ICTworks by Inveneo

That is the question I have for you today. How can I buy the $100 Android smartphone from Huawei if I don't live in Kenya? I ask this question as a North American jealous that Kenyans are getting the hottest technology before me. I ask this as a friend of African developers in Ghana and Nigeria who are lusting after this phone, and asking me how they can get it. I ask it becuase.. do I need more reasons?

So how can we non-Kenyas get the $100 Android mobile phone? I propose 2 ways:

1. Would an enterprising & trustworthy Kenyan please set up a quick friend-to-friend export scheme. We buy phones, you give them to friends going to USA, they send to us when here.
2. Would Huawei please recognize that its a global market & stop country-specific pricing. We all want hot, cheap technology, regardless of our passport. Market segmentation like this just pisses off potential customers - from Arusha to America.

Only then can I get back to my day-job and stop dreaming of great little gadgets that work in more countries than my rocking hot, but locked iPhone.

Availability Update

@WhiteAfrican reports that $100 IDEOS Android smartphones will be available in Kenya the first week of October:

Yesterday, Huawei introduced a revolutionary Android smartphone in the Kenyan market. The tech specs for the IDEOS mobile phone will make any hardware geek drool - 2.8-inch (240x320) touch display, 528MHz processor, 3.2-megapixel camera, 16Gig memory with a microSD slot, HSDPA, Wi-Fi (802.11n), GPS, Bluetooth, and 3G Mobile Hotspot support for up to eight devices. That's hot and all, but...

It is the $100 price that's revolutionary

Huawei and Google have noticed that Kenyan mobile Internet use grew by over 180 per cent in past 12 months and have teamed up to offer the IDEOS for 8,000 Ksh, or about $100 US Dollars, to increase that adoption rate.

At $100, the smartphone goes from just a techno elite bragging right to a phone actually accessible for the wananchi. $100 puts phones in range of schools, medical clinics, and other large organizations that need to equip their staff or clients with affordable, powerful information and communication technologies.

It's the netbook revolution for smartphones.

Do you remember Christmas 2007, when netbooks first appeared? These were small, cheap laptop computers that retailed for $200 yet could do almost as much as high-end $2,000 business elite laptops. Netbooks were born from the One Laptop Per Child program and its "$100 laptop" goal. OLPC's XO laptop never reached the $100 price point, but you can now buy real, respectable laptops for $400.

With the Huawei $100 Android smartphone, we're about to see the same revolution in mobile phones. We're about to see an explosion of cheap, sub-$100 smartphones that rival iPhones in function and cheap Nokias in price. In fact, the $100 smartphone price barrier was first broken when Nokia announced the 2730 Classic and Synchronica released the MessagePhone back in March 2010.

It's gonna change the way Africa gets online

With more, better, cheaper smartphones, the shift from computer to mobile phone for Internet access across Africa will only accelerate, changing the entire ICT industry. 2 out of every 3 internet users in Kenya connect through their mobile phone, which is already driving cyber cafes out of business and I see ISP's loosing business to Android 2.2 (Froyo)-enabled WiFi hotspots.

The shift to cheap mobile Internet devices also means there will be less margin for ICT companies. Gone are the days of selling relatively few high-end laptops or smartphones to elite business clients, with businesses trading on technical skills and support to gain market share. The $100 smartphone era will see businesses compete with lowest price, speediest sale, and cheapest staff. A predicament, not progress. C'est la vie

Safaricom will begin a technical trial of the 4G (fourth generation) technology on its network within the next two months. The roll out of the next generation Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology (4G) will be carried out Huawei Technologies. The two companies signed a three year strategic partnership under which Safaricom selected Huawei as its vendor of choice for the supply of its core network requirements, and roll out the 4G network at a cost of KES12bn.

Safaricom Chief Executive Officer Michael Joseph said once the 4G network becomes operational, Safaricom customers will be able to enjoy high speeds of 600megabit per seconds or 1.5 gigabit per seconds in both downloads and uploads.

The new technology will enable Safaricom to deliver a combination of services like data, voice, and video and download services like iTunes which will be billed through a different charging system.

He said in the next two years the company will overhaul its current system to march the precepts of the LTE technology .The first phase will include installation of the operating system for the prepaid system, followed by upgrading of the postpaid system which will later will include converging both systems to have one billing system.

With the news that Huawei Technologies' fiber optic network for Uganda - the National Transmission Backbone Infrastructure - is turning into a $106 million dollar white elephant, I thought Columbia School of International and Public Affairs' report on China and ICT Investment in Africa to be telling.

Just look at the Huawei Technologies activities across the African continent:

Huawei Technologies, one of China's leading networking and telecommunications equipment suppliers, has been notably active. In 2006, Huawei won a $100 million contract to become the leading CDMA network provider for Nigeria's Multi-Links, a Nigerian private telephone operator.

The same year, Huawei announced that Starcomms Nigeria Limited, Nigeria's largest telecom operator, would deploy Nigeria's first 1xEV-DO-based mobile broadband network. The network will enable subscribers to watch streaming video, movies and short broadcasts over their 3G mobile handsets. Huawei opened its new Technology Support Centre and the expanded its Training Centre for Western Africa in Abuja, the capital city of Nigeria, constituting a $10 million investment. Huawei also announced a US$ 200 million memorandum of understanding towards the Phase II rural telephone network.

Also in 2006, China drafted a deal with the Ugandan government to loan $120 million for national ICT backbone infrastructure. The completion of the national ICT backbone would compete with the current link provided by the two national operators, MTN (256/512Kbps) and UTL (1.024 Mbps/2 Mbps). The State Minister for ICT, John Alintuma Nsambu, said the Chinese government agreed to takeover a five-year project which would help to overhaul the ICT sector.

In 2007, three Chinese companies -- Sagem, ZTE, and Huawei -- were awarded contracts to lay down fiber optic cable in Kenya, creating a terrestrial network that will be connected to the planned undersea East Africa Marine Sytem cable due for completion in 2009. This new national network will alleviate Kenya's current reliance on expensive satellite service to route international and local traffic. Chinese companies won a similar infrastructural contract with the Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation for $2.4 billion. ZTE, Huawei, and China International Telecommunication Construction Corporation will extend the fiber cable in Ethiopia from the current 4000 kilometers to 10000 kilometers before 2010.

In October 2007, Huawei donated Chinese telecom equipment worth US $130,000 to the Rwandan government. At the donation ceremony, Lou Qinjian, Deputy Minister of Information Industry, stressed China's mutual benefits and interests with African countries.

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The Ghana government has awarded a $150 million contract to Huawei Technologies, a Chinese-based ICT and telecommunication infrastructure company, to provide modern infrastructure to ensure internet broadband availability countrywide within the next 24 month.

Mr. Haruna Iddrisu, Minister of Communications, announced at the opening of a two-day international conference on Business Processes Outsourcing (BPO) that the infrastructure was expected to facilitate the linking of Internet Point of Presence to all district capitals under the government’s ICT Backbone Development Programme.

Ghana invests $150m in nationwide broadband infrastructure