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Mobile subscriptions keep rising fast
There could be as many as 265-million broadband Internet subscriptions
in Africa by 2015, up from the estimated 12-million
users at the moment, claims research firm Informa Telecoms & Media.
It says that overall African mobile subscriptions are expected to
grow to 842-million over the next five years, up from the 506-million
subscriptions that exist at the moment. The increase is expected to
be driven by strong growth in Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of
Congo, Eritrea and Madagascar.
It estimates that the continent currently accounts for about 10
percent of the world’s mobile subscriptions and remains one of the
fastest-growing regions in the world with mobile phone subscriptions
rising by 18 percent since the beginning of this year.
Senior analyst at Informa, Tecla Mbongue says that mobile money
services are expected to attract 360-million users over the next four
years.
Once new undersea cables are connected and fully operational
there will be significant new growth opportunities for service providers
particularly when it comes to data services.
“The lack of a terrestrial-based backbone could lead to bottlenecks
in delivery of services to inland or more remote regions,” says
Mbongue.
In a separate development, South African Internet Service Provider,
MWeb has been voted ISP of the Year, Mobile provider Cell C
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Watt’s Science
won the Mobile Broadband Service of the Year and Telkom won the
Fixed Broadband Service of the Year. Vodacom was the Broadband
Provider of the Year.
The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa was
awarded the undignified accolade of the Mampara of the Year for
holding back progress in the local market.
Who wants a diamond the size of Table Mountain
planet with ultra-high concentrations of carbon has been discovered
by a team of British astronomers and their discovery
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supports the idea that there may be carbon-rich, rocky planets that
are made up of diamonds or graphite.
According to Dr Marek Kukula of the Royal Greenwich Observatory
there could be entire land masses and even mountains made up
of diamonds. The work has been described as an astonishing astronomical
tour de force.
The planet was detected using the Spitzer Space Telescope and
thermal radiation. It is about 1 200 light years away. Kukula says the
planet is a thousand times fainter than the star it orbits.
He says the scientists had to perform an amazing feat of precision
measurement to extract the information about the composition
of this particular planet. Astronomers have discovered about 500
exoplanets so far.
The new planet, known as Wasp 12b is the first planet found that
has more carbon than oxygen in its atmosphere. It is a gas giant like
Jupiter and is mostly made up of hydrogen gas.
However, the planet’s core is composed of some form of diamond,
graphite or carbon compound, possibly in liquid form.
The study says that there may be many Earth-sized planets that
are ultra-rich in carbon but these worlds would be unlike anything
seen before.
Kukula says that these planets lack water so if the temperature
was sufficiently high, liquid on the surface would consist of carbonrich
compounds such as tar.
Scientists don’t know why the level of carbon is so much higher
on Wasp 12b but the theory is that plenty of water-ice was available
when the planets formed and this might have been the cause.
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