Dear Colleague,
As you can see from the programme below, the African
VoIP Forum, which we are holding in
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
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
AFRICAN VoIP FORUM
Muson Centre,
DAY 1 - Monday 21 August
2pm Conference
Opening
Welcome
Speech & Official Opening
Chief Cornelius
Adebayo, Minister of Communications,
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
Keynote
3: How
Dr Emmanuel Ekuwem, President of the
Association of Telecommunications Companies of
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
Eric Osiakwan,
Executive Secretary,
Keynote 6: ITU-T
standardization activities in the new telecommunication environment: VoIP
studies
Paolo Rosa, Head, Standards Co-operation &
Communications,
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,
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,
SHOWCASE PRESENTATION by NexTone
National/International VoIP interconnect
and peering
Sean Pickering,
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
VoIP solutions for alternative
carriers and ISPs
Jonathan Fuchs, Director of International Sales, Net2Phone,
12.30 Lunch
2pm Session 3: IMPLEMENTATION CASE
STUDIES
VoIP – Creating real value for
African enterprises
Morten Hald, MD,
NITEL: A case study on an incumbent
PTT migrating from legacy TDM networks to IP
Rob Hewitt, COO,
Is VoIP still viable
in the Nigerian market?
Ade Ojuri, CEO,
AFRICAN VoIP FORUM WORKSHOPS
WORKSHOP 1: Corporate
Users - Introduction to VoIP An interactive workshop
Sunday
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
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
He will then look in greater
detail at the type of opportunities that might arise in
• 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
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.
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