Just last week, Mobility Nigeria’s top executive, Mr. Yomi Adegboye published an article on the state of the Nigerian mobile ecosystem about new trends in the Nigerian mobile space. In that article, he dropped the hint that the Apple iPhone would soon be available from one of the major GSM network carriers in Nigeria.

Well, over the weekend MTN Nigeria published an announcement introducing “Micro SIM cards for the Apple iPad and iPhone 4 users in Nigeria” in the Sunday Vanguard Newspaper.

The MTN announcement noted that “in keeping with the fast pace of innovation in telecom services,” they have now introduced Micro SIM cards for use in compatible devices such as the Apple’s iPad and iPhone 4 Smartphones.

This micro-SIM card is said to measure 12 X 15mm and it is a diminutive plastic card about 52% smaller than a standard SIM card, and also has adequate storage space on chip for provider applications, increased control and security functions.

MTN Nigeria boasted that their customers “will be the first to in Nigeria to benefit from convenient access to Micro SIM cards”. The Micro SIM card would be available to both their pre-paid and post-paid customers at a cost of only 1,000 NGN.

This news though laudable still falls short of bringing the iPhone 4 and other iOS devices to Nigeria. Can we rightfully imply that with this announcement, MTN is preparing the ground for a more formal launch of the iPhone in Nigeria? Your guess is probably as good as mine. We can only wait and see.

Heads up, guys – the new internet rates from MTN that you’ve been waiting for are here.

• Text “104″ to 131 for 10MB @ N100/day
• Text “105″ to 131 for 25MB @ N400/week
• Text “106″ to 131 for 100MB @ N1000/month

Out of bundle rate is now 5 kobo per KB.

The 3rd revision of my popular ebook, Guide to Mobile Internet in Nigeria (first published in June 2009), is now available for download. This time, a CDMA network, Starcomms makes a debut in the guide, plus updates on Etisalat and other minor revisions.

The size of the ebook has also been reduced. Now, its a smaller 1.25mb in size, compared to 14.9mb for the 2nd Revision. My colleagues and I are convinced that the size of the book limited downloads somewhat.

The previous revision was downloaded 972 times. In all, my Guide to Mobile Internet in Nigeria has recorded over 3, 000 downloads since June 2009 till today, June 8, 2010.

Download your free copy

Both MTN and GloMobile offer 3.5G-based mobile internet services in Nigeria. They both regularly claim to offer the fastest 3.5G service in the country.

Members of our team use both services extensively and here we present a few observations from our use of both of them.

MTN 3.5G delivers a significantly faster browsing experience than Glo 3.5G
With MTN, we observe speeds of over 250 Kb/s regularly, though it can slowdown to almost unusable speeds at certain hours of the day – especially between 9 and 11pm.

On Glo 3.5G, we get between 70 and 150 Kb/s, plus we also observe that there are times it gets unusable too. However, there does not seem to be a fixed period that these downtimes occur. As a result of the slower speeds on Glo, downloads and video streaming are not quite as pleasurable as obtains via MTN.

MTN 3.5G often has issues with secure browsing
By secure browsing, we mean accessing encrypted websites and webpages with the https prefix. Every now and then, such sites simply are inaccessible on MTN internet.

MTN’s error 3180 issues
A problem has cropped up recently while using MTN 3.5G. When attempting an action that requires either a login or a form submission on a WordPress installation, “:3180″ is inserted in the URL string and results in the page not loading.

We are certain that the above are not indicative of all that there is to the two 3.5G mobile services, so if you have experienced any other issues or noticed other merits of either services, do feel free to post them in the comments section below.

A shocking $2.5 billion bid by New Generations Telecommunications Consortium (formerly Telefonica) threw competitors off balance to clinch the preferred bidder slot at the financial bid opening for the acquisition of 75 percent of the moribund national telecom carrier, Nigeria Telecommunication Ltd and its mobile arm, MTel.

New Generations Telecommunications Consortium has GiCell Wireless Limited (a nNigerian company), China Unicom (Hong Kong) Limited, and Minerva Group as members.

With this development, the preferred bidder now has to pay $750 million within 10 days from the date of National Council on Privatization NCP approval while the balance is expected within 60 calendar days of the council’s approval.

MTN Nigeria also emerged the sole bidder for SAT-3 with an offer of $25 million, though its offer is still subject to the confirmation of the National Council on Privatisation (NCP) subject to meeting the reserve value for the bids.

Source

MTN has reviewed the cost of their 3G USB modems down to N8,500. All bundle packages still cost the same though, but if you have been wanting an MTN USB modem, this is a good time to get it.

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.

In true military fashion, the Federal Government of Nigeria has given a 60-day period in which NITEL, the comatose first national operator, must be sold. Sale number what is this, by the way?

What really interests us here is that three mobile giants, MTN, Glo, and Etisalat, among other companies, have expressed interest in purchasing NITEL, according to the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE).

For obvious reasons, I am against Glo getting this pie. If Glo’s ambition is realised, we are simply back to the days of monopoly – one single National Operator. No. Never again! Nothing personal, Glo, but your application ought to be struck off immediately.

MTN looks good for this, in my opinion, and I have nothing against Etisalat picking up the theoretically juicy licence.

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

I have held off writing on these issues for a while now but I can’t
just take it anymore. I am thoroughly disappointed (not for the first
time) with MTN and it is a pity that there are no better options out
there. As such, I am stuck with them for now.

My problem with MTN’s voice servicce has more to do with billing than the quality of calls. A few weeks ago, I noticed that any airtime that was left on my line was being deducted sometime after 10pm on a daily basis. As I do not load much credit on the line, I overlooked it initially. But things came to a head when on a particular day I had loaded N750 and barely used N150, the N600 left on my line disappeared shortly after 10pm. I only discovered this when I wanted to make a call.

I was annoyed, to say the least. As I could not get through to Customer Care by voice, I got their (Customer Care) email address from their website and fired off an email. A few days later, I receiveed a reply that said there was nothing wrong with my line and that the credit had not been wrongly deducted.

At this same time, I noticed that while browsing pay-as-you-go my line was not being billed immediately.

For example, if I went online and downloaded 100kb at 11am, my airtime would remain the same, giving the false impression that I was browsing free. Much later in the day, I was eventually billed for the internet access. This prevented me from doing a proper reconciliation of data and voice costs.

Funny enough, a day after they sent me the mail, the whole billing issue stopped. But a week later, it started again. Since then, I have learnt to load the amount of airtime that I need/can use before 10pm. Anytime after that, there is the risk of my account balance reading N0.00.

The data issues are the same recurring ones and it is quite annoying
that they continue unabated. I am currently subscribed to the Night
plan (10pm – 5am) with a 3GB cap but I have barely used 1GB with
barely a week left before it expires. When the network is up, it is
superb most of the time but the sporadic nature of the downtimes are
quite annoying. Moreso it appears that it seems to happen when I have some urgent work to do or deadline to meet.

I believe the introduction of a dedicated data customer care number/email would help in bringing these issues to their notice and aid the quick resolution. I would understand downtimes of a couple of hours but when it runs into 8-10 hours as happened a couple of days ago, that’s unacceptable.

Sadly enough, I dont have a back up plan at the moment. Not that there are any appealing options anyway.

1. Etisalat EDGE is way too expensive
2. Zain 3G is non-existent
3. Glo is trouble laden, and
4. My experience with Starcomms is a story for another day

For now, I am not adventurous enough to spring for any other ISP at this point in time.

I am fed up – and that is putting it mildly.

Is anyone out there having the same problems?

From: “Yomi Adegboye”
To: care@etisalat.com.ng
Subject: Bridging The Digital Divide
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2009 12:25:30 +0100

Dear Sirs,

This mail is to bring to your attention the tremendous opportunity available to Etisalat Nigeria in the area of mobile internet services in the country.

At the moment, there is a gaping vacuum in the mobile internet terrain in the country, especially with the older network operators providing less than satisfactory data services.

We are of the informed opinion that this is an opportunity for Etisalat to step up to the plate with bundle internet packages similar to those being offered currently by MTN, Zain and Glomobile.

If well packaged, even if at slightly higher tariffs, bundle data plans from Etisalat will instantly offer an alternative and succour to millions of subscribers stranded on the often less than satisfactory data services on ground at the moment.

Thanking you for your time, and looking forward to Etisalat stepping to the plate with bundle data plans.

Yours faithfully,

Yomi Adegboye
Chairman/CEO
Alireta Nigeria Limited
http://www.alireta.com
——————————–

The above was the mail I sent to the Etisalat Nigeria careline earlier today. The mail was returned undelivered for the following stated reason:

care@etisalat.com.ng
SMTP error from remote mail server after end of data:
host mail.etisalat.com.ng [80.248.2.141]: 550 5.7.1 Message rejected due to content restrictions

Rather odd. There was nothing else in the mail beside text I will re-send it later and hope that it goes through this time.

The truth, however, is that Etisalat is sitting on a goldmine, but seems not to be taking up the challenge. The voice market is largely, relatively saturated. But the mobile internet market? It is so under-tapped that this is the very area that Etisalat can take advantage of to spread its tentacles.

Related Reading:
1. Whither Mobile Internet, Etisalat?
2. Etisalat’s Uncompetitive Mobile Internet Tariff
3. EDGE on Etisalat: First Impressions