Extraordinary events took place behind the scenes in SA’s cellphone industry in the past week. Alan Knott-Craig played his first hand as Cell C CEO, slashing prepaid voice prices, and Vodacom reacted almost immediately with new rates of its own. But then the bigger operator botched its counter attack by
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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
Telkom is inching closer to a deal to sell 20% of its equity to Korea’s KT Corp. Though the foreign direct investment in SA’s economy should be welcomed, there are potential pitfalls government must be careful to avoid. Last week, Telkom announced to
As a software architect and technologist I am actively involved in interrogating and analysing software products that cross my desk on a daily basis. It’s part of who I am. Download, play, crit, throw away or publicly announce the brilliant product that some propeller-head has created in his garage in a small town off
First National Bank this week lifted the lid on a new payment mechanism that uses the GPS feature in modern smartphones. It won’t result in the much-hyped cashless society, but it could greatly reduce South Africans’ reliance on cash over time. The new payment feature, which is included in an update to
Research in Motion (RIM), maker of BlackBerry smartphones, this week unveiled, at least in early beta, its long anticipated and repeatedly delayed BlackBerry 10 operating system. The Canadian company hopes the redesigned OS will help arrest the decline in BlackBerry’s popularity
The Australian government is investing A$40bn (R325bn) in taking high-speed fibre-optic broadband infrastructure into more than 90% of that country’s homes. The project has the potential to transform Australia’s economy. Should SA try to emulate it? The land of kangaroos, gum trees, sheep and Shane Warne
Last week’s national policy colloquium, organised by the department of communications, drew a degree of cynicism from the telecoms industry. The view among many industry players is that it’s the same old rhetoric with no action. Will this time be different? The industry can be forgiven for suffering from “colloquium fatigue”. Politicians
The reaction of various interest groups to a year-long study by Research ICT Africa into prepaid mobile prices across the continent and SA’s relatively poor showing in it are perhaps not surprising. They nevertheless prompt clarification and hopefully further debate before the issue of the high price of communications in SA is again swept
I’d like to respond to communications minister Dina Pule’s call for a policy overhaul at this week’s information and communications (ICT) policy colloquium in Midrand. Pule should be applauded for taking action in her call for a policy review for the ICT sector, it should come as no surprise that some in the industry remain deeply sceptical