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NCC Begs CBN to Give Telcos Forex

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By Dipo Olowookere

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has urged the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to make forex available to telecommunications companies operating in the country.

Also, the agency said it is insisting on quality service from the firms.

The NCC said it is very worried by the degenerating Quality of Service (QoS) provided by Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) and other service providers in the country.

According to the Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Prof. Umar Danbatta, the agency has written to the CBN Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele, as part of measures to cushion the situation and ameliorate the recurrent inaccessibility to foreign exchange by operators.

Prof Danbatta said the CBN boss was favourably disposed to addressing the forex needs of the operators.

Specifically, he said, as a follow up to the letter, the Executive Commissioner (Stakeholders Management) of the NCC, Mr Sunday Dare, had a meeting with Mr Emefiele and extracted a commitment from him on how he hoped to address the forex needs of the operators.

Mr Danbatta, speaking in Abuja during an interactive session on Quality of Service delivery which NCC management had with operators, stated that since the NCC had declared 2017 as the year of the consumer, all hands should be on deck for telecom consumers to have a fresh lease to high Quality of Service.

“The consumer has to be treated with dignity,” Mr Danbatta noted, saying that the “8-point agenda drives this point home.”

The NCC, he explained, has put measures in place to check and monitor Quality of Service (QoS) on various networks “and we have sent this report to our task force on QoS and have been interacting with governments at different levels as part of the measures to deal with the poor QoS.”

Danbatta admonished the operators and co-location service operators to provide suggestions on how to address the situation. Earlier, NCC’s Executive Commissioner (Technical Services), Mr Ubale Maska said, QoS has been a great concern as consumers inundate the Commission with complaints.

“It requires everybody’s input if the situation has to be redressed, hence 2017 has been declared the year of the Consumer.”

NCC Director, Technical Standards and Network Integrity (DTSNI), Dr Fidelis Ona, explained that the Commission is aware of some of the challenges which include Right of Way (RoW), Force Majeure, Difficulty in acquiring new cell sites, multiple taxation and regulation, vandalism, power supply among others.

“We are engaging stakeholders, including Industry Working Group on Quality of Service, special committee on Counter Harmonization to address this.”

NCC’s Head, Quality of Service Unit, Engr. Edoyemi Ogoh in his presentation traced poor quality of service to fibre cuts, community issues, among others. He said in October 2016, operators experienced 175 cuts across the nation while they recorded 180 cuts in November and 103 in December, 2016.

There were 113 community issues in October 2016, 74 in November and 133 in December, adding that fibre cuts and community issues remain major drawbacks for QoS.

In their various presentations, some of the operators painted a grim picture of their encounters especially in an economy that is going broke.

Chief Technical Officer (CTO) at MTN Nigeria, Mr Hassan Jamil expressed happiness with the interactive session, so that the regulator can know our situation one on one basis…”

He said demand for both voice and data services are on the rise but we are unable to catch up on investment because of scarce forex availability.

The catalogue of woes he listed included inability to import equipment to boost expansion:

  • We can’t transmit forex to vendors
  • Incessant fibre cuts
  • Community related challenges
  • Scarcity of diesel to power base stations
  • Right of Way issues with different layers of government in the regions
  • Sabotage at different levels • We planned 100 sites for Abuja but after a very long-time we were only able to build six because of the bottlenecks of getting approvals and until we resolve these, quality of service will be a mirage.”

Similar situations were painted by representatives of Globacom Limited, Airtel Nigeria, Etisalat, American Towers Company (ATC), IHS Limited, among others.

The EVC encouraged the operators to be more creative by adopting alternative source of energy like solar power as a stop gap.

Dipo Olowookere is a journalist based in Nigeria that has passion for reporting business news stories. At his leisure time, he watches football and supports 3SC of Ibadan. Mr Olowookere can be reached via [email protected]

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Facebook Offers New Tools to Report Impersonation, Removes 20 million Accounts

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Facebook Original content creators

By Modupe Gbadeyanka

As part of its commitment to celebrating and rewarding creativity, Facebook has updated its guidance, with clear definitions of what counts as original and unoriginal content.

In a message on Monday, the social media platform said it was offering content creators new tools to report impersonation.

Launched last year, the content protection tool is expanding beyond detecting reel matches across Meta platforms to now also flag potential impersonation.

Creators can take action on content theft and easily submit impersonation reports all in one place.

Facebook, in the statement received by Business Post, said creators can check for access to content protection in their professional dashboard or apply for access here.

The platform also disclosed that in 2025, it removed over 20 million accounts impersonating large content creators, and impersonation reports related to large content creators dropped by 33 per cent.

Further, Facebook is deprioritising unoriginal content by making sure they do not perform well on its platform.

It noted that content that is duplicated from other sources or makes low-value changes to someone else’s content may see significantly reduced reach, and accounts that primarily post unoriginal content may lose eligibility for recommendations and monetisation.

It was emphasised that “these changes provide creators who post original content with greater reach and monetisation opportunities, provide stronger protections for their work, and reduce the reach of unoriginal content.”

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Genetec Sets New Standard for Enterprise Physical Security with Cloudlink 2210

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Genetec Cloudlink 2210

By Dipo Olowookere

A new high-density appliance that enables enterprises to scale cloud-managed physical security without forcing cloud-only storage or infrastructure replacement has been launched by a global leader in enterprise physical security software, Genetec.

The product, Cloudlink 2210, was designed for complex, enterprise-scale deployments and supports multiple workloads, including video management, access control, and intrusion detection, in a single appliance. By consolidating these workloads into one appliance, it reduces system sprawl, simplifies management in large-scale environments, and lowers operational overhead.

Unlike solutions that separate workloads across multiple proprietary systems, Genetec Cloudlink 2210 is built on an open architecture that supports a wide range of third-party devices, including cameras, access control systems, and intrusion panels. This enables organisations to modernise at scale within a unified, cloud-managed model designed to preserve architectural flexibility, while securely integrating existing hardware, maintaining business continuity, and reducing migration risks.

The company disclosed that Cloudlink 2210 also supports hundreds of connected devices per appliance and provides up to 240 TB of local storage per unit, making it well-suited for deployments with high device density and long retention policies. The Cloudlink 2210 is ideal for enterprise environments where uptime and local retention requirements are operational priorities because its design minimises dependence on cloud storage, helping organisations control long-term storage costs while maintaining the performance and availability required in enterprise environments.

The new product also incorporates hardware-level resiliency to support strict uptime and retention requirements. RAID-protected storage and redundant system components help ensure data protection and OS availability. Security workloads continue operating locally, independent of cloud connectivity, allowing deployments to maintain continuity even during network disruptions. Dual network interfaces provide redundancy and support network isolation to strengthen cybersecurity.

It scales by adding units as requirements grow, enabling organisations to increase device counts and storage capacity without redesigning their infrastructure. Centralised cloud management maintains visibility and control across deployments.

Genetec Cloudlink 2210 is part of the broader Genetec approach to deployment flexibility.  The cloud-managed appliance portfolio enables organisations to operate on premises, in the cloud, or across hybrid environments based on their operational and regulatory requirements. By combining high-performance local processing and storage with centralised cloud operations and management, Cloudlink 2210 supports scalable, cloud-managed deployments without compromising control or performance.

The Product Director for Unified Solutions at Genetec Incorporated, Mr Christian Chenard Lemire, said, “Enterprises don’t want to choose between innovation and operational certainty.

“With Cloudlink 2210, we’re redefining what cloud-managed physical security looks like at scale by giving organisations the freedom to modernise on their own terms, control long-term costs, and maintain the resiliency and continuity their most critical environments demand.”

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TikTok Invests Fresh $200K in AI Media Literacy in Africa

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TikTok AI Media Literacy Tokunbo Ibrahim

By Modupe Gbadeyanka

An additional $200,000 will be invested in Artificial Intelligence (AI) media literacy initiatives across Sub-Saharan Africa, TikTok announced during its third annual Sub-Saharan Africa Safer Internet Summit in Nairobi, Kenya.

The platform hosted government officials, regulators, online safety partners and industry leaders for the event, reinforcing its commitment to collaborative approaches to online safety.

The funds will be provided in ad credits to help support local organisations in the region to expand AI media literacy.

This investment builds on the company’s initial $2 million AI Literacy Fund, launched in November 2025, which awarded 20 global non-profits to create content that boosts public understanding of AI.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, TikTok initially supported three organisations to advance digital literacy and combat misinformation.

“With the rapid advancement of AI, we are committed to educating our community online, so they feel empowered to have responsible experiences with AI, whether that’s as viewers or creators.

“We are partnering with trusted local organisations that communities already know and rely on, because their expertise and deep local connections are essential to making AI literacy programs truly impactful,” the Global Head of Partnerships, Elections and Market Integrity at TikTok, Mr Valiant Richey, stated.

Earlier, the Head of Government Relations and Public Policy for Sub-Saharan Africa at TikTok, Ms Tokunbo Ibrahim, said, “As we host the 3rd Annual Safer Internet Summit here in Kenya, our mission is clear: to share learnings, insights, tackle common challenges and collaboratively advance actionable solutions that protect citizens online.

“By bringing together a diverse coalition of policymakers, tech innovators, and creators, we are ensuring that the conversations we have at this Summit are all-inclusive and lead to a more resilient digital landscape.”

The summit featured expert panels and discussions on critical topics, including TikTok’s Trust and Safety efforts, protecting young people online, and policy frameworks for responsible AI governance.

A key highlight of the event was showcasing how TikTok uses AI to transform how people share their creativity and discover new passions, while ensuring the community remains safe through transparent and responsible AI practices.

The platform also shared more about how recent advancements in AI are helping the platform moderate content faster and more consistently at scale, by improving automated moderation and empowering human teams with better moderation tools.

With over 100 million pieces of content uploaded daily to TikTok, these advances, which work alongside human moderation teams, are helping get violative content down faster, reducing the likelihood of the community seeing it.

According to the latest Community Guidelines Enforcement Q3 2025, TikTok removed over 14 million videos across Sub-Saharan Africa, with 96.7 per cent detected and removed proactively using automated technology, underscoring TikTok’s commitment to proactive moderation and swift action.

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