Telecom
Fundanenterprise.org Unveils Portal on Thursday

Fundanenterprise.org, Nigeria’s new donation based website built specifically to raise funds and grants to support start-up, micro, small and medium sized enterprises will officially be opened to the general public on Thursday, 22 November, 2018.
The official launch of www.fundanenterprise.org is billed to hold at Best Western Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos.
In a statement released on Monday by Magnus Nmonwu, Trustee, MSME Crowd Funding Foundation, said that Fundanenterprise.org is a donation based crowdfunding website ( the first of its kind in Nigeria) built specifically for fundraising activities, solely in form of grants to support start-up, micro, small and medium sized enterprises in Nigeria and beyond.
He noted that the website is owned and operated by the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) Crowd Funding Foundation, a new not-for-profit organisation in Nigeria.
According to him, “Given the imbalance in the Nigerian economy, and its recent rating as the poorest country in world, it is high time individuals and groups joined hands together to make our economy work again.
“It’s high time we began to support one another in every littlest way in order to expunge the poverty index and make our economy great again.
“The MSME Crowd Funding Foundation, through www.fundanenterprise.org, is here, not only to provide the much needed relief to start-ups, small and growing businesses, but to change the way Nigerians in particular and the world in general supports business operations.”
He stressed that Crowdfunding will raise funds from a large number and spread to people all over the world, majorly through a website, noting that this is a globally accepted financing method, which is a much easier alternative to the traditional fund raising through the Capital Markets and other Financial Institutions.
Nmonwu stated that Crowdfunding has been used globally and successfully to fund a wide range of entrepreneurial ventures and community-oriented projects, as well as test the community’s reception of a particular project or business idea to find out if it will be successful before embarking on such business.
He said “MSME Crowd Funding Foundation, Nigeria, believes that by bringing this practice of crowdfunding for enterprises closer home, Nigerians can benefit from the much needed ease of funding financial support for their personal and group enterprises.
“The mandate of MSME Crowd Funding Foundation is therefore solely to help build thriving enterprises, as many as can possibly be; to guarantee a meaningful life and livelihood for Africans, and Nigerians in particular.”
He further revealed that they will carry out their mandate through three (3) key functions that will include Skills Training of community members with the necessary financial and soft skills training to start, manage and grow their businesses.
Also crowdfunding website is designed to link enterprises that need funding with good people who love engaging in philanthropic activities and changing lives.
Another mandate is Handholding/ Monitoring of Enterprises which will ensure compulsory one-year handholding support put in place to assist enterprises who are beneficiaries of grants or backers’ grants from www.fundanenterprise.org.
“Existing businesses are also offered the same business process improvement to ensure that they henceforth grow more, generate their own funding needs and also assist other start-up and struggling enterprises with donations.
“It is all intended to be a communal enterprise building circle, to empower our people and build our economy.
“The MSME Crowd Funding Foundation, through www.fundanenterprise.org, is here to help our country and our world, he added”
It is the belief of the MSME Crowd Funding Foundation that unless many more people undertake meaningful and viable enterprises; unless the elite and more successful people in our society make it a point of duty to support budding and struggling enterprises, our economy will continue to be underdeveloped.
The Foundation is therefore calling on everyone out there who wishes to make an impact in the society (no matter how small) to support us in this cause to make our economy buoyant again.
Donate to an enterprise today on www.fundanenterprise.org.
Telecom
PAT Taps Osi as CEO

Pan African Towers (PAT), a Nigerian infrastructure provider serving 9mobile and Spectranet, has appointed Echezona Osi as chief executive officer.

Echezona Osi
Adefolarin Ogunsanya, company’s, board chairman, explained in a statement that Osi would succeed Oladipo Badru, whose tenure lasted nine months in acting CEO position. Osi has more than 28 years of experience in the telecommunications sector across various regions of Africa.
Prior to his appointment as CEO, he had served as the head of network deployment at Airtel Nigeria, operations director and chief technical information officer at MIC Tanzania, chief technology officer roles at IPT PowerTech Nigeria, Rhino Niger Networks and Biswal Nigeria.
He obtained a degree in electrical/ electronic engineering from the University of Benin and a postgraduate diploma in data science and business analytics from the University of Texas.
Telecom
NCC Introduces N10m Licence Fee for Bulk SMS Service

Companies sending bulk international text messages, also known as Application-to-Person (A2P) messages, will now have apply for a licence that costs N10 million.
This is part of new rules introduced by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) aimed at cleaning up the system, fighting fraud, blocking spam messages and stopping money from leaving the country unchecked.
These A2P messages are the kind customers get from banks, online stores, hospitals and political campaigns, automated texts sent from apps to their phones.
According to the commission, the bulk international text message system has been poorly regulated, allowing misuse and invasion of privacy.
“The International SMS Service Ecosystem in Nigeria has not been fully brought under regulatory control. It has been observed that the excessive use of the Short Message Service has led to fraud, spam and illegal activities,” the NCC said.
The regulator warned that without action, the problem would worsen as more people use mobile phones and digital services.
To solve this, the NCC is creating a central platform, or gateway, through which all international bulk text messages must pass through.
The agency said this would help to monitor messages in real time, ensure proper fees are paid, and make sure the money stays in Nigeria where it can contribute to the economy.
As part of the incoming change, service providers must follow strict rules, including strong data protection, spam filters, and message encryption.
Also, they must also work with local mobile networks and make sure all messages come from a verified sender
The NCC warned that any message without a proper sender ID will be blocked and not delivered to users.
To protect users from unwanted texts, the new rules say companies must get clear permission before sending any promotional content.
The rule also says people must also be able to choose whether they want to receive such messages or not.
Companies are now required to keep records of all messages for at least six months and must clearly state all charges involved.
The NCC said fees for help requests, cancellations, or service info must be transparent and not include hidden charges.
The commission will issue licences to several providers to encourage healthy competition but may limit new licences if needed.
Only companies that show they can stop fraud and safely deliver messages will be allowed to operate. They must also regularly report their message traffic and finances to the NCC.
It warned that any company that breaks the rules risks getting fined, suspended, or having its licence revoked.
Offences like charging illegal tariffs, ignoring security rules, or avoiding taxes will be punished, the NCC said.
The commission added that the new rules follow the Nigerian Data Protection Act 2023 and support the federal government’s goal of strengthening cybersecurity and controlling Nigeria’s digital space.
The framework will also be reviewed from time to time to keep up with new technology and market trends.
Telecom
MTN Nigeria Targets $1Bn Cloud Market with Largest Modular Data Centre

MTN Nigeria has launched what it claims is the country’s largest prefabricated modular data centre, marking a bold push into the country’s fast-growing cloud market and taking aim at global giants such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.

Karl Toriola, CEO, MTN Nigeria.
The shift comes as demand for cloud services in Nigeria soars — driven by the uptake of mobile apps, fintech tools and e-learning platforms — while foreign providers have become costlier in the wake of the naira’s sharp devaluation.
“This is one of the biggest data centres in West Africa and probably one of the biggest in Africa,” said Karl Toriola, CEO, MTN Nigeria.
He described the new Tier III-certified facility, with locally hosted cloud services, as “transformative for the technology ecosystem in Nigeria and very supportive of the federal government’s agenda”.
MTN Nigeria, the country’s largest telecoms provider, has so far invested $120m in the first phase, delivering an IT load of 4.5MW. A second phase, set to double capacity to 9MW, is budgeted at $135m.
“We already have data centres that are running our existing capacities,” Toriola said.
“We will go to 9MW in short order, possibly 14MW, and we can expand even further.”
He said the facility would allow local hosting for tech developers, large enterprises including banks and oil companies, and government agencies — markets long dominated by foreign cloud providers.
“Multinational companies such as Netflix, Facebook and Instagram can also host a lot of their data here. That improves the quality of service and reduces the cost of storage,” he added.
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