2018 to see ‘big bang’ moment for mobile IoT

The coming 12 months are expected to be an active period for mobile IoT technologies, with further network rollouts and the ongoing construction of a “vibrant” ecosystem to drive growth.

IOT

According to Cheng Zhu, president of the Huawei cellular IoT product line, 2018 will see a “big bang” moment for networks based on narrowband-IoT (NB-IoT), with the number increasing to 100 from 28 in 2017, connections rising from 10 million to 150 million, and the number of ecosystem partners tripling to more than 3,000.

The mobile IoT journey is well underway, proclaimed Mohammad Chowdhury, partner at PwC Australia, with the number of commercial network launches based on both NB-IoT and LTE-M technologies now standing at 41 (32 NB-IoT and nine LTE-M).

Yet panellists at the 6th Mobile IoT Summit agreed that much more still has to be done to ensure than existing challenges with regard to cost, roaming, scalability, the simplification of services and devices, and security aspects are overcome.

Lory Thorpe, head of innovation & prototyping at Vodafone Group Enterprise, stressed that what has been made clear with mobile IoT is that collaboration has been and will continue to be key.

Shen Hong Qun, deputy general manager in the marketing department at China Mobile, agreed, saying that cooperation and a win-win ecosystem will drive the future prospects for mobile IoT.

Johannes Kaumanns, vice president IoT – strategy & business development at Deutsche Telekom, added that an important approach will be to develop services with the customer in mind from the beginning.

The panel agreed that NB-IoT and LTE-M are not in competition with other and are both required because they serve different use cases – such as lower power requirements with NB-IoT.

“We don’t see them converging,” added Vodafone’s Thorpe. “There is still a lot of work to be done in understanding how these technologies can work in the most optimized manner.

Source: Mobile World Live

Greater Accra Regional Police Command Calls On Telecoms Chamber

Accra; Wednesday 14th February 2018.

The Accra Regional Police Command (ARPC), led by DCOP Alex Mensah engaged with the Industry Association together with its Mobile Financial Service heads in a quest to build stronger collaboration to combat Mobile Money fraud and service security.

2018-02-21-PHOTO-00000094
Greater Accra Regional Police Command with Mobile Money Heads

Mobile Money fraud and attacks on agents continues to grow, which is a huge concern for the Mobile Industry and the Ghana Police.

DCOP Alex Mensah observed that, "since the start of the year 2018, the ARPC has recorded over thirty (30) cases of attacks on Mobile Money agents and countless reports of Mobile Money fraud."

The Ghana Police Service believes that, a concerted effort to enhance collaboration between the Mobile Industry and the Police would provide the necessary strategies to combat the menace.

Ing. Kenneth Ashigbey reiterated the Chambers commitment to working with the Police to mitigate the menace.

“Our members are more than willing to work with the Police to fight all mobile Industry related crimes as it hurts our members’ revenues and reputation” said Kenneth.

The meeting discussed other critical security issues and parties agreed to implement some key plans, while working to engage the media and general public to boost education about the service to enhance safety.

 

 

The mobile phone: a blessing or a curse?

Ghana’s early experience with mobile phones dates back to the early 1990s.
Within a spate of about two decades, we were touted as one of the countries with the widest mobile penetration not only in Africa but the world at large.

bg4

Following this, the smartphone was introduced by a Japanese firm and there has been no looking back. Smartphones became widespread in the late 2000s and today, there are over a billion users worldwide.

The reason why we embraced the mobile technology so heartily has been traced to the low landline penetration in our part of the world and the plethora of functions it plays. Smartphones are fulfilling most people's need for a telephone, digital camera and video camera, GPS navigation, a media player, clock, news, calculator, web browser, video game player, flashlight, compass, an address book, note-taking, digital messaging and even an event calendar.

The proliferation of the smartphone in our society has had a lot of advantages. The phone has not only aided communication for socialisation, thereby keeping us in touch with our family and friends, but it has made possible the transfer of information and pictures instantly. It seems to be even complementing the efforts of the walkie-talkie used by our security personnel, aiding in communication during their day-to-day operations to prevent and fight crime and to regulate traffic flow. The smartphone is able to transport us from wherever we are located into the world of another through shared videos and pictures.

Economically, it has allowed the transfer of money from one place to another to the extent that it saves time and money. These are only a few of the positives this technology has made possible.

But this same device has come with a lot of negatives too. The very desire to own one has landed many in jail after they had stolen it or attempted to do so. Those in jail have even been the lucky ones as those not so lucky have been lynched. The smartphone has been the source of instability and quarrels in relationships as snooping partners have found their partners cheating and partners seem to spend so much time on chats to the dissatisfaction of their partners. The device seems to have a way of easily getting and keeping attention to the extent that some become addicted and simply can’t put it down.

This is to the extent that people don’t seem to listen anymore because they intend to call to ask same things you are telling them once they leave your presence.

With it also has been the zeal to be the first to share stuff. Whether appropriate or not, there seems to be some uncontrollable urge to share messages received to make one feel “ in vogue” perhaps. There have been many occasions where people who have rushed to an accident scene have done so not to help the accident victims but to capture videos and pictures of the scene in order to be the first to share them, giving them some unexplained gratification.

Then comes the worrisome trend of the circulation of leaked sex videos which naturally has varied and wide consequences.

Scandals resulting from leaked sex tapes and other materials are becoming too many for comfort in a society where openly discussing sex seems a taboo. Recently, and in close succession, we are seeing in circulation videos recorded by those supposed to be victims of the scandals that have emerged from such acts -- they privately recorded the videos themselves but somehow, these videos end up circulating in the public domain.

Examples of such videos are many. A few of them which readily come to mind include the video dubbed: “Begoro Limping man,” and then came that of the Tamale Sex Scandal and “Rashida Black beauty” who recorded herself nude. Among the recent ones is that involving the headteacher and Senior High School (SHS) student and the case of a pastor’s wife who reportedly mistakenly sent explicit videos to her church members instead of her husband.

I am wondering what it is that seems to be making some Ghanaians so eager to record what they do in private. Is it worth the trouble to record that which is likely to fall into the wrong hand and circulate in public space?

The mobile device is likely to keep transforming the way we do things because of the many advantages it presents and, therefore, it is not even possible to think about life without it. It is the abuse of the device that is the problem.

It seems the device is in the hands of many who don’t really understand completely all that it can do and can’t do.

We will, therefore, need to do some education on this to prevent the kind of unacceptable incidents we are witnessing. As individuals, we need to be circumspect about the kind of things we are so eager to share. After all, the smartphone was made for man and not man for the smartphone.

 

Source: Graphic.com.gh

MOBILE MONEY DEPOSITS HIT GH¢2.3 BILLION IN 2017

According to data from the Bank of Ghana and mobile money operators,the amount of money mobilized outside the banking system through mobile money reached a record GH¢2.3 billion ending December 2017, The amount represents a growth of 84.6 percent over the December 2016 amount of GH¢1.3 billion. These funds mobilized through mobile money are currently held by partner banks.

telecom-mobile-money-1

Mobile Money Service Providers operating in Ghana

Mobile Money Accounts
The data also showed that mobile money accounts reached 23.95 million accounts compared with 11.43 million accounts as at end December 2017.
This could also mean that an individual might have had more than one account as a subscriber of any of the Telcos and comparing this assertion to market penetration data from C-GAP ( a world bank affiliate working with more than 30 leading organizations that seek to advance financial inclusion).

The value of mobile money transactions was GH¢155.8 billion at end December 2017 showing a growth of 98.5 percent over December end position of GH¢78.5 billion in December 2016.
Largest share of deposit
MTN came on top as having the largest share of deposits, accounting for more than 90 percent of mobile money accounts held at commercial banks. MTN as at October 2017 had GH¢2.1 billion representing 93.5 percent of deposits held at commercial banks.

Airtel/Tigo followed with GH¢79 million accounting for 3.56 percent share of the deposits. Vodafone had 2.52 percent of the market share with GH¢57 million deposits.

Banks holding the Major Floats
Fidelity Bank led the pack in terms of the banks holding the largest share of mobile money deposits with GH¢583 million. ECOBANK had GH¢470 million, while CAL Bank held GH¢229m.
These were the top three banks out of the 19 banks captured in the Bank of Ghana data holding the mobile money deposits as at October 2017.

Impact on job Creation
Details of mobile money performance report also shows that direct jobs created by mobile money through engagement of mobile money agents was 194,688 in December 2017 compared with 136,769 in December 2016.

Regulatory Regime
With the Payment Systems and Services Bill coming into force later in this year, there is general expectation that the ecosystem will be provided additional support for the deepening of the payment landscape by creating job opportunities for the youth, facilitating international inward transfers, providing convenience and choice for consumers.

Source: Joy Business