Author: Duncan McLeod

Vodacom’s fees and the complex set of rules related to its implementation of Icasa’s data expiry regulations are hellishly confusing, are anti-consumer and ultimately represent an own goal by South Africa’s largest mobile operator.

Huge Group said on Tuesday that it has won an interdict in a legal dispute between two of its subsidiaries and Cell C, apparently preventing the mobile operator from terminating its services as planned at the end of this month.

Data-only network operator Rain said on Wednesday that it has become the first company in South Africa to launch a commercial 5G network.

Vodacom will comply with communications regulator Icasa’s new data expiry rules from this week, but the country’s largest mobile operator has said it will charge users to roll over their unused data.

Vodacom will implement Icasa’s new data expiry rules by the end of the week, meeting the deadline of 28 February set by the communications regulator. Here’s what to expect.

In the podcast this week, Duncan McLeod and Regardt van der Berg unpack what has been a dramatic two weeks for JSE-listed technology services group EOH.

Cell C’s largest shareholder, the JSE-listed Blue Label Telecoms, said on Friday that The Buffet Consortium plans to buy a minority shareholding in Cell C that will bolster the mobile operator’s balance sheet.

EOH CEO Stephen Van Coller sent a letter to employees, clients and shareholders on Friday, reflecting on what has been a week from hell for the JSE-listed IT services group. Read it here.

Jose Dos Santos will step down as CEO of Cell C at the end of February, the mobile operator’s largest shareholder, JSE-listed Blue Label Telecoms, said in a statement on Friday.

Finance minister Tito Mboweni will “work relentlessly” with communications minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams to ensure additional radio frequency spectrum is allocated as soon as possible.