Orange and Google launch chat via GSM in Africa

29 July 2011

Last Wednesday American company Google and French telephone operator Orange signed a strategic partnership agreement to develop ICT all over Africa.
The aim is to offer the services of Google to the sixty million customers of Orange.

This involves "facilitating the launch of innovative services offered by Google everywhere in Africa by using the SMS infrastructure of Orange", explains a press release from the two groups, reported by the AFP press agency.

They want to use SMS technology to enable 2G telephone users to access Internet services which until now have been reserved for users of smartphones and high-speed Internet (3G) with services such as "Gmail SMS Chat", which allow real-time conversations by SMS.

This service, which already exists in Senegal, Uganda and Kenya, will be offered in the next few months in Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Guinea and Egypt, and in the longer term to the entire Orange network in Africa.
 

Category: ICT