Author: Duncan McLeod

On TalkCentral this week, Duncan McLeod and Regardt van der berg talk about government’s spectrum policy direction to communications regulator Icasa.

Released five years after Icasa tried to license access to the spectrum for broadband services, the final policy is not dissimilar to what the communications regulator originally intended.

Communications minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams has asked Icasa to ensure that preferential access to spectrum is given to a new wholesale open-access network while opening the way for spectrum to be released to commercial operators.

MTN Nigeria has published strong maiden results as a listed company, with operating margins expanding significantly on the back of good service revenue growth.

Telkom CEO Sipho Maseko earned total remuneration of R23.2-million in the 2019 financial year, down from R27.2-million in 2018, mainly as a result of fewer shares that vested to him in the period.

City Power, which provides electricity to the City of Johannesburg, has been hit by a ransomware virus that has crippled its systems.

Vodacom reported a 1.2% year-on-year decline in service revenue in South Africa in the three months to end-June, with the company blaming new data regulations from Icasa and a switch in roaming partners.

South Africa is expected to be the fourth fastest-growing major IT market in the world in 2019, according to new research from consultancy Gartner.

The department of communications & digital technologies was meant to publish the policy direction on the assignment of broadband spectrum in South Africa last Friday, but failed to do so.

In the podcast this week, Duncan McLeod and Regardt van der Berg talk about Vumatel’s plans to roll out fibre broadband in Mitchell’s Plain and Alexandra. Can fibre be delivered to lower-income and even poor areas profitably?