Cabinet should look carefully at all the implications of a review of the policy on digital migration. This is the telling conclusion reached by the parliamentary portfolio committee on communications in a report detailing a review of two television standards being considered for SA’s move from analogue to digital terrestrial television.
Events conspired against us and we missed last week’s TalkCentral recording. But we’re back with a bumper episode 9 of SA’s business technology podcast, and there’s plenty to talk about. Your hosts, Duncan McLeod and Candice Jones, delve in detail into Cell C’s launch of its broadband wireless network and look at how it’s taking the fight to bigger rivals MTN and Vodacom.
SA’s spending on research and development (R&D) has dropped slightly in terms of GDP for the second year running. Science and technology minister Naledi Pandor told journalists at parliament on Thursday that while R&D spending rose in nominal terms, from R18,6bn in 2007/08 to R21bn in 2008/09, gross spending as a percentage of GDP slipped from 0,93% to 0,92%.
Three SA technology start-ups are heading to Seedcamp week in London to compete for a possible €50 000 (R460 000) investment from the micro seed funder. Cognician, iSigned and GetAGreatBoss were chosen from a group of 11 SA start-ups in the first round of selections. They will join 20 other small businesses from around the world to compete for the funding.
Construction of a new, high-capacity submarine telecommunications cable system linking SA, Angola, Nigeria and Brazil should start early next year and be ready for service some time in 2012. That’s the word from Lawrence Mulaudzi, MD of eFive Telecoms, the SA-based company that is driving the project.
Internet service provider MWeb is expanding its capacity by adding extra last-mile access on Telkom’s network. MWeb CEO Rudi Jansen says since the launch of uncapped broadband earlier this year, customers are flooding to the service. “The uptake on our uncapped product has been incredible,” he says.
MTN and Telkom, which recently signed a cellular roaming agreement, are facing off in a dispute over wholesale mobile termination rates. Telkom, which is due to launch its own mobile network within the next couple of months, wants to charge MTN — and presumably other operators — 93c/minute to carry calls onto its new network.
South Africans are a cynical lot. When it comes to telecommunications, that cynicism is often justified. Too often, SA operators are big on promises and short on delivery. But Cell C’s new strategy may indeed shake up SA broadband. Cell C CEO Lars Reichelt is a dynamic and colourful character. His colleagues at the cellular network operator say he works harder than anyone they’ve met, often pulling stints late into the night and insisting that his team be available to work similarly long hours.
Pay-TV licensee Super 5 Media has finally admitted publicly that it is facing big problems. But newly appointed director Muhammad Lockhat says the company is still working to get a pay-TV product to market, despite it recently retrenching all of its employees. It was recently granted another extension by industry regulator, the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa), allowing it until February 2011 to launch a service.
Telkom and MTN are set to face off at the Independent Communications Authority of SA’s complaints and compliance committee on Thursday over a dispute of interconnection fees, the money they charge each other to carry calls between their networks. Authority spokesman Paseka Maleka Telkom lodged a complaint against MTN at the end of June. It appears the two companies are having trouble negotiating the terms of an interconnection agreement.
