[Kictanet] African VoIP Forum

Thu Aug 10 12:28:34 EAT 2006

Dear Colleague,

As you can see from the programme below, the African VoIP Forum, which we
are holding in Lagos over 21-23 August, is a valuable opportunity to catch
up on latest technology, business and regulatory developments in this area.
The impressive line-up of expert speakers has a wealth of knowledge and
experience to offer.

Hotel and airport transfers are attached.

I hope you will be able to attend. Please pass this information on to
colleagues who may be interested.

Yours sincerely,

Sean Moroney 

AITEC Africa

 <mailto:seanm at aitecafrica.com> seanm at aitecafrica.com

Tel: +44-(0)1480-880774 Fax: +44-(0)1480-880765

UK Mobile: +44(0)7973-499224

SA Mobile: +27(0)72-610-7153

Kenya Mobile: +254(0)721-845674

Skype: seanmoroney

www.aitecafrica.com <http://www.aitecafrica.com/> 

AFRICAN VoIP FORUM

Muson Centre, Lagos, 21-23 August 2006

DAY 1 - Monday 21 August

2pm Conference Opening

Welcome Speech & Official Opening

Chief Cornelius Adebayo, Minister of Communications, Nigeria

Keynote 1: Regulatory challenges and achievements in the VoIP arena

Eng Ernest Ndukwe, Vice-Chairman and Executive Director, Nigerian
Communications Commission

Keynote 2: VoIP as part of an ISP’s survival strategy

Eng Sam Adeleke, President, ISP Association of Nigeria (ISPAN)

Keynote 3: How Nigeria’s communication companies have responded to the
challenges and opportunities created by VoIP 

Dr Emmanuel Ekuwem, President of the Association of Telecommunications
Companies of Nigeria (ATCON)

4pm Refreshment Break

Keynote 4: The impact of VoIP on African voice markets

Russell Southwood, CEO, Balancing Act looks at how VoIP impacts on voice
markets:

*	How grey markets operate and the scale and extent of them
*	What legalised VoIP means in different countries and what happens
when VoIP competition is more widely available?
*	The winners and losers in the legalisation process

*	The emergence of a new business model bringing together broadband
and VoIP
*	New potential developments like VoIP peering, eNUM and mobile VoIP

Keynote 5: AfrISPA’s vision for VoIP deployment in Africa

Eric Osiakwan, Executive Secretary, AfrISPA, Ghana

Keynote 6: ITU-T standardization activities in the new telecommunication
environment: VoIP studies

Paolo Rosa, Head, Standards Co-operation & Communications, ITU-T,
Switzerland

6pm PANEL DISCUSSION: Regulatory and business strategies to maximize the
benefits of VoIP

All keynote speakers

7pm Networking Cocktail Party 

DAY 2 – Tuesday 22 August 2006

9am Session 1: INTERNATIONAL LINKS

Maximising international connectivity via a virtual service provider

Yossi Barkan, Executive Director, Africa, PCCW Global, Hong Kong

Moving beyond Skype - Using directed SIP VoIP to drive quality international
voice terminations

*	Stunning Growth Rates of Peer to Peer VoIP Networks 
*	Problems Identified in “Legacy” P2P Networks 
*	Overcoming These Problems Though the Directed SIP P2P Model 
*	Advanced Services—P2P VoIP Without the Computer 
*	Huge Traffic Flows Enable Cost-Effective High-Quality Voice
Termination Routes Available on a Wholesale Basis

Eric Ram, Executive VP, International Business Development, Fusion
Telecommunications International, USA

SHOWCASE PRESENTATION by NexTone

National/International VoIP interconnect and peering

Sean Pickering, NexTone, South Africa

10.30am Refreshment Break

11am Session 2: TECHNOLOGY OPTIONS

TDMoIP vs VoIP: Which technology is better for your network?

Gaéthan Donlap Kouanga, Video and IP Services Manager, Eutelsat

Using fixed-mobile convergence to attract enterprise customers: An overview
of the technology, applications and regulatory issues

Yves Desmet, Senior Vice-President, World Wide Sales, Verso Technology,
Belgium

VoIP solutions for alternative carriers and ISPs

Jonathan Fuchs, Director of International Sales, Net2Phone, USA

12.30 Lunch

2pm Session 3: IMPLEMENTATION CASE STUDIES

VoIP – Creating real value for African enterprises

Morten Hald, MD, Emperion, Denmark

NITEL: A case study on an incumbent PTT migrating from legacy TDM networks
to IP

Rob Hewitt, COO, Afrigate, UK

Is VoIP still viable in the Nigerian market?

Ade Ojuri, CEO, Junisat, Nigeria

AFRICAN VoIP FORUM WORKSHOPS

WORKSHOP 1: Corporate Users - Introduction to VoIP An interactive workshop 

Sunday Folayan, MD, Skannet Nigeria

9am – 1pm Monday 21 August 2006 

While VoIP is set to change the landscape of the communications industry, it
is already being used by a number of traditional Telephone companies to
connect their regional offices, while on a smaller scale, it is being used
by Small Offices/Home Offices who want to trim their communications
expenses. 

The advantages of using VoIP technology includes simplicity, flexibility,
cost savings as well as finally removing the huge constraint of circuit
switched architecture, and taking advantage of the ubiquitous nature of IP,
which is fast becoming a de-facto medium of world-wide communication.

This hands-on workshop is designed to introduce participants to the VoIP
technology, using the Asterisk Open Source PBX software. Participants will
amongst others be exposed to the following:

*	Introduction to the VoIP technology
*	Basic definitions and building blocks
*	Transpprt protocols and packetization
*	Public Swiched Networks and characteristics
*	Protocols for VoIP call control
*	Introduction to the Asterisk Open Source PBX
*	Configuring simple VoIP Servers
*	Configuring simple VoIP Clients
*	Quality of Service (QoS) Issues
*	Services and implementation issues
*	Overview of large scale implementations and issues

At the end of the workshop, participants will be able to setup and deploy an
Asterisk-based PBX system which will work either via IP or PSTN and be
capable of Least Cost Routing.

WORKSHOP 2: International links for ISPs & Telecom Operators

Mawuli Tse, Sales Director, Africa, iBasis

9am – 12pm, Wednesday 23 August 2006

*	The VoIP landscape - from PC-to-PC to VoB
*	Carrier level interconnections
*	Quality monitoring on a VoIP network
*	Selecting operators - what to consider 

WORSHOP 3: VoIP - Survival strategies for telcos, ISPs and cyber-cafes

Russell Southwood, CEO, Balancing Act, UK

2pm – 5pm, Wednesday 23 August 2006

VoIP will change the business model for telcos, ISPs and cyber-cafes. Beyond
the ever-present hype, it will begin to transform business fundamentals in
some of the following way: threatening existing international revenues;
lowering the cost of entry to the voice market; and creating new
opportunities like mobile VoIP. All of this will upset traditional markets
and the question is: will you survive this shake-out? The workshop has three
sessions of just under an hour each with a coffee break. Each of the
sessions will have time for questions and answers and sessions 2 and 3 will
have interactive exercises. The three sessions deal with the following:

Session 1: The business opportunities VoIP offers

In this session Russell will look at the kinds of business models that have
arisen elsewhere and how things might develop in Nigeria. He will look at
the business models for businesses like Skype and Vonage to illustrate how
the business model for retail VoIP is developing in North America and
Europe.

He will then look in greater detail at the type of opportunities that might
arise in Africa, including:

•           Pre-pay VoIP calling cards

•           IP-payphones

•           Skype/Vonage clones

•           Campus-wide IP-mobility solutions

•           Municipal networks

•           Corporate IP calling via VPNs

•           Push-to-talk

•           Home broadband 

•           Triple/Quad play (including mobile TV)

•           Mobile VoIP

•           VoIP peering

He will explain the relationship between these opportunities and the changes
in regulation that will enable them to flourish legally.

Session 2: Assessing investment in new VoIP opportunities

VoIP produces very different types of opportunities. For example, grey
market operators have taken advantage of the price arbitrage opportunities
that exist. In other words, for example, they are able to compete on price
against artificially high international calling prices. 

Once VoIP is more widely legalised, then this level of price arbitrage
opportunity will decline or disappear as prices come down in the market. It
will be important to look at the relationship between quality and pricing
and to understand what latitude exists for differentiating different service
offers.

Some opportunities will allow new players to enter the market relatively
cheaply whereas others will require capital investment in new
infrastructure. The level of capital required – along with an assessment of
the risks inherent in different propositions – will help clarify where any
potential should be made and whether a new opportunity is suitable for your
company.

Lastly the session will examine timing issues and their impact. Some
opportunities – like those related to price-arbitrage – are short or
medium-term. Others like mobile VoIP are longer term because the technology
is not yet available.

All of these factors will be gathered into a simple matrix and scored so
that participants can see where the better opportunities lie in Africa.

Session 3: VoIP pricing and service strategies in a competitive market

The last session of the workshop will look pricing and service strategies
and how they develop in a competitive market. Russell Southwood will explain
how operators tackle these issues and the way in which different approaches
to service and pricing are reflected in the service offer to customers. He
will examine the relationship between cost and the price of providing
different levels of service. 

After this briefing, participants will be split into two groups to devise
pricing and service strategies for two different companies, one a start-up
and the other an existing operator. The two groups will then come together
and show what approaches they have arrived at. The group will then look at
how it is possible to respond to competitor pricing in ways that
differentiate the customer offer.

TO REGISTER AS A DELEGATE, LOG ON TO www.aitecafrica.com
<http://www.aitecafrica.com/> 

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