Author: Duncan McLeod

Vodacom has surprised the market by launching commercial fourth-generation (4G) services based on long-term evolution (LTE) technology. The service is available immediately in selected parts of Johannesburg, with other cities to follow in the “near future”, the operator says in a statement. The company’s

Within the space of a week, all of SA’s four cellular operators have outlined plans to build fourth-generation (4G) mobile broadband networks based on long-term evolution (LTE) technology. But it’s more a marketing effort for now and consumers shouldn’t get too excited

Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) CEO Themba Dlamini has moved to explain the decision by the auditor-general once again to submit a qualified audit of the telecommunications and broadcasting regulator’s annual financial statements. The authority has asked for “condonation” from government in an

Despite good revenue growth of 11% in the six months ended 31 August 2012, JSE-listed Altron’s profits have been pummelled due to margin pressure and writedowns at subsidiary Altech. For the period, Altron reported operating profit before capital items of R586m, from R627m previously. However, the problems at Altech

A decade ago, Steve Ballmer described the free and open-source Linux operating system as a “cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches”. The famously boisterous Microsoft CEO was attacking the General Public Licence which governs much of the software code developed by the

Communications minister Dina Pule is “surprised” by e.tv’s high court application against her in which the free-to-air broadcaster accuses her of acting unlawfully in appointing Sentech to manage the control system that will be used in the set-top boxes that are needed for consumers to receive digital terrestrial television signals

The attacks on rivals keep coming as SA’s third mobile operator moves to build market share. Cell C has now taken the wraps off a weekend promotion that offers prepaid users 100% of their weekly recharge value back in airtime for use on weekends. However, the free airtime applies only

Cell C added 782 407 customers on a gross basis in September, a sharp increase over the about 700 000 gross additions it notched up in August. Although the gross numbers don’t take subscriber churn into account, Knott-Craig says churn

Vodacom’s new CEO, Shameel Joosub, last week fired a shot over rival Cell C’s bows, warning that SA’s biggest operator will not give way to Cell C, now led by his former boss Alan Knott-Craig. Consumers have ringside seats to what is going to be an epic battle between two great tacticians

High-profile former First National Bank chief information officer Mike Jarvis, who led a dramatic modernisation of the bank’s IT systems and who left SA in 2000 to return to his native Britain, has returned to the country. Jarvis has established a new business with former Symantec regional director