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Undersea Cable Cuts: NCC Announces Data, Voice Services Disruption Along African West Coast

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A combination of cable cuts, resulting in equipment faults on the major undersea cables along the West African Coast, have negatively impacted data and fixed telecom services in several countries of West Africa, including Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, Cote de Ivoire, among others.

The cuts occurred somewhere in Cote de’Ivoire and Senegal, with an attendant disruption in Portugal.

Cable companies – West African Cable System (WACS) and African Coast to Europe (ACE) in the West Coast route from Europe have experienced faults while SAT3 and MainOne have downtime. 

Similar undersea cables providing traffic from Europe to the East Coast of Africa, like Seacom, Europe India Gateway (EIG), Asia-Africa-Europe 1 (AAE1), are said to have been cut at some point around the Red Sea, resulting in degradation of services across on these routes.

In Nigeria and other West African countries, Internet access and speed have experienced disruptions in the networks of service providers in the affected countries.

Operators of these cables have commenced repairs already, and services are gradually being restored.

They have promised to work round the clock to ensure that services are restored to the affected countries within the shortest possible time.

It is important to bring this information to the knowledge of corporate and individual consumers on these services.


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Ugo Onwuaso is an ICT enthusiast. He believes technology should be used for general good. He holds a Master of Public Administration (MPA) degree from the Lagos state University. Dear Reader, Your support matters. But we believe that technology makes life more exciting and helps improve the lives of people around Nigeria and indeed the world. That is why, we have devoted our energy to independent reportage of technology and finance and how they affect lives. Our incisive and analytical view of how technology news affects the daily life help individuals and organizations make up their minds. Quality journalism costs money. Today, we're asking that you support us to do more. Kindly support our effort to deliver technology and finance journalism to everyone in the world. Donate as little as N1,000. Bank transfers can be made to: UBA Plc 1017156876 Communication Week Media Ltd

Telecom

Airtel Restates Commitment to Excellence in Customer Experience

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Airtel, a telecommunications provider, is celebrating Customer Service Week with a renewed commitment to delivering exceptional customer experience. The weeklong annual celebration highlights Airtel’s dedication to recognizing and appreciating its customers, who are at the heart of the company’s operations.

Speaking at the launch of Customer Service Week, during a groupwide Employee Townhall, Airtel Africa CEO, Sunil Taldar, reaffirmed the company’s commitment to providing superior experience and enhancing the customer journey across all touchpoints.

“At Airtel, our customers are at the heart of everything we do; they are the reason we exist. Our commitment to delivering excellence in customer experience is unwavering, and we continue to invest in innovative solutions and dedicated teams to meet and exceed customer expectations,” said Mr. Taldar.

During the Week, all employees across the functions are encouraged to go out in the field to engage with our customers to understand their expectations and engage with the customer-facing teams to know how best to support them to serve the customers.

Key Initiatives for Customer Service Excellence:

  1. Enhanced Digital Platforms: Airtel continues to upgrade its digital platforms, making it easier for customers to access services, resolve issues, and provide feedback.
  2. 24/7 Customer Support: The company has strengthened its customer service team, providing round-the-clock support through multiple channels, including phone, chat, and social media.
  3. Personalized Customer Engagement: Airtel is leveraging data and analytics to offer personalized solutions, ensuring each customer’s needs are met promptly and effectively.
  4. Customer Feedback Integration: The company actively listens to customer feedback and incorporates suggestions into service improvements, reinforcing its customer-first approach.

“Our goal is to be the most customer-centric telecommunications company, where every interaction leaves our customers delighted and valued. This Customer Service Week is not just about celebrating our customers but also about recommitting ourselves to the highest standards of service excellence,” the CEO added.

As Airtel continues to drive innovation and expand its offerings, the company remains focused on building lasting relationships with its over 160m customers in its 14 markets in Africa, ensuring they remain at the core of its strategic decisions.

 


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Vodafone, Google Deepen AI Ties to Bring New Services Across Africa & Europe

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Vodafone and Google on Tuesday announced a ten-year strategic expansion of their existing partnership to bring new services, devices, and TV experiences to millions of Vodafone’s customers across Europe and Africa, supported by Google Cloud and Google’s Gemini models.

The agreement will bring storage, security, and AI assistance to Vodafone’s customers in 15 countries, as well as its partners in an additional 45 markets worldwide, while Google will use Vodafone’s fixed and mobile connectivity services to improve workforce productivity.

Margherita Della Valle, Vodafone Group chief executive, said: “Together, Vodafone and Google will put new AI-powered content and devices into the hands of millions of more consumers. Using these services, our customers can discover new ways to learn, create and communicate, as well as consume TV, on a scale we haven’t seen before.”

“Our expanded partnership with Vodafone will help bring our most advanced AI products and services, including our Gemini models, to more people across Europe and Africa,” said Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet. “I’m excited to see how Vodafone’s consumers, small businesses and governments, will use generative AI and Google Cloud to transform the way they work and access information.”

Leading the Way in Enhanced Consumer Experiences

A key focus of the Vodafone and Google partnership is to help consumers take advantage of the latest hardware and digital technologies, including AI and cloud-based applications. Vodafone and Google will work together to improve and expand the range of products and services available in stores and online, supported with a refreshed customer experience rooted in the benefits of AI. Google and Vodafone are working towards enabling Vodafone to offer YouTube subscription-based products and Google One subscription plans, such as storage plans and AI Premium plans to consumers, in addition to offering a range of Pixel and other Android devices.

Vodafone and Google will work towards enhancing Vodafone TV (which is powered by Android TV), using Google Cloud’s advanced gen AI capabilities to provide additional content discovery features, rewards, and offers, as well as content monetization with Google Ad Manager to deliver a better ads experience. The teams are also exploring a more deeply-integrated YouTube experience across Vodafone TV devices.

Digital Transformation & Security: Powered by Google Cloud’s gen AI

Vodafone and Google Cloud already have a strong track record of collaboration. The companies have worked together to create a data repository (data lake) that houses Vodafone’s data and its existing AI and data analytics services on Google Cloud to ensure maximum security and adherence to legal requirements. With the expanded partnership, Vodafone will use Vertex AI, Google Cloud’s enterprise-ready  AI platform, to build, deploy, and scale machine learning models and AI applications powered by Google’s Gemini models. This will help increase the speed and ease with which Vodafone’s operating companies in multiple countries can innovate and launch new products.

Through this partnership, Vodafone aims to offer its business customers enhanced cyber protection with its own soon-to-be-developed cloud-native cybersecurity solution, utilising Google Cloud’s Security Operations platform. It will provide security incident and event management, as well as the latest software-based protection tools. Vodafone will also use Google Cloud’s Security Operations platform when developing certain products and services to further ensure that they are secure by design to help keep customers safe online.

Both companies intend to jointly promote the use of universal industry standards in areas such as online safety, responsible AI development, network performance, and interoperability to drive economies of scale in industrial efficiency, boost innovation, and improve public services at scale. Through this partnership, Vodafone will put AI-powered cloud, content, and connectivity into the hands of more people.


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Halilu Tasks NASENI Procurement Officers on High Level Procurement Expertise to Achieve Agency Goals

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Mr. Khalil Suleiman Halilu, Executive Vice Chairman/CEO, National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI) has said that achieving the Agency’s goals require a high level of professional proficiency and technical expertise in procurement management. This call, Halilu said, is essential in order to achieve the overall mandate and goals of the agency.

In his welcome address at the opening of ceremony of the 2024 three-day in-house training for procurement officers and other participating staff from NASENI system-wide, which commenced on Tuesday in Abuja, he stated that the Agency wanted to be the best in everything it does in order to deliver quality services to achieve the overall goals of Mr. President’s Renewed Hope Agenda.

The EVC/CEO while highlighting the importance of the training, said it was designed to equip officers involved in procurement with the professional capacity needed to manage NASENI’s procurement processes effectively and in full compliance with the Public Procurement Act 2007.

While assuring that NASENI was committed to complying with everything outlined in the Act, he said “the importance of the workshop cannot be overstated, particularly for newly hired or deployed officers. It is essential that incumbent officers are trained and retrained to align with NASENI’s vision and mandate.”

He admonished participants to put into practice what they would learn in their daily work to make a difference in how they carry out their roles and responsibilities, he urged them to take the training serious and gain from the extensive knowledge and experience of the resource persons, leading to improved service delivery.

Also, in his keynote address Ag. Director-General, Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), Barr. Olusegun Omotola represented by the Director of Training, Dr. Adebowale Adedokun, said NASENI has a crucial role in national infrastructure development thus building skills and competencies are critical for the execution of transparent and efficient public procurement which guarantees good value for money.

He noted that every government agency must comply with the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) Circulars on procurement plans and procurement records and that no procurement process could commence without properly approved procurement plan via the use of the NOCOPO system and must have a full-fledged procurement department/unit/division manned by BPP trained/certified officers.

In addition, he urged NASENI to be very thorough and careful in the discharge of its responsibilities in the public procurement process with the highest sense of accountability, ethics and integrity, saying it is expected that at the end of the training, all factors militating against effective performance of procurement related activities and budget implementation would have been addressed.


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