Author: Duncan McLeod

The supreme court of appeal has refused to entertain an application from Telkom seeking leave to appeal a high court judgment that handed victory to rival Vodacom over the use of Telkom’s ducts used to carry broadband cables.

South African fibre telecommunications infrastructure company MetroFibre Networx has raised R2.5-billion in new debt financing, led by Investec, adding to the R1.5-billion recently raised from shareholders.

Just a week after its CEO, Pieter Engelbrecht, teased the launch of its own mobile service, Shoprite Group has provided details of the launch K’nect Mobile, its mobile virtual network operator platform.

London-listed Helios Towers has reached agreements to buy and deploy over 2 500 high sites from and for Airtel Africa Group in deals that potentially give it access to four “attractive new markets”.

Rain, the first operator in South Africa to deploy a commercial 5G network, plans to roll out 2 000 5G high sites across South Africa’s main urban centres, although there is no timeframe for the build.

It’s certainly not at the same scale as a Tesla or a MicroStrategy, but some privately held South African firms have started converting a portion of their cash holdings into cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.

Communications regulator Icasa will pursue a legal appeal against a high court judgment that slammed the brakes on the spectrum auction. But has also said it is open to an out-of-court agreement.

Huge Group CEO James Herbst on Tuesday rubbished a claim that the company used its share buyback programme to manipulate its share price higher ahead of its bid to acquire Adapt IT.

Mr Price said on Monday that it has reached an agreement to buy 100% of Yuppiechef, an “omnichannel” retail business focused on kitchenware, for about R470-million in cash.

South African home broadband users will soon be able to get 10Gbit/s fibre thanks to a new offering from Vumatel, which will be commercially available after a short trial period.