Zambia rolls out $10m SIM project

M-Mobile Telecommunication Company, Zambia's first mobile phone manufacturing plant, is set to start producing cellphones to accommodate double SIM cards, reports Lusaka Times.

Zambian president Rupiah Banda claims the government is working towards a $10-million project aimed at reducing the international gateway licensing fees to lower the cost of doing business in the communication sector.

M-Mobile, which started last year, produced 20 000 handsets and exported about 10 000 of the phones to Zimbabwe while the rest were supplied to the local market.

Alcatel-Lucent has been selected by Etisalat to speed up the deployment of its nationwide fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) network in Africa, says The Financial.

In a multi-million Euro deal, Etisalat will utilise Alcatel-Lucent's gigabit passive optical network technology to connect 50 000 households and business customers in the Middle East and Africa.

Essa Al Haddad, chief marketing officer for Etisalat UAE, says: “Through this partnership with Alcatel-Lucent, we will be able to accelerate the deployment of new and advanced service offerings that will revolutionise our customers' triple play and home entertainment experience.”

Telecom industry groups are preparing to enter into discourse with the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) on the recent directive of the regulator making it mandatory for the telcos to register all new subscribers on their networks, with effect from 1 March, states Business Day.

Existing subscribers are also required to be properly registered. The registration will require verification with e-passports, driver's licences and certain other identification documents.

The directive had been in the making for over one year. The move is an effort to have a proper record of telephone subscribers in the country and to be able to identify and trace telephone users in case of criminal or other antisocial conduct.