Author: Staff Reporter

Eskom’s rolling blackouts are placing severe strain on mobile network operators trying to keep base stations up and running.

Cell C has partnered with Facebook to roll out public-access Wi-Fi hotspots in South Africa, and has taken the first few live at the University of the Western Cape.

Fibre infrastructure provider Metrofibre Networx has received an equity investment from Stoa Infra & Energy. Stoa has acquired 23.1% of the South African open-access fibre network operator.

Telkom is failing to implement number porting for telephone numbers used by call centres to the detriment of competition, the Internet Service Providers’ Association said on Monday.

Eskom will implement stage-four load shedding until at least Tuesday as the effects of a tropical cyclone in Mozambique and problems at the company’s power plants continue to put severe pressure on the national power grid.

Eskom quicky escalated its rotational blackouts from stage two to stage four on Saturday, despite demand over weekends typically being lower than on weekdays when industry is consuming more electricity.

Huge Group is acquiring Otel in a share-swap deal involving its subsidiary, Huge Networks, the JSE-listed telecommunications specialist said in a statement to shareholders after markets closed on Thursday.

Technology group Altron said on Thursday that is has appointed Cedric Miller as its new chief financial officer. He will join the group on 1 May.

Eskom implemented stage-one rotational load shedding on Thursday, then progressed the blackouts to stage two later in the day. The state-owned utility blamed a “shortage of capacity” for the move.

Samsung’s tap-and-pay service is coming to more banks. The company said on Monday that Samsung Pay will soon work for Investec and Discovery Bank account holders.