Airtel, Phase 3 Telecom Partner on 3flix

Airtel, Coverage Broadband Announce Launch of 3flix Mobile TV Service  

Airtel Nigeria, has announced a strategic partnership with Coverage Broadband, a subsidiary of Phase3 Telecom, to launch 3flix mobile TV service in Nigeria.

With this partnership, customers who subscribe to a special bundled data plan on Airtel will now enjoy unfettered access to 3flix live television channels covering music, movies, sports, fashion, entertainment, news, documentary, cartoon, comedy and lifestyle, amongst others.

The 3flix TV app is designed for smart phones and it provides premium television content to Nigerians across the country.

Airtel customers are required to dial *2424# to activate the 3flix mobile TV service or they can log on to 3flix.tv to access the service. The 3flix mobile TV app can also be downloaded directly from Google play store (Android).

The tariff for the service is pegged at N20 for daily subscription and N75 for Weekly subscription.

Acting Chief Commercial Officer, Airtel Nigeria, Dinesh Balsingh, said the telco is committed to creating and supporting innovative value offerings that will excite, delight and empower more telecoms consumers across the country.

“Airtel is positioned as the mobile Internet service provider of first choice for Nigerians and currently, we have the largest 4G network in the country. We are excited with the partnership with 3flix as we will enable more telecoms consumers to enjoy all the fun mobile TV provides; keep abreast with latest news; follow-up with celebrities and watch their favorite sports team on the go, regardless of location,” he said.

Chief Executive Officer of Phase3 Telecom, Stanley Jegede, said Phase3's foresight to focus on the opportunities in emerging markets led to the creation of Coverage Broadband, and the subsequent partnership with Airtel Nigeria, to offer subscribers a distinctive mobile TV viewing service, which requires minimal data consumption.

“ While 3flix mobile TV would continue to expand its library of great content, we are particularly excited that the product is designed to adapt in features, technology, and aggregation just as the viewing and immersive experience of consumers continue to evolve,” he said.

Executive Director of Coverage Broadband Vikram Bhatnagar said: “The entire team is armed with the required expertise to see 3flix take the lead in the world of bringing affordable, ingenious, and quality digital content which subscribers can watch everywhere on their preferred mobile device.”

Coverage Broadband is a subsidiary of Phase3 Telecom, and has been issued a mobile TV/OTT broadcast license from National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), and a VAS license from Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).

Hence, the creation of its flagship product - 3flix to offer made-for-mobile TV channels, which was built in collaboration with foremost technology, and media partners. The product boast exciting content that is affordable, and runs on ease-of-use features for subscribers to stream live TV on the go.

The 3flix TV App is available for download on Play Store.

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Frost & Sullivan Keen on Africa

Frost & Sullivan shows interest in establishing presence in Africa

Frost & Sullivan, a business consulting firm involved in market research and analysis, growth strategy consulting, and corporate training across multiple industries, is keenly interested in establishing a strong presence in Africa.  Ghana and Nigeria, we can authoritatively confirm, will be among key African countries to benefit from the consulting firm’s presence on the continent.

Specifically, Frost & Sullivan says it will be researching into many and varied sectors in Nigeria, including but not limited to the following sectors: ICT, Metals & Minerals, Energy, Water and Healthcare.

It is sketchy whether Frost & Sullivan will be carrying out the research using her workforce alone or in partnership with both the private and public sectors in the countries it aims to have presence in.

Watch this space for more developments as they unfold.

World’s first carbon-positive data center coming from EcoDatacenter

With data centers expected to consume as much as 20 per cent of the world’s energy within only a few years, the deployment of energy efficient data centers is crucial. Swedish developer of climate-positive data centers EcoDataCenter has taken a global lead in this segment and is now launching the first carbon positive data center in the world, in Falun in central Sweden.

Increased digitalization will lead to data processing at data centers using one-fifth of the world’s total energy production as early as 2025, as calculations from several researchers and experts show. Since fossil fuel sources are responsible for two-thirds of the world’s production of electricity, data centers risk becoming one of the largest sources of carbon dioxide emissions.

Sweden’s EcoDataCenter, a provider of colocation data center solutions, is now ready to give the central Swedich city of Falun the world’s first climate-positive data center. After four years of development efforts, EcoDataCenter has managed to create a data center that is integrated with the surrounding energy ecosystem to reuse the heat generated and create the world’s first climate positive data center; Being climate positive means that not only are there no carbon emissions, but that during operation it even promotes the reduction of total carbon emissions.

Great interest from around the world

Carbon-positive operation is achieved through green electricity and using the surplus heat from the center in Falu Energi och Vatten’s local district heating networks and a wood pellet factory. During the warmer months, the surplus energy in the district heating network is used for cooling the data center. The facility will have a total capacity of 1.9 mW and will be put into operation in the autumn of 2018.

“The technical design of the data center will be a crucial issue going forward, since it has a tremendous impact on both environment and costs, and we see a very large market for our technology,” said  CEO of EcoDataCenter, Lars Schedin.

The steadily increasing need for processing data in the wake of 5G, the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence are what lie behind the expected rise in the energy consumption of data centers. According to Gartner, a leading Internet analyst, there will be more than 20 billion connected objects by 2020, a figure that in the opinion of some commentators could increase to a full 100 billion as early as 2025.

Digital habits impact the environment

Most of us, however, are likely unaware of the fact that our daily digital habits have a serious impact on the environment, according to Schedin.

“Naturally, one person watching a video on the Internet has a marginal impact, but when several million do it several times, the total energy consumption is very large — something most of us barely think about,” says Schedin, citing the example of the video for the megahit “Despacito,” which has now been shown more than 5 billion times on YouTube.

“This means that viewing this video alone has consumed energy equivalent to an estimated 850 GWh. If we start from the fact that it has been viewed around the globe, it is reasonable to assume that this in turn has involved emissions of approximately 360,000 tons of carbon dioxide — as much as 220,000 taxis release in an entire year.”

Major energy drain

Simply put, data centers consist of a large number of data servers that process data, something that uses a lot of energy since the processing in itself requires energy, but also because the servers must be constantly cooled in order to function. Energy consumption constitutes one of the largest operating costs in a data center, and a facility with lower energy consumption will thereby have less of an impact on the environment and offer lower costs — something that is extremely attractive for both data companies and their customers.

As a result of its low energy prices, Sweden is already an attractive country for investments in new data centers, which is why several major players — Facebook and Google among them — have chosen to establish centers in Sweden. EcoDataCenter expects that their technology for carbon-positive data centers will further strengthen Sweden’s position in the industry.

“Interest in the facility in Falun is enormous, and we have had visits from customers around the world even though it’s not really ready,” says Chairman of EcoDataCenter’s Board of Directors, Lars Thunell. “Everything points to it being a major success, and we are therefore counting on the need to build a large number of facilities of this type, both in Sweden and abroad, to successfully meet interest and demand.”