IT News Africa: Top Stories of the Week

The internet has been a rather unstable place this week. Not only was internet connectivity disrupted across the African continent, but social media platform Twitter also suffered an outage – on mobile and web – which prevented users from accessing as well as utilising the service. While both services are up and running now, both outages were reported worldwide.

Also making waves in the headlines this week was Nigerian President, Muhammadu Buhar. According to Buhar telecommunications companies, operating within Nigeria, have been urged to adhere strictly to rules and guidelines set out by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).

Switching the focus to education… IT News Africa, has named Telkom as the Gold sponsor of the upcoming Education Innovation Summit. On the 17th of March 2016, leaders within the IT and education sectors will convene at the Radisson Blu Gautrain Hotel in Johannesburg for the upcoming summit, under the theme – “Transforming Education With Technology.” To find out more about the summit, and how to register, please click here.

The team at IT News Africa wishes all our reader’s a very happy and successful 2016.

News

Internet connectivity disrupted in Africa
Internet connectivity was disrupted from 16:00pm (SAST) on 21 January 2016 to 19:00pm (SAST) in various parts of the African continent. Read More.

Twitter suffers outage on mobile and web
Visitors to the social media platform, via mobile and web, were greeted by the following message: “Something is technically wrong. Thanks for noticing — we’re going to fix it up and have things back to normal soon.” Read More.

Worldwide IT spending is forecast to grow 0.6 percent in 2016
Worldwide IT spending is forecast to total $3.54 trillion dollars in 2016, just a 0.6 per cent increase over 2015 spending of $3.52 trillion dollars, according to Gartner, Inc. Read More.

WhatsApp drops subscription fees
Registered users of WhatsApp were asked, once a year, to pay EUR 1/USD 1 to use the service; however, the company has revealed that it will stop charging users the annual fee. The announcement was made at the Digital-Life-Design Conference in Munich by WhatsApp co-founder, Jan Koum. Read More.

MTN Nigeria could face bankruptcy
Ferdi Moolman, Chief Executive of MTN Nigeria, has stated that the USD $5.2 billion fine could “fold the network.” Read More.

Nigeria: Buhari tells telcos to adhere to NCC rules
Telecommunications companies, operating within Nigeria, have been urged by the Nigerian President – Muhammadu Buhari – to adhere strictly to rules and guidelines set out by the Nigerian Communications Commission… Especially when it comes to new SIM Card registrations within the country. Read More.

Cisco 2016 Annual Security Report Revealed
The Cisco 2016 Annual Security Report, which examines threat intelligence and cybersecurity trends, revealed that only 45 percent of organizations worldwide are confident in their security posture as today’s attackers launch more sophisticated, bold and resilient campaigns. Read More.

MTN Cameroon releases statement on CONAC Report
On the 21st of January 2016, it was revealed that MTN Cameroon had been fined USD $160 Million for allegedly failing to pay tax on games and gambling services. Read More.

South Africa: Telkom DGL prize money to total R1 Million
Telkom is taking eSports to a new level with the launch of the new Telkom Digital Gaming League (DGL), previously known as the Do Gaming League. The new league will include a Masters programme for elite Multi Gaming Organisations (MGOs) with prize money totalling R1 million in cash. Read More.

Top Opinions & Features

Top 5 Big Data trends for 2016
With the New Year upon us, financial institutions and businesses will be looking to leverage Big Data analytics as one of the means to overcome the current tough economic conditions. Read More.

“OTT Regulation will protect Profits, not Customers” – Cell C CEO
MTN and Vodacom have declared war on consumer interests. The infamous duopoly wants to limit how we use Internet services like WhatsApp – and it has nothing to do with fairness, competition or the future of South Africa. Read More.

Top 10 recruitment websites in Africa
Before the internet had evolved into what it is today many job seekers, throughout Africa, would resort to physically handing their CV in at a potentially employer. Read More.

The rise of African start-ups is a business opportunity, not a threat
We are in the middle of a tech start-up frenzy, with research suggesting that South Africa alone is home to more than 5000 tech start-ups. Rather than just seeing this rise of new potential competitors as a threat, enterprises should take the opportunity to transform themselves, work and learn together – and bottle some of that entrepreneurial spirit. Read More.

Top apps for on the go African job seekers
Along with Alcatel Onetouch, we now look at the top job search apps that will kick your career into top gear. Read More.

What developed nations can learn from banking in emerging markets
Technology assists innovation leaders in developing nations to create their own solutions on demand, instead of waiting for a solution from the developed world and then adapting it to their own situation. Read More.

Top Video Interviews

How will the Internet of Things benefit Africa?
David Meads leads Cisco’s business operations across the African continent. In his role he is responsible for defining Cisco’s go‐to‐market strategy across the African continent and for the field execution of that strategy. Watch the video interview here.

Security is a critical part of the Internet of Things
Paolo Campoli is the ME&A Global SP leader and SP Sales CTO at Cisco. His responsibilities include direct Sales leadership for Global Service Providers accounts in the ME&A region, managing the entire Solution sales lifecycle and developing for the future. Watch the video interview here.

Gadgets and Gaming

Top 25 Most Anticipated Upcoming Games of 2016
Last year was a great year for gaming. We saw the launch of some phenomenal titles such as Batman: Arkham Knight, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Fallout 4, and Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.

While 2015 was an exceptionally great year in the world of gaming, we will now take a look at some of the most promising games that 2016 will have to offer. The list of the Top 25 Most Anticipated Upcoming Games of 2016 can be found here; however, be sure to check out our top 30 video games of 2015 here.

Virtual reality will have its first billion dollar year in 2016
Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited has predicted that virtual reality (VR) will have its first billion dollar year in 2016, with about US$700 million in hardware sales, and the remainder from content. Read More.

Darryl Linington

Follow @Darryl Linington on Twitter