Author: Duncan McLeod

The Competition Commission on Monday unveiled surprisingly broad-ranging, tough and radical interventions in the data services market, including a proposal that mobile operators be forced to give South Africans a free allocation of daily data.

Vodacom and MTN said in reaction to interventions by the Competition Commission that a failure by government to allocate spectrum timeously is one of the reasons data prices are higher than they would otherwise be.

Communications regulator Icasa has said there is insufficient competition in aspects of the delivery of mobile broadband in South Africa.

Teraco CEO Lex van Wyk will step down as CEO of the giant data centre operator at the end of the year, the company said on Monday.

Ahead of publication of the Competition Commission’s final report flowing from its inquiry in the data services market, expected later on Monday, TechCentral republishes this column from editor Duncan McLeod.

Telkom has withdrawn a cautionary notice to shareholders about its proposed acquisition of Cell C after the board of the mobile operator spurned its approaches.

Shares in Telkom soared shortly after markets opened in Johannesburg on Friday as investors took cheer from the fact that the it won’t be burdened with rival Cell C’s debt problems.

Cell C is pulling the plug on Black, its ill-fated video-on-demand platform in which it invested well north of R1-billion since its launch just two years ago.

Vodacom Group on Thursday rubbished a report suggesting its CEO, Shameel Joosub, will soon leave the helm of the telecommunications operator to take on a new role as CEO of Vodafone Africa.

Remgro-controlled telecommunications group Community Investment Ventures Holdings, the parent of Dark Fibre Africa and Vumatel, has appointed Raymond Ndlovu as CEO.