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.

Yes, Africa can be self-dependent

About 7 years ago, I managed to get a dial-up connection in my house. It was a great feeling, probably greater than I felt when I first made a 3G connection in Nairobi a about 2007.  Internet at home was a privileged.  An expensive one and the connection was really slow but by the standards then, it was ok. I had to foot the bill twice, the phone company and the ISP. Slowly, things have evolved. Cyber Cafes have become cheaper by the day and more reliable.

In 2004, I first used my debit card issued by the National Bank of Kenya online to pay for a domain and hosting. That was another great feeling. The process to getting services paid for online was a really bad experience, an expensive one too. Things have become cheaper, efficient and more accessible by the day. While we adopt lots of products from the west, Africa seems to also be waking up to the creation bit. We have bought franchises, created, ran and now, we are getting up to the market as a market that can develop and satisfy its technological and entertainment needs.

Next week, Kenya hosts the MTV Africa Music Awards. African talent has been seen clearly worldwide and the only people who seem not to believe in us is us. Look at the sports world – European soccer is filled with African stars. Without them, the entertainment that is European soccer would not be complete. Kenya has exported so many athletes.

Entertainment in Africa is growing to local content. Big Brother Africa, Idols, Tusker Project Fame, Nigerian Movie Industry, we may still need a lot of improvement but Africa has come a long way.

We have to look at ourselves and realize that Africa is hosting the FIFA World Cup for the first time in history. That we are enjoying the same technology platforms as everyone else in the world and that our standard of education is measuring up with the rest of the World. Again I will repeat, we are the only ones who seem not to believe in ourselves. The rest of the World can see the potential in Africa and that is why we have foreigners settled all over Africa.

My challenge to you and I, the African, re-examine what we are doing, ask us, are we doing what we do at the best it can be done? If so, then we are headed on the right path. Keep that spirit and if you need to fix it, please work on it and lets move Africa where the coming generations will have our names in their history books as pioneers and creators of stable systems and unique creativity that will see us move to the next level. Work together, build each other. Dont buy western or European products when you have African alternatives.

I am in the web industry and Majibu.com is my baby. I have great respect for Afrigator, Kachwanya, Moses Kemibaro, Bernsoft, David Kobia & Mashada.com, Kenyanpundit, Whiteafrican, Kiwanja.net,  SKUNKWORKS, Robert Alai,  Bongo5.com, Steve Gitau, John Karanja,  and many other countless bloggers and African webbers. These are a few people that have inspired my work everyday.  Please move towards playing a role in creating self-dependency in Africa. It may take years but its possible.

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.
   

Lets move from looking for blames and excuses to finding solutions with the resources that we have.

There is an old Kikuyu saying that goes …”You cannot take a donkey to the river and force it to drink the water”. So Seacom has delivered proper bandwidth at our doorsteps. Soon retailers will be giving us a share of the affordable and better internet. Question is, what are we going to do with it? We had our previous connections and as slow as they were or expensive as they were, they gave us a way to communicate with the world, infact, they still are until we get proper retail services from the ISPs.

I would like to challenge us to be innovative as we await the price drops and service delivery from our ISPs. What can we do to change our Nations? What can we do with better connectivity to increase the quality of education? What can we do to deliver better services at our jobs? What can we do to save time with the capacities that come with good connectivity? How can you make your children’s life better than yours using the new opportunies presented by this connectivity to the rest of the world?

Africa has waited too much for guidelines from the west and this is time we take the road South Korea took in the early 90s. We need to be creative and support our own. We need to start creating and innovating. We need to invent something that the west can adopt. We need to be leaders in something other than corruption, poverty, greed and war. We need to have IT managers lead our Nations and avoid the likes of most of our current leaders. Am specifically ashamed to say I come from Kenya when I look at our situation. Am looking for the young people who can identify with what am talking about, lets change our lives. Africa, wake up, you have the chance to make the world turn round and ask “Is this really the Africa in History Books?”

Lets move from looking for blames and excuses to finding solutions with the resources that we have.

Use of Seacom's fiber optic connection goes live in Kenya

Seacom may have arrived in Kenya but the expectation that people had on 23rd July were way beyond reality. People, including those with little use for the internet expected a complete U-Turn which basically takes time, resources, will and the correct planning. Good news though, Safaricom has gone live on the Seacom link.

Am currently using my 3G connection from Safaricom and I tell you this for sure, there is atleast 3 times better speeds in town now! Thanks once again Safaricom for proving that besides the bitter options, you are still the better option. Now I hope the 600mb data remaining on my account will be trippled as well, or should we not expect price changes?

Michael Joseph is a man who knows what brought him to Africa, congrats again. Lets all get busy with the good speeds!