Author: Duncan McLeod

South African online payments provider PayFast is ditching bitcoin as a payment method, saying the cryptocurrency has several “limitations and design flaws that make it an impractical substitute for cash”.

Vumatel has started rolling out fibre-to-the-home broadband in Mitchell’s Plain, while at the same time it is finally gearing up to begin a roll-out of fibre in the impoverished Johannesburg suburb of Alexandra.

In this episode of the podcast, Duncan McLeod interviews Vumatel CEO Dietlof Mare about the fibre-to-the-home provider’s roll-out of fibre to Mitchell’s Plain and the company’s plan to deploy fibre infrastructure in Alexandra.

“We don’t have another chance to do this again. We have to do this right,” interim CEO Douglas Craigie Stevenson said in an interview with TechCentral.

Cell C’s largest shareholder, JSE-listed Blue Label Telecoms, has moved to reassure nervous investors about the mobile operator’s prospects.

The South African Civil Aviation Authority on Thursday moved to downplay an e-mail in circulation that claims it has been the subject of a ransomware attack, describing the e-mail as “a misrepresentation of facts”.

Communications minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams has promised – like so many of her predecessors – to fast-track South Africa’s migration from analogue to digital terrestrial television. Will this time be different?

Former State IT Agency boss Setumo Mohapi will take over as CEO of Dimension Data’s Internet Solutions with immediate effect, replacing long-serving CEO Saki Missaikos. The move comes amid a major management shake-up at Dimension Data MEA.

Telkom is committed to switch off its legacy 2G network in South Africa within the next 12 to 18 months and will likely become the first mobile operator in the country to do so.

In the podcast this week, Duncan McLeod and Regardt van der Berg chat about the woes at Econet Media and what they might mean for the launch of Kwese Free TV in South Africa. Plus lots more…