to the people in the region”, he said. Gbeleyi who was speaking recently at the launch of the GSM Payphone in Lagos stated that Celtel introduced the Payphones to empower more Nigerians and provide more people the opportunity of communicating with their friends, family and business associates at a much more convenient and cost effective rate.

He said the Payphone is a complete business tool, which offers the user several services including voice calls, text messaging and value added service in either pre-paid or post-paid platform.
While assuring of the security of the Payphone, the General Manager remarked, “it is a very secured system, and possesses such distinctive security features as flexible record keeping attributes with the ability to connect with printers and scanners and a high capacity internal battery which provides over seven hours talk-time.”

He noted that the device has been specially tested and proven by Celtel engineers and the operator's customer interfacing unit, the customer care team, as well as by other key stakeholders including select dealers and payphone operators, adding that its sales, technical and segment teams has been trained on the use of the product.

Gbaleyi stated that Celtel has put in place after sales support for the product with a view to ensuring that both operators and users of the product enjoy all the benefits of the service.
“Celtel has introduced a number of incentives aimed at assisting operators set up the Payphone service with minimum difficulty. Operators will receive various incentives including adequate branding materials, training, free equipment support, and other marketing and sales support from us when they sign up for the product”, he said.

The General Manager remarked that the target for the Celtel Payphone was the entire Lagos region adding however, that special attention would be paid to rural areas where many people are inhabited.
“We share in the Federal Government's vision of empowering those who reside in rural communities through the provision of access to excellent communication services. We are helping the government to realize its objective of opening up and connecting the rural communities to the rest of the world. Celtel is determined to truly make live better for every Nigerians irrespective of they live and work.”

Celtel Nigeria is set to Storm three Nigerian cities with the Top 10 Contestants in the Popular TV Music reality show, Idols West Africa, and music arts, giving more Nigerians the opportunity to see their favourite music star.

The Celtel Music Train will begin the tour in Calabar, Cross Rivers State, with Timi Dakolo, other Idols, Dapo Daniel Oyebanjo (D'Banj) and rave hip-hop act, Innocent Ujah Idibia (2Face Idibia).
The tours, which will commerce August 18, 2007, will be preceded by a series of activities including town storming by specially trained experiential road show team.

The Top 10 Idols will visit a Motherless Babies Home in Calabar, Select media houses, and the state House before performing at a live show scheduled for August 18, 2007 at the Culture Centre in Calabar.
Speaking about the tour, Celtel's Head of PR, Events and Sponsorships Division, Emeka Oparah, said Celtel Music Road show is designed to give many fans of Timi and other Idols the opportunity to see and blend with their favourite Idols.

He explained that the Road show would also create a window for Celtel to give its customers an engaging musical experience, strengthen the brand's association with music and entertainment sponsorship.
“Sponsorship of Idols Road show sits well with our global strategy of leveraging the power of music to build a strong bond between our customers and the Celtel brand, Stimulate talent development, and sustaining our brand philosophy of making life better for Nigerians' Oparah said.

“The Road show will naturally start in the South-South Region (in Calabar) which produced the final Top 4 Idols, and then move to Lagos, where the final contest took place and end in Abuja, Nigeria's capital city. The Road show train will storm Lagos on August 26 and will roundup activities in the commercial capital on September 1, 2007 with a live performance at Planet one Entertainment, Maryland, Lagos.

The train will enter Abuja on September 14, 2007, commencing activities with town storming visit to Orphanage and government officials. The Road show will be rounded off with a live musical performance at the International Conference Centre, Abuja on September 16, 2007.
Idols West Africa held between January and May 2007 started with a four city touch-points auditions (Calabar, Lagos, Accra in Ghana, and Abuja).

STARCOMMS Limited, Nigeria's largest CDMA 3G Mobile network looks set to benefit immensely from the $1.5 billion being invested annually in research and development by Qualcomm Incorporated, the patent owner of the CDMA technology.

President, Qualcomm Incorporated, Pertti Johansson who disclosed this in Lagos said the huge fund invested in research has enabled the company to modify the CDMA technology, which initially was a military technology but modified for civilian use.

“This development has made modern technology faster and better so much so that CDMA is being utilized around the world for providing critical wireless data, high speed downloading of movies, telemedical application, e-Government and a host of others.”

Johansson said the CDMA technology is being used world wide because it is nine times less costly compared to other technology, explaining that this was the major reason they visited Nigeria as it is a very important market to the company.

He remarked that Qualcomm was partnering with Starcomms because the company is redefining telephony, from mere voice, to other important areas such as Internet access.
Starcomms' Chief Executive Officer, Maher Quibain said the visit by the Qualcomm executives portend well for the Nigerian economy because CDMA has taken ascendancy over other technologies in the industry.

He expressed gladness that Starcomms is the leader with the unveiling of its latest product, EVDO Release A, which will facilitate the downloading of movies in three minutes. This, Maher noted, will bring a fundamental change to telephony in the country.

This change, the Starcomms boss stressed, has already started with key cities like Lagos, Ibadan, Kano, Maiduguri and Port Harcourt already on the Starcomms network with plans at advanced stage to link additional 30 cities on air this year.

Starcomms has been firmly established as the largest CDMA 3G Mobile operator in Nigeria in terms of coverage, subscriber base, network quality and customer service delivery.
The company, which was commercially launched in 1990, has surpassed the 500,000 mark in its subscriber's base. Informed sources say the network is targeting to cross the 1 million-subscriber base in the 2nd half of the year.

The feat has been made possible in part by the recent deployment of the CDMA 2000 1X EV-DO technology, the first of its kind in West Africa, and presently being deployed in the United States of America, which gives wireless access to the Internet at the speed of 400-800kbps. Last year, Starcomms opened additional Service Centres known as Starcomms Shops in some areas in Lagos, namely

RELTELWIRELESS, one of Nigeria's foremost telecommunications solutions providers, has announced the acquisition of the Unified Access Service License.
Group Managing Director of the telecom outfit, Tony Okonkwo who made the disclosure to the media recently, stated that the license covers a wide range of telecommunications options, including National Digital Mobility Service, which allows subscribers to roam.

Okonkwo noted that the decision of the company to go for the license was informed by its long-term ambition of being a one-stop telecoms shop that delivers top quality, end-to-end telecoms services to its subscribers.

“At ReltelWireless, our mission is to be the telecoms service provider of choice in Nigeria; and we feel that getting a license that enables us to provide most of the services without undue recourse to any service provider, will help us accomplish this mission faster.”

In his reaction, Head, Corporate Communications of ReltelWireless, Oge Udeagha, explained that the company had been working very hard to secure the license so as to give its subscribers the chance to maximize the benefits of its very wide, pan Nigerian coverage.

According to him, “we are happy that our subscribers can now enjoy unlimited access to our services across the country. Our strategy was to roll out aggressively and extensively across the country, so that our customers can derive maximum value from the Unified License. This is good news for us, and it couldn't have come at a better time than now.”

It would be recalled that the company had earlier secured the national spectrum license, covering all the 36 states of Nigeria, including the Federal Capital Territory, thus making it one of the few telecommunications operators in the country, and the first CDMA operator to be granted the license.
ReltelWireless currently operates in 10 cities, with plans to go live in 30 more cities within the next two months, thereby making it the CDMA operator with the widest coverage in Nigeria.