ÿþ<html> <head><title>Welcome to Tadias.com</title> <body background="back4.jpg" vlink="#000000" link="#000000" alink="#000000"> <body> <table width="700"><tr><td><a href="../index.html"><img src="intro-banner.jpg" border=0></a></td></tr><table> <table width="900"><tr><td> <a href="advertise.html"><img src="advertise.jpg" border=0></a> <a href="archives.html"><img src="archives.jpg" border=0></a> <a href="toc.html"><img src="current.jpg" border=0></a> <a href="service.html"><img src="customers.jpg" border=0></a> <a href="events.html"><img src="events.jpg" border=0></a> <a href="subscribe.html"><img src="subscribe.jpg" border=0></a> <a href="guide.html"><img src="guide.jpg" border=0></a> </td></tr></table> </head> <body> <table width=800><tr><td align="left" VALIGN="top"><img src="current-cover.jpg"><br> <a href="toc.html"><img src="toc-button.jpg" border=0></a><br><a href="editor.html"><img src="editor.jpg" border=0></a><br><a href="contribute.html"><img src="contributors.jpg" border=0></a><br><a href="letters.html"><img src="letters.jpg" border=0></a><br><a href="townbeat.html"><img src="townbeat.jpg" border=0></a><br><a href="hotshots.html"><img src="hotshots.jpg" border=0></a><br><a href="advertisers.html"><img src="advertisers.jpg" border=0></a> </td><td align="left" VALIGN="top" width=350><font face="Arial" size="4" color="#000000"><b>COVER STORY</b></font><br> <font face="Arial" size="2"><b>Ethies Call Home: Africalling as the Next Generation Telephone Service</b></font><br><font face="Arial" size="1">By: Tseday Alehegn<br><br> <img src="cover1.jpg"><br><font face="Arial" size="1">Gideon Belete and Nemo Semret. Cover photography by Ayda Girma.</font><br><br> <font face="Arial" size="1"> Making an international call has never been a hassle-free experience. Making calls to African nations, where the rates are often higher than anywhere else in the world, adds to the inconvenience. The thousands of calling card gimmicks that often promise customers good connectivity only leave them feeling disappointed, duped and frustrated. But recent trends in mobile phone popularity and improvements in internet infrastructure in Africa are beginning to make things more affordable and convenient. Today, we might be on the cusp of the next wave of change. Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) has the potential to revolutionize phone service in Africa, just as mobile phones have over the last 10 years. <br><br> Take, for example, these two real life scenarios:<br><br> Scenario A: UCLA university student Hanna wants to call her parents in Ethiopia more regularly. She calls a 1-800 toll free number from her cell phone, enters her password, and proceeds to dial her parents home number in Addis Ababa. Her call is routed to a server in New York, which then dials to Ethiopia, and Hanna hears the familiar  hello of her mother s voice. The call costs her only 30 cents a minute, and there are no hidden fees. <br><br> Scenario B: Abera is a taxi driver in Addis Ababa. During his break he wants to call his brother, Daniel, in Washington D.C. so he sends a text message from his mobile phone. He is prompted for an account number and password. Abera types in the account number and password that his brother had set up for him through Africalling. He enters Daniel s phone number. Daniel s phone rings and a few seconds later Abera s phone rings and the two are connected.  Tadias! Abera says, and Daniel responds in kind. The cost of the call is deducted from Daniel s Africalling account. It costs only 30 cents a minute and there are no hidden fees. <br><br> These two scenarios are possible through an innovative venture called Africalling, started by two friends and entrepreneurs in New York, Gideon Belete and Nemo Semret. Harnessing the internet to transmit long-distance phone calls, Africalling provides affordable, crystal clear, telecommunications not only to Ethiopia but also to anywhere in Africa. In fact, you can make a call to anywhere in the world, but the duo decided to focus on servicing African nations since they remain some of most expensive places to call. <br><br> The popularity of mobile phones in Africa is staggering. According to Dr. Tim Kelly, head of the Strategy and Policy Unit of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) based in Geneva, In the first two years of the new millennium Africa doubled its number of mobile phone users to a total of more than 30 million.  This, he reminds us, "is more than the total number of fixed-line telephone users added in the whole of the previous century. As a result there are more customers using mobile phones than there are using fixed-line telephones. Text messaging is cheap and enthusiastically embraced as a part of everyday life. And although telecom continues to be highly regulated in Ethiopia, Africalling can nonetheless successfully offer a service that is in high demand: affordable phone calls with high quality reception. <br><br> Africalling was conceived a few years ago when Gideon Belete, an entrepreneur who has collaborated on several business projects ranging from selling airlines seats to owning a jazz bar, started inquiring about creating a calling card for Ethiopians. He teamed up with his childhood friend Nemo Semret, a telecom and internet enthusiast whose doctoral dissertation focused on the creation of a bandwidth market  an idea he later transformed into a successful $12 million dollar startup called InvisibleHand Networks. Together they envisioned Africalling - a system that allows account users to take advantage of VoIP to make long-distance calls. The duo recruited colleagues and friends David Osborn and Joe Prosser as well as Andrew McDougal, Gideon s classmate since the 3rd grade, to the team. Within a few months, Africalling.com was up and running, using Invisible Hand Networks for its internet infrastructure.  Think of it as your personal operator, except you can talk to it through your phone, a website or through SMS, Nemo says as he describes Africalling.  You tell it who you want to talk to, and it telephones them for you, and connects them to wherever you are. Once you become an Africalling client you can access your account and make calls from any location. <br><br> But that s not all, Africalling account users have access to their call history, they can track their minute usage and recharge their account every time their funds are low. Unlike calling cards that are used and discarded, Africalling clients can login to check their activities and can opt to share their account information with family members or friends. Africalling is software-based, so in the near future, the company will introduce features such as speed dialing, address books, conferencing, and voice-activated menus for their customers. The possibilities are endless. <br><br> There is still the argument that even cheaper calling card rates are out there.  So you have seen $5 cards advertising for 26 minutes, Gideon states.  But you end up talking for 19 minutes. And if you call a number and the party you wish to talk to is not home, you lose a good portion of the offer. Case in point, Africalling costs are upfront with no secret pricing or hefty connection fees that automatically deduct from your available minutes each time you try to place a call. In addition,  being based in New York, Africalling benefits from the highest volume market in the world in terms of international calls and bandwidth, Nemo reminds us. Africalling takes this low-cost service and makes it accessible through a variety of interfaces, be it through the website, through text messaging, or simply calling from a cellphone.  With this type of service, anyone, anywhere can enjoy the rates of calls originating out of New York, Nemo concludes. <br><br> Recently Cisco, the leading supplier of networking equipment & network management for the internet, collaborated on several projects to significantly improve Ethiopia s internet infrastructure. With celebrities like U2 s Bono hopping on the wagon and announcing their aim to connect every hospital, clinic, and school in Ethiopia to the internet, the dearth in communication technology may finally become old news. Africans in the Diaspora, are similarly beginning to harness the entrepreneurial opportunities. Advertising its services, Africalling s website reads as follows:  We are a service provider with a vested interest in the sustainable development of Africa." It was once the fad that bringing aid and development to Africa was the work of charities and volunteers, but it need not be any longer. Young, energetic, intelligent Africans are paving the way for a new technology revolution in the African continent; they are showing us all how we can participate in Africa s development while conducting business that is profitable. <br><br>  Have you noticed it costs more to do anything when it comes to Africa? Gideon asks.  Our flights are more, to call home is more, to ship anything to Africa costs more..so we want to start by trying to figure out if there is a cheaper way to do business in Africa. Africalling s business plan is to approach individuals such as expatriates and business people, non-governmental organizations, faith-based organizations, and companies working in Africa, to provide them with a telecom service that reduces their operating cost. Lack of a strong telecom and internet infrastructure has been a huge part of the problem in Africa, thus improving telecom will likewise play a large role in solving the problem. <br><br> The dynamic duo admit that there are several companies out there doing interesting things with VoIP, yet they feel their focus on using it in Africa, where it can make a difference, and providing the lowest total cost and best features to their customers will aid them to generate a profitable business. At the same time, Africalling gives Africans the opportunity to take advantage of cutting-edge technology.  What we offer is more than just a calling card, Gideon asserts,  it s a service. <br><br> Africalling is also more than a service, it is a dream concocted by two best friends, whose lives have fortuitously criss-crossed over the years. <br><br> Gideon and Nemo met in Kenya.  Nemo and I grew up in the same Bishop Gardens Flats in Kenya, Gideon tells us. They kept in close contact over the years and in the 1990s both found themselves in New York City. Nemo, whose first job in telecom was at Intelsat, has worked in the telecom industry for over a decade. He has often wanted to guide his real love for engineering and math to a more hands-on application of the science, and telecom ventures such as Africalling have made that desire a successful reality. Gideon continues to enjoy the joy of entrepreneurship. He admits he became more interested in the telecom industry because of his uncle who once played a leading role in Ethiopia s telecom growth. Together Gideon and Nemo are leading the telecom revolution in Africa. <br><br>  Africalling is the next-generation telephone service, which allows users to make ultra-low cost phone calls, with access to the same rates and services from anywhere in the world, Nemo asserts.  The internet is still young, and Africa is the continent of the future, everyone knows that! <br><br> We couldn t agree more. </font> <td VALIGN="top" width=5><img src="divider.jpg"><br><img src="divider.jpg"><br><img src="divider.jpg"><br><img src="divider.jpg"><br><img src="divider.jpg"><br><img src="divider.jpg"><br><img src="divider.jpg"><br><td VALIGN="top" width=250><br> <font face="Arial" size="3"><b> Links:</b> <br></font> <font face="Arial" size="2"><a href="http://www.africalling.com" target="_new">Africalling.com<a/></font><br> </tr></table> <p> <center><font face="Arial" size="-2">Tadias.com. All Rights Reserved. Copyright 2005</font></td></center> </body></html>