As contract mobile plans have been and will probably stay all the rage in the US, it wasn't until a trip to Austria a number of years ago where I experienced my first pay-as-you-go setup. Just a mere 5€ and I could call away with as much ease as someone who speaks nary a word of German could muster. That was handy, but it obviously had its limitations back in the day due to the size of Austria, recharging, and the fact T-Mobile didn't allow portability to other T-Mobile networks. The vastly superior PYG plans are the ones I've found in Africa (especially Zain), often purchasing the initial SIM and/or recharge credit from a car window on the road, like picking up an illicit communications narcotic fix.

So, naturally, once landed in South Africa, I grabbed a number at some retail shop for one Rand and tossed 30 Rand of credit on it. The setup for the number was like nothing I'd experienced before though. After pawing through the SIM cards on the rack to select what I thought was my number, I went to pay and found out that not only was that not going to be my number, but that there was going to be a wait while it was approved and set up.

Like when buying numbers in Europe, they required my passport as well as proof of an address which, as a tourist is impossible and as it seems they can just mark "tourist" to bypass that step, it would appear to be a worthless step to have. And then there's the waiting. It was about an hour before I received my actual number and then another hour to get the credit applied to said number. Apparently it can take up to a day in some cases! Those coming for the World Cup, take note of this.

All of this immediately screams wonky to me as I've gotten so spoiled with just picking up a number and running with it. They claim it's all in the name of reducing fraud which is one of those things that makes me crazy to no end because those wanting to commit fraud will not be stopped by this. Sure, it might be an impediment to those dreaming up lesser frauds that don't involve the use of one's entire ass, but more than likely, they're just an impediment to the consumer.

Some day, some one might want to slap the purveyors of voice and data transport systems with the fact that you want access to be as easy as possible to would be criminals so that you can analyze the metrics and actually find the real crime as opposed to forcing me to eat my pizza alone in Kalk Bay because I couldn't phone my friends to come meet me due to waiting for my phone number to be activated.

I've been saying it for awhile, but in different ways that the rich mobile fields so many want to tap in Africa aren't actually all that rich after all. In fact, this article claims that they're at a saturation point, which I would agree with.

A decade ago, an African GSM license was an attractive ticket for international investors to enter a market with huge profit potential. But most regulators on the continent have found ways to raise money by licensing more GSM spectrum and fixed line operators, with the argument that competition would drive down cost of services. It has done that, but has also meant continued struggles for smaller, newer companies.

There's also the fact that if you can't cut costs any further, then you cut service and supposedly government are working to make sure that network operators maintain a quality level of service for the customers. To this I have to say, "Yeah. Right." Dropped calls and weak call quality are the norm wherever I've been in Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, and Mali. Yeah, I always have a signal wherever I go, but as to being able to actually use that signal, often is a mixed bag of results.

Some observes say that even with the sector in flux, international investments are not likely to dry up, as some have feared.

This I completely agree with. The mobile market in Africa is a tasty market for investors. They're able to outlay a smallish amount of cash for a tremendous return that just keeps coming. It is an extraction economy. You don't have to work to really build out that much (just a cell tower here and there). There is no development of a brick and mortar business selling a product, just a few splashy billboards around town. You're selling a signal and that's it. So naturally investors will still want to pour money in to African mobile projects. It's just that all that hype you hear about this work is just that and at some point very soon, the market will indeed be tapped out and investors might actually have to look for real, sustainable businesses to work with as opposed to non-essential things like mobile. I'm just glad to see that I'm not the only one saying this.

Now feeling better after a crappy bout of malaria, I'm getting the chance to revisit a couple of posts that got left behind, like this one from Mali as I was trying to make my way back from Dogon Country to Bamako. Given that the bus was a fail, the only plausible option seemed to be hitchhiking. Amazingly, it worked out quite well in the end and through a series of private cars, my wife and I managed to get to Bamako in probably half the time of the bus. Never thought I'd be hitchhiking across Africa in my 30s.

It was the segment from Djenné to Ségou that was the most interesting though, due to it being a fellow in a Caterpillar company truck picking us up. All along I thought that these guys were just roving salesmen for the equipment. In the US and Europe, I only know them as makers of kick ass heavy machinery that someday I would love to own one of everything they make. But no, in Mali, as well as Côte d'Ivoire and many other countries I'd assume, they're doing what it is that the US does best these days in providing services. In these case, they provide technicians to service the generators that they build. I assume that they give a steep discount on the machinery if the customer agrees to the service given that that is where all the money is now.

Anyways, this fellow worked for this contracting arm and while he didn't know the specifics of mobile broadcasts systems in Mali, he knew what it took to keep them running for Orange. His daily job consists of driving massive distances around the country to make sure that the generators for the mobile towers stay fully functional. We happened to encounter him as he was heading in to Ségou for some new parts, but usually he stays way out east.

What is the normal antenna tower deployment?

In places where there is decently regular electricity, there is only one backup generator. In places that are more remote or where there is never electricity, there are two.

How often do they get maintenance? What are the usual problems?

They get regular maintenance every month. The dust is the biggest problem. It coats the machinery and all the moving parts, so they have to be cleaned quite thoroughly. Actual breakdowns are quite rare as the machinery can handle the environment, as long as it is maintained.

How long can a tower run on only generator power?

Three months. Each tower with two generators has a 5,000L tank of fuel. The generators take shifts running with each rotating out every six hours to properly cool down and rest. They can run for three months uninterrupted, but since we visit them each month, the places without power run constantly.

How dense are the tower distributions, such as in Mopti or Timbuktu?

In Mopti [approx. 100,000 people, densely populated] there are two towers. In Timbuktu [a few more than 100,000, but more spread out] there are six towers. In Bamako and other towns, I don't know offhand because I don't service them.

And from there we chatted about the weather and other things until he dropped us off and we were picked up by some other kind souls to cart us the rest of the way to Bamako. That last bit about deployment was quite interesting to me as it shows that where they can somehow get away with it, the mobile operators will run the bare minimum amount of towers they can to maximize profits. Sure, voice quality is worth spit, but signal exists in theory and so does their coverage even if you can't make a call or send an SMS. Again, proof that despite this being the "fastest growing mobile market in the world" there are all kinds of problems with mobile in Africa that fall vastly short of what those outside the continent are promising it can deliver. Definitely one of the more interesting random rides I've had.

I've really getting neurotic about mobile phones. Not so much in developing for them or their being the new-new data platform but mainly due to the fixation in how Africa is the fastest growing mobile market in the world. Yes, it's true, but that's because penetration is so low, whereas in North America of Europe, the market is saturated already.

I've said it before but the growth figures are way out of line. I have two numbers with two different carriers here in Côte d'Ivoire: Orange and Moov. I have to have both of these numbers as at any given point at least one of them is without a signal and that is often when standing directly below a tower. The networks are overloaded.

This last week put me over the top when both phones were without data access and voice at various points with 2-3 hour delays on SMS's. It makes people pouting about 3G access on their iPhone seem paltry. Although, after talking to a friend of a friend who was in Myanmar for the last three years, the networks here are blissful by comparison.

I'm seriously thinking about getting a third and looking like a true idiot with all these devices dangling off of me. But, it's the case that the mobile systems here, as in many parts of Africa (I've personally experienced the same problems in Ghana as well as Congo) are purely set up for the extraction of wealth. What mining and rubber harvest was to Sub-Saharan Africa during Colonial times, the mobile phone industry is to Modern times. Put in as little money as possibly to get out as much as possible. This explains why there are so many mobile players out there and they all offer pretty much the same kind of deal--a less than stellar one.

Sure, the market will continue to grow and with every person getting two or three numbers, it's going to look huge. But, for anyone actually using the networks on the ground, they leave a great deal to be desired, no matter how large and pretty their billboards down in Zone Quatre appear.

This article on Koranteng's Toli was a great read. Actually, in general, his blog is a great read, but this article really stuck out as it's about the fact that Ghana doesn't appear to exist in the world of Apple:

Yes, take your i-something, open the Contacts App, create a new contact and add a new address. Alternatively just try to edit an existing address. Now try to change the country field to Ghana. Note, if you will, the result: Ghana is not in the list of countries. Search under "Africa (Western)" and you'll see nary a trace of Ghana.

He goes on to talk about how it's probably just a bug and that it will be updated at some point in the near future, especially if a stink is to be raised about it. But, it begs that question as to why it's not there in the first place. It's not like the list of all 193 countries in the world is that hard to find and yes, Ghana is on that list.

I could buy the bug issue as I saw this first hand when working at a company and looking at their international shipping to see that my country, Croatia wasn't in the list. I really scanned through the list and then found it under Hrvatska, which is how you say Croatia in Croatian. But, this was the only country like that. There was no España or Deutschland in the list. I asked my manager what the deal with that was and he admitted that they had just cut and paste the list from another site. So, in this case it was abject laziness and it could be in the Apple iApp situation that the same applies because Americans and by association, American coders are often unaware that Africa is a continent and not a country, they probably just screwed up.

But then there rises the issue that Jean-Patrick Ehouman ran in to when trying to run ads on Facebook in that when you choose a country to target in their system, Côte d'Ivoire is not in the list. Oddly enough, in this instance, Ghana is in the list as well as Nigeria. But, in West Africa the following countries are not available for ad targeting on Facebook: Mali, Cameroon, Liberia, Benin, Togo, Guinea, Senegal, The Gambia, Niger, Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone, and Mauritania. That's a big list and I didn't even check for the rest of Africa.

So here is where you get in to a chicken and egg problem. Businesses will claim that there is no market for them in Africa. But, they are in effect creating the barriers to any kind of market developing by simple acts of non-inclusion. If Apple does some kind of Big Brother thing (which I wouldn't put past them) and looks at all the contacts that all their iPhone users have registered, they'll see none in Ghana and assume that there is no business in Ghana. The same goes for Facebook. They can easily say that they won't bother with West Africa because no one is buying ads for the region. Likewise, Google can claim that AdWords in Africa don't work because you can't register or get paid for running AdWords for most everyone on the continent.

The solution to all of this is basically for companies to stop sticking their heads in the sand when it comes to Africa. As I've said before, Google is making a good deal of headway in this department, although it's slow going. Facebook, Apple, and a great number of others still have some way to go. But just having all the countries in the world available as options would be a rather massive first step. An important second step would be to incorporate more languages. So what if you don't see any French or Spanish users on your site or for your product? Maybe if that version is made available the market will suddenly explode.

It all boils down to the fact that at some point, you gotta say screw it, roast the chicken, boil the eggs, and take a chance that in all likelihood will pay off big time.

While El Dorado is something for storybooks and popular mythology, I know the actuality of it all too well having grown up in California with Gold Rush history all around me as a child (my home town is called, 'gold town'.) Much is made about the wealth that flowed through Northern California during the mid-19th century, but rarely is the dirtiness of that period ever covered with people working in terrible conditions, catching all manner of diseases, often dying, and all to have the actual wealth go to an elite few with the connections. We've repeated this story in a number of ways over the past 150 years...

I mention this because of the title of this article, L’Afrique, nouvel eldorado des télécommunications (Africa, the new El Dorado of Telecommunication.) The article talks a great deal about the developments in the industry and the growth, but doesn't actually follow up on what is a very catchy title in that while the mobile phone growth in Sub-Saharan Africa is tremendous, it's illusory at best. This growth is being painted in such a good light at the moment, because a great many worldwide companies see a gigantic market there. This is definitely true, but what happens when the growth slows down? Yeah, I know, the slow down is years and years away given that there are a billion people there, but still, it's not as far away as you may think.

At best, a great deal of the adoption is coming about because service, coverage, and prices are sub-par. I think that everyone I've ever met in Sub-Saharan Africa has two if not more phones. One is for talking. One is for texting. Maybe one is for another region if they go there often. This isn't growth, it's people dealing with less than adequate service. Up until about 10 years ago, people in a lot of the US had to do the same as the coverage just wasn't "there" yet. And 150 years ago, miners in California bought multiple claims for when their current one ran out. You hedge you bets and when that translates to numbers, it looks impressive. But, you probably own more than one pair of shoes and always need new ones. You're really only wearing one at a time, so is there really huge possible growth in the shoe industry? Nope.

Yes, there is innovation, like this MTN address book function that Elia tipped me off to and is quite cool. But, I've seen this type of thing before. It was in the 1990's in the US and Europe. Innovation in mobile technology was awesome then. Every couple of months, something groundbreaking would come out from a network provider (not a handset maker mind you) and then they'd all flock to copy it. It was a wondrous time to play with mobile technology, but it's gone as flat as the growth rates in these regions.

I'm just saying that El Dorado was never found. The gold mines of Northern California dried up. A lot of things have happened along the way, but the one thing we know is that growth rates are finite. What happens when the growth flattens out or once numerous networks have swallowed each other? There's conflict in Eastern Congo for the materials that are fueling all this growth. What about that? What if the exports were to stop as they're systematically inhumane?

I know that a lot of my fellow tech bloggers will point to all that's coming about because of the mobile penetration and that the mobile phone is the computer in Africa (although my African friends with computers might disagree), but there is a day very soon where things will flatline and a lot of folks will be left in the lurch. Competition will dry up. Innovation will fall off. Prices will go up and then what?

Instead of constantly talking about growth (especially as if it's going to go on forever), maybe we should be paying a great deal more attention to what's happening at the top and on the sides of this new El Technorado and see that it really isn't all that it's being purported to be. Only then we can maybe talk about what's sustainable in the industry.

Many thanks to Rebecca for pointing out this video. Appears that the solar powered mobiles have hit the market in Kenya and they're selling out like crazy. This video gives good coverage, unfortunately in Dutch, but with English subtitles. The phones look pretty cool, although on cloudy days, one must revert to the way of the charger...

Apparently as of 1 July, 2009 all mobile phones numbers need to be fully registered in South Africa. Prior to this, it was like many places in that you popped in for a SIM, topped it up and off you went with a number. Now, you need some form of identity and an address tied in with buying the number. You can read more about the general aspects of RICA, which stands for "Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-Related Information Act" (I'd hate to see how it's written in Afrikaans) here.

As attendees to Highway Africa found out, even if you're just a visitor and MTN is handing out free SIMs (which only cost $0.13 anyways) you need to somehow register the number before you can use it. While a passport works fine on the ID side of things, the address is a problem as their system will not accept foreign addresses. So, you just register the hotel's address.

While picking up a SIM is still a much better deal than in Africa in general than in the--US ($25) or Europe (~$8)--regulations like these have always left me scratching my head. It is true that it's the same deal to register in most European countries and most definitely the US with all of this is in the name of security, but it can very easily be sidestepped. Wouldn't some would-be criminal there on a fake passport just give a fake address and (no way!) render the whole registration process useless? Or maybe mug somebody with a valid SIM and just use that? These laws are antiques, from the days before people moved as much as they do now, when we had much more permanent addresses, and no mobile electronics. Governments at some point need to realize that if they're going to actually monitor security on mobiles, then they need to get ahead of it. Of course, given the fact that this requires people working for the government who innovate faster than those catering to the private sector then it explains why we're stuck with things like RICA or the PATRIOT Act in the US.

One note on the instruction sheet about RICA they hand out with every phone that I found most remarkable was this to deal with the address issue:

If you live in an informal settlement you can provide a letter and/or affidavit from a school, church or retail store where you receive your post...

Again, it circumvents the whole thing they're trying to achieve and has rendered this Act to be more of a pain than anything useful to the state. And according to the Wikipedia article, it's quite possibly unconstitutional. Plus there's the fact that it's clear this was done in preparation for the 2010 World Cup, which is ludicrous as it's going to kill anyone visiting from picking up a number and using the telecom providers while there. If a fan or journalist has to go to a special place to register a South African number or just deal with the price of roaming while in South Africa, I'm assuming they'll choose the latter given how much they're already spending on the flight, tickets, and everything else. Way to start killing World Cup profits early on SA regulators.

allAfrica.com had a post two days ago about dangerous 'Chinese' mobiles. Apparently these dual SIM card phones that are coming in from China emit large doses of radiation. The link I just provided was more to talk about dual SIM phones in Africa overall as that article talks dual SIM phones in Zambia that are being produced there. No word on if those are harmful.

Naturally, these 'Chinese' ones (I'm not sure if this is a blanket term being used to insinuate something or not) are being scooped up by the masses in Africa as they're cheap, feature-laden, and can even support up to three SIM cards. Who wouldn't want to buy something like this? Of course, there are no hard facts and numbers to back up this article, which is unfortunate as it's so much easier to say something than to prove it. Still, there may be merit and hopefully people will look in to it.

And what gives with major handset producers not jumping on the dual SIM bandwagon in the US and Europe? Everyone talks about smartphone this or 3G that, but given the amount that a lot of people travel, having the ability to take only one phone to hold your home number and host country number would seem like a really useful feature, but Yugatech points out why they probably aren't doing it. Still, dual SIMs are a lot more useful than some point and shoot camera which, no matter how you make them, always have sub par quality. Maybe it's just me, but I vote Yes on proper dual SIM phones. Three might be a bit overkill though.

It was recommended to me by several sources also going to the Maker Faire Africa that Zain would probably be my best network to go with when picking a pay-as-you-go mobile plan for my stay in Ghana. The main reason being that they have some of the better speeds for data and pricing over the other providers here. I also found out that text messages between Zain numbers is free, although I'll have to back that up with more research.

Well, I picked it up and the speed seems pretty good, although I don't travel with 3G phones, so it's impossible gauge just how much better it could be. The only problem is that the phone I brought to set up with Zain doesn't work. It's an unlocked Blackberry Curve. This phone is pretty much indestructible everywhere I've gone and whatever network I've wanted to use it on, but for some reason it just doesn't work with Zain. I even made a trip to their main store on Oxford Street and the minute I pull the phone out of my bag, the girl at the counter looked at it and said, "Ah... a Blackberry. Yes, they have trouble with our network." Thankfully I have a Nokia 6301 and a Sony Ericsson K530i that it works fine with, although not having the full keyboard does lose a bit of the appeal with internet from a phone.

But initial hookups aside, I am again reminded of how vastly superior competition is in the mobile market. The fact that I can pick up a SIM card for about $.75 USD is great. While having so many companies in a smaller market can get dizzying I suppose, it also makes them have to compete for their customer's business. I think that the last attempt at competition in the US ended about 10 years ago. Since then, it's all been about re-branding stuff that they already have.

I suppose that there will be mergers down the line in the African mobile scene,but I rue the day that I won't be able to pick up a number from some guy on the corner and be able to buy phone credit every 10 meters I step.