Airtel, Ghana’s second national operator announced an upgrade of its cellular network to a newer/faster mobile broadband technology called 3.75G earlier this week. 3.75G, otherwise known as HSPA+, is the latest iteration of the 3G mobile broadband technology. The launch makes Airtel the pioneer of 3.75G in Ghana, and the fastest mobile broadband service in [...]

After several false starts, Glo Mobile Ghana appears to have taken its most remarkable step yet, towards a commercial launch. The cellular network obtained its operating licence since 2008 but had failed to launch its service to the public, citing logistical difficulties. Its last false start was 17th November 2011. A much-publicized commercial launch slated [...]

DStv Guide is an Android app by Multichoice Africa (PTY) Ltd, operators of Africa’s leading direct-to-home digital satellite platform, DStv. The app offers the program guide of some of the television channels on DStv. Its features include: 7 day schedule information Extended programme information Localized information for all countries where DStv is available Set reminders [...]

The 2012 edition of Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas USA did not disappoint. Being the biggest platform for tech companies to show-off their latest innovations, a lot of new tablets (mostly running the Android OS) were among the announced. I have followed the news reports and one tablet that stood-out of the crowd was [...]

…You can thus understand how frustrating it has been in the past 10 days that I have been without the full benefits of my BlackBerry smartphone. Most personal emails remain unread, I’m struggling with a piling workload, over 150 comments are pending moderation on my personal blog alone, I’m out of touch with friends I normally chat with regularly.

Mobile Number Portability (MNP) launched in Ghana on 7th July 2011, enabling mobile subscribers to move from one mobile network to another, whilst still retaining their full mobile number. It has generated some buzz in the Ghana’s mobile communications sector with all the mobile providers offering mouth-watering incentives to woo subscribers from other networks whilst [...]

Research in Motion (RIM), makers of BlackBerry smartphones, released the current version of their operating system (OS 6) along with the BlackBerry Torch smartphone. They later released official versions of OS 6 for some of their earlier smartphones: BlackBerry® Bold™ 9700, BlackBerry® Pearl™ 9105 and BlackBerry® Curve™ 9300. I blogged about running OS6 on BlackBerry 9700 and [...]

Esoko is an agricultural market information platform. It takes advantage of the explosive growth of mobile communication services in Africa. Managed on the web and delivered via mobile, individuals, agri-business, government and projects use Esoko to collect and send out market data using simple text messaging.

Following the launch of Mobile Number Portability (MNP) in Ghana on 7th July 2011, the mobile networks all launched campaigns geared towards enticing mobile subscribers to port to their network. Newspaper ads, radio jingles and TV ads have taken the lead but since the internet is slowing going mainstream in Ghana, the leading mobile networks [...]

Esoko was founded in 2005 as TradeNet by Mark Davies, who also founded BusyInternet years ago. TradeNet was rebranded as Esoko in April 2009 and its investors are: Jim Forster, the International Finance Corporation, and the Soros Economic Development Fund.

It appears MTN failed to sufficiently communicate the new packages to its mobile broadband subscribers, early enough. Users have lost their airtime because they simply loaded airtime and continued browsing as usual, without actually subscribing to any data packages. Thus they were billed at the very high tariffs that MTN now charges outside the packages.

Google Plus is Google’s latest and best attempt at a social networking website. It obviously draws a lot of lessons from Google’s previous attempts like Google Buzz, Google Wave, Orkut etc. I got an invitation to join Google Plus from a good friend, and I am loving it so far. It comes with a lot [...]

This blog post is part of a series of blog posts focused on how to blog more effectively. In an earlier post in the Effective Blogging series, I made a case for why every blogger should have a mobile-friendly version of their blog. In this post, I would be highlighting how to make your blog [...]

I was invited to cover the Tech Showcase of Esoko’s 3rd Annual Partner Conference. The Tech Showcase was a segment of the larger partners’ gathering. Esoko Partners are their international clients who have paid to use Esoko software in their respective countries. I was able to gather information that I would be sharing in the [...]

In case you missed the memo, Africa is rising. Having been largely ignored in the development of the Internet, things have been changing rapidly in the past decade with telecommunication companies forming alliances with financial institutions to bring serious data connectivity into Africa, and with it, lots of potential for prosperity. You can thus understand [...]