the Chairman's message

It is a great pleasure to welcome our partners, our customers and our suppliers to our new channel of communication.  We are continually looking for new ways to enhance and maintain our communication with you. We hope that you find this newsletter as exciting and informative as we intend it to be.

 Africom was born nearly ten years ago to address communication problems affecting several players in our economy. From that early stage, Africom's credo was to be part of the solution and not the problem. This underlying theme has seen Africom become one of the fastest growing telecommunication groups in Southern Africa, now offering services in Zimbabwe, Botswana and Zambia. Our effort has been inspired by our desire to enable our customers achieve economic prosperity. This has seen us being one of the first companies to invest private equity in infrastructural development in Zimbabwe.

 At Africom, we are not just a telecommunications group. Our vision has always been to enable African people to participate in the information economy profitably. In the last ten years, we have pursued our vision with vigour and purpose. While at times difficult market conditions and a declining economy challenged our business at all levels, we have remained steadfast and focused in pursuit of our vision. We aspire to help our clients succeed and our collective effort each day is driven by the knowledge that one day, we will achieve our vision of upgrading the levels of telecommunications in Africa.

 Following our licensing in 2001 and the subsequent capitalisation of the Company in 2003, we completed a reorganisation of our business in 2004 so as to enable Africom to diversify into other areas of information communications technology. In response to our customers' calls for premier Internet services; we formed Africom Internet to provide real bandwidth at affordable prices.

 In 2005, we intend to embrace new technologies that will change our clients' business paradigm in a beneficial way. At Africom, we pride ourselves as pioneers of new technology, as enablers of digital revolutions.  Our first digital revolution was in connecting thousands of computers in this country. The second digital revolution was in providing sufficient bandwidth for e-commerce through our public data network. Today, we are at the threshold of realising our most audacious revolution to date, delivering the world to Africa by building a robust Pan African Network.

 While the past few years have brought mixed fortunes for many Zimbabwean companies, Africom included, we have on our part taken lasting lessons from the crisis in the financial sector. Africom has since invested in best practice Corporate Governance and Enterprise Risk Management systems to ensure business continuity and sustainability.   

 As signs of economic recovery begin to emerge, we are confident that Africom's highly skilled and dedicated people will grasp each opportunity to build on our strengths, expand our service and deepen our client relationships.

Africom Brand history

 Africom this year celebrates its 10th anniversary.  Below is a brief look at the major milestones in the company's history.

                  1995

Operations start in September, in Harare

-        Pay off line “King of Communications”

-         Offering data networking solutions as a specialized field

-         Corporate colours- black, white and maroon

                       1997

            Leading the industry

-         Kingcomms delivers an industry first, a high speed data connectivity solution

-         First radio installation; 3MB capacity operating in the industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) band

-         Solution soon becomes industry standard

            1998

Corporate rebranding

-           Company renamed Africom

-            New name reflected the change in pace and vision of the business, Africom embracing the responsibility for delivering connectivity solutions in Zimbabwe

-             Payoff  line “ The network is everywhere”

-             New logo adopted

2000   

Brand building period

 -         Modification to corporate identity

-          Perceived that existing logo at the time not unique to Africom, too many similar ones in the market

-           Payoff line lack “people” appeal

-           Name, however, was maintained

-           Current logo and payoff line introduced

-           Aggressive television communication campaign launched

-           Significant gain in market share, particularly in wireless telecommunication

 2001   

Telecommunication licence award

-           Public Data Network licence after paying US$2million to Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe

-           First private enterprise to be granted licence

-           Company starts rolling out national data telecommunication infrastructure

2002         

International expansion

-         Operations extended to Botswana and Zambia

-         Capitalisation drive, company takes on additional shareholders

                        2004         

                  Diversification of operations

-         Restructuring and adoption of a group structure

-         Company enters new markets; voice telephony and Internet

-        Continued expansion of telecommunication infrastructure, nationwide coverage achieved by launch of VSAT network

                  2005

                  Expansion drive continues

Meet Africom's latest Cisco certified sales experts (ccse)

Africom continues to excel in training its staff members in the latest certifications that the Information Communication Technology industry has.  Cisco is a world leader in developing networking solutions for the Internet and Africom has partnered with Cisco to deliver world class solutions in Zimbabwe.  The latest accreditation of four Cisco certified sales experts is testimony of Africom's commitment to deliver value to our customers.  

 A Certified Cisco Sales Expert is a professional who has acquired the essential skills in providing and selling Cisco networking solutions. This is a skill that will benefit all stakeholders of Africom, especially our clients who will also enjoy the added benefit of certified professionals understanding their requirements better and thereby delivering superior Cisco solutions.

Certified professionals have access to a vast international databases of information and support and numerous commercial benefits which are in turn passed on to our customers.

Africom's latest Certified Cisco Sales Experts

Genesis Mapeza	Simon Mahla
Munyaradzi Chideya	Robert Mataruse

National ICT policy:  a regional review

Lessons for Zimbabwe

Information communications technologies (“ICT”) are widely regarded as crucial to stimulating sustainable economic growth. Most countries have realised that this is not just a myth and are implementing national policies to accelerate universal access of ICT by their populace.

In Tanzania for instance, the national ICT policy has one principal objective: to optimise the contribution of ICT to national economic development. Tanzania's main obstacle to achieving this objective is that, like Zimbabwe, ICT infrastructure is concentrated in urban affluent areas with little access in rural and developing urban areas. Tanzania's first priority therefore, was to provide universal access to ICT for its population. After considerable studies, Tanzania identified fair competition as its main strategy for encouraging and providing universal access to ICT.

Tanzania also realised the need to harness the benefits of convergence and emerging technologies. The convergence of voice, data and video over a single platform can significantly increase return on investment thus attracting investment into ICT. Unlike Zimbabwe where you need a full licence to offer services at any level of the service chain, Tanzania has introduced a new regime to licence operators in terms of infrastructure provision, service and geographical lines. This means that while one company can build the infrastructure, other companies can compete to offer services on the same platform enabling players to compete on their strengths. This development is mirrored in South Africa where Value Added Networks provide services on telecom platforms.

 Tanzania is not the only country trying to benefit from encouraging investment in ICT. Zambia is in the process of enacting a convergence bill that will allow service providers and operators carve niche markets while benefiting from the convergence of voice, data and video. South Africa has already merged the Independent Broadcasting Authority with the South African Telecommunications Regulatory Authority to form Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA), to regulate the entire communications sector. Botswana has instituted extensive public consultations to liberalise its industry further and convergence is a main theme.

The position in Zimbabwe is not unique. It is just a relic of past regulatory policies that have fallen behind their time. Today there is Voice over IP, tomorrow its Voice over Any Protocol. While new technologies may erode revenue streams for incumbent operators, the obligation of the state is not to protect incumbent operators. Rather, to learn from Tanzania, Zambia, South Africa and many other countries, the role of the state is to optimise contribution of the ICT sector to the national economy. As long as Zimbabwe lags behind in ICT regulation, investors will continue to opt for South Africa, Zambia, Botswana, Tanzania and even Mozambique where they will be assured of staying competitive and relevant in an evolving industry.

Kwanayi kashangura's JCI Appointment

In recognition of his contribution to the advancement of the cause of Junior Chamber's International, Africom's Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Kwanayi Kashangura  has been appointed a Senator of JCI.

A Senatorship is the highest honour that can be bestowed on a member or past member of the JCI organization, and confers "lifetime membership" in Junior Chamber International (JCI). It is a unique way to pay tribute to an individual for his dedication and outstanding service on a local, national, or international level.

Mr. Kashangura has been a member for the more than 10years and has held various offices, including the Chapter President.  He has also traveled extensively representing Zimbabwe, on JCI business over the years.

In addition to his contribution as a member, he best exemplifies the attributes held in high esteem by JCI; leadership,  entrepreneurship and social responsibility. 

Junior Chamber International (JCI), Inc., is a worldwide federation of young professionals and entrepreneurs between the ages of 18 and 40.
 
Its mission is to contribute to the advancement of the global community by providing the opportunity for young people to develop the leadership skills, social responsibility, fellowship, and entrepreneurship necessary to create positive change

Africom's network powered by mpls

Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) is one of the latest technologies to take the telecommunications sector by storm. Africom's Public Data Network, which encompasses fibre, satellite and broadband wireless access technologies and offers nationwide coverage, is powered by Multi Protocol Label Switching.

However, questions are asked about what the fuss is all about and how this latest technology benefits customers. 

This protocol (MPLS) is a versatile solution to address the problems faced by present-day networks—speed, scalability, quality-of-service (QoS) management, and traffic engineering. MPLS has emerged as a leading solution to meet the bandwidth-management and service requirements for next-generation Internet protocol (IP)–based backbone networks. MPLS addresses issues related to scalability and routing (based on QoS and service quality metrics) and can exist over existing asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) and frame-relay networks.

Over the last few years, the Internet has evolved into a ubiquitous network and inspired the development of a variety of new applications in business and consumer markets. It has propelled demand for bandwidth, particularly on the backbone of the network. In addition to traditional data services currently provided over the Internet, new voice and multimedia services are being developed and deployed. The Internet has emerged as the network of choice for providing these converged services. However, the demands placed on the network by these new applications and services, in terms of speed and bandwidth, have strained the resources of the existing Internet infrastructure. This transformation of the network toward a packet- and cell-based infrastructure has introduced uncertainty into what has traditionally been a fairly deterministic network.

An MPLS based network will address Zimbabwe's network backbone requirements effectively by providing a standards-based solution that accomplishes the following:

       1   Improved packet-forwarding performance in the network. 

 MPLS enhances and simplifies packet forwarding through routers using Layer-2 switching paradigms. It is also simple to use, which allows for easy implementation.

      2  Improved network performance

MPLS enables routing by switching at wire line speeds. MPLS uses traffic-engineered path setup and helps achieve service-level guarantees. It incorporates provisions for constraint-based and explicit path setup to integrate IP and ATM in the network; it has a bridge between access IP and core ATM that allows integrating the two. MPLS can reuse existing router/ATM switch hardware, effectively joining the two disparate networks.

      3   Interoperability

MPLS is a standards-based solution that achieves synergy between IP and ATM networks.

In sum, MPLS plays an important role in enabling Africom to meet service demands of network users.