Gloves off in mobile price war
It’s no secret that despite having the longest-standing mobile networks on the continent, SA still has some of the highest mobile call rates in Africa. This week, Cell C went some way to correcting that when it announced it was cutting prepaid rates, and hinted
Knott-Craig drops price bomb on rivals
Alan Knott-Craig, installed as Cell C’s new CEO on 1 April, is wasting no time in taking the fight to the operator’s bigger rivals, MTN and Vodacom. Just days after cutting the cost of broadband as part of new promotional offers, Cell C has now slashed the cost of
MTN won’t be drawn into price war
Cell C and Vodacom both slashed their prepaid rates on Wednesday, but MTN appears unwilling to be drawn into the unfolding price war, saying its rates are already the most affordable in the market, even compared to latest cuts from its competitors. Vodacom is offering
HTC promises increased focus on SA
Four months after establishing a local office, Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer HTC is promising to ramp up the marketing and distribution of its products in SA, with a focus on its new One-series range of devices. Jon French, HTC’s vice-president for sales operations
Knott-Craig to Icasa: cut MTRs to 25c
New Cell C CEO Alan Knott-Craig says the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) ought to cut the fees SA’s mobile operators charge each other to carry calls onto their networks to 25c/minute to facilitate further price competition in the
$650m Wacs lights up Africa’s west coast
The West African Cable System (Wacs), the latest submarine cable to land on African shores, has arrived, offering SA operators 500Gbit/s of capacity at launch. The system, which has a design capacity of 5,1Tbit/s, makes use of both 10Gbit/s and 40Gbit/s technology on different segments and will
8ta struggling in a competitive market
Telkom’s mobile arm, 8ta, hit the ground running in the months after its launch in 2010, offering compelling products and spending a small fortune plastering its brand across billboards and newspapers. But industry insiders say the mobile operator hasn’t managed to capitalise on its early
Knott-Craig makes his first move at Cell C
Alan Knott-Craig has played his first card since being appointed as CEO of Cell C on 1 April. The operator has released a new least-cost routing (LCR) product, called LCRAnyNet, that Knott-Craig says will “reduce the cost of telecommunications for business and will bring down the barrier for small
MTN notches up 170m subscribers
Mobile operator MTN saw subscriber numbers in SA grow by 3,2% in the quarter ended 31 March 2012, although there was a decline in average revenue per user (Arpu) in both the prepaid and postpaid markets. The group as a whole reported subscriber growth of 3,7% for the quarter. The group recorded
Threat of sanctions looms over MTN Nigeria
Nigeria’s telecommmunications authorities Thursday threatened to impose sanctions on an affiliate of SA’s giant mobile phone service provider, MTN, over alleged poor service to subscribers. The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) issued the warning to MTN Nigeria Communication in a
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