Kenya also received the Government Leadership Award.

Zain’s ZAP mobile money service also received Best Mobile Money for the Unbanked Service which also includes its service in Kenya.

Africa is really showing potential in software and mobile innovations and this is a great improvement from where we have been in the past.

Get the rest of the award winners at the GSM World website

Michael Joseph, CEO, Safaricom Ltd, has asked the government, specifically the licensing and regulatory commission, CCK to treat each operator equally and charge new players same fees Safaricom paid for their 3G licence, a whooping $25 million.

Its a nice thing that Safaricom has served us with all its might, while enjoying a monopoly and making a killing out of it. Safaricom has so far recovered their license fee and made more than enough profits from the users by over charging and in my view, we should let other players get easier terms since they have lesser subscribers and times have changed. Bandwidth is cheaper and more available too.

I really do not think its fair to the consumers not to allow the other players come in with easier terms because Safaricom will continue to control the prices.

As much as Safaricom has the best mobile internet service, its also the most expensive available. CCK, do us good by licensing other players and lets see where this takes our country.

I was in Nairobi when Safaricom launched the 7-day unlimited internet offer and I still had some data left on my account so I decided to use that until its finished then i can try the offer. Unfortunately I had to travel out of Kenya on Wednesday and at the airport, I managed to finish the data. When I got to my destination, I recharged my line and subscribed to the 7 day offer (Which I had actually just received an ad of via SMS a moment earlier while still out of Kenya). Unfortunately, I tried to connect and the connection was established but no data available. Connection kept timing out. When I called customer care, which got through to really quickly, they told me that I could not get the offer while roaming and as disappointed as I was, they promised to follow the case through to see what help I could get. I couldnt even get to connect using my normal airtime billing so I had to stay without the connection.

Next day a lady from Safaricom calls to just let me know they are working on the issue and they will be in touch. Another day later, they refund the airtime to my account, am able to use my account. Now that may sound like nothing to write about but please try call customer care in Tanzania, I have tried Vodacom, I will never try ever again. You just have no rights with the networks in Tanzania. Zain has an “unlimited” package for data which happens to be limited to 400mb. Try call them about it…

Congrats Michael Joseph, Safaricom made me proud to be a Kenyan today.

Safaricom and Equity bank have moved a step higher to strengthen their working relationship by introducing new ATM withdraw for M-Pesa through the Equity Bank ATM network. Equity Bank, Kenya’s largest bank in the aspect of account holders joins hand with Kenya’s largest money transfer service. Currently, M-Pesa has over 8 million users while Equity Bank offers 550 ATM points countrywide.

Just recently, Equity partnered with the 3rd competitor of Safaricom’s M-Pesa, yuCash offering similar services.

If you are web/mobile application developer in Africa, you have a great chance to win the $125,000 set aside for African developers by Nokia and get to sell your product on the Ovi store.

“We’re inviting all mobile and web application developers to create best-in-class applications to run on Nokia devices. This competition is aimed at the development of applications relevant to Africa. Whether it’s wallpapers or widgets, if it’s bold and brilliant and African then submit your content now!

We’re looking for applications that are as uniquely African as bunny chow and biltong are and ones which will add value to the lives of the Africans who use it.” Reads http://callingallinnovators.com/africa/

So…get creative and tap this great opportunity.

We are all happy when we can get an extra service at no extra cost. Blackberry addicts like me must admit that without the unlimited internet service that comes with it (For a small monthly fee), it would not be as interesting. Am sure at one point or another you have tried to connect your Blackberry as a modem or thought of how convenient the internet connection would be on your laptop… unlimited internet is the best thing that ever happened to me (Currently on an unlimited 3G connection). Anyway, here is how you can get your Blackberry to work as a modem on your computer or laptop.

I assume you have the Blackberry Desktop installed (If not, get the latest version from the Blackberry website or use the CD that came with it to install the software and modem drivers).

1. Open your Desktop manager, leave it running on the background, you don’t need to do anything else on it.
2. Connect your Blackberry to your computer/laptop.
3. Confirm that the modem is installed. You can do this by going to Control Panel > Phones and Modems. In the Modems tab, you should see a new Standard Modem on a new port (such as COM6 or COM11). Click Properties -> Diagnostics -> Query Modem. You should see the following:
   ATQ0V1E0 – OK
   AT+GMM – BlackBerry IPmodem
   AT+FCLASS=? COMMAND NOT SUPPORTED
   AT#CLS=? COMMAND NOT SUPPORTED
   AT+GCI? COMMAND NOT SUPPORTED
   AT+GCI=? COMMAND NOT SUPPORTED
   ATI1 – Research In Motion / BlackBerry IPmodem
   ATI2 – Research In Motion / BlackBerry IPmodem
   ATI3 – Research In Motion / BlackBerry IPmodem
   ATI4 – Research In Motion / BlackBerry IPmodem
   ATI5 – Research In Motion / BlackBerry IPmodem
   ATI6 – Research In Motion / BlackBerry IPmodem
   ATI7 – Research In Motion / BlackBerry IPmodem
   (Please note that this may differ depending on your Blackberry Model, just verify that the modem is connected and it works)
4. Click Properties -> Advanced. Add  initialization command with the appropriate carrier-specific APN Setting.
   For Vista users only: Under Control Panel>Phone and Modem>Properties on the General Tab, click “Change Settings”. After giving Administrator approval, click the Advanced tab. There, enter the appropriate APN settings for your carrier as noted below.

   +cgdcont=1,”IP”,”APN” e.g. Safaricom in Kenya would be +cgdcont=1,”",”safaricom”

5. Create a new connection and use the Blackberry modem to connect. Dial up number should be your normal GPRS/EDGE number (*99# for Safaricom) and authentication still the same (Safaricom: user – saf, password – data).
6. Disable IP Header Compression (*Vista users, see the note below)

1. Make sure TCP/IP Properties (Advanced) “Use IP Header Compression” checkbox is NOT checked. To verify this, do these steps:
   

   1. Start Menu->Network Connections->”BlackBerry Modem”
   2. Click Properties Button
   3. Click Networking Tab
   4. Select “Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)”
   5. Click Properties Button
   6. Click Advanced… Button
   7. Disable “Use IP header compression” checkbox
   8. Click all OK buttons to close all dialogs

   Also make sure you clear all these checkboxes, if you see any of these checked:
   Turn off “Enable Modem Compression”
   For Vista users only: Under the Network and Sharing Center, click “Manage Network Connections”. When the Network Connections screen is visible, you should have the Blackberry Modem connection you created. Right click the Blackberry Modem and select “Properties”. Under the Properties screen on the General tab, select the “Configure” button. Ensure that ALL check boxes are unchecked. Select “OK” to exit the screen. Under the Networking tab, select the properties for the Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPV4). On the Properties screen, select the “Advanced” button. Ensure that “Use IP Header Compression” is unchecked. Select OK to exit the screen.

   Turn off “Enable Hardware Flow Control”
   Turn off “Enable Modem Error Control”

   After this step you are done! Connect to the internet and enjoy your surfing. Please note that I tested this with my Blackberry 5310 Perl. Lets know if you have any issues.
   

Motorola Cliq

The war of high end mobile gadgets initially dominated by Apple’s iPhone and RIM’s Blackberry has a new player threatening to take over the market. Motorola has unveiled their first Android based smart phone, The Cliq. This new gadget has a sleek design more resembling the iPhone at a glance but moves slowly to prove better reliability when you pull up the slide with a QWETY keyboard that has always given Blackberry a lead ahead of the iPhone.

The phone has a touch screen and a physical slide-out keyboard, a 5-megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, 3G connectivity, the ability to shoot video at 24 frames per second, a standard headphone jack and GPS capability.  A price for the device has not been announced yet but its not expected to go too far from the current prices of the high end iPhone and Blackberry.

The Cliq is lovely to hold. It feels quite slim (about 0.62 inches thick) and light (weighing 5.6 ounces). Comparatively, the Palm Pre is 0.67 inches thick and weighs 4.76 ounces, while the iPhone 3G is 0.48 inches thick and weighs 4.7 ounces. The sliding keyboard on the Cliq is smooth and the physical(!) keypad offers fantastic tactile feedback, making touch-typing a very real possibility. The phone comes in a polished black the company calls “Titanium” and “Winter White.” The 3.1-inch display is bright and easy to read — at least under the florescent lighting where we put the phone through its paces. The screen is touch capable and very, very responsive. It’s certainly on par with the iPhone.

The device will have a custom interface called Moto Blur that will bring together e-mail messages, text messages, Facebook and Twitter feeds, and photos into a single interface.

The new social Motorola

The Cliq has a 5.2-megapixel auto-focus camera. We tested it briefly by shooting some pics in low light and comparing it to photos from the iPhone’s camera. Guess what? The Cliq’s cam captured finer details and offered a brighter picture with true colors. It’s easy to share and upload photos, in the spirit of Cliq fun. The user interface on every photo has four choices: Share, Gallery, Set as Wallpaper and Delete. Clicking on the Share tab means you can post the photo to MySpace, Gmail, Picasa or any other photo-sharing site you have set up such as Flickr.

As usual, it launches the American and European market before it gets to Africa but am sure we shall have access to it real soon. It seems like the perfect gadget for anyone torn between the iPhone and a Blackberry, combining the business features of Blackberry and the social that is an iPhone.