According to a recent International Telecommunications Union (ITU) report, Kenya mobile telephony industry now accounts for 7% of mobile phone subscribers in sub-Saharan Africa. Kenya had 17.4 million mobile phone subscribers by end of June 2009, translating to 45.7% penetration. The report also indicates that Kenya has the third highest number of subscribers, after Nigeria and South Africa that respectively account for 26% and 19% of mobile cellular subscriptions in sub-Saharan Africa. This presents an apt environment to market value added services that run on mobile phone devices, the evidence being the introduction of money transfers, short codes, news alerts, SMS voting and other services introduced by various service providers in Kenya. However, a field that is lagging behind in the market is the deployment of services that run on high-end mobile devices, also know as smart phones. Despite the fact that they are pricy, the value proposition of smart phones way surpasses its price tag. Which begs the question; what are smart phones and what can they do for different market segments?
Generally, a smartphone is a mobile phone offering advanced capabilities, often with PC-like functionality (PC-mobile handset convergence). In other words, it is a miniature computer that runs on an Operating System (OS) and has phone capability. Operating systems that can be found on smartphones include Symbian OS, iPhone OS, Palm WebOS, BlackBerry OS, Samsung bada, Windows Mobile, Android and Maemo. WebOS, Android and Maemo are built on top of Linux, and the iPhone OS is derived from the BSD and NeXTSTEP operating systems, which all are related to Unix. The first smartphone was designed by IBM in 1992 and released to the market by 1993. The phone had integrated the functions of a mobile phone, calendar, address book, world clock, calculator, note pad, e-mail, send and receive fax, and games. This was a phenomenon in the mobile telephony industry, moving from individual devices for various functions to a single multifunctional high speed and robust device. It had no physical buttons but rather a touch-screen to select phone numbers with a finger or create facsimiles and memos with an optional stylus. A pop up keyboard would appear when the user wanted to type a message. By the year 2002, various mobile phone manufacturers had released their versions of smartphones, utilizing a full keyboard that combined wireless web browsing, email, calendar and contact organizer, with mobile third-party applications that could be downloaded or synced with a computer.
The essence of the smart phone is that it’s a versatile business tool, a phone having the latest business apps - mobile email, salesforce automation and supply chain management, for instance - and the ability for those apps to sync with the software at corporate intranet. It takes advantage of the skills, energy and innovation of numerous companies from a vast range of industries - means that smart phones extend the phenomenal track record of mobile phones by improving constantly and rapidly, year by year. Distinguishing most smart phones from a feature phone are their open operating systems and the ability to freely add and remove applications. Consider a scenario of a company with a distribution or collection chain, for example the Kenya Co-operative Creameries for collection or the East African Breweries Limited for distribution. Traditionally, a Point-of-Sale system (comprising of a computer installed with enterprise software - mostly proprietary software) and a local loop link to the head office or an Internet connection will be installed. This setup requires complex Wide Area Network (WAN) designs, a Service provider with national coverage, IT support staff at depots and expensive hardware like routers, wireless transceivers and satellite dishes.
In comparison to the traditional setup, provision of a smartphone to the depot manager at a remote location would serve the same purpose. The smartphone can run enterprise software and connect securely to the database at the head office for record entries. If the records are bulky or may require more than one person for entry, one or more computers can be used during business hours. At the close of business, the computers can be synchronized with the smartphone and the data sent to the head office. For some workers a smartphone may address all their communications, connectivity and applications requirements. At the scarcely populated such as North Eastern Kenya, one user can visit several depots and record the summary entries from the day’s sales or collection. In terms of infrastructure, all the user needs is national cell phone network coverage, which is available in Kenya at the moment. The smartphone can be configured and tested by an IT expert at the head office and sent to the user. This setup is not only for Cooperate companies, with the advent of e-banking, e-commerce, e-money transfer and so on, it can also be used by Small Scale Enterprises (SMEs) who wish to trade on-line and use applications such as worksheets to store business records. Additional functions important to a business person include; personal organisers, electronic diaries, contact lists, and automatic reminders. On some platforms such as 3G, smartphones can be used for video conferencing and document sharing.
The most fundamental challenge for using smartphones is security. A key danger with is that users do not bother to enter a password when using the phone. Smartphones should not be given access to company networks without extra security, even though the phones are individually owned by users. Smart phones are conspicuous and have become "easy pickings" for any opportunists trying to steal them or access information. They can also be accessed and synced by hackers on public networks, such as Wifi networks in a coffee shop, if proper security measures are not put in place. The other important challenge for smartphones is to show the market how their can provide a superior return on investment. Decision makers in cooperate companies may view a smartphone as a pricy fashionable device and not a business tool. IT managers need to convince them that smart phones are indispensable rather than indulgent. Possibly look at them as price-competitive replacements for laptops. Manufacturers may need to argue the case for their products not just with operators, but also the end users. Manufacturers should work closely with operators to create easy-to-use services based on specific functionality that users’ value.
Mobile operators in Kenya should increase smartphone discounts to improve their profit margins. Operators need data traffic growth to offset declining margins for voice and SMS services, bearing in mind that smart phones generate over 25 percent of mobile data traffic. They should work with handset makers to ensure that feature phones do not compromise data usage and probably customize the applications to the local market. The high price of smartphones, relative to average selling prices (ASPs), mean that many contracts for higher end phones are based on 18-month periods or longer. This makes them unaffordable to the majority of the population. Operators may take a different approach and stimulate the uptake of these devices, especially in the SME market.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Monday, March 15, 2010
Going Green the Telecoms way
Last year, the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15) was held at the Bella Center in Copenhagen, Denmark, between 7 December and 18 December. The aim of the conference was to review the Kyoto protocol and develop a framework for climate change mitigation. Delegates, Ministers and Heads of State from all over the world attended the conference. The most paramount issue was on reduction of carbon dioxide emissions by industrialized countries, which are the major contributors. There has been a sharp acceleration in carbon dioxide emissions since 2000 to more than a 3% increase per year from 1.1% per year during the 1990s is attributable to the lapse of formerly declining trends in carbon intensity of both developing and developed nations. The direct emissions from industry have declined due to a constant improvement in energy efficiency, but also to a high penetration of electricity. In concluding the conference, a Copenhagen Accord was drafted by the US, China, India, Brazil and South Africa on December 18, detailing the actions to be taken in order keep any temperature increases to below 2°C. One aspect that may have not been captured in the COP15 conference was the role of the Telecommunications industry in mitigating the effects of climate change.
Travel industry – air travel, marine travel and car travel - is one of the sectors that has high rate of carbon dioxide emissions. According to British Airways, a 747-400 plane cruises at 576 mph (927km/h), burns 12,788 liters of fuel per hour, and carries 409 passengers when full. This means that on average each passenger burns approximately 31 liters of fuel per hour. What if there was a way of averting the burning of thousands of liters of fuel by travelers? For instance, in business traveling, traders need to travel to source for commodities, meet potential clients, close deals and attend trade fairs. With modern telecommunications technology business persons can replace the hassle of travel and carry out their duties without causing damage to the environment. One such technology is telepresence which integrates life-size, High Definition (HD) video with high-quality sound in a room setup, creating the feel of actually being in the same room as participants at other locations. The technology can be implemented anywhere in the world utilizing the global Internet Protocol (IP) network, as simple as walking into the conference room next door. Telepresence is also employed in other sectors such as education, health, military and government.
Telepresence is similar to video conferencing, only that it gives an immersive experience. It provides stimuli such that the user perceives no differences from actual presence of the counterpart. As the screen size increases, so does the sense of immersion, as well as the range of subjective mental experiences available to viewers. The stimuli depends on the application and bandwidth used. Consider a person watching television, for example, the primary senses of vision and hearing are stimulated giving the impression that the watcher is no longer at home. Similar capabilities give telepresence a level of visual and acoustic realism that encourages active usage. The quality of experience also may be influenced by room customization. While high-end telepresence users might have many of these added services, other users may have simple rooms outfitted with plug-and- play, high definition technology. Indeed, any room can be a telepresence room.
The fundamental methodology used in a telepresence system is digital compression of audio and video streams in real time. The audio and video signal is sampled and quantized, a process called encoding. This process results in a digital stream of 1s and 0s is subdivided into labeled packets, which are then transmitted over the global IP network. The receiving telepresence system decodes the digital stream to display the visual and generate the audio. The hardware or software that performs this compression is called a codec (coder/decoder). To create a vivid, compelling and natural experience a resolution of between 720p and 1080p at 30 frames per second is deployed, giving a crystal clear video stream. For audio standards-based wideband codecs are implemented to improve the voice quality carried over IP networks. Wideband codecs provide clearer, more lifelike voice communications and markedly improved intelligibility because of the additional voice data included in the audio stream. They also double the voice signal range, in the range of 30 hertz to 7000 hertz or higher, while using the same network bandwidth as narrowband codecs.
In designing a telepresence system, first decision is to determine if the telepresence traffic will be carried on an overlay network or a converged network. An overlay network is a new set of connections that parallel the current network, whose purpose to provide links that are dedicated to the telepresence application. However, a converged network utilizes one network for voice, data and video applications. A network engineer needs to evaluate his requirements and decide whether to use an overlay or converged network. This decision (overlay versus converged) is driven by the sophistication of Quality of Service (QoS) in the current network and often by the deployment schedule. It is much faster to get an overlay network running correctly than to get all the details of additional bandwidth and QoS working on the converged network. I would advise enterprises to start with this approach and work their way back to a converged network when they are ready.
The next step is to determine bandwidth requirements. How much bandwidth will be required to support the proposed telepresence suites? Telepresence systems have a range of bandwidths over which they will operate, with varying degrees of quality as a result. Run some tests with the vendor to determine what quality level you really need. Then lay out the network map and determine which Local Area Network (LAN) and Wide Area Network (WAN) links will need to support that bandwidth. Telepresence systems usually consume about 5 Mbps per screen for today’s technology. So a 3-screen system requires 15 Mbps of continuous network bandwidth when in use. Next steps are to ensure that QoS is properly deployed to guarantee high-quality transport for the telepresence video and audio streams. Interactive video conferencing is a real-time application, so it uses UDP and requires low loss, low latency and low jitter. Getting this wrong means displaying your network loss on 60” plasma screens to your top level executives.
This technology is however not popular in Kenya because of a number of challenges. Namely; high cost of equipment, high cost of bandwidth and lack of expertise in this area. The key requirement of setting up a telepresence system is to put in place sufficient bandwidth for the telepresence traffic, above and beyond what was required by the business before telepresence was installed. First, Wide Area Network service providers need to give clear Service Level Agreements (SLAs) that address the requirement for video to have very low loss and jitter, and latency that is reasonable given the geographic distances involved. Secondly, the cost of this bandwidth can vary widely across geographic regions around the world. The first logical approach is to find a WAN service provider with a sufficiently large footprint to be able to supply service to all the enterprise locations of interest. Such service providers may offer partnering agreements with additional service providers, crossing from network to network, and getting a real guarantee on the traffic quality and QoS parameters. Additionally, young Kenyan engineers and technicians must venture into this area and learn how to design and implement telepresence solutions. Foreign expertise will always be more expensive, as it is now, but not to discourage our brethren from other parts of the globe from practicing in Kenya.
Travel industry – air travel, marine travel and car travel - is one of the sectors that has high rate of carbon dioxide emissions. According to British Airways, a 747-400 plane cruises at 576 mph (927km/h), burns 12,788 liters of fuel per hour, and carries 409 passengers when full. This means that on average each passenger burns approximately 31 liters of fuel per hour. What if there was a way of averting the burning of thousands of liters of fuel by travelers? For instance, in business traveling, traders need to travel to source for commodities, meet potential clients, close deals and attend trade fairs. With modern telecommunications technology business persons can replace the hassle of travel and carry out their duties without causing damage to the environment. One such technology is telepresence which integrates life-size, High Definition (HD) video with high-quality sound in a room setup, creating the feel of actually being in the same room as participants at other locations. The technology can be implemented anywhere in the world utilizing the global Internet Protocol (IP) network, as simple as walking into the conference room next door. Telepresence is also employed in other sectors such as education, health, military and government.
Telepresence is similar to video conferencing, only that it gives an immersive experience. It provides stimuli such that the user perceives no differences from actual presence of the counterpart. As the screen size increases, so does the sense of immersion, as well as the range of subjective mental experiences available to viewers. The stimuli depends on the application and bandwidth used. Consider a person watching television, for example, the primary senses of vision and hearing are stimulated giving the impression that the watcher is no longer at home. Similar capabilities give telepresence a level of visual and acoustic realism that encourages active usage. The quality of experience also may be influenced by room customization. While high-end telepresence users might have many of these added services, other users may have simple rooms outfitted with plug-and- play, high definition technology. Indeed, any room can be a telepresence room.
The fundamental methodology used in a telepresence system is digital compression of audio and video streams in real time. The audio and video signal is sampled and quantized, a process called encoding. This process results in a digital stream of 1s and 0s is subdivided into labeled packets, which are then transmitted over the global IP network. The receiving telepresence system decodes the digital stream to display the visual and generate the audio. The hardware or software that performs this compression is called a codec (coder/decoder). To create a vivid, compelling and natural experience a resolution of between 720p and 1080p at 30 frames per second is deployed, giving a crystal clear video stream. For audio standards-based wideband codecs are implemented to improve the voice quality carried over IP networks. Wideband codecs provide clearer, more lifelike voice communications and markedly improved intelligibility because of the additional voice data included in the audio stream. They also double the voice signal range, in the range of 30 hertz to 7000 hertz or higher, while using the same network bandwidth as narrowband codecs.
In designing a telepresence system, first decision is to determine if the telepresence traffic will be carried on an overlay network or a converged network. An overlay network is a new set of connections that parallel the current network, whose purpose to provide links that are dedicated to the telepresence application. However, a converged network utilizes one network for voice, data and video applications. A network engineer needs to evaluate his requirements and decide whether to use an overlay or converged network. This decision (overlay versus converged) is driven by the sophistication of Quality of Service (QoS) in the current network and often by the deployment schedule. It is much faster to get an overlay network running correctly than to get all the details of additional bandwidth and QoS working on the converged network. I would advise enterprises to start with this approach and work their way back to a converged network when they are ready.
The next step is to determine bandwidth requirements. How much bandwidth will be required to support the proposed telepresence suites? Telepresence systems have a range of bandwidths over which they will operate, with varying degrees of quality as a result. Run some tests with the vendor to determine what quality level you really need. Then lay out the network map and determine which Local Area Network (LAN) and Wide Area Network (WAN) links will need to support that bandwidth. Telepresence systems usually consume about 5 Mbps per screen for today’s technology. So a 3-screen system requires 15 Mbps of continuous network bandwidth when in use. Next steps are to ensure that QoS is properly deployed to guarantee high-quality transport for the telepresence video and audio streams. Interactive video conferencing is a real-time application, so it uses UDP and requires low loss, low latency and low jitter. Getting this wrong means displaying your network loss on 60” plasma screens to your top level executives.
This technology is however not popular in Kenya because of a number of challenges. Namely; high cost of equipment, high cost of bandwidth and lack of expertise in this area. The key requirement of setting up a telepresence system is to put in place sufficient bandwidth for the telepresence traffic, above and beyond what was required by the business before telepresence was installed. First, Wide Area Network service providers need to give clear Service Level Agreements (SLAs) that address the requirement for video to have very low loss and jitter, and latency that is reasonable given the geographic distances involved. Secondly, the cost of this bandwidth can vary widely across geographic regions around the world. The first logical approach is to find a WAN service provider with a sufficiently large footprint to be able to supply service to all the enterprise locations of interest. Such service providers may offer partnering agreements with additional service providers, crossing from network to network, and getting a real guarantee on the traffic quality and QoS parameters. Additionally, young Kenyan engineers and technicians must venture into this area and learn how to design and implement telepresence solutions. Foreign expertise will always be more expensive, as it is now, but not to discourage our brethren from other parts of the globe from practicing in Kenya.
Monday, December 21, 2009
WHAT DIGITAL TV REALLY MEANS
In 2006, a global project to migrate from analogue TV to digital TV was initiated during a telecommunications conference in Geneva. A deadline of June 2015 was set by which all broadcasters are expected to have migrated to the digital platform. Kenya has since followed suit in the global trends and has become the third country to commence her migration to digital TV in Africa. Following the presidential inauguration ceremony of digital TV at the Kenya Broadcasting Cooperation (KBC) transmitting station, debate has been brewing in the public domain. Of particular concerned is the migration cost from analogue to digital receptive television sets, by either purchasing a new compatible set or a digital converter. The government says the converter boxes should be priced at between Sh3,000 and Sh5,000 but consumers say they are currently priced at Sh10,000. At present, there are over 4 million household TV sets, most of which are not capable of processing the digital signal. The migration will therefore compel majority of Kenyans dig dipper into their pockets. However, consumers are oblivious of the benefits of digital television and reasons behind the world’s migration trend from the traditional vestigial wideband analogue transmission to the modern narrowband digital transmission.
By definition, Digital television (DTV) is the sending and receiving of moving images and sound by discrete signals. The signals can be transmitted through air, copper or fiber optic medium. There are various methods of receiving the transmitted digital signals. The most common is Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) which broadcasts land based signals and uses an aerial, same as one for an analogue signal, on the receiving end. This requires Digital Video Broadcasting Terrestrial (DVBT) enabled TV set or an MPEG-4 digital converter. Another method is by use of a digital cable from a cable television company. The signal can be delivered using coaxial cable or fiber optic cable. Digital television can also be received via the Internet Protocol (IP), usually referred to as IPTV, using a Broadband connection to an Internet Service Provider (ISP). The last method that can be used is by using handheld devices such as smart phones, which have been configured to receive the signals through a mobile provider’s network.
Digital television presents a number of opportunities to the Kenyan Information and Communication Technology Industry (ICT) industry. DTV has several advantages over analog TV, the most significant being that digital channels take up less bandwidth, and the bandwidth needs are continuously variable, at a corresponding reduction in image quality depending on the level of compression as well as the resolution of the transmitted image. This means that digital broadcasters can provide more digital channels in the same space, provide high-definition television service, or provide other non-television services such as multimedia or interactivity. DTV also permits special services such as multiplexing (more than one program on the same channel), electronic program guides (EPG) and additional languages (spoken or subtitled). Engineers and software developers could also benefit from installation business and development of software that will help record programmes for later viewing.
The Kenya Broadcasting Cooperation’s (KBC) test runs will focus on the first method due to its infrastructural economics in terms of transmission and receiving equipment, the other methods would call for higher capital expenditure if they were to have country-wide coverage. The service is being operated by Signet, a subsidiary of the Kenyan Broadcasting Corporation (KBC), specifically set up to broadcast and distribute the DTT signals. As the government works on subsidizing or providing incentives for consumers to purchase compliant equipment, University of Nairobi and Jomo Kenyatta University are said to have taken up the challenge to develop locally assembled analogue to digital converters. Digital television signals will not interfere with the analogue signals, and they will coexist with analog television until it is phased out. Currently, the transmission covers Nairobi and its environs, among them Kajiado, Machakos, Naivasha and Murang’a. From these areas, from a digital-enabled television set, your can be able to enjoy good picture quality and a Telezine. A telezine, an acronym for television magazine, is a user-interactive menu from which a viewer can get information from the television station such news update, company profile and so on by simply using the remote control.
The digital TV coverage is expected to gradually spread to the rest of the country to pave way to the complete migration by the year 2012. The complete switch to digital broadcasting is expected to cost Sh6 billion (USD 80 million) and an initial Sh152 million (USD 2 million) has already been allocated. Broadcasters will be required to sign transmission contracts with Signet upon licensing by the CCK. Signet will carry private broadcasters signals free of charge, but will charge for its services after 2012. This means that broadcasters will concentrate on content development as opposed to incurring costs on none core business issues such as building and maintaining infrastructure. However, this model poses some challenges in its deployment. Technically, it introduces a single point of failure for national broadcasting. If the Signet transmission base is down, the entire country could be thrown into a television ‘blackout’. Secondly, a state owned transmission company is prone to political interference especially in transmitting content unfriendly to the government. The Kenya Media Owners Association has already expressed its concerns with the role of Signet. During the inaugural ceremony, the Standard Group vice-chairman, Mr. Paul Melly, said that his concern was that the service provider is KBC, which is owned by the government. He emphasized that the media industry wants to be assured that Signet will play its role properly.
Currently, the demand for new TV and radio broadcasting frequencies surpasses the supply by a huge margin. There are over 60 applications for TV licenses and more than 150 for FM radio. DTV will reduce the bandwidth consumption for TV transmission by up to 10%. This will provide room for additional broadcasters or bandwidth allocation to non-television services. The sale of non-television services may provide an additional revenue source. Telco companies in Kenya can also provide the DTV signal over their infrastructure in additional to the voice and data services. This was typical in the US where the coaxial cable network was used to provide Internet and cable TV services. Internet Service Providers can deliver DTV using broadband connections, increasing revenues from the consumer requirements of additional bandwidth to cater for the IPTV service. As mobile service providers in Kenya continue invent value added services for their subscribers, DTV will feature significantly. Safaricom has already signed an agreement with Nokia and DMTV concerning a Digital Video Broadcasting – Handheld (DVB-H) mobile TV service in the country. The agreement will enable Safaricom subscribers to watch DSTV's menu of TV programmes from certain Nokia mobile phones.
The challenge is for the broadcasters now is to generate adequate local content that will enable them to run the stations 24 hours. This could not have come at a better time, when the Kenyan audience is warming up to local movies, operas, music, documentaries and so on and so forth. The local artists will benefit from the demand of their talents by the broadcasters to develop content. As of late 2009, 10 countries had completed the process of turning off analog terrestrial broadcasting. Many other countries had plans to do so or were in the process of a staged conversion. The first country to make a wholesale switch to digital over-the-air (terrestrial) broadcasting was Luxembourg, in 2006, followed by the Netherlands later in 2006, Finland, Andorra, Sweden, Norway and Switzerland in 2007, Belgium (Flanders) and Germany in 2008, and the United States, Denmark, South Africa and Kenya in 2009.
By definition, Digital television (DTV) is the sending and receiving of moving images and sound by discrete signals. The signals can be transmitted through air, copper or fiber optic medium. There are various methods of receiving the transmitted digital signals. The most common is Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) which broadcasts land based signals and uses an aerial, same as one for an analogue signal, on the receiving end. This requires Digital Video Broadcasting Terrestrial (DVBT) enabled TV set or an MPEG-4 digital converter. Another method is by use of a digital cable from a cable television company. The signal can be delivered using coaxial cable or fiber optic cable. Digital television can also be received via the Internet Protocol (IP), usually referred to as IPTV, using a Broadband connection to an Internet Service Provider (ISP). The last method that can be used is by using handheld devices such as smart phones, which have been configured to receive the signals through a mobile provider’s network.
Digital television presents a number of opportunities to the Kenyan Information and Communication Technology Industry (ICT) industry. DTV has several advantages over analog TV, the most significant being that digital channels take up less bandwidth, and the bandwidth needs are continuously variable, at a corresponding reduction in image quality depending on the level of compression as well as the resolution of the transmitted image. This means that digital broadcasters can provide more digital channels in the same space, provide high-definition television service, or provide other non-television services such as multimedia or interactivity. DTV also permits special services such as multiplexing (more than one program on the same channel), electronic program guides (EPG) and additional languages (spoken or subtitled). Engineers and software developers could also benefit from installation business and development of software that will help record programmes for later viewing.
The Kenya Broadcasting Cooperation’s (KBC) test runs will focus on the first method due to its infrastructural economics in terms of transmission and receiving equipment, the other methods would call for higher capital expenditure if they were to have country-wide coverage. The service is being operated by Signet, a subsidiary of the Kenyan Broadcasting Corporation (KBC), specifically set up to broadcast and distribute the DTT signals. As the government works on subsidizing or providing incentives for consumers to purchase compliant equipment, University of Nairobi and Jomo Kenyatta University are said to have taken up the challenge to develop locally assembled analogue to digital converters. Digital television signals will not interfere with the analogue signals, and they will coexist with analog television until it is phased out. Currently, the transmission covers Nairobi and its environs, among them Kajiado, Machakos, Naivasha and Murang’a. From these areas, from a digital-enabled television set, your can be able to enjoy good picture quality and a Telezine. A telezine, an acronym for television magazine, is a user-interactive menu from which a viewer can get information from the television station such news update, company profile and so on by simply using the remote control.
The digital TV coverage is expected to gradually spread to the rest of the country to pave way to the complete migration by the year 2012. The complete switch to digital broadcasting is expected to cost Sh6 billion (USD 80 million) and an initial Sh152 million (USD 2 million) has already been allocated. Broadcasters will be required to sign transmission contracts with Signet upon licensing by the CCK. Signet will carry private broadcasters signals free of charge, but will charge for its services after 2012. This means that broadcasters will concentrate on content development as opposed to incurring costs on none core business issues such as building and maintaining infrastructure. However, this model poses some challenges in its deployment. Technically, it introduces a single point of failure for national broadcasting. If the Signet transmission base is down, the entire country could be thrown into a television ‘blackout’. Secondly, a state owned transmission company is prone to political interference especially in transmitting content unfriendly to the government. The Kenya Media Owners Association has already expressed its concerns with the role of Signet. During the inaugural ceremony, the Standard Group vice-chairman, Mr. Paul Melly, said that his concern was that the service provider is KBC, which is owned by the government. He emphasized that the media industry wants to be assured that Signet will play its role properly.
Currently, the demand for new TV and radio broadcasting frequencies surpasses the supply by a huge margin. There are over 60 applications for TV licenses and more than 150 for FM radio. DTV will reduce the bandwidth consumption for TV transmission by up to 10%. This will provide room for additional broadcasters or bandwidth allocation to non-television services. The sale of non-television services may provide an additional revenue source. Telco companies in Kenya can also provide the DTV signal over their infrastructure in additional to the voice and data services. This was typical in the US where the coaxial cable network was used to provide Internet and cable TV services. Internet Service Providers can deliver DTV using broadband connections, increasing revenues from the consumer requirements of additional bandwidth to cater for the IPTV service. As mobile service providers in Kenya continue invent value added services for their subscribers, DTV will feature significantly. Safaricom has already signed an agreement with Nokia and DMTV concerning a Digital Video Broadcasting – Handheld (DVB-H) mobile TV service in the country. The agreement will enable Safaricom subscribers to watch DSTV's menu of TV programmes from certain Nokia mobile phones.
The challenge is for the broadcasters now is to generate adequate local content that will enable them to run the stations 24 hours. This could not have come at a better time, when the Kenyan audience is warming up to local movies, operas, music, documentaries and so on and so forth. The local artists will benefit from the demand of their talents by the broadcasters to develop content. As of late 2009, 10 countries had completed the process of turning off analog terrestrial broadcasting. Many other countries had plans to do so or were in the process of a staged conversion. The first country to make a wholesale switch to digital over-the-air (terrestrial) broadcasting was Luxembourg, in 2006, followed by the Netherlands later in 2006, Finland, Andorra, Sweden, Norway and Switzerland in 2007, Belgium (Flanders) and Germany in 2008, and the United States, Denmark, South Africa and Kenya in 2009.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Google Takes Cloud Computing To The Next Level
Cloud computing is a new concept that is quickly gaining popularity in the world, though it is rarely utilized in Kenya. But what is cloud computing? It is an Internet- ("cloud-") based development and use of computer technology ("computing"). In concept, it is a paradigm shift whereby details are abstracted from the users who no longer need knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure "in the cloud" that supports them. It typically involves the provision of dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources as a service over the Internet.
Main advantage of this concept is the fact that the users don’t need in-depth knowledge of various computing concepts. In a semi-computer-literate country like Kenya, this would go a long way in enhanced the computer usage by the ‘common mwananchi’. The other advantage is that the user does not require high-end resources on his or her computer, but rather the resources in the ‘cloud’ are shared among the users. In particular, the storage resources of Google Docs, for instance, are virtually inexhaustible. Finally, the user can access the storage servers from any part of the world via the Web, talk about unlimited portability.
Google Inc has taken cloud computing to the next level by providing a platform on which exclusively runs, the Google Chrome OS. Google Chrome OS is an open source operating system designed by Google to work exclusively with web applications. Google Chrome OS would require less storage space because the operating system on a disk is 60 times smaller than Windows 7.
"With Chrome, Google is seeking to challenge Microsoft dominance in the market It's basically a web browsing machine," said Altimeter Group analyst Charlene Li, referring to the netbooks powered by Chrome operating system (Source: Nation Daily 24th November, 2009)
The new Google Inc software will start up a computer as fast as a television can be turned on, an average of seven seconds on a netbook. The operating system is based on Linux and targets specifically designed hardware. The user interface takes a minimalist approach, resembling that of the Chrome web browser. Because the browser will be the only application residing on the device, Google Chrome OS is aimed at users who spend most of their computer time on the Internet.
The technology is apt for small to medium scale business with little financial provision to invest in their ICT infrastructure. With a low-end computer such as a netbook, a business can process and store business document either in the office or remotely. This also presents an opportunity for our secondary and primary schools with low budgets for their computer labs. The computers would not require running the applications or having huge storage spaces. However, it demands an investment on the Internet bandwidth, which is becoming cheaper as days pass.
Main advantage of this concept is the fact that the users don’t need in-depth knowledge of various computing concepts. In a semi-computer-literate country like Kenya, this would go a long way in enhanced the computer usage by the ‘common mwananchi’. The other advantage is that the user does not require high-end resources on his or her computer, but rather the resources in the ‘cloud’ are shared among the users. In particular, the storage resources of Google Docs, for instance, are virtually inexhaustible. Finally, the user can access the storage servers from any part of the world via the Web, talk about unlimited portability.
Google Inc has taken cloud computing to the next level by providing a platform on which exclusively runs, the Google Chrome OS. Google Chrome OS is an open source operating system designed by Google to work exclusively with web applications. Google Chrome OS would require less storage space because the operating system on a disk is 60 times smaller than Windows 7.
"With Chrome, Google is seeking to challenge Microsoft dominance in the market It's basically a web browsing machine," said Altimeter Group analyst Charlene Li, referring to the netbooks powered by Chrome operating system (Source: Nation Daily 24th November, 2009)
The new Google Inc software will start up a computer as fast as a television can be turned on, an average of seven seconds on a netbook. The operating system is based on Linux and targets specifically designed hardware. The user interface takes a minimalist approach, resembling that of the Chrome web browser. Because the browser will be the only application residing on the device, Google Chrome OS is aimed at users who spend most of their computer time on the Internet.
The technology is apt for small to medium scale business with little financial provision to invest in their ICT infrastructure. With a low-end computer such as a netbook, a business can process and store business document either in the office or remotely. This also presents an opportunity for our secondary and primary schools with low budgets for their computer labs. The computers would not require running the applications or having huge storage spaces. However, it demands an investment on the Internet bandwidth, which is becoming cheaper as days pass.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Mobile Telephony – GSM vs CDMA
Back in the 1990s, everyone had to use a landline telephone, fax, telegram or postal letters to communicate in Kenya. It required several days or weeks of planning just to organize for a meeting in Nairobi with a person from upcountry. Tracing a person was not easy, unlike now when a person can be ‘seen’ anytime anywhere using the mobile phone. These features of legacy communication methods adversely affected business operations; procurement processes took too long, landline access was limited to urban areas, collaboration between different branches of the organization remained challenging, response rate to customers was slow, advertising was not personalized and so on. The need for mobility was eminent and by the year 2000, mobile telephony providers had landed in Kenya. The rest of the world was rapidly adapting to this technology and in 2008 there were 4.1 billion mobile cellular subscriptions in the world.
Just to get an insight of how mobile telephony works, mobile phones send and receive radio signals with any number of cell site base stations fitted with microwave antennas. These sites are usually mounted on a tower, pole or building, located throughout populated areas, then connected to a cabled communication network and switching system. The phones have a low-power transceiver that transmits voice and data to the nearest cell sites. The most sophisticated aspect of mobile telephony is the fact that a mobile phone is able to switch seamlessly between sites. As the user moves around the network, the "handoffs" are performed to allow the device to switch sites without interrupting the call.
There are two main standards used in mobile telephony, Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) and Code division multiple access (CDMA). The two standards use different ideology to achieve the same goal: to divide the finite radio frequency spectrum among multiple users. Using an analogy, think of a cocktail party where different want to talk to each other. The first way of doing is have each person allocated a time slot to address the other person, this is how GSM functions. The second way is to have each pair of person talking in a different language, this is how CDMA functions. The first option may necessitate shorter speeches to give each person a chance to talk while second option may prove noisy if the pairs are too loud. Technically, GSM requires high frequencies to offer a high number of timeslots, up to 1.9 Ghz, while CDMA many suffer from interference if high amplitude codes are used at the same channel.
GSM is the more popular than CDMA with the technology adopted in 212 countries throughout the world. It rides on Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) technology which is used to allow eight full-rate or sixteen half-rate speech channels per radio frequency channel. Newer versions of the standard are backward-compatible with the original GSM phones. For example, Release '97 of the standard added packet data capabilities, by means of General Packet Radio Service (GPRS). Release '99 introduced higher speed data transmission using Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE). Recent third-generation (3G) releases have improved the data rates on the ‘smart’ mobile phones. The main advantage of GSM is that it offers international roaming, essential for traveling businessmen. Overall, this means low business operation costs and high efficiency.
On the other hand, CDMA employs spread-spectrum technology and a special coding scheme (where each transmitter is assigned a code) to allow multiple users to be multiplexed over the same physical channel. Many codes occupy the same channel, but only users associated with a particular code can understand each other. CDMA has several unique features that make it a cost-effective, high quality wireless solution. Each BTS in a CDMA network can use all available frequencies. Adjacent cells can transmit at the same frequency because users are separated by code channels, not frequency channels. This feature of CDMA, called "frequency reuse of one," eliminates the need for frequency planning. Generally, CDMA has better bandwidth utilization since the same channel can be used several users. This reduces the cost of implementation for a service provider rolling out a CDMA network. Reduced costs for a service provider may have a ripple in reduced cost of service to the customer. In addition, CDMA features result in coverage that is between 1.7 and 3 times that of TDMA .Coding and interleaving provide the ability to cover a larger area for the same amount of available power used in other systems. Finally, coding provides security for the conversations in a channel since each channel has its own code and an interfering device cannot decode it.
GSM still stands as the most popular while CDMA remains unexploited. In Kenya, there are 4 GSM providers; Safaricom, Zain, Orange and YU, and 3 CMDA providers; Orange Fixed Plus, Flashcom and Popote Wireless, but the number of subscribers for the two standards differ significantly.
Just to get an insight of how mobile telephony works, mobile phones send and receive radio signals with any number of cell site base stations fitted with microwave antennas. These sites are usually mounted on a tower, pole or building, located throughout populated areas, then connected to a cabled communication network and switching system. The phones have a low-power transceiver that transmits voice and data to the nearest cell sites. The most sophisticated aspect of mobile telephony is the fact that a mobile phone is able to switch seamlessly between sites. As the user moves around the network, the "handoffs" are performed to allow the device to switch sites without interrupting the call.
There are two main standards used in mobile telephony, Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) and Code division multiple access (CDMA). The two standards use different ideology to achieve the same goal: to divide the finite radio frequency spectrum among multiple users. Using an analogy, think of a cocktail party where different want to talk to each other. The first way of doing is have each person allocated a time slot to address the other person, this is how GSM functions. The second way is to have each pair of person talking in a different language, this is how CDMA functions. The first option may necessitate shorter speeches to give each person a chance to talk while second option may prove noisy if the pairs are too loud. Technically, GSM requires high frequencies to offer a high number of timeslots, up to 1.9 Ghz, while CDMA many suffer from interference if high amplitude codes are used at the same channel.
GSM is the more popular than CDMA with the technology adopted in 212 countries throughout the world. It rides on Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) technology which is used to allow eight full-rate or sixteen half-rate speech channels per radio frequency channel. Newer versions of the standard are backward-compatible with the original GSM phones. For example, Release '97 of the standard added packet data capabilities, by means of General Packet Radio Service (GPRS). Release '99 introduced higher speed data transmission using Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE). Recent third-generation (3G) releases have improved the data rates on the ‘smart’ mobile phones. The main advantage of GSM is that it offers international roaming, essential for traveling businessmen. Overall, this means low business operation costs and high efficiency.
On the other hand, CDMA employs spread-spectrum technology and a special coding scheme (where each transmitter is assigned a code) to allow multiple users to be multiplexed over the same physical channel. Many codes occupy the same channel, but only users associated with a particular code can understand each other. CDMA has several unique features that make it a cost-effective, high quality wireless solution. Each BTS in a CDMA network can use all available frequencies. Adjacent cells can transmit at the same frequency because users are separated by code channels, not frequency channels. This feature of CDMA, called "frequency reuse of one," eliminates the need for frequency planning. Generally, CDMA has better bandwidth utilization since the same channel can be used several users. This reduces the cost of implementation for a service provider rolling out a CDMA network. Reduced costs for a service provider may have a ripple in reduced cost of service to the customer. In addition, CDMA features result in coverage that is between 1.7 and 3 times that of TDMA .Coding and interleaving provide the ability to cover a larger area for the same amount of available power used in other systems. Finally, coding provides security for the conversations in a channel since each channel has its own code and an interfering device cannot decode it.
GSM still stands as the most popular while CDMA remains unexploited. In Kenya, there are 4 GSM providers; Safaricom, Zain, Orange and YU, and 3 CMDA providers; Orange Fixed Plus, Flashcom and Popote Wireless, but the number of subscribers for the two standards differ significantly.
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