Author: Duncan McLeod

It’s been a busy news week on the technology front. Your hosts Duncan McLeod and Regardt van der Berg tackle some of the bigger developments in this week’s episode of TalkCentral. Items on the agenda this week include Vodacom’s relaunch of

Telecommunications and postal services minister Siyabonga Cwele has missed a self-imposed deadline to publish government’s final policy on digital terrestrial television migration. Cwele said in parliament in mid-July that he would publish the final policy within two weeks. There is no reference to the digital TV policy in this week’s

MTN may be in talks to buy a stake in giant Indian telecommunications operator Tata Teleservices and its associated business Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra). The Hindustan Times quotes unnamed sources with knowledge of the discussions as confirming talks are underway. “It is too early to comment on the level of discussions

Ahmad Farroukh has replaced MTN South Africa CEO Zunaid Bulbulia with immediate effect. Bulbulia has been named chief operating officer of the MTN group, which is the role that Farroukh has filled until now

Will it be a case of second time lucky for Vodacom? The mobile operator has finally relaunched M-Pesa, the mobile payments platform that has proved enormously successful in Kenya and Tanzania, in South Africa, hoping it will

First National Bank is poised to become the first South African financial services institution to launch a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO). The bank is at an advanced stage of discussions with Cell C to launch the MVNO, two independent sources with knowledge of the plans have told TechCentral. The news comes just a day after

Vinny Lingham, the South African entrepreneur behind online gift card service Gyft, has hit pay dirt. Lingham has agreed to sell the company, which is based in San Francisco, to First Data, a big player in the payment technology space, for a rumoured figure of more than US$54m

JSE-listed retail group Mr Price has become the first South African retailer to launch a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), TechCentral can reveal. It’s only the second company in the country to launch an MVNO after Virgin Mobile. Mr Price says it’s not keen to talk yet about its strategy behind its MVNO, called MRP Mobile

Facebook’s Instagram has launched a new one-to-one visual messaging application for iOS and Android called Bolt – and it’s launched the product first in South Africa, New Zealand and Singapore. The Bolt app, which appears to be a response to the wildly popular Snapchat, lets users “capture and send photos and videos to friends with just

Samsung Electronics has announced plans to open a television manufacturing plant at the Dube TradePort north of Durban by the end of the year. The company will invest US$20m (about R210m) in the facility between now and 2018