Well, it looks like we missed Starcomms’ announcement of its WAP service back in December 2008. But its better late than never:

Starcomms Plc, Nigeria’s 4th largest telecommunications operator, has introduced the Starcomms WAP service. The Starcomms WAP service offers value added data applications, Ringtone, Games, Wallpaper, Truetones, MP3 tones, Animations etc to Starcomms CDMA Mobile subscribers through their WAP and data enabled handsets. With this new product, a Starcomms subscriber can access these services by launching the WAP Client in their WAP and data enabled handset, which will take the user to default WAP homepage – Starcomms WAP. This homepage will carry the link to the value added data application.

The customers will have access to a whole lot of features and functionalities like Downloads; which enables users to Download Content like Polyphonic Ringtones, Wallpapers and Games onto his Handset, Surf; which gives the customer the ability to Surf other WAP sites like Yahoo, Rediff etc. Other exciting content would be introduced from time to time.

According to the Company’s Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Maher Qubain, the service will be available to all Starcomms subscribers whose handsets currently support WAP, such handsets include; Haier D1200, Nokia 6275, Moto K1, Motorola W385, Coolpad C288. The Company shall launch a wider varieties of handsets in the nearest future that shall also support the WAP application. Customers who currently have any of these handsets may access the service through the WAP browser on their handset.They however have to visit the nearest Starcomms shop for registration and update of their handset in order to be able to access the WAP service.

The Marketing Director, Starcomms, Manoj Vashisht equally promised a whole lot of other exciting contents on the Starcomms WAP portal. These includes special categories of contents ranging from Wallpapers, Animations, True tones, MP3 tones, Polytones, Video, Games, Cartoons, News, Themes, Monotones, Picture Message, Religious Content etc. The prices for the downloadable contents are expected to be highly competitive and affordable to all.

As introductory offer during the launch period, Starcomms intends to offer customers Free downloads on the Free Zone category. This will enable customers to understand the new application, and enjoy the new service.

Mr. Vashisht added that customers would be notified of the applicable charges whilst downloading the content to enable customers decide their choice of downloads. On the quality of content, efforts have been made to ensure that there are adequate local contents by creating special categories such as Nigerian Zone, African zone that incorporates contents such as Wallpapers, Truetones, Polytones etc. There are other categories like Hollywood, Soccer and Racing Zone, that also contain the top downloads.

You can download the complete press release (in PDF format): Starcomms Launches WAP

I am not sure why, but articles on Zain Mobile Internet are extremely popular on Mobility Nigeria. As a matter of fact, the top two items in terms of page views on this site are about Zain Mobile Internet.

Perhaps, part of the reason for their popularity can be attributed to the elusiveness of full internet service on prepaid lines. For quite a while, Zain Nigeria’s official policy is that only WAP is available to prepaid subscribers. This means POP3/IMAP mail cannot be used, and instant messaging apps won’t work, among others. See: From Celtel to Zain; GPRS further restricted, published in August last year.

Earlier this year, I demonstrated that with minimal tweaking, email (POP/IMAP) indeed works on the Zain network (Zain Data works on Phones for Web and Email). But IM apps didn’t.

Last Saturday, however, I receeived an SMS from Zain stating in part:

New from Zain! Internet Browsing, MMS & downloads now possible on your handset!

That sounded to me like Zain had done a rethink of their rather backward policy of limiting prepaid lines to WAP access only. I had some spare time yesterday and dashed over to the nearest Zain outlet, where I requested for full internet provisioning.

I was told that the system was problematic, but the guy I spoke with took down my details anyway. I got home around 5p.m. today and a few minutes later, I received an SMS configuration on my device. I saved it, took a peek and saw full internet settings.

In a few minutes, I was chatting on Yahoo Messenger via Slick, checking my mails, and doing all sorts of stuff. No tweaks. Just straight out-of-the-box.

There’s still neither EDGE nor 3G at my location. Yes; its gross. This is Lagos, where every other 3G-enabled network has almost seamless coverage.

So, it is official. Full internet is now available for prepaid subscribers on the Zain network. By the way, I got another SMS announcing that Blackberry service is also now available for prepaid subscribers.

Hop over to a Zain centre and specify that you want full internet service activated on your line. Then you can forget about using proxies in order to be able to browse on your PC. Alternatively, send SMS in the format, “internet sonyericsson P910i”, to 232 to get activated. If it doesn’t work, keep trying.

For those who may find the Zain internet configuration settings useful, here they are:

APN: internet.ng.zain.com
Username: internet
Password: internet
IP/Proxy: None

Well done, Zain. You are late, but hey, we’ll still throw a welcome party! And while we are at it, please extend EDGE and 3G coverage some more please.

Update: Official Zain Internet Provisioning: An Update