Telecom
Taylor, Asks CTO Members to Invest in Broadband to Tap IoT,AI Evolution
Shola Taylor, secretary-general of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation, has warned of the risk of many countries missing out on the benefits of IoT, Big Data, AI and augmented reality innovation if they do not invest sufficiently in broadband and ICT services.
Taylor was speaking at the opening of CTO ICT Forum’17 held this week in Maputo, Mozambique.
“With the Internet of Things, we have a new environment conducive of opportunities for new forms of digital entrepreneurship or public service delivery,” he said. But he reminded that “there are still far too many without access to the Internet, who are unable to take advantage of the opportunities and benefits digital technologies have to offer.” He said.
Mr Taylor was speaking alongside Carlos Mesquita, Mozambique’s Minister of Transport and Communications; Dr Ema Chicoco, Chair of the Board of Mozambique’s Autoridade Reguladora das Comunicações; Patrick Masambu, Director-General, International Telecommunications Satellite Organisation; Malcolm Johnson, Deputy Secretary-General, International Telecommunication Union.
The event, which was open by His Excellency Carlos Agostinho do Rosário, Mozambique’s Prime Minister, is attended by ministers, regulators, national ICT agencies, industry executives, non-profit organisations and academia from the Caribbean, Europe, Africa, South Asia and the Pacific.
“We need to investigate new options to provide broadband, including low-orbit space solutions. To achieve this, more investment is essential. Of course, universal service funds must continue to invest and deliver on increasing access. Countries must invest in services for their citizens, and in the infrastructure to support the delivery of these services, or they will miss out on the benefits of IoT, Big Data and augmented reality technologies,” Mr Taylor warned.
“It’s important for us to continue developing infrastructures as well as information and communication technology services in order to ensure greater availability and coverage of online services.,” said Prime Minister Agostinho do Rosario.
“Access is front and center; it is the first step towards a digital nation,” said Mr Johnson. “Big Data, Cloud computing, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things and 5G will all shape our digital future. They are important steps on the journey towards a digital nation” and “we need to bring together technologists, regulators and policy makers, not only from the ICT sector, but all the sectors that will increasing depend on the technology, in order to address these challenges,” he added.
The theme of this year’s Forum was Digital Nations, Digital Wealth, with discussions focused on the prospects for socio-economic growth in a digital future comprising virtual environments, the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, machine-to-machine communications and augmented reality applications. The event include participation form other organisations such as ICANN, Facebook and Huawei who actively contributed to various sessions on universal broadband, regulation of virtual environments, the digital economy, security and privacy.
“The event’s theme is extremely relevant today, as we all strive to provide broadband to all the world’s citizens and contribute towards achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Agenda for 2030,” said Mr Masambu.
Consensus emerged from the discussions throughout the event, including:
The journey to the digital future is both individual and collective.
Public investment is a necessity to connect the unconnected, as although 3G covers 85% of the world, only half of the world population is connected to the Internet.
Countries must develop coordinated multisectoral strategies for ICTs, to include broadband infrastructure, health, education, agriculture and other areas.
IoT and augmented reality may require less and but more flexible regulation.
The need to balance open data with privacy.
Government to lead by deploying e-government services.
Competitive digital economies require government to create the enabling conditions, laws and frameworks, including for machine-to-machine communications.
Governments must make cybersecurity a priority.
CTO ICT Forum is the annual ICT conference of the Commonwealth. Hosted this year by INCM Mozambique, it is attended this year by ICT ministers and regulators, national information technology agencies, universal service agencies, civil society leaders, technology solution providers, telecoms companies, consulting firms, social media companies and financial and investment institutions from 21 countries.
Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) is planning to encourage geo-political regions that grants zero charges for ‘Right of Way’ approvals as well not implementing arbitrary charges on telecommunications base stations in their regions with zero tariff.
Engr. Gbenga Adebayo, chairman, ALTON disclosed this to Nigeria CommunincationsWeek against the backdrop of incessant closure of base stations in some states.
He said that operators believe that the way out of this arbitrary charges and high cost of RoW approvals is regional tariffs.
“Operators are advocating for a regional tariff which means that geographical regions of Nigeria where cost of doing business for telecommunications operators is extremely high will attract high tariff compared to regions where there is low operating cost.
“Our advocacy of regional tariff is not based on a particular state but on regions. As at today there are regions where we have zero cost of “Right of Way” and low cost of doing business. Tariffs should reflect on operating environment. This means that national rate plan should consider high and low cost of doing business.
“If this is implemented, in a long run we could witness some regions having zero tariff because operational cost in such regions are friendly to operators,” he said.
It would be recalled that Kogi State recently shut down some operators’ base stations on account of local levies which raises the call for discriminatory tariff among geographical locations.
AVEVA, a global leader in industrial software driving digital transformation and sustainability in industries, today announces the appointment of Sébastien Ory, 48, as EMEA VP in charge of the partner and distributor network. VP of AVEVA Southern Europe since 2022 and President of AVEVA France since 2023, Sébastien now replaces Karine Calvet while remaining President of AVEVA France.
Sébastien Ory as EMEA VP Partners & Channels, AVEVA
In this new role, he will oversee the relationships with the various stakeholders involved in the distribution of AVEVA software and will have direct responsibility for more than forty employees spread across the EMEA region. Sébastien Ory will report directly to Jesus Hernandez, the new SVP of the EMEA region, who replaces Evgeny Fedotov, now CCO of RIB.
More than 18-year career in the industry
A graduate of the Ecole Polytechnique de Paris and the Institut National de l’Aéronautique (ISAE-SupAero) in Toulouse, Sebastien Ory is an active advocate for driving sustainable progress in the industrial sector.
He began his career at France Telecom as a sales manager where he stayed for 4 years before giving a more industrial dimension to his career.
With fifteen years of experience in the industrial automation industry, Sebastien Ory has developed a strategic understanding of this field. After 10 years in Schneider Electric’s industrial automation business, he led the global industrial software business development team for Schneider Electric Software from 2015 to 2018, with a particular focus on the water, power generation, mining and food industries. During these 3 years, the introduction of new software solutions will allow Schneider Electric Software to initiate and develop significant growth areas.
7 years at AVEVA
In 2018, Sébastien joined AVEVA as Vice President of the Southeast Asia region, leading a team of 200 talents in charge of delivering cloud-based industrial analytics and AI software. In addition to the growing developing the teams he leads from the Singapore headquarters, part of his energy is devoted to establishing direct engagement with leaders of major groups in the region such as Petronas, Pertamina, PTT, Wilmar and Olam, to stimulate their digital transformation initiatives.
In 2022, he took over the leadership of AVEVA’s activities in Southern Europe, a major industrial market for the company, whose customers, world leaders in the fields of Energy, Chemicals, Agri-food, Pharmaceuticals and Water, are looking for AVEVA’s expertise to accelerate and drive their digital transformation and sustainability strategies, as well as their energy transition projects. The changes he brings to the organization of the sales team are bearing fruit and allow AVEVA to acquire new customers while consolidating key accounts. As Sebastien transitions to the role of VP EMEA Partners & Channels, Dominique Bazin becomes the new Vice President of AVEVA Southern Europe.
EMEA VP Partners & Channels: a highly strategic position within AVEVA
Sébastien now holds the position of Vice President in charge of the Partners and Channels for AVEVA in Europe, Middle East and Africa, a major market for the company. His main mission is to design and implement a strategy for the growth of indirect sales, through a network of partners and strong alliances with Digital Services Companies (DSCs), AI platform providers and independent software vendors (ISVs) whose solutions are compatible with the CONNECT platform.
Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) has hit back at Meta Platforms Inc, warning the tech giant that its threat to exit Nigeria will not erase its legal responsibilities or liabilities under the Nigerian law.
Meta said earlier today, May 3, that it “may be forced to effectively shut down the Facebook and Instagram services in Nigeria in order to mitigate the risk of enforcement measures.”
Meta’s warning came after it lost a legal bid last week to overturn a ₦220 million fine imposed by the FCCPC for violations of data protection and consumer rights laws.
Reacting to Meta’s threat, FCCPC, in a statement on Saturday, May 3, described Meta’s statement as “a calculated” move aimed at “inducing negative public reaction and potentially pressuring the FCCPC to reconsider its decision.”
FCCPC said that Meta threatening to leave Nigeria does not absolve the company of liabilities for the outcome of a judicial process.
“These infringements included denying Nigerians the right to control their personal data, transferring and sharing Nigerian user data without authorisation, discriminating against Nigerian users compared to users in other jurisdictions and abusing their dominant market position by forcing unfair privacy policies,” FCCPC wrote on X.
“Interestingly, Meta had been fined for similar breaches in Texas ($1.5b) and only recently was asked to pay $1.3 Billion for violating E.U. Data Privacy Rules.
Elsewhere in India, South Korea, France and Australia, Meta had faced varying penalties for similar breaches. But Meta never resorted to the blackmail of threatening to exit those countries. They obeyed.”
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