Anthony Smith-Chaigneau of Alticast gives feedback on Africa's TV market following successful launch of AfricaCast

The TV market in Africa offers tremendous opportunities, as was evident at the new AfricaCast conference and exhibition launched in Cape Town earlier this month. The event gathered leading companies from the broadcasting world such as Multichoice and SABC, as well as alternative players such as Southtel and YouTube. The event was co-located with AfricaCom, allowing participants to mix with the players from the telecoms and ICT world.

One of AfricaCast's leading panellists was Anthony Smith-Chaigneau, Managing Director and Senior Vice-President of Business Development at Alticast, a provider of Multimedia Home Platform (MHP) solutions to the interactive TV industry. He answered questions on the overall market trends after the event.

What major developments have you witnessed in Africa's broadcasting industry in the past 12 months?
Clearly the development of the broadband sector with huge investment in fibre across the continent, juxtaposed with the development of a better understanding by the African industry of the importance of the broadcast sector for hybrid opportunities is driving Africa rapidly forward.

What challenges have you encountered as a result of this progress?
There are many challenges as it is a huge, diverse and multi-faceted market. In a market that is developing very rapidly, there are many aspects of technology choices that need to be coherent with the word 'advanced'. Technology selection has to be carefully considered and future thinking is paramount to creating the environment for developing services.

For example South Africa has chosen DTT and Uganda has selected DVB-T2 - described as the 'World's Best Digital Terrestrial Technology' at recent seminars; yet these two countries have chosen the 'oldest and outmoded' interactive middleware (MHEG5) for interactive TV services.

This does not make sense! Why open a super-highway and then ride a bicycle down it? Africa has the chance to leap-frog the rest of the world with systems that offer the best that the market can offer.

How do you believe new technologies can improve viewer engagement?
New technologies are designed with the viewer in mind, by providing better picture quality, better sound, more channels and value-added services. It is up to the broadcaster and operators to exploit these in order to engender viewer loyalty.

The experience of Mediaset in Italy with their advanced terrestrial services using DVB-MHP-HBB is a clear example of the broadcaster offering viewers the opportunity to engage in social media, catch-up TV, enhanced programming, play-along (prize-driven) quizzes and much much more. They have maximised their use of the right technologies for a comprehensible offer that sees receivers at affordable prices in the market.

What role do you think online video will eventually take within the overall mix of television technologies in Africa?
Online video requires a solid infrastructure and a sure-fire Quality of Service which entails a lot of back-office investment and the need to find a business model that supports this infrastructure. Lessons have been learned across the globe regarding the mix of technologies, and many partnerships have been formed between broadcasters and telcos/ISPs to try to balance the weaknesses of the Internet.

Others believe the Internet is ONLY way forward and therefore there is disruption in the market as each and every player tries to obtain the same loyalty from the same customers. At the Recent Future of Broadcast Television Summit in China it was declared that 'the transmission of information to an unlimited number of listeners and viewers is the most spectrum-efficient means for wireless delivery of popular real-time and file-based content'.

In online TV we have a long way to go to serve the population as efficiently as broadcast, especially in countries that have geographic, economic and technological challenges.

How do you believe content providers can best tap these new opportunities?
Content providers throughout Africa will have to beware of fragmentation. Standardisation and ubiquity is primordial for the content industry to be able to create their product once and have it deployed everywhere. If Africa, as in Europe, sees massive fragmentation of receiver middleware and interactive systems this will pose more challenges and add costs to the content industry.

Which markets do you think offer some key insights into the future direction of Africa's broadcast market?

There are many markets that can offer good and bad examples to Africa. They have a great experience in satellite, which is clearly seen as a continual growth market considering SES Astra is launching new satellites to further cover the region. The telcos have concentrated on the huge mobile market and this has been at the best shaky in other markets. The particularity of Africa and mobile phones may lead to a profitable mobile TV market where others have failed.

Terrestrial Broadcasting is clearly going to benefit from previous global experience. I firmly believe that Italy is the best benchmark for the implementation, management and deployment of advanced digital terrestrial services, and not the UK as many people imagine. Since 2004, Italy has successfully grown its DTT market to around 12 million advanced receivers and iDTVs. A very cohesive, interactive and OTT plan driven by the collaboration of the broadcasters under the guise of the DGTVi.

France has seen a badly conceived digital terrestrial market rollout, which saw radical short-term changes of technology from analogue, to terrestrial SD and then to HD, followed by the addition of interactive with the threat of more changes to come in the near term. This has cost the consumer heavily in replacement Receivers. A recent TV Documentary called the 'French Digital Terrestrial War' aired in the last few days; if they are making TV Programmes about it it must have had issues, and been controversial!

News round-up

We'd not normally put in a post that simply re-posts other's efforts, but in the aftermath of AfricaCom we thought we'd make an exception.  The event has drawn nearly univeral praise - 96.5% of respondents to our evaluation survey have indicated they'd recommend the event to a colleague! - and we thought some kind of precis of the event reviews would be in order.

So for your edification, a selection of the event coverage:

http://www.it-online.co.za/2011/09/29/africacom-2011-focuses-on-infrastructure/
http://www.itnewsafrica.com/2011/11/kenya-leading-with-mobile-government-implementation/
http://www.news24.com/SciTech/News/Developing-nations-vital-to-wireless-broadband-20111031
http://www.telecoms.com/zones/africacom/

http://www.abndigital.com/page/multimedia/video/tech-at-work/1102700-14th-AfricaCom-Conference-and-Exhibition
http://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/223/19/66665.html
http://www.africanews.com/site/SA_Cloud_computing_gaining_prominence/list_messages/40230

A lot of it echoing the issues we've been talking about here ..

Some thoughts from last week's AfricaCom

Last week's AfricaCom attracted a huge audience of 6000 participants from across the continent and the world (with in particular a strong presence from India and China).
It may be hard to pick the most talked-about topics at the event, as there were so many varied strands of discussion.
In no particular order, here are some topics that stood out for me:
- There is still a massive growth potential in Africa, as was presented by Africa's leading operators at the event: MTN, Vodacom, Orange, Etisalat / Atlantique Telecom and more
- As the market is maturing, operators focus more and more on customer loyalty strategies
- Networks are improving; international connectivity projects are enabling the provision of internet access that is very much needed on the continent
- Africa is ready for a boom in new content and apps, thanks to the better access to mobile data services; social media brands and content providers had a stronger presence than in previous years at the event, with speakers from Mxit, Motribe, Universal Music, and the participation of broadcasters such as Multichoice, SABC and the BBC to the new AfricaCast session.
- Services for the enterprise segments as well as m-health, m-money and m-government were a big subject
- the new Enterprise ICT session attracted CIOs and IT directors from non-telecom companies interested in learning how to improve their ICT strategies; this is proving to be a major new revenue stream for operators and vendors alike
- Cloud services were discussed in several sessions, and were being pushed by a large number of exhibitors
- Infrastructure sharing and managed services will play an important part in improving operators’ efficiencies and cost management
- Regulators and governments have an important role to play in encouraging innovation in Africa
I must have left out a lot of ideas and topics of discussions, so your feedback is welcome!

Cloud takes Africa by storm...

Increasingly industry commentators are talking about Africa as the perfect market for cloud.... Whereas lack of capacity and unreliable connectivity had previously been seen as detrimental to the launching of cloud services, it now seems that the tide has turned and these characteristics actually make the African markets an ideal Cloud launch pad.

Safaricom launched the ‘’largest native Cloud’’ in the past week, and they intend to lead not only the Kenyan market, but the rest of the continent as well. They’re putting their money where their mouth is and have joined the Cloud Africa conference & exhibition’s Advisory Board. This event is the first of its kind – bringing together the telecom operators and enterprise CIOs, offering the full story around Cloud in Africa.  No other event organisers can offer 19 years of successful learning and networking in Africa – as the Com Series can.  What is more Safaricom’s George Makori, Senior Manager for Cloud and Managed Services is joined on the Advisory Board by other experts and Gurus from Microsoft, HP, Ericsson, Ovum & CxO Advisors, and TM  Analysts.  No other conference and exhibition will bring advice and case studies at this critical point, where Cloud has the potential to take off in Africa./

 www.cloudafricasummit.com

The Biggest Show on Earth ... well Africa, anyway

Next week sees our 17th Annual Africa Com take place in South Africa.  We are welcoming thousands of speakers, exhibitors, press, delegates and visitors from all over Africa and the world and it is hugely exciting to see representatives of the entire digital ecosystem flocking to beautiful Cape Town in their hordes.

The weather outlook, so far, is predicted to be sunny & bright and I'm sure this will be echoed in the speakers' visions of how they see the development of the African Digital economy.

Our colleagues in the Informa Telecoms & Media analyst division have long been heralding the impending explosion in African internet connectivity.  Describing Africa’s internet age as largely a "nomadic experience" they talk of the 2nd decade of the 2nd millenium as the age where the internet reaches the people.  By 2015,  20% of internet traffic in Africa will be carried by cellular networks, as compared to a global equivalent of just 3%. 

One of the key drivers of this growth will be highly valued and relevant content - there are plenty of international offerings - adpated for local consumers or otherwise - on the scence but the domestic African content provider market is still nascent.  But as we'll no doubt hear next week this will change rapidly.

If you have any questions you'd like to put to any of the panel sessions at AfricaCom do email them to us and we'll endeavour to get them put before the experts...

Adapting to a changing ecosystem is key for operators' future success

The telecoms value chain used to be relatively simple: vendors would sell infrastructure equipment and software solutions to operators, who would build networks and offer services to end-users. Nowadays, the picture is more complex: the new ecosystem includes many more stakeholders from the whole telecoms, media and ICT world, and the traditional client-supplier relation is being replaced by more inclusive partnerships.
This topic of the changing ecosystem was discussed at the ITU summit this week in Geneva, with AT&T’s VP of International Affairs Eric Loeb saying: “Significant changes are coming from the traditional telecoms environment, including how people communicate, how they pay, how they work together. Two-way traditional, voice and email now co-exists with social media that enables many to many communications. It is not always supplemental, it is sometimes an alternative. Service providers need to be agile and forward-looking in terms of the platforms they provide.” This agility and innovation is essential if operators want to retain their relevance in a world where consumers’ expectations of services has changed so radically. As Johan Denneling, CEO of International at Vodacom said in an interview this week, “creativity is just as important as technology when it comes to developing useful, practical solutions to customer needs”.
That is why the Com World Series is embracing the changing ecosystem by providing platforms to discuss the changes in the telecoms, media and ICT ecosystem. The conferences no longer focus solely on the traditional telcos but cater for the whole digital ecosystem, including alternative service players, OTT players, social media brands, content providers and more. The objective is to facilitate exchanges between the stakeholders to promote new models, partnerships and services to engage with the consumers in a more effective way.
AfricaCom, taking place in Cape Town in two weeks, includes new sessions dedicated to service innovation, social media, content and apps, broadcasting, enterprise services, cloud computing and more. In addition to the region’s traditional operators (MTN, Vodacom, Orange, Atlantique, Airtel etc.), new brands will contribute to the programme: Google, Mxit, Motribe, Multichoice, SABC, Universal Music and more.
The Middle East Teclo World Summit, coming up at the end of November, will open with a debate on the role of OTT players and whether they’re disrupting the operator business model. The session will include contributions from Google, Nimbuzz, Yahoo, Areeba Areeba, as well as operators Du, Nawras, Viva and Mobily.
The 2012 programme will continue expanding its scope with more sessions focusing on telco transformation, innovation, ecosystem evolution and new services for different segments.

AfricaCom 2011 programme embraces the new Digital Africa

We’re just over three months away from the 14th AfricaCom event, and the programme is now ready. How it has evolved from a GSM-focused conference to a large congress and exhibition involving the whole telecoms, media and ICT market! African consumers and businesses have fully embraced the new services and opportunities brought by mobile and ICT technologies; they have shown initiative and innovation to create new uses that are suited to local needs. For those who haven't experienced this first-hand in Africa, here's an interesting article giving a good idea of why this year’s AfricaCom is all about Africa’s digital market as the engine for the continent’s economic growth.
The conference keynote sessions will bring expert speakers from the whole digital ecosystem to discuss the evolution of the market:
- mobile operator groups (MTN, Vodacom, Orange, Atlantique, Expresso) will discuss how they’re transforming their business models and encouraging innovation to adapt to a new landscape and new customer needs
- sub-sea cable companies (such as ACE Consortium), satellite operators (Intelsat, O3B) and fibre companies (Corning) will share how they’re working to improve international connectivity and capacity in order to deliver the new services
- alternative brands will share their perspective on how they deliver attractive services to the end-users in partnership with operators - with two of the most talked-about companies in the market: facebook and Google
More than ever before, the past year has been about innovation and new services to deliver beyond voice. That is why the event includes new sessions to cover mobile value-added services (with a panel discussion on content and apps), social media services (with the participation of African brands Mxit, Motribe, Africanplanet.com and Afrigator), TV services (a new co-located event, AfricaCast, with contributions from Multichoice, SABC, ABN, Multimesh and more), and enterprise ICT services (supported by HP, IBM, MTN Business and more).
We are looking forward to welcoming more new participants this year, and to debating the evolution of Africa’s digital landscape. For more information, visit our website.

Mobile Money and Content the Major Talking Points at VAS Africa Yesterday

The first VAS Africa event closed yesterday in Johannesburg after two days of rich debate, best practice sharing and networking between over 250 VAS specialists: mobile operators, solutions vendors, content owners and aggregators, applications developers, consultants and more.

All participants agreed that such an event was long needed in Africa: as the market is developing, it is crucial that all stakeholders get together and discuss how to make it work for everyone, and in particular for the end-user.

The service that dominated the debates was mobile money. Mayank Sharma of Comviva compared Africa to a Silicon Valley in terms of its leadership in mobile financial services.  Content was a major talkingpoint on the second day: speakers discussed partnerships between operators, content providers and applications developers, as well as the optimum pricing and revenue sharing models. The need for relevant local content was highlighted by most speakers, and of course social networking was mentioned as a great opportunity.

However speakers pointed out that the success of value-added services will not be down only to the attractiveness of the services: affordability and simplicity of use will be crucial to seize the potential of value-added services in Africa.

The event was attended by VAS specialists from the major players in Africa: pan-african operator groups (Airtel, MTN, Orange, Vodacom, Econet Wireless, Etisalat), local operators (Cell C, TNM, Mcell, 8ta and more), content providers (BBC, SABC, Multimesh), VAS solutions suppliers (Comviva, Ericsson, Huawei, GandD, SSD-Tech, DSG, Buongiorno), and many more companies or individuals with an interest in sharing ideas and networking with their peers.

This was the first event dedicated to value-added services in the Com World Series, and it met a need in the market. "The atmosphere throughout the event was very inspiring", says Julie Rey, Research Director at organisers Informa Telecoms and Media; "what we saw was a community of like-minded professionals getting together to ensure the success of their market".  

VAS Africa will return in 2012 with an expanded programme of discussion to make the debates most fruitful for all the players in the market. Before then, VAS specialist can meet at AfricaCom in Cape Town on 9-10 November, where the programme includes special sessions on VAS, innovation, social media, mobile money and marketing and pricing.

Find out more about attending next year: www.comworldseries.com/vasafrica

Orange shows support for Africa's most prestigious telecoms awards

The AfricaCom Awards, Africa’s premier telecoms award gala, is now being sponsored by pan-African giant Orange.  This unique event is the only gala of its kind, and it recognises companies’ progress and achievements in the continent’s telecoms industry over the past year.

Orange has been there all 3 years so far, and last year ran away with a storming 12 shortlisted entries and 2 wins. They have been one of the many service providers in Africa that have entered, attended, and won at the AfricaCom Awards ceremony, and this year they will take a more active role as sponsors of the Orange African Social Venture Prize.   They join Founding Sponsor, Gateway and Category Sponsor, Comviva as 2011’s headline endorsers.

In fact, there has never been a better occasion to enter. There’s a new glamorous water front venue at the V&A Water Front in Cape Town, as well as a few fresh new judges that have been recruited, and of course the award categories themselves are more pertinent and exciting with 6 new categories. The final 2011 category list is:

• Best Network Improvement
• Best New Service
• Best Cost Efficiency Initiative for Africa
• Rural Telecoms Award *NEW
• Best Backhaul Solution for Africa *NEW
• Customer Service Excellence Award *NEW
• Best Marketing Campaign
• Satellite Service Provider of the Year *NEW
• Best ICT Solution Provider for Enterprise Markets in Africa *NEW
• Best Pan African Initiative
• Changing Lives Award

And

Orange African Social Venture Prize *NEW

The deadline for entries is 2 September 2011.  Don’t miss your chance to enter!

www.africacomawards.com

Operators must adapt to new market conditions, say participants at West & Central Africa Com in Senegal last week

The telecommunications and ICT sector is changing, and operators must adapt to new market conditions in order to meet the needs of the customers and to ensure future profitability. That is the overall message coming out of 2 days of debate and networking at West and Central Africa Com, held on 16th and 16th June in Dakar, Senegal.
Senior representatives of the major regional operators (Orange, MTN, Airtel, Sonatel, Expresso Telecom, Globacom, Vodafone and more), and their suppliers shared their strategic visions for future growth in the conference.
Innovation was a key word. As Alain Kahasha, MD of Airtel Niger said: 'investment in innovation is a matter of life or death; in a market where voice revenues are decreasing, operators have to innovate to ensure revenues for their shareholders'. To deliver on it, operators and their partners are focusing on improving access for the unconnected, developing internet services, and m-banking. In addition, they must put in place initiatives to improve margins; as such, infrastructure sharing was a major topic of discussion. Bernard Ghillebaert, VP of West Africa and Asia at Orange Group said: 'this conference is a great occasion to meet telecoms experts from all the countries in the region, and to find out that our partners are interested in infrastructure sharing'.
Now in its 8th year, the event has indeed become a key forum for operators, regulators, equipment and solutions vendors, and all stakeholders in the telecommunications and ICT sector to network in their region. Ahmad Farroukh, Vice President for West and Central Africa at MTN Group - and a regular keynote speaker - said he was happy with this year's event: 'the conference topics were good and the level of participation was up to our expectations'. A first-time speaker, Saiful Alam, CCO of Expresso Telecom Group, said he 'thoroughly enjoyed it; it was extremely well organised, I have already committed to attend next year and I would recommend anyone in ICT doing business in Africa to participate'.
The conference was co-located with an exhibition of 34 companies showcasing their latest products and solutions to support operators' business in the region. For all participants, it has been a busy two days, hopefully bringing more ideas and prospects for their businesses in the coming year. One of them was Niyi Olujimi, Managing Director of Multi Dimension Technology in Nigeria, who said: 'I'm very impressed with this event. Our company has been transformed by the events put together by Informa Telecoms and Media in Senegal, Nigeria and South Africa, and we appreciate every bit of the good work'.