8ta struggles in competitive market
Earlier this week, Blue Label Telecoms, the largest distributor of prepaid vouchers airtime in SA, revealed that 8ta accounts for well under 1% of its airtime revenues. Vodacom, MTN and Cell C contribute 53%, 34% and 10% respectively. There was little doubt 8ta, which was launched in 2010 after Telkom disposed of
Cash-rich Blue Label eyes Mexico, India
JSE-listed telecommunications distribution specialist Blue Label Telecoms generated R795m in cash from operating activities in the six months to 30 November 2011, helping push accumulated cash resources on its balance sheet to R2,3bn and giving the company a war chest for its offshore expansion plans
American Tower to build own base stations
American Tower Corporation (ATC), the company that acquired Cell C’s base station infrastructure last year in a R430m deal, has begun building its own mobile telecommunications towers from scratch in areas where operators have poor coverage. ATC SA CEO Pieter Nel says the company has just completed
Telkom’s 8ta in new broadband push
Telkom’s consumer mobile operator, 8ta, said on Wednesday it is offering a once-off data bundle consisting of 60GB of data for anytime use and 60GB for use between 12am and 5am. The bundle costs R1 800 and is valid for 12 months. The announcement follows
Icasa key to cheaper broadband
It is a perversion of SA’s broadband sector that wireless players punch above their weight. More than 21m South Africans use a wireless connection to access the Internet — with a tablet, smartphone or dongle — whereas fewer than 800 000 subscribe to an ADSL broadband connection. This is according to the Organisation for Economic
Upping the ante, 8ta extends 10GB loss leader
The loss-leading broadband special offer from 8ta, its 10GB of data for R199/month package, has been extended until mid-2012, it said on Thursday. The product, which is only available on a 24-month contract, has been in the market since June. The 10GB package remains the cheapest capped
TechCentral’s best-read stories of 2011
It’s almost the end of another busy year in SA’s technology industry. We know what our favourite stories were in 2011, but which articles did you, TechCentral’s readers, pore over the most? These are the pieces, in ascending order from 10 to one, that generated the most reads during the year
8ta moots LTE as copper replacement
Telkom’s mobile operator 8ta is looking at next-generation long-term evolution (LTE) mobile technology as a possible replacement for copper in selected areas and as a way of meeting expected growth in demand for data. Zoltan Miklos, executive for converged data networks at 8ta
8ta to roll out LTE network
Telkom’s mobile arm, 8ta, has built six base stations using next-generation long-term evolution (LTE) wireless broadband technology, with 50 sites under construction and plans to expand the network to Cape Town and Durban in the next few months as part of a field
Telkom mired in static
Telkom investors are confused. When the telecommunications company issued its trading update at the end of last month, the surprise aspect was not the further R900m loss it incurred to get mobile operator 8ta on to its feet, nor the
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