Author: Duncan McLeod

A successful request to a parliamentary committee, brought by the Democratic Alliance, means the Electronic Communications Amendment Bill will likely no longer be passed in parliament before the 2019 general election.

New (tele)communications minister Stella Ndabeni-Abraham’s first intervention must be dealing with the hugely problematic Electronic Communications Amendment Bill. By Duncan McLeod.

Government’s telecommunications bill, if enacted without radical changes, will have a “devastating” effect on the ICT sector, destroying the incentives that have led to almost universal mobile coverage in South Africa.

Vodacom has rubbished the Electronic Communications Amendment Bill’s wholesale open-access provisions, describing them as “intrusive and onerous”.

MTN South Africa was keen to take on Standard Bank’s mobile virtual network operator business, which went to rival Cell C, and is open to other such opportunities – provided they make commercial sense.

MTN said on Tuesday that it will reach 90% population coverage with 4G/LTE technology in South Africa before the end of the year, outpacing rival Vodacom.

In this episode of the podcast, Duncan McLeod interviews Lyndsey Duff, South Africa country manager at What3words, a company that has divided the world into a grid of 3m x 3m squares, each with a unique three-word address.

In this special episode of the podcast, TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod moderates a lively and fiery debate between Outa CEO Wayne Duvenage and Electronic Toll Collection CEO Coenie Vermaak on Gauteng’s e-tolls system.

In the TalkCentral podcast this week, hosts Duncan McLeod and Regardt van der Berg talk about President Cyril Ramaphosa’s decision to reintegrate the departments of communications and telecommunications & postal services.

MultiChoice plans big changes to its video-on-demand offerings, including a radical refresh of the design of DStv Now and new local content for its standalone VOD platform Showmax.