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The Internet Can Be Used To Re-brand Nigeria
-ITAN Chief

Nigeria's Minister of Information and Communications, Professor Dora Akunyili has in recent weeks been on the campaign aimed at rebranding the country. But President of the Information Technology Association of Nigeria (ITAN), Dr. Jimson Olufuye told IFEANYI OSUEKE in this interview that the Internet alone can re-brand the country. He spoke among other issues…

What is ITAN's role in curbing cyber crime?

As long as mankind remains, crime will always be; just as in-spite of effort to curb poverty, there is still some level of poverty.

The basic thing is that we will mobilize to ensure that majority do the right thing. We would do that by encouraging intellectual property right and at the same time encourage loosing access to this right.

Take for instance, you have right to my property and you hold on to it. According to the current rule, they said is after 80 years that patent can expire and that is not good for us;

that is something that fuels crime. But when we look at the local film industry, how many are being pirated? Very few, this is because there is some form of control an there is respect for intellectual property and the cost of ownership is lower.

There has to be low cost of ownership that is why we also promote open source. So these are some of the things we are doing to empower the people. When the people feel that they are not empowered enough that is when they go into crime.

But I can assure you that even when everything is on the table, they will still want to cause some havoc. We must guide against this by collaboration and cooperation and by having clear focus on how to protect our data and our infrastructure. This is not what ITAN can do alone hence we encourage all stakeholders to come together.

Broadband access is still low in Nigeria, is there anything ITAN is doing in terms of collaborations, advocacy or partnership to encourage access?

Most of what we do is policy and advocacy and that is why we are talking about Internet Governance Forum. We need to have such opportunity to discuss what we really want and to mobilize all stakeholders. In the IGF, there is talk on broadband, there is talk on top level domain, there is talk on transparency rehabilitation, lot of things affect the issue of broadband itself.

Broadband is key to promoting Internet speed and access, that is why the current liberalization of the telecom sector should be supported and that is why we are also saying that NITDA board should be constituted because when they put that in place, they can engage in more projects.

How can the Internet help in re-branding Nigeria?

Internet can help to re-brand Nigeria in a very tremendous way. We just have to ensure that our domain management is solid.

NIRA- Nigeria Internet Registration Association needs to be empowered, ICANN meeting needs to be hosted in Nigeria. I hope ICANN will approve that Nigeria hosts its meeting coming up later in the year.

Empower more people; create your own web site, let there be campaign to project the Nigerian image. Let all the hotels and tourism centres develop web sites and we would have a re-branded Nigeria. The absence of truth makes falsehood to thrive.

Some of the ITAN members recently visited Silicon Valley, what is the significance of that visit?

Some of us went there November last year. You should know that if you are not well informed, you can be in high position but you will be deformed. It is an opportunity we open to CEOs to see how things are in other places. If you just hear something you can forget; when you see something you can remember but when you do something, you will understand.

We saw Cloud computing live. We visited Silicon Valley laboratory; we saw how Silicon is run. In fact, we were dressed up. I am not a Silicon engineer but I had a feel, because I was dressed up.

So it has a lot of impact, it was mind blowing and you appreciate the need for innovation because Silicon Valley is the centre of innovation. The current thing is about Green Technology which they have opened up; it was not there when we went there in 2003.

How would you assess the support of IT CEOs to ITAN as a body?

By virtue of law, there is a body in charge of IT professionals, which is CPN. They give us support. NCS has been very helpful too. The CEOs of IT companies and firms have been supportive. There has been web meetings and so on. However, I believe that lots more could still be done.

You have been successful as the President of ITAN, as your tenure comes to a close, what will you say is responsible for your success?

It is the grace of God. It is not by might but by the spirit. The recorded successes have been as a result of diligence and hard work. What also counts for us is that we watch against procrastination; if you have things to do, do it. That is the reason for the achievement in the short period of time.

The press also made it to happen; your commentaries, publicity, encouragement and so on. So many people played important role on our way to success.

What is your lowest ebb as the President of ITAN?

When I needed support from members but couldn't get it. This doesn't mean that there is any particular event that I can cite but, I expect more from professionals.
As you come close to the end of your tenure, will you re-run?
I am ready to serve and if the opportunity comes why not? But I would not mind if somebody else comes on.

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Google Docs Suffers Privacy Glitch

Google discovered a privacy glitch that inappropriately shared access to a small fraction of word-processing and presentation documents stored on the company's online Google Docs service.

“We've identified and fixed a bug which may have caused you to share some of your documents without your knowledge. This inadvertent sharing was limited to people with whom you or a collaborator with sharing rights, had previously shared a document,” the company said in a note, quoted at TechCrunch that the search giant sent to affected people. “The issue only occurred if you, or a collaborator with sharing rights, selected multiple documents and presentations from the documents list and changed the sharing permissions. This issue affected documents and presentations, but not spreadsheets.”

Google said in a later statement that the problem affected only 0.05 percent of documents stored at the site and that affected Google Docs users had been notified.

Though the documents were shared only with people whom the Google Docs users had already shared documents, rather than with the world at large, the problem illustrates one downside of cloud computing, in which Internet servers host software previously run on a person's own computer.

The flip side of a cloud-computing advantage, that a person can get access to those documents from any Internet-connected computer or smartphone, is that technical problems or hacking attempts also can expose private information.

Celcom Targets 120% Growth …For Mobile Broadb and Users In 2009 broadband monthly data plaUSB broadband don

Celcom, Malaysia's second largest wireless operator by subscribers, has said it aims to expand its mobile broadband subscriber base by 120% in 2009 following the launch of a new pre-paid tariff; the new service will cost MYR25 (USD6.84) per month.

According to News Agency Bernama, Celcom claimed to have approximately 270,000 mobile broadband customers at the end of February 2009, having registered a 300% year-on-year growth in 2008. The operator also said it had mobile broadband coverage of almost 70% of the populated areas of the country.

In a further bid to solidify its position in the mobile broadband sector the operator is also planning to introduce a new deal costing MYR159 per month which offers a Hewlett-Packard notebook computer, in addition to the Celcom broadband monthly data plan and USB broadband dongle.

Ericsson Demonstrates VDSL2 Technology

Ericsson has showcased broadband VDSL2 technology in Nigeria, achieving data transfer rates of up to 0.5Gbps. The new technology provides greater bandwidth than traditional ADSL, and will allow operators to offer customers low-cost, high-performance connectivity and services such as HDTV and video-on-demand (VoD).

Hakan Eriksson, CTO of Ericsson said: “This demonstration confirms Ericsson's leadership in broadband access technology and our commitment to the continued research and development of DSL technology to improve operators' business with new access solutions. It also proves Ericsson's abilities to provide future mobile backhauling, which will enable quick and cost-effective introduction of long term evolution (LTE) solutions.”

IWayAfrica Launches Innovative Wi-Fi Hotspot Solution

An innovative commercial WIFI solution that will allow laptop users to connect wirelessly to the Internet in locations throughout Nigeria has been launched by MWEB Nigeria, now iWayAfrica Nigeria Ltd, one of the largest Internet Service Providers (ISP) in Africa.

The service which was officially launched last month will give owners at Hotels, Lodges, Eateries, Restaurants and Café's the ability to provide Internet services to their patrons.
Users of this service can purchase various preconfigured voucher denominations from the hotspot owner with varying time durations and megabyte caps.

According to John Ugbe, General Manager, iWayAfrica Nigeria Limited, “iWayAfrica Nigeria Limited offers an out of the box turnkey solution that includes billing capability, access control and Internet connectivity offering a hotspot owner the opportunity to expand their business revenues by bundling it to our iWay solution”

iWayAfrica Nigeria's Wi-Fi solution offers a captive portal, which automatically loads when a Wi-Fi user connects to the hotspot and can be customized according to the hotspot owner's requirements. This represents a great opportunity for a hotspot owner to promote his brand. A hotspot owner may even rent out space on the captive portal at a premium to third parties increasing the potential to earn further revenue from the hotspot.

“Our Wi-Fi service boasts a fully customized and brandable Wi-Fi solution that enables the hotspot owner offer customers a unique experience showcasing their brand on customized login pages, as well as the use of marketing material for the venue owner”, Ugbe added.

He noted that this will also allow a walled garden facility that permits the hotspot owner to set free Internet sites which customers can access, as well as configure “free” browsing time feature, where guests, at the discretion of the hotspot owner, can access the Internet free of charge for a stipulated time.

Ugbe also stated: “Our hotspot solution is ideal for lodges, larger hotels and conference venues and businesses that may not have access to fixed line services”. Wi-Fi offers users unprecedented convenience as they are able to connect to the Internet seamlessly and quickly anywhere there is Wi-Fi access available. No cables, no LAN points, mean this is a truly portable technology that is available in most new laptops and portable devices. For nomadic PC users who are always on the go, this means they can be connected to the office whilst not actually being at the office.”

He added that for the hotspot owner, the commercial hotspot is a means of differentiating their venue and attracting customers to the establishment as well as an additional source of income.

According to him, “The Internet has become part of our daily lives for both work and play. Popular social networking services like linked-in and my space and others for business networking purposes are testimony to an online digital life that is expanding in the 21st century. We are seeing increased demand for the Internet and we are

pioneering new technologies to deliver new broadband solutions in Nigeria.”

The solution can be used across many sectors including education, travel and tourism, food & beverage, financial services and manufacturing. Globally, large conference venues and shopping malls have readily adopted this technology as well. International trends have also revealed an increase in the health & beauty, property and business sectors where hospitals, new housing estates and companies are employing Wi-Fi for mobile PC users.

iWayAfrica Nigeria has developed a range of hotspot packages to suite the size of the businesses requiring the hotspot. Entry level systems support for 10 users are available as well as high end configurations that can support hundreds of users.

Muyiwa Esomojumi, iWayAfrica Nigeria Marketing Executive stated that “For smaller installations, iWayAfrica Nigeria recommends the Mini product that is based on a revenue share model where the hotspot operator gets 90% of the revenue from the hotspot.

“For larger installations, we recommend the Maxi product that gives the hotspot owner 100% of the revenue derived from the hotspot and only pays a fixed monthly subscription for the service.”

She said existing business customers with VSAT products will be able to connect their VSAT products in conjunction with iWayAfrica Nigeria's Wi-Fi offering, enabling businesses to begin running their own hotspot service.

Chief Executive Officer of MWEB Africa, Harry Aucamp said, “We are excited to offer this service in Nigeria and are planning an extensive rollout of the service throughout Africa. Our introduction of the Wi-Fi hotspot is to allow our customers to be competitive and make their business more attractive to their respective markets. It is also another way we are aiming to bring a customer-centric and value-based service to subscribers.”