Author: Duncan McLeod

Come join us as your hosts, Duncan McLeod and Regardt van der Berg, tackle another week’s technology news in the TalkCentral podcast. In the show this week, they chat about Cell C’s move to cut headline prepaid rates to 66c/minute and what that means for the company and for the industry. Also in the podcast this week are

MTN plans to spend US$3bn (about R31bn) on its network in Nigeria over the next three years to improve quality of service. The company has previously had quality problems with its network in the West African country. According to website BDlive, the Nigerian Communications Commission banned MTN and two other mobile operators

Altron intends hanging tough with subsidiary Altech Autopage. The diversified technology group’s CEO, Robbie Venter, says it has no plans to sell Autopage or its million-strong subscriber base after rival Reunert announced in April that it would sell Nashua Mobile’s base. The decision by Reunert means Autopage will soon be the last

Telkom will consider employment equity in its latest round of planned job cuts, which could affect more than 2 600 management-level employees, a report said on Wednesday. This means that partially state-owned and JSE-listed telecommunications operator “plans to target white, male employees when making job cuts”, according to

Shares in South African-headquartered media, communications and e-commerce giant Naspers leapt higher on Wednesday on the back of strong results from China’s Tencent, in which it holds an approximate one-third stake. Naspers was trading up by more than 8,5%

Vodacom, the top-rated company in the Reputation Institute’s annual National RepTrak Pulse survey last year, has fared “particularly poorly” in the 2014 edition of the survey, falling to sixth position and behind rival MTN. The survey found that there has been a “bloodbath” in company reputations, with the exception

Altron appears to be firing on all cylinders. The technology group, which owns Altech, Bytes and Powertech, has reported a 49% improvement in normalised headline earnings per share on the back of a 12% improvement in revenue. It has hiked its dividend to 80c/share, from 60c in 2013. The strong performance was underpinned

Third mobile operator Cell C intends investing R2,3bn in growing its national network in 2014, to address capacity problems and to cater for a fast expanding subscriber base. The operator said on Tuesday that it had 16,6m subscribers at the end of April, a sharp

Cell C grew its subscriber base in 2013 by 35%, ending the year with 13,6m customers, the mobile operator said at a media conference in Johannesburg on Tuesday. The unlisted company, which isn’t required to disclose its financial numbers, revealed more

Cell C has upped the ante in South Africa’s mobile price war. The mobile operator has slashed prepaid call rates to 66c/minute, from 99c/minute previously. The new 66c tariff excludes its Supacharge recharge benefits, which will continue to be available