Here’s an interesting development initiative from Ericsson that would boost ICT in Nigeria. ITNewsAfrica reports that:

International telecoms giant Ericsson has entered into a joint venture with 21st Century Technologies to install a Gigabit-capable Passive Optical Network (GPON) in Nigeria this month, a development that is set to benefit over 10 000 families.

Apart from bringing the much needed Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to the West African nation, the Ericsson-21st Century Technologies partnership will also see Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) networks being put in place.

FTTH connectivity is aimed at providing clear internet access, voice-over-IP as well as quality broadband services to the pilot project, which is likely to prove a success to Africa’s most populous nation.

Ericsson, which is also a renowned international company in terms of bringing up both 2G and 3G mobile technologies, will ensure that the use of fibre optic is expanded to the countryside.

Efforts by CAJ News to get comment from the Ericsson official in charge of West African region, Jan Embro, were unsuccessful. However, work on the ground is at an advanced staged.

My Opinion

It would be interesting to see how this development turns out, since Internet penetration in Nigeria is quite sluggish. Most of the internet access has been through VSAT, until recently where WiMax, WiFi internet access is gradually becoming popular.

The question is: Would this not be a drop in an ocean?

Nigeria has a lot of potentials if only there is high-speed broadband access. Until this is possible, lack of internet connectivity would still hamper the growth of web-centric business start-ups.

It’s one of those moments again and I’m really excited to be interviewing a female technopreneur from Nigeria, Paulette Erijo, who is a social media consultant and founder at Letche Technologies.

In a recent email interview, Paulette shares with us insights into Enterprise 2.0 in Nigeria and how her start-up, Beezbox is set to push forward Enterprise 2.0 tools and technologies into the African market.

Enjoy the interview!;-)

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Here is a very interesting post from Paulette Erijo who blogs at Letche.net,

Emerging African markets are always a target for many high tech companies. In recent times more telecom operators have expanded into countries like Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, Egypt, Kenya, and many more Africa countries. Nigeria has the biggest business environment in Africa. Reports show that the introduction of mobile and wireless technologies has given rise to an increase in the number of internet service users. Most people are becoming more familiar with web services either via their mobile phones or laptops. But how well is Nigeria ready for Enterprise 2.0 ? Letche is set to push Enterprise 2.0 into the Nigeria market. Industries such as Financial Institutions, Telecoms, Sports, Media and Advertisement, Learning Institutions, Oil and Gas, and Consumer Product companies are a few examples of Letche’s target market. Over the years, Nigeria’s response to new technologies goes through a long maturity period.  But lately, the reverse is the case. The drive towards new technologies within the various industries is very welcoming for technology owners. Although Enterprise 2.0 is still young globally, it is not too early for the Nigerian market to start adopting it. Early adopters have many success stories. Companies can engage customers, partners and employees in new ways, and thus facilitate collaboration both within the enterprise and across the internet. We look forward to seeing a good number of companies in Nigeria roll out Enterprise 2.0 in 2009 on our Beezbox Enterprise 2.0 platform.

My Thoughts

My guess is that Enterprise 2.0 in Nigeria will definitely evolve in the next couple of years. In recent times, Nigerians have caught the social networking bug and soon companies in Nigeria will soon see more reasons they should use this new media space to attract new and existing customers. Interestingly, Oz at Mootbox wrote a very interesting piece called Nigeria: Who is Afraid of Enterprise 2.0

It would be interesting to see how Letche intends to develop Enterprise 2.0 in Nigeria and I’m eagerly looking forward to getting involved with this process.

What are your thoughts about Enterprise 2.0 in Nigeria?

MapNTL, Nigeria’s version of Google Maps has launched an online ad network that allows members to join, host ads and get paid. MapNTL.com provides online local and brand advertisers with an interactive medium for delivering geo-targeted and contextual display ads to a large, actively engaged user community.

NOAN is a network of large and growing number of Nigerian focused websites comprising some 20 websites from Nigeria and abroad that engage millions of Nigerian consumers every day across the most popular online categories including: Banking, Technology, Hospitality, Restaurant, Travel, Finance, News, Automotive, Real Estate, Education, Women’s Lifestyle, Sports and others. NOAN members advertise each other’s banners to promote their services mutually and equitably. You can join the Facebook community here.

With NOAN, advertisers will therefore spend less time trying to find the right publishers to serve their online ads, and more time focused on perfecting their pitch to potential customers. This means that any ad appearing in any of the affiliated website appears on all members’ websites which results in more web exposure for advertisers.

The idea of the ad network is to expose Nigerian-focused companies and start-up businesses as well as local content on the Internet instead of the usual Google ads that advertises foreign brands on Nigerian websites as well as products and services in US Dollars or Pound Sterlings. Thus, with the launch of the Nigerian Online Ad Network, there would be local ad networks advertising Nigerian companies in all industries as well as products and services in Naira.

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While European football has become a source of great excitement from Nigeria football fans, it became imperative that a football community to cater for the fans needs and expectations.

Starfish Mobile Nigeria and Zain Nigeria partnered recently to launch the latest football community mobile news alert feature based on the top European teams. The football community feature allows mobile users to receive free weekly SMS updates of news, match notifications, pre-match teams news, full-time scores and post-match summaries.

The football communities were created due to popular demand from Nigeria’s football fans. The first mobile trivia game was launched in June and was based on the 2008 Euro Champs tournament and the latest mobile trivia game is based on the current English Premiership League (EPL).

Football communities were created for Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea fans.  To join each community, users simply need to send their name to a community-specific short code and they’ll gain instant access to the supporters club or community.

Starfish Mobile Nigeria plans to expand the communities into club-specific trivias, club and player facts on demand and allow users to predict the score competitions for upcoming games.

Starfish Mobile International Inc was formed in August 2004 to act as the holding and Investment Company for Starfish Mobile’s operations in Africa and Middle East. It has expanded over the years and has formed business operations in South Africa, Nigeria, Congo DRC, Swaziland, Qatar, Cameroon, Mauritius, Congo Brazzaville, Tanzania and Ghana.