasa. The company has also opened offices in Kisumu and Nakuru to serve its clientele in western and rift valley regions ahead of the actualization the county system of governance.

The Safaricom Foundation has announced the winners of the third phase of World of Difference competition.

First launched in 2009, the World of Difference is a unique volunteerism programme which provides individuals with an opportunity to share their skills and expertise with community based organizations over a period of upto six months.

The Foundation announced winners comprising seven members of the public, six Safaricom employees and three teams of four participants were selected from more than 1116 external and 46 staff applicants in a competitive selection process conducted by Deloitte.

They will offer their expertise to a range of organizations which include the Deaf Youth Congress, The Africa Cancer Foundation, Cheshire Homes and the Sabatia Eye Hospital.

So far, 31 people have taken part in the World of Difference since its inception.

Uganda Communications commission has post-poned the planned switch-off of “fake” mobile devices until 1 July 2013. The country planned to switch-off all fake phones by the end of November 2012.

Kenya carried out a switch-off in October affecting thousands of subscribers.

UCC claim that about 30% of the country’s 17 million mobile handsets are imitation of popular brands. The regulator has also given subscribers until March 2013 to register their lines.

Now Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania are also planning to ban fake phones to curb criminal activities and have only quality devices sold in the East Africa region.

In a related development, UCC is said to be planning to gazette new quality of service benchmarks for operators, as it seeks to manage complaints of low quality of services.

The parameters will see operators fined  for blocked & dropped calls as well as loss of network coverage. The regulations will also see operators forced to control unsolicited messages to subscribers and inappropriate content. They will also be asked to guard consumer privacy and increase transparency in pricing.

Kenya has been elected to chair the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organization (CTO) Council for 2012-13.

The elections took place during the 52^nd CTO Council Meeting on 25^th October 2012 in Mauritius. Also elected were Nigeria as the First Vice Chairperson and Trinidad and Tobago as the Second Vice Chairperson. Telkom South Africa and the Telecommunications Regulatory Board of Cameroon were elected to the CTO’s Executive Committee representing the Industry Partners and the Development Partners of the CTO, respectively.

Before the election, Kenya was the 1^st Vice Chair of the CTO during the 2011 – 2012 period.

The Council is the oversight body of the CTO mandated to provide strategic leadership to the organization as well as provide guidance to the CEO and the management team on a number of issues including implementation of the strategic plan, business plan and operational budget. The Chairperson also chairs the Governing Council meetings.

Addressing Council members soon after the elections, Assistant Minister in the Ministry of Information and Communications, Hon. George Khaniri, thanked the Council members for demonstrating confidence in Kenya by entrusting her with such a responsibility. The Minister pledged the Government’s support in all activities of CTO.

The Council meeting was preceded by the 10th Annual CTO Forum, which was opened by His Excellency Hon. Rajkeswur Purryag, GCSK, GOSK, President of the Republic of Mauritius.  The Forum brought together policy makers, regulators and industry representatives from both Commonwealth and non-Commonwealth countries, to explore how mobile broadband can be utilized more effectively, efficiently and securely for development.

Kenya is a member of CTO and CCK is the official Government representative to the CTO.

The CTO is a Commonwealth organization engaged in multilateral collaboration in the field of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). It uses its experience and expertise to support members in integrating ICTs to deliver effective development interventions that enrich, empower, and emancipate people within the Commonwealth and beyond.

This is a guest post by Otieno Sungu

While I fully support this initiative, may I suggest to The PS, Ministry of Communications and The Communications Commission of Kenya to change tack and approach before all, including resources allocated to this, is lost.

Is iHub turning in to a very insecure space attracting all manner of criminals? When I got to hear many issues since mid last year, I thought they were isolated events. This got me asking if someone is trying to tarnish the name of iHub. Many innovation spaces were coming up in Nairobi and maybe with the ever dirty business rivalry in Kenya, some top corporate who controls the youth loyality was not loving it.

I also thought that since Erik Hersman who is the main individual behind the iHub is not seeing eye-to-eye, someone might find it very convenient to use me to settle scores with Erik. I ignored these allegations of the prevailing conditions around iHub especially those where allegations of rape, attempted rape, robbery and petty thievery were concerned.

This changed when Idd Salim, who has to rely on handouts from Erik, decided to put it down on a blog post. You need to read in on his blog. The incidents are scary and I just pray that nobody is hurt or killed. I pray that iHub is not turning to what I thought it would turn to because very divergent views and criticisms are not appreciated at the space.

When Nokia and Erik Hersman organised for my assault (will publish how it happened) despite the fact that I was NOT there to meet Elop but had an appointment with David Kobia (he of Mashada), I realised that some thing was not right. I held my assumptions and said lets give them a benefit of doubt.

I believe that the crime around iHub are not isolated but are organised and funded by someone who has very good connections with Erik and others at iHub. I have talked to Gitonga (Afrowave) and Idd Salim about stopping crime around iHub. I have done it around my neighborhood  We can stop it around iHub because the space is not a bad idea and the moment there is too much crime around iHub, even mLab and NaiLab suffers.

Let us stop crime and criminals around iHub. Lets get talking. We can do it in a month.

IMG

CCK Stats are out. The country has seen the increase in the usage of internet and mobile phones. According to the stats which have just been released, the number of mobile subscribers in Kenya grew by 1.7 percent between March 30 and June 30 this year. Now the total number of mobile subscribers in Kenya stand at 29.7million, increasing the penetration of mobile telephony services to 75.4%.

Compared to the same period last year, the annual mobile subscriptions registered a significant growth of 17.5 percent from 25.2million recorded in the 2010/2011 financial year.

According to the Quarterly sector statistics report for the fourth quarter of the 2011/2012 financial year, prepaid subscriptions continued to dominate the total mobile subscriptions with 29.4 million pre-paid subscriptions, representing 99.1 percent of the total subscriptions. Annual post-paid subscriptions grew by 18.3 percent to stand at 273,367 as at 30th June 2012.

In respect to the Internet, the number of subscriptions rose by 19.2% from 6.4 million in the previous quarter to 7.7million during the quarter under review. The number of estimates Internet users rose by 18.5% to stand at 14.032 million during the quarter under review. The annual growth in the estimated number of Internet users was recorded at 11.9% from 12.5million recorded in the previous year. Of the total number of subscriptions, broadband subscriptions only represented 9.4%.

The annual growth in the Internet/data market segment may be attributed to the increase in international connectivity bandwidth by 58.0 percent to 264,584 Mbps during the quarter under review. The total available bandwidth in the country was recorded as 574,704 Mbps during the quarter under review. The used bandwidth represented 46.0 percent of the total available bandwidth capacity.

Mobile data/Internet subscriptions continued to dominate the Internet market contributing 98.9 percent of the total Internet/data subscriptions.

Mobile money transfer service experienced 2.73 percent growth to record 19.50 million registered subscribers. The total deposits handled during the period was recorded at 192.73 billion representing a 4.0 percent growth from 185.36 billion recorded in the previous period. Mobile money transfer service also continued to create employment opportunities across the country with 49,079 active agents recorded during the quarter.

The ICT sector continued to create employment, as a total of 17,596 people were employed in the mobile, data and postal segments, with women making up 38.9 percent. These numbers are expected to continue growing with the expansion of ICT services across the economy.

Fixed line network and the postal and courier industry continued to face stiff competition from the telecommunications sector. Total fixed lines (fixed terrestrial lines and fixed wireless) recorded an annual subscription decline of 29.9 percent from 374,942 main fixed lines in FY 2010/11 to 262,711 in the quarter under review.

The number of local letters sent annually dropped to 73.9 million in the FY 2011/12 from 109.1 million recorded in the FY 2010/1, a 32.2 percent decrease. International incoming letters declined by 4.2 percent to record 439,986 in FY 2011/12 from 459,342 in the previous financial year. However, international outgoing letters recorded a positive annual growth of 29.3 percent from 6.4 million in FY 2010/11 to 8.3 million in FY 2011/12.

Four individuals – Japheth Muroko, Roni Achoki, Mark Ndung’u and Mike Mutembei Makarena - have gone to court seeking orders to stop Communication Commission of Kenya (CCK) from switching off more than 2 million “fake phones” being used in the country. Others enjoined in the suite are Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) and Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS)

The individuals claim that members of public purchased the phones through licensed shops without knowing that the handsets are not genuine. They further claim that the average buyer of mobile handset has no capacity to know whether a mobile phone handset is genuine or not.

The four have also accused KBS of not supervising and vetting the entry of mobile handsets into the Kenyan market. In the suite, the four argue that the duty of consumer education falls on CCK.

Part of the suite read;

“The failure of the respondents to carry out their statutory duty cannot now be visited upon the millions of innocent Kenyans likely to suffer deprivation of fundamental right to own property and basic means of communication.”

The four are seeking the courts intervention to suspend CCK order barring the sale and switching off of fake phones until a proper legal mechanism is put in place to handle the case of those who will be affected by the directive.

CCK is categorical that it will switch off fake handsets come Sunday 30th September. The exercise will take more than 15 hours as the switch-off will be in stages.

Mark Simpson, SEACOM Group’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) exchange contract with Jones Mrusha (right) Co-founder KINU Innovation Hub

SEACOM has made a commitment to provide KINU – a Tanzanian non-profit ICT innovation hub- with 30mb of free Internet capacity for a one year period. This will assist with improving the speed and quality of KINU’s Internet connectivity, which will in turn improve the efficiency of the start-up ICT enterprises they develop.

‘SEACOM has decided to support KINU and potentially other ICT innovation hubs throughout Southern and East Africa with Internet access because of its strong commitment to stimulating innovation, enterprise development and job creation within Africa’s ICT sector,’ says Anna Kahama-Rupia, managing director of SEACOM Tanzania.

The KINU Hub is the first privately run open space for Tanzania’s tech community to foster co-creation, innovation and capacity building. This collaborative space was established to build a community with a culture of co-creation, and to enable participation into the process of generating new solutions to social challenges.

The project is also supported by the Indigo Trust among others.

‘A collaborative space was needed to enable the community to participate in the co-creation process and make a joint effort to generate new solutions,’ says Luca Neghesti, co-founder of KINU. ‘It was important to establish the environment needed to ensure that the next generation of African innovators has the freedom to build products and services which will reach out to the rest of the world.’

KINU will be open to everyone in the Tanzanian tech ecosystem including coders, designers and entrepreneurs. The organisation will provide a host of services and facilities including high-speed internet access, data storage and backup, knowledge centre, industry meet-ups & events, innovation competitions, ICT workshops, testing environments, webinars and application testing.

KINU will use a microwave link between SEACOM’s Silversands cable landing station in Kunduchi and their innovation hub. The organisation is currently in the process of purchasing the required equipment to activate the Internet capacity donated by SEACOM.

Engineer Philip Okundi exited Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) as chairman to pursue a political seat. To replace him, President Kibaki yesterday appointed Ben Gituku to replace him as the new Chairman of the regulator for a 3 year term.

Mr Gituku has previously held board positions in KBC and Kenya Pipeline. His three-year appointment, effective September 14, was announced vide a Kenya Gazette notice dated September 19.

Gituku is a professional marketer who was recently working as a newspaper distributor and realtor.

The Rwanda Utilities and Regulatory Agency (RURA) has fined MTN Rwanda and warned TIGO Rwanda for their persistently poor mobile telephone service. The agency made the announcement Thursday morning during a press conference, RNA has established.

The Rwf. 3 million daily penalty, comes after the company was warned in March to reduce the number of call set up failures, abrupt call disconnections and the frequency of dropped calls.

“The sanctions imposed on MTN are a result of the enforcement notice that was issued back in March,” said Francois Gatarayiha, the director general of RURA.

“They tried to address the issues, but it seems to us that there is still a lot of room for improvement.”

Since March 1, MTN Rwanda has been working to resolve the issues, but Gatarayiha said RURA imposed a timeline in order to accelerate the process and force the company to comply with its license obligations.

Two officials from MTN Rwanda were present at the press conference, but did not answer any questions. Instead the company released a press release later in the day confirming it had received the enforcement notice.

More

Mobile phone subscribers in Tanzania now have a reason to keep calling more, followingVodacom’s move to reduce cross networkj call rates by 50%.

The leading telecommunications company has introduce the Bonga tariff, an offer that will apply to calls to all networks and will be accessible to prepaid and Vodajaza customers only.

With Bonga there is no need for customers to change their SIM Cards or carry multiple handsets. For the first time in Tanzania, Vodacom’s Bonga tariff virtually allows a customer to call any network at his/her convenience from Vodacom thus saving on money and time which could be devoted to other things.

There will be no cost for subscribing to Bonga and that  all a customer needs to do is  to dial *149*01#  to enjoy the reduced calling rate. Bonga tariff will also allow customers to continue enjoying other bundles such as Cheka.

Cisco introduced a set of security solutions designed to protect data centers in Kenya against the threats they face in moving toward more consolidated and virtualized environments, while also enabling businesses to take advantage of new cloud-based models. 70% of the world’s Internet traffic and 35% of the world’s email traffic flows through Cisco networks. This enables Cisco to gain intelligence from throughout the network to make more informed security decisions placing them in the best position to see and protect against threats before they affect customers’ networks.

Collectively, the new offerings extend data center and security professionals’ power to enforce end-to-end security for high-capacity data centers and mobile workforces. The offerings include new highly scalable software for the world’s most widely deployed firewall, the Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) line; virtualized ASA for multi-tenant environments; data center-grade intrusion prevention system (IPS); as well as new improvements to the Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client to meet the stringent requirements of a more mobile and productive workforce.

The virtualization and cloud mega trend is forcing profound shifts within data centers, affecting everything from IT services to business models to architectures. According to recent Cisco reports:

Nearly 3000% increase in application traffic and network connections per second by 2015

More than 50% of workloads in the data center will be virtualized by 2013

An average of 3 X mobile devices are used on enterprise networks by employees

Business leaders are embracing these trends, and using them to really grow their data center operations to the next level. If addressed properly, these trends offer business benefits such as reduced capital investments, new revenue growth and the greater efficiency, agility and scalability demanded by globalization.

With this announcement, Cisco is helping security to keep pace with the demands of changing high-performance virtual and cloud environments, as well as the demands of increased complexity, compliance and employees bringing their own devices to work, among other trends. As they grow to the next level, data centers have the following security requirements, to support their changing needs:

• Scalable Security:  The amount of data and transactions moving through most data centers requires ever-increasing levels of performance.  Security must have the ability to scale to meet these seemingly insatiable performance requirements, while ensuring the highest levels of security.
• Physical & Virtual:  Modern-day data centers are no longer comprised solely of physical deployments.  Instead, they are a mixture of physical, virtual, and cloud infrastructures – built to solve the business’ specific needs.  Security policies must have the ability work consistently across hybrid environments.
• Business Integration:  While security is certainly important to data center administrators, it isn’t their only concern.  They must also focus on maintaining business/IT alignment and avoiding chokepoints that can degrade performance and jeopardize their SLAs.  Security needs to be an integral part of the network architecture, so that it can help maintain business/IT alignment, avoid performance chokepoints, and enable business flexibilit.

Operating under the principle that security must be integrated across the network to ensure protection of unified data centers, Cisco believes network policies must be unified across physical and virtual worlds, intra-virtual machine communication should be secured, and access to applications by wired and mobile clients must be protected. This security approach has become imperative as customers look to make the migration to cloud and a more flexible device-agnostic corporate culture. Cisco’s latest product developments support such an approach.

The new security solutions announced today include:

• ASA 9.0 Platform: Major update to the operating system
• Cisco ASA 1000V: Mainstream ASA technology optimized for virtual/cloud environments
• IPS 4500 Series: A new intrusion prevention system (IPS) built for data centers
• Cisco Security Manager 4.3:  Cisco Security Manager (CSM) provides scalable, centralized management
• Cisco AnyConnect 3.1: Enables secure remote access to network resources.
• Security Services: Professional and support services, from Cisco and its partners

Dr Gilbert Saggia, Cisco Regional Manager East Africa:

“For enterprises to confidently seize the business benefits offered by data center virtualization and the cloud, security must be seen as the art of the possible, not as a hindrance. As with the rest of your network, we make consistent security a deployment decision that enables policies to work throughout hybrid environments—physical, virtual and cloud—and enables data center professionals to securely deliver IT-as-a-Service without impeding network performance.”

Ericsson has developed a solution that bridges the connection between mobile networks and all real world objects through human body.

According to Mwambu Wanendeya, Vice President and Head of Communications for Sub-Saharan Africa at Ericsson, the human body can be used to transfer information to and from a mobile device to a screen or a printer, by using capacitive transmission as discovered by Ericsson:

“This is part of Ericsson’s way of re-thinking mobile broadband and communication. Ericsson has discovered that the human body can be a part of a communication network. This is a technology that holds a lot of possibilities for the future as the human behavior of touching is a smart way of making interaction with the internet and other digital services super simple to access.”

And as part of Ericsson’s networked society, the Connected Me technology is expected to also help Ericsson achieve the goal of connecting more than 50 billion devices globally by 2020:

“The vision of more than 50 billion connected devices will see profound changes in the way people, businesses and society interact. With ubiquitous mobile broadband-enabled internet access, connectivity and networking are becoming completely independent of location. Therefore Broadband ubiquity, cost of connectivity, openness and simplicity intertwined with the new technology –ConnectedMe-will lead to more efficient business models and improved lifestyle for individuals and society in Africa and around the world.”

How our body connects to the network 

The human body can be a part of a communication network. By holding a mobile phone in one hand and placing your other hand on a device, you can send and receive information instantly and at high speed. This is a technology that holds a lot of possibilities for the future. The human behavior of touching is a smart way of making interaction with the internet and other digital services super simple to access.

The network is inside you and a very weak signal passes through your body, during the “Connected me” demonstration. Ericsson has developed a solution that, in its first proof-of-concept state, reaches speeds of 6Mbps-10Mbps by using the human body as the wire for transmission.

A number of showcases have been produced, including transmission of streaming music from a Smartphone, transmitting a photo taken by the phone, picking a web link from a device and opening a door by sending the pass code to the handle.

How does it work?

Each smartphone used in the showcases is equipped with a special digital circuit that enables capacitive data transmission. The circuit is connected to a plate, which distributes the signal through the human body. On the other side – at the receiver end – is a similar circuit and plate, which identify the weak signal that has passed through the human body.

The information is sent by modulating the voltage in the transmitter electrode and detecting the variation of potentials in the receiver electrode. A small current then flows through the body. The term used for this phenomenon is capacitive coupling.

The important part is that, by using capacitive coupling, we can send information through organic material like the human body. Combining this with all ordinary behavioral communication available through digital communication gives us a powerful combination for new innovation and interaction that is difficult – or even impossible – to achieve with other technologies.

Using the human body as the conductor in capacitive coupling is not dangerous, as the power levels used are low. Even though the Connected Me technology has come straight out of the laboratory, Ericsson has conducted tests that show that the lab kits easily comply with requirements placed on commercial devices such as smartphones. The specification used has been established by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) and is endorsed by the World Health Organization (WHO).

The Connected Me showcase project points out a wide spectrum of possibilities for the future.

Your own body can act like an electrical circuit in instances when you want to, for example, lock your car or hotel room. When you pay for goods in a store, you can do so just with the touch of your hand. And when you decide to print a document from your phone, you can connect to the printer. And this requires less energy than using Bluetooth.

If we think of this in terms of data speed, we can group services like this:

Low-speed examples:

•         “Pairing by wearing” – for example, Bluetooth

•         Opening doors, boxes

•         Paying for goods

•         In-body signaling – such as measuring temperature

•         Sending messages to and from machines

•         Receiving and sending webpage links

Medium speed

•          Viewing files from a phone on a screen

•          Printing or saving files

•          Person 2 Person, by exchanging business cards, playlists, and so on

•          Health-care devices that you wear or have inside your body

High speed

•          Sending music to earphones

•          Video transmission

•          Augmentation with multimedia.

Capacitive coupling also enables radical redesign of mobile devices like smartphones. Speakers, cameras and other devices can be linked to the “personal access point” through the body channel. This also includes capabilities for future embedded medical devices in the body.

This technology gives us an advantage in creating solutions that are very simple to use. By putting on earphones, we can connect to a human body communication (HBC)-enabled smartphone and play music or enable a hands-free voice conversation.

Ericsson sees this as a part of our forward-looking approach to communication. We have always been involved in developing ideas that make communication easier to use. Along the same lines, Ericsson developed Bluetooth to enable better personal-area communication.

This solution does not replace Bluetooth or near-field communication (NFC); rather Ericsson believes that this adds potential new usage on top of the existing technical solutions to enable communication close to the user.

What will happen in the future depends on all of us. Creative thinking and combining our natural behavior of touching things with communication bring endless possibilities.

Facts

Other benefits in brief:

• ·         Secure communication in personal area; in other words, you are the personal area network. It’s impossible to “skim” the signal without touching the person
• ·         Cables and connectors are unnecessary
• ·         Power efficiency – low-energy consumption enabled
• ·         Inexpensive hardware – mass implementation/integration possible.

History

Capacitive-coupling technology was demonstrated in a master’s thesis in 1995 by T.G. Zimmerman, at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab (Cambridge, MA, Sep). At that time, the speed was low; only about 2.4kbps.

South Korean science university KAIST and Japanese telecom operator NTT DoCoMo have also demonstrated HBC.

Even though HBC has been included in academic research for some time, the speeds reached in its early stages were low. Today, speeds have reached levels where almost any content can be transferred. Ericsson currently runs on speeds of 10Mbps, although speeds of 20Mbps-40Mbps are within reach.

At least two major enablers are bringing HBC technology closer to realization. First, mobile broadband is rapidly growing all around the world. Ericsson is the clear leader in mobile-broadband-network technologies. Second, we see a dramatic general shift in the mobile-phone area. The smartphones developed today are often based on apps with support for sensor input. Capacitive coupling is a natural additional feature in this context.

Before presenting myself to the CID, I called friends who are senior government officials. The friends confirmed that I was summoned because of the altercation with Dr Mutua. The very unfortunate bit is that the CID Director, Ndegwa Muhoro was not aware of the case. So it seemed that Dr Mutua made a direct call to Nicholas Kamwende to arrest me for crimes he perceived that I had commited.

The case between me and Dr Mutua should be a civil case. Mutua is using his position to prefer criminal charges on me. Anyone narrowly arguing on the basis of section 29(b) of the Kenya Information and Communications Act of 2009 is being blind to the Kenyan constitution which is more superior than any other law on this land. You cannot read an act of parliament like the encyclopedia. Legal analysis is not that simple.

So after reporting to the police, I got to be told what I was being charged with. The officers were very friendly, even offering me food. I loved the hospitality of the individuals investigating my case. They treated me with care despite the fact that we did not know each other. Most of the members of the investigation team have accounts on Twitter and Facebook. They know all that are happening on Twitter. I realised that we really don’t know how much our police force if prepared for cyber crime. Kenyans on Twitter and Facebook should know that the police have proper infrastructure in place to monitor and handle cyber crime.

The problem is that they don’t have a strong legal backing to do so and they have to rely on American and European institutions to handle some of the incidences.

But don’t be deceived. The CID and NSIS are in-charge. Just get it to that extent.It is something which I will write about much later.

The CID officers asked me questions about my tweets, what I use to tweet and how often I tweet. I was asked who I work for and who pay me for all which I do. The policemen and woman were very cordial but incisive. They are a smart breed. They were very suspicious that I might have been recording the conversations so they thoroughly checked my wristwatch, pens and even phone. They pretended to take a keen interest on the same but they feared that I might have been spying on them. They know all about the Miguna book and even found one of them reading the book (physical copy) in the office. The officer revealed to me the seriousness of my case and what I was up against. They told me about the complainant who is Dr Alfred Mutua.

The CID officers told me that I was being charged with two counts, the first being “sending abusive text messages contrary to section 29(b) of the Kenya Communications Act of 2 of 1998″ The second count is for “sending annoying message contrary to section 29(b) of the Kenya Communications Act 2 of 1998.” The charges attract a maximum sentence of 3 months or fine of Ksh 50,000.

At around 4pm, my lawyer realised that the officers were just passing time and doing nothing serious to take up my statement and prepare for the assured court case the next day morning. The CID officers were also playing cat and mouse game with the media which was camping at the gate of the CID headquaters.

They were buying time to stop me from engaging the media and to keep me until the next day. The officers decided to push and so they said they could not do much without listening to Nairobi CID boss, Nicholas Kamwende who was present in his office. One of the officers went up to see him. He said that the CID boss said that he “had instructions” to detain me till the court appearance. My lawyer went to see Mr Kamwende who insisted on the same.

In fact Mr Kamwende told one of the people present in his office that he had instructions to make sure that I was released on a cash bail of not less than Ksh 300,000. Legal analysts were surprised that I was released on a cash bail of Ksh 100,000 while the maximum fine for the same offence is Ksh 50,000. The higher cash bail came about as part of the recommendations of the CID officers investigating the case on orders of the Nairobi PCIO Mr Nicholas Kamwende. Somebody top in the government, let me just say that Dr Alfred Mutua is using his position to try to make sure that I am not free again. I told my lawyer not to worry about me from then. I told him that I would go to the police cell if Dr Mutua thought that I would fear going inside. It was not the first time I was spending in the police cell. In fact it was the second time in the year 2012, the first being when Erik Hersman and his sluts at Nokia and Google made sure that I spent at Kilimani police station in February.

Google has never been known to play by any sane rule. You heard the crazy data theft story where Google employed an Indian company now branded as Kuza Biashara to basically steal content from a Mocality Kenya. The same Dorothy Ooko who knows that I criticised her market strategy at Nokia is using her position at Google for the same. That is why Erik Hersman who has no unique offering for Kenyans but just that he get favours from the Ministry oof Information and communications officials who suffer from inferiority complex that they don’t easily embrace indigenous Kenyans as they embrace these corrupt foreign lay-abouts.

So my statement was taken and I was driven to Kilimani Police station where I spent the night. The station had over 26 suspects in a holding cell measuring only 5m x 7m. I enjoyed the company though. It was a nice time we had there. The morning arrived so fast, we were served breakfast and by 7am, the CID officers were there to pick me for court appearances. I was driven to the CID headquarters then to the Kilimani Courts’ basement cells where I stayed till after 9.30am. Together with other suspects, I was handcuffed and then led to court 7 to appear before Chief Magistrate P.S. Biwott. It was a long wait for the magistrate. He arrived around 10am and
went through the case mentions until my turn when the charges were read and I was released on a cash bail of Ksh 100,000 with an alternative bond of the same.

So I was taken back to the cells together with other suspects. While processing my bail through the registry, a woman named Ruth who I was later told that is very corrupt and will always be stubborn to suspects being released, inflated the cash bail amount from Ksh 100,000 to 200,000. She was adamant that I was not going to be free until I paid that amount. She insisted so much so that my lawyer got angry and reprimanded her. She argued but even her colleagues saw her stupidity and urged her to process my release. Sources later revealed to us that the “lady was getting instructions from someone high above.”

Eventually I was released and so headed home.

So later I talked to different lawyers some of who have represented clients on terror related cases. I got a confirmation that the Kenyan CID and NSIS have special desks at all telephone operators in the country. The moment you are a target, you will be listened. I got curious to ask this since the CID revealed to me not only my rendezvous but also who I was on phone with and what I was saying. Imagine being asked “so and so who is your girlfriend takes all your time boss.” When spying on you, the CID and NSIS are not limiting the operation to only the incidences related to their investigations. They are getting petty and indulging on some very stupid acts where even a very close conversation to your granny is not safe.

Another former senior employee of a mobile operator who is now in Uganda revealed to me that after the Post-Eelections Violence, NSIS control all call termination points and so it is very easy for them to act on calls without looking for any authorisation from the operators. In fact the CID and NSIS have not put up a structure on how the calls are intercepted and who can do that leaving access to the system to virtually anybody who can prove that he works with the NSIS or the CID.

My case is basically a defamation case so I was surprised that even very private conversations were being recorded and used to torture me during the investigations. The torture through the revelation of my private calls and even a print-out of all my tweets was to silence me from ever tweeting or Facebooking again. So apart from the media psychologicall warfare where Nicholas Kamwende was summoning and intimidating me through the media, another angle where private communications details were being revealed to me to freak me out was also planned.

Anybody as foolish as Erik hersman arguing on the basis of a single section of an act of parliament without looking on to the constitution, which is supreme, need to go back to school and get to understand legal arguments.

From all this experience, I have realised that our mobile operators are selling our information to the security agencies in return for protection from the government as they exploit the consumers and none of them will ever be penalised and if they will be then it will be like the recent Ksh 500,000. The controversial NIS bill is just a formality but there is nothing on that bill which this government is not doing. It is dooing worse and there is no hierachy. Even Alfred Mutua can access very confidential information about you to fight very personal battles.

After responding to the twats calling others trolls, let us deal with the issues and say what happened.

So it has been an eventful weekend for me. I got to go through some experience which I really wish that no one will go thrrough. Everybody is talking about it but few of those who support or oppose my ordeal know what really happened.

So what happened? Apart from being a tech blogger in Kenya, I also comment on issues of social justice and governance. I am so passionately Kenyan that some of my friends whom I worked with outside the country used to call me as the leader of the Kenyan mafia. I follow every issue in this country with a keen eye. I don’t develop a class attitude and say that because something happened to someone in Kibera, Mukuru or K’Obong’o village then I cannot comment about it because it is just below my class. That is just me and I am not looking to change it anytime soon.

Just as other issues I follow closely, I have been following the case of the Shelter Afrique boss, Allassane Ba, and Mrs Karen Kandie. Allassane Ba happen to be a Mauritanian national head of the Shelter Afrique. He is alleged to had assaulted Mrs Karen Kandie who is married to the CCK Director of HR, Mr Juma Kandie. After the alleged assault, Mrs Kandie tried so hard to have Mr Ba arrested and arraigned in court. After trying for several days without much success, they one time managed to have Mr Ba arrested and locked up at Capital Hill police station in Naiobi. Befor arresting Mr Ba, Mrs Kandie had to get herself checked by the only police doctor in Nairobi province who is based at Nairobi Area. The search for the authentication of the Police doctor did nott come easily. It was a struggle which only those who have gone through get to fully understand.

More information about the Allassane Ba and Karen Kandie’s story.

So to cut the long story short, Mrs Kandie got the government doctor’s approval that she had a serious case which could sustain an assault case against Mr Ba. She proceeded to have Mr Ba arrested. The arrest saw the Western African staff members of Shelter Afrique drive in a convoy of 5 cars to Capital Hill Police station where they started to protest at the gate of the facility. They camped at the facility and with connections with the Kenyan government officials, they managed to get through to the commissioner of police, Mr Mathew Iteere, and the government spokesman, Dr Alfred Mutua, who both talked and got to issue orders to the OCPD Kilimani through Nairobi PPO, Anthony Kibuchi, that Mr Allassane Ba be immediately released. The Occurence Book (OB) recording at the Capital Police station is marked as Number 24/28/6/2012.

Immediately they realised that Mr Ba had been released, Mrs Kandie’s family reached out to all top Kenyan government officials they could reach to protest the release. In that course to you heard the Ministry of Foreign Affairs sometime say that Mr Allassane Ba has no diplomatic immunity before later changing the story. The family then reached to the Prime Minister who then ordered that Mr Allassane Ba be either arrested or deported. The order has never been effected. The people blocking the arrest are said to be the Foreign Affairs Ministry’s PS, Thuita Mwangi, Mr Iteere and Dr Alfred Mutua together with other Kenyan officials in the diplomatic community circles. It is a deep cover-up which you can only understand when you get full details and proof of the cover-up.

So with this information and backed by documents, I got to call Dr Alfred Mutua to ask him what really happened and if it was true that he is part of the group of top government officials who have been blocking the arrest of Mr Ba. I made the call at around 13:30 hours on Thursday August 16th. On receiving my call and after hearing my question, Dr Mutua told me, “Alai, we know that you are some activists and we don’t appreciate activism. We will deal with you.” I told Alfred to answer my question if he may because my call was not to diisplay activism but to get to the bottom of an issue. He said he does not deal with activists. I then asked him if he can remember that the last time he threatened some people that he would deal with them, they were found dead the next day (GPO Oulu and Oscar King’ara). Alfred got mad, said, “STUPID” then ended the call abruptly. I was surprised and after few minutes decided to inform the Police Spokesman and the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Within a few hours, I received a call from a Mr Rutere who said he is from the Provincial CID headquarters. He informed me that I need to report to his office immediately. I told him that the earliest I could go to his office is on Tuesday or Wednesday 21st and 22nd respectively. Mr Rutere told me that he will use other methods to get to me and have me arrested. I told him that I really don’t take threats kindly and I can only go to his office after the IDD celebrations. I knew that the police are looking for me because of the altercation with Alfred Mutua. If I went to see them on Friday, I would have stayed till Tuesday 21st in custody. Immediately after the call, I got two phone calls from people who did not speak to me. I used other means to get to know who they are and called them back to ask them if they work with the CID. They both said yes they work at the CID but the call was just a mistake. I then realised that someone was tracking my movements using my phone. I have gone through the tracking of suspects with the CID while investigating for my phone recovery story with the CID.

So I switched off my phones and stayed off radar the whole weekend but I continued to tweet and intermittently switch on my phone. I then went to see the CID on Tuesday at around mid-day with my lawyer. We found other officers but not Mr Rutere. So I got other officers who were assigned to the case. The most surprising confession from different officers who worked on the case is that they knew where I was, who I was talking to and what I was saying. They told me, “didn’t you tell ……….I got to realise that though it is known that the Kenya Police has been using its powers to track individuals through mobile phones, it is now even listening to conversations. The saddest part off all these is that they are doing it without a single legal backing or order.

I first got worried about the police surveillance when one junior CID officer who is a great friend to me and works in Nairobi called me sometime in 2011. We were to meet and I was busy elsewhere to I decided to say I am in shags (the village). After few minutes of the end of the call, the CID officer SMSed me to tell me that I am in such-and-such a place. I really got worried because here we were friends and I did not have a police case but someone was able to get to know very private details about my phone.