–Mar 2014. Khartoum

• Introducing and enforcing policies and strategies that regulate competition between service providers to promote free competition and investment while meeting all requirements of the incessant technology Consequently, clear licensing requirements and terms were defined. Also new conditions and terms for the numbering plan was adopted to remove bottlenecks in the capacities of the existing mobile operators and to facilitate the entry of new operators in the field of mobile and fixed phones.
• Designing and implementing measures to control the quality of service (QoS) provided in order to protect the interests of end users. Local quality of service standards and specifications were developed based on those laid down by regional and international organizations. The internationally recommended practice of Type Approval of telecommunication equipment was adopted to ensure the safety of networks and the high quality of services. A QoS campaign was held to measure all communication Towers specification parameters all over the country. A QoS Customer complaint procedure was implemented in order to receive customer complaints and deal with them effectively. Healthier environmental rules were applied through an independent regulatory system. Besides, the following achievements were made:
  1. An integrated security plan for internet safety and monitoring has been adopted to ensure safe surfing and first line protection against malicious attacks hacking on national sites offering services to
  2. A national spectrum policy was adopted to cope with new trend in spectrum utilization and to ensure fair and efficient usage of the current
  3. A broadband strategy was planned to include advocating of applications that utilize the new broad highway channels to extend services that are needed by the public to provide basic services in key development areas such as education, health, and agriculture and to ease their life providing Government services to pave the way to e-Government
• Encouraging innovation and education in order to develop a knowledge-based society. A systematic program to improve performance and build human resource capacities was adopted. Through the universal service fund, NTC was able to execute hundreds of projects including carrying technical researches, supplying IT labs for universities and schools and developing comprehensive information centers. Numerous studies, consultations and workshops were carried out to capture new technologies in the ICT sector through the exchange of expertise with pioneer nations.
• During the time I assumed the responsibility of managing the NTC, the Postal services in Sudan were privatized and the regulation of the services has been entrusted to the NTC. A separate department for the regulatory affairs for the postal services was established and a plan for assuming the regulatory role was approved. The regulation of the sector was a challenging matter both to the regulatory body and to the active players in the market who used to have Sudan Post as a regulator and a competitor. The private sector agents were very much enthusiastic to welcome the NTC as a regulatory

• The Head of a joint team formed between the NTC and the central bank of Sudan to investigate the use of Mobile Payment and the impact of payment by “transfer of fund using credit balance” for Mobile phones and recommended the introduction of a Mobile Payment System and its regulation. As an outcome of this, an ad hoc committee was formed to review the regulation and update it as need
• The Complete Computerization of the NTC work starting with Financial accounting was revised to be part of a full fledge ERP system for the NTC. This project was delivered with minimal cost around $ 500 thousands, including human resources training, and was the first practical project used to generate well trained human resources in ERP implementations and customization.

Sudan2000 –2009

EBS was started to offer SWIFT services to all Banks through a National gateway to SWIFT Network; one of its kind in Africa and the third in the Middle-East.

In 2004, CBOS decided to fund Major Banking services and to outsource these National projects to EBS. These National projects included two major projects: the National Switch controlling the Sudanese payment network of ATMs and POSs and connecting all Sudanese banks, and the National Electronic Cheque Clearing Service which was the first electronic cheque clearing system in Africa and the second in the Middle-East.

EBS made some preparatory work to make the Banks ready to offer electronic services. This work included:

• A complete core banking system was selected and modified under the supervision of EBS to cater for the banking services offered in Sudan. The core banking system had a significant role in transforming the work of the Banks to be ready to offer electronic banking services through multiple communication channels including ATM machines, internet banking, …etc.
• Software Development Centre to support and maintain banking application software. In 2005, due to change in company strategy to become a partner to the Central Bank of Sudan, the software development center was separated as an independent private company, called Financial and Banking Services company (FBS).
• Sudanese Banks Information Network (SBIN) Centre which serves to connect each bank with its branches and interconnects all the banks in one secure, reliable with optimum running cost

Furthermore, each of the following services were expanded to cover:

The S.W.I.F.T Service Bureau was expanded to link all the banks to the international network for inter- banks fund transfer and offered additional services to the banks to link their core banking directly to service.

• National Switch Centre to manage all Electronic Payments through ATM, POSs, in a network, called (Sudapan), which serves to provide electronic banking payment to banks and to the public; e.g., debit cards, ATM machines, etc. In addition to the Sudapan, two more centers were established to assist in delivering related services to the Switch. Point Of Sale (POS) and card issuing and personalization centers were established toserve the banking community and trades in issuing plastic bank cards and distributing POS equipment.
• National Electronic Cheque Clearing Center to clear and reconcile cheques exchanged through images between banks connected to
• Introduction of various services through the ATM Network such as card-less transaction transfer, Mobile bill payment, Mobile recharge,
• Training was a major concern for EBS to introduce new electronic The training was needed for both the bankers and for the public to use the new services introduced. A separate agreement was signed with Sudan Academy for Fainace and Banking; being the responsible body for the training of the emplyees in the banking sector, to set up a special Lab to deliver specialized traing on SWIFT and other electronic banking services.

It was estimated that a saving of more than $50 million USD was made in budget for banks due to the formation of EBS and the starting of all banking services as shared central hub operations. The idea was to use EBS to ignite the competitions in IT services among banks and motivate the private sector to invest in the provision of IT services to banks and similar sectors. Hence, the transformation of EBS to a private public company was planned but never executed completely.

During this period, a number of projects were planned, implemented and started to operate. Some of these projects were:

• Replacement of the Earth Station at Um-Haraz.
• Replacement of the International
• Replacement of Khartoum Centre Exchange
• Establishing the first PDH Optical network connecting all exchanges in Greater
• Planning and concluding a contract for 125,000 Subscriber digital lines with Siemens. Some of these exchanges were installed and started operation in 1995: Khartoum North, Omdurman,
• Planning of the Main Fibre Backbone based on SDH to the whole of Sudan and concluding a contract with Siemens for the first phase of the project covering: KHARTOUM-ATBRA-PORTSUDAN, KHARTOUM-MEDANI-KASSLA, MEDANI-GADARIF,

Planning a VSAT network and starting the first phase of the network with 7-10 station.