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Ghana Sees Huge Surge in Digital Communications with COVID Pushing Customer Experience

Image sourced from Goobjoob Education. To a large extent, enhancing the customer experience (CX) has been a game of catch-up for most organisations in Ghana, until the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic which significantly accelerated the uptake of digital channels by enterprises last year. As the pandemic drove consumers to avoid traditional physical interaction with brands, so many corporates were forced to move their services and products online. For example, many insurance companies that used third-party agents before the pandemic are now adopting digital channels at a significant rate. This is to allow customers to buy policies online, via Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) or through a mobile app or website. Not only was the adoption of digital channels significantly accel...

MTN Ghana Continues to Fight Against Regulator’s Attempts to Restrict Operations

Sourced from The Techie Guy MTN Ghana has initiated a new move in seeking a judicial review of Ghana’s National Communications Authority (NCA)’s decision to declare the telecom a Significant Market Power (SMP) in the country. MTN says that this declaration could mean significant regulatory restrictions being placed upon it by the NCA which could potentially limit the telecom’s growth in the country, as well as its performance, innovativeness and competitiveness in the global telecoms market. MTN Ghana heads to court All Africa reports that a statement issued by MTN Ghana in Accra on Friday and signed by its CEO, Selorm Adadevoh, who says that that the SMP declaration raises concerns about clear procedural breaches. /* custom css */ .tdi_3_ec2.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.tdi_3_ec2.td-...

African Union Forms Partnership to Accelerate COVID-19 Testing on the Continent

The Commissioner for Social Affairs, Amira Elfadil Mohammed, today rolled out the Partnership to Accelerate COVID-19 Testing (PACT) at the African Union Commission headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. In his message to participants in the rollout event, the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, says that “We have set four goals for PACT: to scale-up testing for COVID-19, to continue training healthcare workers on the continent, to establish a platform for pooled procurement at Africa CDC, and to deploy one million community workers who will help trace contacts of confirmed cases. PACT is a vital component of the continental response to COVID-19 and it is the key to ensuring that we unlock our economies in a safe manner.” Anchored on the African Union Joint Con...

ATCON Tasks Nigerian Government to Begin Digitizing the Economy

Sourced from the Guardian Nigeria. The Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) has charged the Federal Government to begin the digitization of the nation’s economy. The association stressed the importance and crucial need for the government to map out fresh plans that would assist the country cope with economic challenges post-COVID-19 pandemic. Olusola Teniola, president of ATCON, told The Guardian Nigeria that every sector of the Nigerian economy should brace for the challenges ahead, stressing that information and communication technology (ICT) would be strategic in diversifying and digitising the economy going forward. /* custom css */ .tdi_3_dff.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.tdi_3_dff.td-a-rec-img img{ margin: 0 auto 0 0; } Teniola makes clear that the assoc...

Understanding African Markets During COVID-19

Sourced from iStock. We are living in unprecedented times. COVID-19 has swept throughout the world, and governments globally have taken drastic measures to stop the spread in an attempt to save lives. In February 2020, as African countries watched Asia and Europe begin the implementation of lockdown, a study by Survey54, an automated mobile-led data collection platform, found that approximately 80% of Africans interviewed felt almost immune to the virus as they were yet to hear of any confirmed cases on the continent. This did not last long and by Mid-March, lockdown procedures were initiated across Africa. Despite the swift response, lockdown came with many challenges that drastically affected a continent which heavily depends on the informal sector. With roughly 90% of Africans now conce...

5G Connections in Sub-Saharan Africa will Reach 28-Million by 2025, Says GSMA

The Global System for Mobile Telecommunications Association (GSMA) has stated that about 28-million devices in Sub-Saharan Africa – representing a total of 2.7% of total mobile connections – will be connected to a 5G network by 2025. Akinwale Goodluck, Head of Sub-Saharan Africa for the GSMA said this during a Huawei online interview. He explained that when 5G eventually comes to Sub-Saharan Africa, it will be more for the enterprise market as opposed to the retail consumer market. “We will see little 5G hotspots in countries like South Africa. I know that some operators have started some of those, but the ultimate goal will be for us to fill up the 4G pipes. Then when 5G comes there will be a sort of limit in terms of wireless roll-outs, but the bottom line is governments need to aggressi...

Africa – The Most Promising Region for Cryptocurrency Adoption says Report

Sourced from Hacker Noon. According to a new report by Luno and Arcane Research, the economic landscape across the continent augurs well for cryptocurrency adoption in Africa. The State of Crypto: Africa report says that rapid adoption of cryptocurrencies is likely in Africa in the context of high inflation rates, volatile currencies and underdeveloped banking infrastructure. Certain crypto assets combine the wealth preservation properties of hard assets such as gold with the portability of digital currencies. /* custom css */ .tdi_3_65a.td-a-rec-img{ text-align: left; }.tdi_3_65a.td-a-rec-img img{ margin: 0 auto 0 0; } Cryptocurrencies also offer lower-cost and faster remittance payments than is currently available. Traditional money transmitting services charge very high fees and in...

2Africa: The New Subsea Cable Connecting Africa to Europe

Sourced from 2Africa.com Facebook, MTN GlobalConnect, Orange, STC, Telecom Egypt, Vodafone and WIOCC have all partnered to build 2Africa – said to be the most comprehensive subsea cable to serve the African continent and Middle East region ever. The companies have appointed Alcatel Submarine Networks (“ASN”) to build the cable in a fully funded project which will greatly enhance connectivity across Africa and the Middle East. At 37,000km long, 2Africa will be one of the world’s largest subsea cable projects and will interconnect Europe (eastward via Egypt), the Middle East (via Saudi Arabia), and 21 landings in 16 countries in Africa. The system is expected to go live in 2023 to 2024, delivering more than the total combined capacity of all subsea cables serving Africa today, with a design ...

A Future Reimagined for Africa Post-Pandemic

Sourced from Redbubble and iStock. In a rare television broadcast Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, described the COVID-19 pandemic as “Germany’s biggest challenge since the Second World War”. It has indeed proved to be a crisis of global proportion with material implications for the economies and livelihoods of all. Governments across the globe have locked down cities, towns, villages and townships to curb the spread of the virus. Massive fiscal stimuli have been enacted to cushion the economic and humanitarian impact of the pandemic. The World Bank and International Monetary Fund have set aside a large quantum of emergency financial support for countries to tap into. African countries have implemented strong containment measures to avoid further spread of COVID-19. For countries in W...