Mobile Technology in South Africa

Overview of the Mobile Market in South Africa

Statistics

724 out of 1,000 inhabitants of South Africa are mobile subscribers( August 2007, World Bank)

Telkom a near- monopoly where the government owns 39% of the shares

Mobile market has been liberalized since 1994 with a penetration rate of 50%

SA telecom tariffs are above average especially for Broadband meanwhile due to competition mobile market rates have lower rates

Lower mobile rates in SA  vs Britain or Australia

See http://www.oecd.org

For detailed information  See attached document

statistics-mobile-electr

Scope of Project

SurePower is a viable communication solution to the Electrical Power Distribution disruptions in developing countries

The Power Distribution Problem

The Power Distribution Problem is a serious development issue to sustain economic growth in the developing world .

People are victims of power distributions on a daily based.  On average 15% of the time the power grid is taxed to it’s limit and it forces the Power Producers to “blackout’ power in specific areas.

See  page

http://surepowers.wordpress.com/overview-of-electrical-industry-in-sa/

SurePower Solution

Enable the Power Distributors with the ability to communicate predicted power grid information to thier electrical power users via Mobile Phones

Features

1. Use of data sharing technologies between the Electrical Power Distributor and the electrical power user, made possible via Mobile devices

2. Consumers complete a short survey with their Electrical Power DIstributor to pin-point their geographical position. This information enables the utility to create a geomapped dataset indicating who will be affected

3. The Electrical Power Distributor will notify the consumer in advance of the Load Shedding via a Mobile SMS

4. Options for communication include the use of SMS, USSD, WAP, VOiceMail, Callcentre, RSS and Internet Messaging clients such as eBuddy, Fring and Twitter

It is important to note that the concept is not limited to electrical consumption, but rather, gas and water consumption could also be included in the notification especialy during periods of crisis ie. Tsumani, Flooding or Hurricanes.

SurePower Utilizing Mobile Communications to Optimize Utlility Distribution

Greetings

This site is dedicated to an overview on the NetSquared US Aid Challenge, it is designed to provide an overview of the SUREPOWER  concept, background on the team, experience and additional information

SurePower is the brainchild of Pieter Henning  and it provides  a early warning announcement via SMS  to the consumers in the South African Electrical Grid