Author: Duncan McLeod

Seacom plans to upgrade its subsea telecommunications network to newer fibre-optic switching technology later this year that will more than double the capacity on the system. CEO Mark Simpson says the company will begin tests in the next couple of months with a view to upgrading the US$600m system from

It’s not yet known how Hewlett-Packard’s plan to shed 27 000 jobs in the next two and a half years will affect the company’s SA subsidiary. The IT giant said on Wednesday that it plans to shed the jobs, or about 8% of its worldwide workforce of nearly 350 000 people, by the end of its 2014 financial year

Extraordinary events took place behind the scenes in SA’s cellphone industry in the past week. Alan Knott-Craig played his first hand as Cell C CEO, slashing prepaid voice prices, and Vodacom reacted almost immediately with new rates of its own. But then the bigger operator botched its counter attack by

When Samsung sent us its Series 7 Slate tablet PC to review a couple of weeks ago, we couldn’t resist the temptation to ditch Windows 7 from its 128GB solid-state drive and install the consumer preview of Windows 8. After all, Windows 8 is designed from the ground up as a tablet-friendly operating system

Thanks to cost-containment measures, solid demand for data and strong growth in its international businesses, Vodacom has lifted its headline earnings per share in the 2012 financial year by 8,1% to R7,09 on revenue that rose by 9,4% to R66,9bn. A 24% increase in free cash flow allowed the telecommunications group

Richard Branson’s Virgin Group is planning to dilute its shareholding in mobile virtual network operator Virgin Mobile SA by selling a portion of its shares to Dubai-based telecommunications company, the Friendi Group. At the same time, Virgin Mobile

Alan Knott-Craig, installed as Cell C’s new CEO on 1 April, is wasting no time in taking the fight to the operator’s bigger rivals, MTN and Vodacom. Just days after cutting the cost of broadband as part of new promotional offers, Cell C has now slashed the cost of

Four months after establishing a local office, Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer HTC is promising to ramp up the marketing and distribution of its products in SA, with a focus on its new One-series range of devices. Jon French, HTC’s vice-president for sales operations

Telkom is inching closer to a deal to sell 20% of its equity to Korea’s KT Corp. Though the foreign direct investment in SA’s economy should be welcomed, there are potential pitfalls government must be careful to avoid. Last week, Telkom announced to

A price war has broken out in SA’s mobile industry. Within minutes of each other on Wednesday, Cell C and Vodacom both announced they were slashing the cost of prepaid call tariffs to 99c/minute. The timing of the announcements suggests at least one of