As it happened: Internet of everything will change the world - AfricaCom

Cisco VNI South Africa Highlights:In South Africa:

•    IP traffic will grow 4-fold from 2013 to 2018, a compound annual growth rate of 34%.
•    Internet traffic will grow 4.6-fold from 2013 to 2018, a compound annual growth rate of 36%.
•    IP video traffic will grow 6-fold from 2013 to 2018, a compound annual growth rate of 44%.
•    Internet video traffic will grow 6-fold from 2013 to 2018, a compound annual growth rate of 44%.
•    HD will be 10.1% of IP Video traffic in 2018, up from 2.8% in 2013 (85.5% CAGR).
•    Mobile data traffic will grow 8-fold from 2013 to 2018, a compound annual growth rate of 53%.
•    There will be 147.7 million networked devices in 2018, up from 92.4 million in 2013.
•    Fixed/Wi-Fi was 51% of total IP traffic in 2013, and will be 65% of total IP traffic in 2018.
•    762 885 internet households (21.7% of all Internet households) generating more than 100 gigabytes per month in 2018, up from 116 242 in 2013.

To place the World Cup in context, global IP traffic is expected to reach 132 exabytes per month by 2018, which is the equivalent to:

8.8 billion screens streaming the FIFA World Cup final game in Ultra-HD/4K at the same time;
5.5 billion people binge-watching “Game of Thrones” Season 4 via video-on-demand in HD or 1.5 billion watching in Ultra-HD/4K;
The season 3 premier of “House of Cards” streaming in Ultra-HD/4K on 24 billion screens at the same time;
940 quadrillion text messages;
and 4.5 trillion YouTube clips.

According to the latest Cisco Visual Networking Index Global Forecast and Service Adoption for 2013 to 2018, global Internet Protocol (IP) traffic will increase nearly three-fold over the next four years due to more Internet users and devices, faster broadband speeds and more video viewing.

Campoli: It requires a view from regulators to facilitate such a model and create certainty and predictability. This was a call to arms today. PPP is a strong enabler, but the regulators are just as important.

Campoli: Another big trend was delivery broadband to Africa. We spoke about viable business models for broadband infrastructure build out with both service providers and vendors. We spoke about partnerships with PPP (public private partnership) model. When you build fibre access, for many private investors, the amount of capital is so huge and the return is so long, that you need partnerships.

Campoli: With the internet of everything, they can make the network have intelligence. It's a new opportunity for service providers.

Campoli: Having something personalised is important. This myriad of data will not be processed by a database. It would have to be processed locally. There will be just so much data. The network for service providers will become a platform not only for hyper connectivity but also for data analysis and correlation.

Campoli: When you think of hyper-connectivity. We need a different level of security. Something that can predict, contain and repair security attacks, that would be foundational. It's redefined due to the internet of every thing.

Campoli: think about self-driving cars in terms of reducing congestion.

Campoli: On the internet of every thing. We believe that 1% of the total things are connected. By 2020 we will have 50 billion things connected. The human population is 7 billion. Cars, production lines, pills (remote health benefits), etc.

Campoli: Another key thing I noticed today at AfricaCom was the future of technology and the network, which is going in the direction of the internet of every things. This means connecting things to things, things to people, people to people and people things and processes together.

Campoli: Wi-Fi works on mass market silicon. It's the biggest. Bandwidth keeps growing. It's widely ubiquitous and is more integrated with the mobile experience. With iPhone6, you have Wi-Fi calling. It's not a free of charge call; there is still a cost for coverage. It's still quality. It helps service providers who can use Wi-Fi instead of investing in new base stations. When you think of cost savings, Wi-Fi is a key driver.

Campoli: Your revenue won't grow at the same speed. You have to use platforms to deliver that traffic at decreasing unitary cost. If you are MTN and you spend $x to produce 1GB, then next year you would have to spend 80% of that investment to deliver the same amount of traffic. Otherwise your traffic growth will not be profitable.
 

Campoli:When you look at Africa, data traffic will continue to grow. Cisco VNI shows that traffic will keep growing at about 30-40% year-on-year.

Campoli: To create application awareness. A clarity model and not a command and control model.

Campoli: OTT players like Google are fast at launching new services as opposed to service providers (carriers) who take between 8 to 18 months to roll out a new service. It would require speed on both sides. With NFV there is a way to get agility.

Campoli: At Cisco, it's been a complete revolution. When you develop a network, it has to be a programmable network. We have started doing this. We have a network function virtuality process.

Campoli: To enable collaborative model, we need seamless integration between the cloud and network. When you get access to a cloud, you don't know how the network would work. In collaboration model, the would be consistency.

Campoli:The role of the network or platform in this collaboration is crucial. The way you think of networking is different to connectivity. As a service provider you have give access APIs and define interconnection model with OTT players and allow them to connect very very deep into your network. You need to expose assets like location, identity and quality of service.

Campoli:I was at SDN Software Networking Award Congress and I spoke after Google CTO. There was a call to arm to service providers to collaborate with Google to offer manage application performance.

Campoli: The key messages at AfricaCom was from the session today. There was a clear intent to collaborate from operators and OTTs. We started to model the scenario 10 years ago and in our analysis competition/collaboration would be the most likely thing. We didn't have smart phones then. I am glad to see that become a reality.

Paolo Campoli, ME&A Global SP leader and SP Sales CTO at Cisco. He is speaking to Fin24  about the Service Provider trends that he has seen in Africa – especially Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa.

Huawei stand at #AfricaCom pic.twitter.com/RVnJftnUSf

— Fin24 (@Fin24) November 11, 2014

Monadjem:There tends to be a distance between the people who develop tech and those that have to use it. There is more tell than listen.

Monadjem:They often don't meet the needs in these markets.

Monadjem:There's a reason why the scratch card is so successful. Too many times there tends to be wholesale adoption of technology for the developed markets and then very poorly adapted for developing markets and you find there isn't a fit. There are a lot of assumptions like "just make it cheap". You need to look at the quality of providing. You have to consider breakage, replacement, user trainer and other factors. These can make the most low-cost solution the least cost effective.

Monadjem: Scratch cards have helped mobile operators to invest. Nearly a billion mobile subscriptions in Africa and nearly all of the $70bn of mobile service fees are collected using scratch cards.

Monadjem: The scratch card is a receipt of transaction at every level and is a form of currency in Africa. When you replace the scratch card, you have to replace the receipting function. If you can enable the same $1 collection and extend it to electricity, then you have demand-driven investment.

Endemols @EskimoWriter: Big Brother is a big revenue driver for Multichoice. Drives more sales than anything other show #AfricaCom

— Techzim (@Techzim) November 11, 2014

Monadjem: WE need to get liquidity with cash. We need to try find ways for informal businesses to fulfill that function. The mobile scratch card is so powerful in Africa.

Monadjem: We are losing sight of reality more than leapfrogging. We are not discrediting the advances of mobile money.

Monadjem: Mobile money is in its infancy. 400-500 million people in Africa don't have a phone.

Monadjem: Mpesa is at the forefront of progress of mobile money. Hats off to them. Their execution has been fantastic. There case is overstated though. The belief that 31-43% of Kenya's GDP goes through Mpesa is wrong. Everyone quotes this figure. It's more like 2%. So cash is the vast majority.

Monadjem: We engage with those pillars or partners to deliver the right solution.

Monadjem: with those two pillars, that's when technology becomes usable technology. There are many new technologies and methods, but it's for the people using it. To get into the market and relevant, it needs to be adapted.

Monadjem: Two pillars we stand on is: 
Pillar 1: local product and commercial knowledge.
Pillar 2: channel and distribution.

Monadjem: We have a merchant centric approach. Everyone talks about what the mobile operator needs but often the tools between them are lacking. That's where we focus. To get to the merchant in a fragmented Africa, we work with local partners. Those local partners take our technology and turn it into a product that is relevant, such as cash in accounts for users to top up their accounts.

Monadjem: The tools we build are for merchants in the informal trade to facilitate micro transactions such as $1 at a time. We are the next generation of the scratch card: just as reliable and just as ubiquitous.  

Nomanini founder Vahid Monadjem talks about the importance of local expertise and how cash is still king. He will be talking about this at tomorrow's keynote session.

Nomanani founder Vahid Monadjem talks about local expertise and the reality that cash is still king #AfricaCom pic.twitter.com/Hf1HeeuPj6

— Fin24 (@Fin24) November 11, 2014

Nokia gives their insights on mobile development in Africa #AfricaCom pic.twitter.com/q9OoSr4lyD

— Fin24 (@Fin24) November 11, 2014

Nokia's Adnan Kureshy: We have local experts and we use the best resources we have in Africa and some times we take it from the global delivery centre, so it's a mix and match.

Geyser: We look forward to an event this evening where Vodacom will be reviewing our products and services and we invite any operator to join that at the Westin.

Nokia's Kannan K: Somehow you have to harness the huge data we receive to use it quickly and effectively. WE want big data to automatically understand itself. A lot of operators are using big data to do a lot of different things. One operator in Africa used the data to figure out where they were walking and changed their bus routes to that.

Nokia: Some networks are generation 4 petabytes. There are a lot of 0s.

Geyser: Three parts in our delivery model:

1. Strong capability to understand operating environment
2. We use skills from where define delivery centre. It's like a centre of competence.
3. The automation in software, which configures networks to delivery consistently. Also once something has happened, how do you fix it.

Geyser: We are a B2B company. We deal with operators and carriers. We try meet up to understand their business challenges. How can we help them to deliver services cost effectively and at a high quality. Biggest topic is 4G. Last year they were talking about it. now they have a plan and proof of concepts and strategy and invest plans. The market will have an uptake of 4G services in Africa. It's a great opportunity for us.

Geyser: How do you bring technology innovations in Africa, when they are lagging in terms of connectivity. How do you deliver it cost effectively.