₦airaland Forum

Thanks Vicky.
That's some solid advice

what i`m getting from u, u are going to subscribe to an ISP and inturn distribute the network which means most of your subscriber will be on shared bandwidth and that will lead to slow connection and disconnecton all time

Not at all. I'm not an amateur nor am I a fool .  I'm not going to build an ISP by piggybacking off the same ISPs people are complaining about.

why do u think glo and other network are using the fiber optic cable which for now remain the best means of getting high speed connection and unlimited downloads so think again.

I promise you that if all the mobile operators were really utilising these fibre optic cables people would not be complaining about prices and speed as they do today.
The fact is most of this capacity is laying waste on the coast of lagos.  Our national backbone is rubbish and the mobile operators and ISPs are not willing to foot the bill to build it (why should they it's the role of the government)  - so they are still relying on the airwaves to serve you and I.

after going through the survey i just notice that this guy is just collecting internet usage statistics in nigeria, he has no intertion of opening internet business.

It would utterly pointless to carry out a survey if it's not going to be used.  I'm simply doing due dilligence to know how much to sell my service, and what potential customers would do online to estimate the throughput I need

Thanks for all the responses so far guys. Keep them coming.

@logica

I know you mean well so thank you for your advice.
Scalability is a huge issue if you don't know what you are doing.
Let's see how it goes as you say.

@emmatok @logica

My personal opinion is that WiFi and WiMax and peacefully coexist - they do so in other countries and really they're not mutually exclusive technologies and can compliment one another.

I'm not going to focus my attention on competing with the current Internet service providers.  I'm not convinced they are doing an excellent job anyway as most people are not are happy based on what I'm observing.

The purpose of me conducting this research is to find out what nigerians really want from an internet service and then deliver specifically to those needs using the right technical solution (whatever that may be).  I personally think its Wifi - you think it's wimax.  For me, I can experiment more easily, cheaply and quickly with Wi-Fi rather than wimax which is why I'm leaning towards WiFi.

If it becomes successful then I can look to scaling it larger and suing different technologies


@reagand2000

I agree with you 100% about reaching out to others who are already doing it, finding the right target audience, testing in a specific area first.  The island or the mainland - what's your opinion on this?

@kay1kay1

Thanks for the tip. I'll definitely look into that area.

@logica

Thanks for your comment. You are very right that if your aim is for universal coverage in a a city and you have sufficient capital to spend then WiMAX might seem a better option as it travels much further and delivers excellent speeds. The downside howeveR is that WiMAX involves too much upfront investment that you might not reap returns on ( plus I don't have access to it). WiMAX base stations have a much larger footprint so require land to lease and site preparation where a rooftop or simple mast will do for wifi. Secondly you require far much mor power which inevitably is supplied via generators which adds to operating costs in terms of fuel and staff to man the station. I haven't even touched upon the licensing costs.
It will take a a lot more sweat and planning on the ground but I think smartly deployed wifi can be a reasonable alternative for me. It delivers comparable speeds to a near 4g technology like WiMAX in high density locations but at a fraction of the cost which makes more business sense in the case of someone who doesnt have huge financial resources

@logica

Technically, it is actually possible to extend the range of wifi over much longer distances (say 10km or more) using powerful directional antennas. This is what nations like south Korea use to blanket the city in free wifi. The problem with this "top down" approach is that it's expensive and requires government willingness to sponsor the cost as there is no quick way of making money from this investment.

I will use the "ground up" hotspot approach. But there are clever networking methodologies exist out there that you can use to extend the range of these hotspots without  the large price tag.

@sammirano

Yes that is exactly it.
But probably just in Lagos for now.

Hi Goodman.

Thanks for your advice.

I'm looking at solar to power the operation as i have a little know how in this. Because my business will offer a wifi browsing experience I'm hoping that with the current craze for smartphones and tablets in this nigeria people will bring their own devices to browse if we can offer a stylish and relaxing atmosphere. This means that we will have far less equipment and attending power requirements so a few old car batteries and solar arrays will be enough to power my solution and we can avoid wasting all our money on diesel.

I hear you loud and clear about finding good ISPs as this can be the making or breaking of the business. Will put a lot of time to finding the right guys.

By the way please do fill in the survey in your free time and try to get some of your friends to do so. I'm currently going by my intuition at the moment but really want to make sure it is something the market would want before I jump in.

Hi All

I want to start a WiFi browsing service in Nigeria early next year.

Browsing internet from your mobile while you are out and about is usually very slow and often expensive.
With WiFi you are able to get speeds up to four times faster than 4G which means your downloads will be much faster. it is also much cheaper to deploy than the present alternatives meaning the cost savings can be passed on to you guys more easily.

I want to learn from mistakes of the existing ISPs and mobile operators and listen to what people really want (whether its price, speed, improved customer service, simple to understand plans etc).

To this end, I would be really grateful if you could fill in this survey about your main frustrations with the state of internet services in this country.

Thanks for any comments or constructive criticism you may have x

Here is the short survey:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?hl=en_US&formkey=dFlqaDdmVmJJYVJkMU82MFpDMmszb0E6MQ#gid=0

Hello

I want to start a WiFi browsing service in Nigeria early next year.

Browsing internet from your mobile while you are out and about is usually very slow and often expensive.
With WiFi you are able to get speeds up to four times faster than 4G which means your downloads will be much faster. it is also much cheaper to deploy than the present alternatives meaning the cost savings can be passed on to you guys more easily.

I want to learn from mistakes of the existing ISPs and mobile operators and listen to what people really want (whether its price, speed, improved customer service, simple to understand plans etc).

To this end, I would be really grateful if you could fill in this survey about your main frustrations with the state of internet services in this country.

Thanks for any comments or constructive criticism you may have x

Here is the short survey:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?hl=en_US&formkey=dFlqaDdmVmJJYVJkMU82MFpDMmszb0E6MQ#gid=0

Hi All

I want to start a WiFi browsing service in Nigeria early next year.

Browsing internet from your mobile while you are out and about is usually very slow and often expensive.
With WiFi you are able to get speeds up to four times faster than 4G which means your downloads will be much faster. it is also much cheaper to deploy than the present alternatives meaning the cost savings can be passed on to you guys more easily.

I want to learn from mistakes of the existing ISPs and mobile operators and listen to what people really want (whether its price, speed, improved customer service, simple to understand plans etc).

To this end, I would be really grateful if you could fill in this survey about your main frustrations with the state of internet services in this country.

Thanks for any comments or constructive criticism you may have x

Here is the short survey:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?hl=en_US&formkey=dFlqaDdmVmJJYVJkMU82MFpDMmszb0E6MQ#gid=0

Hi All

I want to start a WiFi browsing service in Nigeria sometime next year.

Browsing internet from your mobile in this country is usually very slow and often expensive. With WiFi you are  able to get speeds up to four times faster than 4g which means your downloads will be much faster and will be much cheaper than through your mobile bundle. 

I want to learn from mistakes of the existing ISPs and mobile operators and really listen to what people want (whether its price, speed, improved customer service etc).  We're going to think differently when it comes to power supply, data plans on offer and ISP used.

To this end, I would be really grateful if you could fill in this poll about your main frustrations with the state of internet services in this country. (it will only take a minute). Please also get any friends you know that have problems with the Internet to get involved too.


Thanks for any comments or constructive criticism you may have x

Merry Xmas in advance

Here is the survey:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?hl=en_US&formkey=dFlqaDdmVmJJYVJkMU82MFpDMmszb0E6MQ#gid=0

Hi Google

have an excellent free tool that shows the most common searches by country - you should play around with it

Here's a link for the results for Nigeria:
http://www.google.com/insights/search/#geo=NG&date=today%2012-m&cmpt=geo

As you can see the highest number of searches over the last 12 months were:

Top searches
1. nigeria
2. facebook
3. news
4. yahoo
5. yahoomail
6. www.facebook.com
7. google
8. facebook.com
9. www.yahoomail.com
10. love

The fastest rising searches in Nigeria

Fastest growing searches:
1. 2go Breakout
2. facebooklogin +1,650%
3. ipad +250%
4. epl +130%
5. twitter +130%
6. nnpc +110%
7. blackberry +80%
8. inec +50%
9. operamini +50%
10. real madrid +50%

The tool is pretty basic so if you need more detailed numbers I have access to some other tools at work that I can use give you a much longer and detailed list of what Nigerians search for. If you have particular categories you are interested in, i.e. "which alcoholic beverages are most searched for" or "which magazines are Nigerians searching for" please let me know and I can run this for you and give you the numbers.

All the best with your project

I'm thinking of starting a cyber-cafe but really want to make it different from the others by making it less
"cyber"-ish and more "cafe" like.

I was thinking instead of rows of big computers, why not provide netbooks/ laptops that people can use anywhere in the cafe compound ( e.g. sofas, tables, maybe private internet rooms that can be booked). There could also be a snacks and drinks available for people to buy. The idea around the netbooks is to save diesell, but also make people stay longer because they are comfortable.

However I have a big problem - how do I stop people stealing the laptops and selling them at computer village (I know they will try!)

Your Ideas and criticism are most welcome!!

I'm thinking of starting a cyber-cafe but really want to make it different from the others by making it less
"cyber"-ish and more "cafe" like.

I was thinking instead of rows of big computers, why not provide netbooks/ laptops that people can use anywhere in the cafe compound ( e.g. sofas, tables, maybe private internet rooms that can be booked). There could also be a snacks and drinks available for people to buy. The idea around the netbooks is to save diesell, but also make people stay longer because they are comfortable.

However I have a big problem - how do I stop people stealing the laptops and selling them at computer village (I know they will try!)

Your Ideas and criticism are most welcome!!