team of Communications experts from London-based communications cybersecurity and consulting firm Cellusys arrived in Cape Town on Friday after successfully completing an epic five-year overland journey across Africa.
Their epic road trip began in 2019 at Mobile World Congress (MWC), a major telecom industry event held annually in the Spanish seaside city.
At the initiative of company chairman Dawood Ghalaieny, the Cellusys team used the road trip to better understand the operational environment that clients, including MTN Group, have to navigate in providing connectivity services to different parts of the continent. Did.
“Africa is under intense scrutiny because its markets are developing so rapidly. The international community recognizes the opportunities, but the continent is also mysterious in some ways.” Cellusys Solutions engineer Luanna Sena said in an interview with TechCentral on Friday. “This trip allowed us to experience different cultures, meet people, and observe the structural challenges facing Africa. [mobile] Operators must be satisfied. ”
Traveling in four Toyota Land Cruisers, the seven-person team consisted of a solutions engineer, a marketer, a social media manager, and a mechanic.
Sena, who is based in London but originally from Brazil, and her team noticed differences in connectivity between regions, but were impressed by the level of connectivity they had throughout their journey. “Some countries have 4G all the time, some only have 3G, and some have nothing at all,” she says.
snowball effect
However, improvements in infrastructure are evident. She and her team noted that they can connect anywhere there is road infrastructure. This suggests that mobile operators can justify the business case for infrastructure deployment against the backdrop of investments by other infrastructure operators. This is evidence of a snowball effect, where one type of investment drives the growth of another type of investment.
Similarly, infrastructure investments by mobile phone companies have created a platform for “over-the-top” (OTT) services. The most important one for Africa, which the Cellulys team has first-hand experience with, is mobile operator Mobile His Money Services.
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“My colleagues have used momo in several countries. It's interesting because you can use momo to buy things even when you don't have cash. In some places, there are machines that tap cards. Even in the most rural villages we were able to use momo, although there were some places without it,” Sena said.
Sena said mobile money is available in his home country of Brazil, but it is not as widespread as he has witnessed across Africa. However, as the continent's connectivity levels improve, differences in the quality of other digital services essential to daily life are becoming more apparent.
“During the trip, Google Maps said it would take 40 minutes to reach the destination. It took three or four hours. I had to drive really slow or I would have destroyed the car. In some places, locals had to shake our cars out of the mud and push us because we were stuck,'' Sena said. “After repeating this five or six times, we learned to listen to the locals instead of following the GPS.”
The Cellusys team experienced first-hand the concept that doing business in Africa is easier by consulting and engaging local stakeholders.
In a recent webinar on e-commerce in South Africa, Order Kasi CEO Leon Qwabe made a similar point regarding activity in township communities, citing the need to update Google Maps data in certain areas. also mentioned.
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Senna said the team encountered notable acts of charity and awe-inspiring events along the way. It was also a lot of fun, she said. In Ghana, we started a coding bootcamp for 75 young people. In the Republic of Congo, the team interacted with a gorilla being rehabilitated for the wild, enjoying his 2G connection in the middle of a dense jungle. “older [feature] The phone had better connectivity than some of the newer fancy phones out there. ”
Overall, she said, the time spent traveling across the continent and interacting with its people has given Sena and her team a more nuanced understanding of their work on Africa. . – © 2024 News Central Media
