I am doing this post from Accra, the capital city of Ghana. One of the uncomfortable things about travelling out of one’s native country is the prospect of being unreachable by your loved ones while on the move.

This used to be the case. Now, with voice and data roaming on mobile networks, it is fast becoming a thing of the past.

When my family and I left Nigeria on friday, thanks to seamless roaming on both MTN and Zain networks, we have stayed in touch on our regular GSM lines where each of those networks have coverage. For MTN, we had a signal most of the time and encountered black spots every now and then. This was because MTN has networks active in Benin, and Ghana.

On MTN, I received calls and SMS for free, and made calls at the same rate as subscribers on the host network pay. Unfortunately, data roaming did not work, so I was offline some time after we entered Benin till our arrival and settling down at Accra.

Zain data roaming worked once we got to Ghana, as there were no Zain networks in benin and Togo. My wife received calls for free as well and made calls to loved ones back home. As for data roaming on Zain, while there is GPRS/EDGE/3G/3.5G coverage, her Zain Nigeria line won’t even indicate the presence of that.

PS: The Zain Nigeria website says that data roaming is available in Ghana on “Tigo (Millicom)”. Why not on Zain Ghana?

I purchased a Zain Ghana SIM for mobile internet use. It came pre-activated for internet. All I had to do was load airtime, enter the settings manually, subscribe to a plan, and I was good to go. EDGE coverage is strong at our location, and I am posting this on Zain Ghana internet.

Our holiday spot, Atlantic Resort, has a Wi-fi hotspot. I will be subscribing as soon as I can get my lazy butts off the bed and out of the chalet.

This is Yomi Adegboye reporting live from Ghana for MobilityNigeria.com.

I held out for as long as possible, hoping against hope that Zain Nigeria would have a re-think about some of their services.

No; I wasn’t asking for too much. I only needed stable mobile internet services. Because this is 2009, I also wanted that internet connection to be high speed. GPRS is good. EDGE is faster. 3G is not bad. But in 2009, anything short of a 3.5G connection does not qualify as high speed.

Recently, a Zain official confirmed to me that 3G and 3.5G are available (officially) only on post-paid SIMs. He spent time trying to convince me to migrate my line to a contract package. But I know better. I’ve had my fingers burnt on contracts a couple of times. I know others who have too.

But I was willing to stay with Zain on their pre-paid platform. You see I have high-speed internet connection at the office and at home, so I could tolerate GPRS or EDGE when out and about.

Then suddenly, Zain internet went bunkers. Tolerating GPRS/EDGE was one thing. Tolerating GPRS/EDGE that was not working was… well… you get the picture.

‘Dayo and others who know me well have been wondering why I have stayed with Zain this long. They know I normally have no qualms changing my line. It baffles them. It sort of baffles me too.

I finally gave in this morning. I just could not bear it any longer. I got myself a SIM from another network. When I popped in the new SIM, 3G/3.5G internet was ready and waiting. My Xperia X1 simply connected on schedule to download my mails. What bliss!

I am sure that Zain works for some people – perhaps people who want nothing than just voice and SMS; people who are not so into mobile internet; and people who do not need a high speed connection.

Mobile internet is primary on my list. SMS follows. Voice comes last. Yes; I’m wierd. Welcome to my world.

No; I am not so naive as to think that I won’t experience any issues with the new network. In Nigeria, that is wishful thinking. But at least, whatever it is I have to tolerate, I now have high-speed internet on the go. At least when it works.

There’s a discussion thread over at Nairaland focussed on Z3, the Zain 3G service. The gist is that the Z3 service is officially restricted to post-paid (contract) plans, though it appears that some very few non-contract lines are able access it (a system glitch?).

In addition, if what the original poster says is true, Z3 coverage is wider than we had supposed, but the majority of Zain subscribers are unable to access it simply because the service is not activated on their SIMs.

I am not able to confirm this right away, but I will find hunt out the truth of this matter. I have held on to my Zain line this long in hope that 3G will show up in the picture sometime soon. If this bit of news is true, I may be replacing my SIM with one from another network.

As much as I have shied away from another line change, I am just not excited about having no 3G access for a long time to come.

Anyone here has access to a Zain official in the know?

---

Update: 20th August 2009
Dayo and I were at a Zain shop to ask about 3G service. We were able to confirm that Zain Nigeria’s official policy is that 3G service is available only on postpaid lines and data-only lines.

While the official I spoke with did his best to convince me to migrate to a contract package, I simply won’t. A GSM contract is always a bad idea.

I did purchase a data-only SIM to test out the official’s claim that Zain 3G is present in my area. Guess – it isn’t.

None of the above surprised Dayo, the eternal sceptic. Me? I really don’t care anymore.

---

I just got my hands on the Nokia E75 slider QWERTY smartphone. The E75 runs on Symbian S60 3rd Edition OS and is being marketed by Nokia as a descendant of the Communicator dynasty (I’m not convinced yet).

Here are my first impressions:

• Very good hardware build; feels solid in the hand
• QWERTY keyboard is good; though quite different from the E90, last of the communicators
• Nokia has made efforts to touch up the interface, and it is beautiful in some places, but still relatively sluggish and of course comes nowhere close to what you find on the iPhone or an Android device
• Email interface is better
• Firmware update OTA is sweet; updated to the latest firmware in 3 minutes right on the phone
• The E75 auto-detects your SIM network, configures and uses the corresponding internet connection
• Good battery life

Those are my first impressions for now. I am playing around with customisation and will have more detailed reviews available ASAP. If you have questions about things you’d like for me to test out on the phone, post them below.

The PR guys at GloMobile consistently tout their network as Nigeria’s most advanced GSM network. In addition, they tell us that Glo is also building Africa’s most advanced netwwork.

But how advanced (read: intelligent) can this network be, given the following:

1. Newly activated SIMs are not automatically provisioned for mobile data. “Less advanced” networks like MTN and Etisalat do this.
2. Even OTA (SMS) activation for data usually does not work. In the last one year, I have had reason to attempt to activate GloMoibile GPRS/3G on a number of SIMs by sending “Activate” to 444. All I get is a return SMS that my activation request will be processsed within 48 hours. In all cases, it never happened. In one case, 4, 320 hours later, that line has still not been provisioned
3. Going to a Gloworld outlet for activation often does not work either. There’s a particular SIM with me now, OTA provisioning has been attempted about 100 times without any results, and the SIM has been to Gloworld Opebi thrice in the last 6 months. Still no show.
4. The Glomobile billing system (especially for contract data subscribers) has a mind of its own and regularly bills outrageously (or some people at Glo are intentionally scamming subscribers

Personally, I am tired of this mess. If you need easy GSM mobile data activation/provisioning, your best bet are MTN and Etisalat. No; Zain is not much better than Glo in this regard. You will only end up sending lots of activation codes and visiting Zain centres – and if you are lucky, your line gets to be activated.

Yes; it is more a game of chance.

The flip-side is that because of the diffuculties of getting activated, there are relatively and significantly fewer users on both Glo and Zain data services, making both of them relatively stable. At least, generally, they are more stable than MTN data. Etisalat’s high mobile data tariff seems to help maintain stability on their network too.

You see, you cannot eat your cake and have it.

Thinking of it, it is either the Glo network is not so intelligent. Or it is that the network is so intelligent – infact, far more intelligent than the people who operate it (apologies to all my guys at Glo) – that the personnel have not gotten the hang of how to put it to work as intended.

What do you you think?

I have been working behind the scenes on a concise guide to mobile internet in Nigeria. Nigeria is one of the fastest growing mobile voice and internet countries in the world. This free ebook provides concise but useful information about the available GSM-based mobile internet services in the country.

• 2nd Revision: Mar. 2010
• 1st Revision: Feb. 2010

A revised version is now available for download

Here is my updated list of the best mobile internet deals at the moment. Because we currently have two types of mobile platforms running side-by-side in the country (GSM and CDMA), I am presenting one network per technology platform.

Both networks on my list offer a variety of packages, giving subscribers great choice in their respective terrains. Both networks also give subscribers the option of browsing directly on their phone or on PC (netbook, laptop, desktop, etc)

Zain Nigeria

Zain is a GSM-based mobile operator. Zain Mobile Internet is delivered on GPRS, EDGE (up to 234kbps), 3G and HSDPA (up to 1.8mbps), depending on coverage in your locality. Zain’s packages:

1. Pay As You Use
No bundle
Cost: 15kobo per kilobyte

2. Zain Day (24-hour bundle)
Bundled Data: 50MB
Cost: N500.00
Activation: Load N500 and dial: *141*712*3#

3. Zain Lite (24-hour bundle)
Bundled Data: 100MB
Cost: N1,000.00
Activation: Load N1,000 and dial: *141*712*4#

4. Zain Pro (24 hours for 30 days)
Bundled Data: 1GB
Cost: N5,000.00
Activation: Load N5,000 and dial: *141*712*1

5. Zain Max (24 hours for 30 days)
Bundled Data: 3GB
Cost: N10,000.00
Activation: Load N10,000 and dial: *141*712*2#

Zain Mobile Internet (ZMI) must be active on your line before you can subscribe to any of the above plans.

To activate ZMI, visit a Zain centre, call Customer Care on 113 or send an SMS with the word ‘internet phonebrand model’ to 232 e.g. “internet sonyericsson P910i” to receive your settings.

ZOOMmobile

ZOOMmobile is a CDMA-based operator, deploying both CDMA 1x (50Kbps – 100Kbps Upload and Download with bursts to 144Kbps) and EVDO Rev A (600Kbps-1,400Kbps Download with bursts to 2.0Mbps; 500Kbps-800Kbps Upload with bursts to 1.8Mbps), also depending on your location. ZOOMmobile internet packages include:

1. Easy Time (24 hours for 30 days)
Bundled Data: Unlimited
Cost: N10,000.00

2. Busy Time (24 hours for 14 days)
Bundled Data: Unlimited
Cost: N5,000.00

3. Rest Time (11pm to 6am for 30 days)
Bundled Data: Unlimited
Cost: N5,000.00

4. Relax Time (6pm to 11pm for 30 days)
Bundled Data: Unlimited
Cost: N5,000.00

5. Cool Time (Friday 8pm to Sunday 10pm for 30 days)
Bundled Data: Unlimited
Cost: N5,000.00

6. Day Time (8am to 6pm for 30 days)
Bundled Data: Unlimited
Cost: N7,000.00

Subscription for all above ZOOMmobile plans can be done at any ZOOMmobile centre.