NEWS
Angola Cables
and WACREN
expand
connectivity
for academic
institutions
MTN and Huawei deploy
connected driver IoT solution
in South Africa
A
ngola Cables has announced an
agreement with the West and Central
African Research and Education Network
(WACREN), the regional research and
education network (REN) that facilitates
interconnections between national RENs in
West and Central Africa. The agreement will
support the growing connectivity among
academic communities across West and
Central Africa, including services that foster
collaboration between research and education
institutions within and beyond the region.
According to Antonio Nunes, CEO of Angola
Cables: “WACREN is an important player in
Africa’s growing connectivity requirements,
and Angola Cables recognises the need for
African scientists, researchers and other
academics to have bandwidth comparable
to their international colleagues.”
Angola Cables is part of the consortium of
companies that manage the West Africa
Cable System (WACS), which provides carrier-
level services to operators in Angola and in the
sub-Saharan region of Africa. The company
is also building the South Atlantic Cable
System (SACS) between Angola and Brazil
that is expected to be completed in mid-2018,
which will connect to the Monet submarine
cable system – linking Santos and Fortaleza in
Brazil, and Boca Raton, Florida, in the USA – a
project which is currently being completed.
“As we grow our alliance, Angola Cables will
certainly play an important role in enabling
us to boost the connectivity in our region and
beyond, and allow our members to collaborate
more efficiently among themselves and with
colleagues in other parts of the world,” said
Boubakar Barry, CEO of WACREN.
M
TN Business has launched a
connected driver, usage-based
insurance (UBI) solution in partnership
with Huawei.
MTN will be the first mobile operator in
South Africa to commercially deploy a
connected driver solution, which uses IoT
to monitor and assess driver behaviour
and motivate better driving.
“This solution is a great tool for driver
safety, car maintenance and road safety
in general. It is also a great usage-based
insurance product,” says Melao Mashale,
MTN Business Senior Manager of
Enterprise IoT Solutions.
The MTN and Huawei solution uses
an on-board diagnostic (OBD) device
that connects the car to a mobile app
for private use or to a data centre for
commercial users like insurance or fleet
management firms. Driver behaviour such
www.intelligentcio.com
as speed and braking can be monitored
and assessed. “The benefit for insurers is
that through data analytics the system
can give drivers a rating. Vehicle insurers
can utilise this to offer incentives for
better driving which will in-turn reduce
accidents and the associated claims,”
says Mashale.
MTN is offering 1,000 OBD devices to
its first car insurer customer to promote
usage-based insurance in the South
African market.
“There are over 11 million cars on South
Africa’s roads, of which about 35% are
covered by insurance, so this is a huge
market for MTN to make a difference,” says
Zhu Ming, Huawei’s Regional IoT Director.
MTN and Huawei hope that through UBI
and connected drivers, South Africa’s high
road accident rate will gradually decrease
through improved driver behaviour. n
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