The best of the ‘net for all phones, across Africa

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Comviva is bringing to market a new solution that makes social networking available to users of even old feature phones.

Comiva’s Hola! application delivers access to social networking sites through a client application, SMS or USSD at a lower cost than traditional mobile internet.

Arun Tanksali, Head Mobile Lifestyle Solutions at Comviva, saysHola! allows access to popular social networks such as facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, as well as GTalk, email, news feeds, sports updates and other services as requested by operators in different regions. 

“We have tied-up with various content partners in the region to bring in additional services," he says.

Tanksali says Hola! is a service which can be offered through a client that can be downloaded on the handset, or  as SMS or USSD service.  “Between these three bearers we can cover entire subscriber base of any operator in Africa. We will be launching the service with three major operator groups in Africa which will allow us to take the service to nearly 30% of the mobile subscribers in Africa.”

He says: “We have already completed proof of concept in two operator customers and have started in 3^rd group, which is the fastest growing operator in Africa. We are extremely happy and excited with the response we have received from these group operators.”

Tanksali notes that because Hola! pushes updates to users, bandwidth savings for those who want to be always connected can be as high as 35%. “ We have also seen significant savings in bandwidth for activity like checking updated on WAP site compared to how much would be consumed in doing similar activity on client,” he says.