![\"Video](\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Video-on-Demand.png\")
<\/a>Video on Demand<\/p><\/div>\n
Over a hundred VoD platforms and still they come<\/h3>\n
We have tracked the steady rise of both African Video on Demand (VoD) and Music on Demand platforms. There are now over 100+ in each category and not a week seems to pass in which a new one emerges.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile MTN said its own VoD platform was weeks away from completion in November. Still no sign of it. Vodacom talks of launching in 2015. Both of these platforms have been under discussion for over two years.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately as one ex-mobile operator employee told me:\u201dMobile operators globally are not good at launching in-house products. None have won out in a big way. Over-The-Top makes sense for the first time ever.\u201d<\/p>\n
The sad truth is that the networks are not yet ready for wave of bandwidth demand these platforms could unleash. It\u2019s not that it\u2019s not possible to deliver this kind of bandwidth in Africa: at the beginning of the year I was raving about LTE on the Smile mi-fi modem in Uganda and Nigeria. I had a similarly good LTE experience on Vodacom\u2019s mi-fi device in November in South Africa.<\/p>\n
The issue is whether the network would break if there was something like affordable 4G access. The upside is that at the right price African\u2019s are already spending US$2-4 a week\/a month on pirate DVDs depending on their income levels. Don\u2019t you want a piece of that?<\/p>\n
Smartphones for everyone<\/h3>\n
I had a \u201croad to Damascus\u201d moment talking to Rick Fant, Mozilla about the smartphone deals it arranges for operators with Chinese vendors: there have been places in Asia where these phones are selling for US$35.<\/p>\n
In Kenya, Safaricom has already stopped selling feature phones, arguing that many are almost identical in price and features to low-end smartphones.<\/p>\n
Mobile operators need to accelerate the process of increasing the number of people with a smartphone and help users make better use of them by offering services they want to use. Things like What\u2019s App will cut some SMS and voice revenues but will accelerate smartphone use that will drive mass data use.<\/p>\n
Change the payment terms, create a data ecosystem: For all of the above to succeed, the mobile operators have to change the terms of the revenue split with content and service providers.<\/p>\n
70-80% of revenues going to operators as a matter of course is no longer recognizable as global best practice. This is already acknowledged by some operators who are offering a small number of people like successful music stars a 50:50 split.<\/p>\n
The same is true for things like operator billing because for the data ecosystem to be successful, there needs to be a way of taking relatively small sums of money from a lot of people without most of it ending up in operators\u2019 pockets.<\/p>\n
The successful operator of the future will understand the content and services narrative and seek to engage positively with it. Millicom\u2019s COO Raul Martinez makes a good fist of showing what needs to be said:<\/p>\n
Online becoming more everyday<\/h3>\n
For years, e-commerce in Africa was something more talked about than actually done. But this seems to be the year in which it has begun. There are now somewhere around 2 million e-buyers in Nigeria spread between the two main companies involved, Jumia and Konga:<\/p>\n
There will be those whose reaction is \u201cOh, but that\u2019s only 2 million out of 180 million\u201d but that\u2019s not really the point. Yes, we\u2019re at the bottom of the curve but given the poor state of retailing in Nigeria, the soil is very fertile.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s striking that this customer base has been built on a mixture of digital ordering and cash payment without the mobile operators being involved.<\/p>\n
This growing feeling that the market is on the brink of being born has drawn in international investors from outside the continent. Jumia is Rocket-backed and it now has investment from both Millicom and MTN, a good sign in the light of my comments above. One of the tragedies of the year was the murder of One Africa CEO Carey Eaton.<\/p>\n
Tiger Global was one of his investors and is also a major backer of iROKO and several other African online companies.<\/p>\n
At the other end of this story of ICT applications becoming more everyday are things like UNICEF\u2019s collection of health data from rural clinics that is not a pilot but an everyday part of the health system. Government is always slow moving but these kinds of implementations can improve life and offer efficiencies.<\/p>\n
<\/a>TV White Spaces<\/p><\/div>\n
New technologies offer cost savings<\/h3>\n
2014 was the year TV White Spaces projects sprung up like mushrooms supported by companies like Google and Microsoft. Higher visibility has led to some sustained opposition. However, the basic proposition remains sound: lower cost technologies should be encouraged in Africa because as I have said above, data delivery costs needs to be lower.<\/p>\n
Besides TV White Spaces, the technologies that have come across our radar that bear further examination are: shaped Wi-Fi for backhaul; Xlabs Mesh Wi-Fi; Parallel Wireless\u2019 4G micro base stations; and NuRan Wireless\u2019 low-cost base stations (used by Rhizomatica in Mexico).<\/p>\n
The blockage here is that mobile operators will tend to focus on one or two vendors to get the best deal and not have to train people on more than one or two sets of equipment. Of course, there are the little projects done for CSR purposes but they don\u2019t affect the overall buying policy. This makes it hard for these kinds of technologies to be adopted.<\/p>\n
2015 should be the year that regulators put operators on notice, particularly if licences are being renewed. If you don\u2019t intend to roll out somewhere nationally, then that area should be freed up so that some other company can get a licence.<\/p>\n
Some things never change<\/h3>\n
Comoros again demonstrated how not to privatize the incumbent and introduce competition. By contrast, Africa\u2019s smallest country Sao Tome successfully introduced a second operator, Angola\u2019s Unitel.<\/p>\n
Orange finally gave up in East Africa and Portugal Telecom\u2019s Africa assets are finally in play. But despite significant losses Airtel, Expresso and LapGreen are plodding on. I expected them to have gone to a good home by now but some things take a little longer.<\/p>\n
And one of Nigeria\u2019s larger fibre networks, Multilinks, has still not found a buyer.<\/p>\n
By Balancing Act<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Gumtree unclassified: 3 to 5 million monthly users strong<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n MTN hits 3G roadblock in Cameroon<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\nMore by Balancing Act<\/h3>\n