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Jonah Iboma iPartners Limited, a Nigerian technology solutions provider, has said that it would deepen technology solutions provision the Nigerian market. According to the Managing Partner, iPartners Limited, Mr. Damola Olutiola, the firm now has competences that cut across several areas of technology needs such as networking, security of networks, unified communications and managed services. In an interview with our correspondent Olutiola said the firm also had the best team of local expertise of in Cisco certification with four of the company's main workforce already attaining Cisco Certified Internetwork Expertise. Internetwork certification is the highest professional certification offered by Cisco. According to him, this level of expertise is second to none in Nigeria and thus positions iPartners as a market leader in several ways, especially when in network architecture and security. Olutiola added that as a result of the expertise of the firm, iPartners was now silver partne...

Jonah Iboma 2008Nigeria’s Minister of Information and Communications, Mr. John Odey, has emerged the chairperson of the Bureau of African Ministers of Communications and Information Technologies under the auspices of the African Union Commission. Skip to next paragraph FileMinister of Communications, John Odey The election of Odey took place at the conference of African Ministers of ICT, which took place during the International Telecommunications Union’s Telecom Africa 2008 conference that ended on Thursday in Cairo, Egypt. The election is viewed by many as recognition of Nigeria’s influence and current standing in ICT performance in the sub-region. Odey expressed gratitude to his counterparts across Africa for the confidence reposed in Nigeria to occupy such a position. He spoke through the Executive Vice Chairman, Nigerian Communications Commission, Mr. Ernest Ndukwe, who represented him at a world press conference at the ITU Africa 2008 event. Odey, who arrived the event venue la...

Jonah Iboma Following the successful commissioning of a pioneer centre in Abuja about a fortnight ago, the Nigerian Police Force is to get information technology resource centres in all states of the federation. According to details released on Monday by thye firm in charge of the Project, Jefe Resources Limited, the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Mike Okiro, has given a directive that such IT centres should be established in states. Jefe Resources, the firm that built the Abuja centre is to handle the project via a public private partnership. According to the Director, Jefe Resources, Mr. Edwin Unuajefe, each location would have a 50-seater resource centre in all state police commands. He said that the IG had also authorised the firm to conduct computer and Internet training for all officers and men of the Nigerian Police nationwide The need to give officers and men of the Nigeria Police proper IT training had been a major issue that had drawn comments from various circles for some...

By Jonah Iboma The growth recorded in Nigeria’s telecommunications sector in the past eight years has attracted global interest. For a country that has been enmeshed in unstable political and economic system for many years, the development represents a pleasant departure from the negative trends that the country had been associated with. It also opened the eyes of the world to the country’s potential. However, the past seven years have presented mixed blessings for telecommunication service users. While operators have offered solutions to many of the problems of users through the several innovations, the quality of service and associated costs have also led to many disappointments. So, the decision of the Mubadala Development Company of the United Arab Emirates to invest $400m to secure a GSM licence in Nigerian 2007, had been viewed by many as one of the needed solutions to the limited competition in the country’s telecom sector. The coming of Mubadala led to the entry of Etisalat, a...

By Jonah Iboma Recent developments have put the Eastern and Southern African regions ahead in the race to link Africa with the rest of the world through cheaper bandwidth. Jonah Iboma highlights what industry experts say on how Nigeria and the West African region should react. Excerpts Bandwidth cost has been one of the main reasons why data services such as Internet are very costly in Nigeria and the entire sub-Saharan Africa. In advanced countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States, the cost of broadband Internet access comes at just a fraction of what is paid in most African countries. Broadband Internet offers speed of up to 10 times that of dialup which is widely used in Nigeria. Experts say this is simply due to the high cost of bandwith. Another point they have established is that the main reason why bandwidth costs so much in Africa is the fact that the number of undersea cables that link the continent to the rest of the world, especially Europe and North America,...

Jonah Iboma Toshiba has begun its expansion across the African continent with the opening of a sales and support office in Lagos, Nigeria. The office, headed by Emmanuel Olusegun Sokunbi, who is designated as business development manager, will offer marketing and support services to Toshiba’s channel partners in Nigeria, as well as a number of surrounding West African countries including Ghana, Sierra Leone, Gambia and Liberia. In a statement on Wednesday, marketing manager for Toshiba South Africa and Africa, Reon Coetzee said, “Territories outside of South Africa are relatively new markets for Toshiba.” He added, “To this extent, we are focussing a lot of our strength in establishing distribution channels in this new region and have subsequently appointed Technology Distributions Limited, which also has offices in West African countries, as our service partner for the region.” Sokunbi stated that given the limited number of options available to businesses and consumers in various Af...