Browsing: In-depth

In 2012, when the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) awarded a crucial social grants contract, its R10bn decision turned mostly on a “key feature” — something that had been offered by just one of the bidders. The contract was for the payment of about 15m in government grants every month

South Africa, where 80% of the adult population owns a cellphone but the median income is a mere R3 000/month, poses specific challenges to tech companies trying to make inroads into the cellphone market. For many, the solution has come in the form of apps that allow

While all the focus at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain this week was on the announcements from big names in mobile, such as Samsung, Nokia and Sony, plenty of other interesting developments were happening on the show floor

Controversy-plagued SABC acting chief operating officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng is going nowhere if his boss — the only person who can fire him — has her way. SABC board chairman Ellen Tshabalala said this week: “Hlaudi is diligent and very capable. The members of the board are right behind

Facebook is stumping up US$19bn in cash and shares to buy popular instant messaging platform WhatsApp, which has 450m active monthly users and which is adding a million new users a month. The deal could have been driven, at least in part, by a “potentially massive threat from the

Acting SABC chief operating officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng was appointed irregularly to the position and committed fraud by lying repeatedly about his qualifications. These are just two of a wide number of damning findings in a report by public protector

Despite a number of retail price skirmishes in South Africa’s mobile telecommunications industry in 2013, the prepaid tariffs levied by South Africa’s two incumbent mobile operators, Vodacom and MTN, remain “expensive” relative to the rest of the

As parliament this week shines a spotlight on the cost of communications in South Africa, it has emerged that Vodacom’s high-end, all-in-one contract packages are significantly more expensive than similar products at other Vodafone-owned operations around the world. An investigation by

StarSat, the pay-television platform previously known as TopTV, will emerge as a “serious competitor” to MultiChoice, the Naspers subsidiary that owns the dominant DStv service. That’s the word from Peter van den Steen, who is overseeing the business rescue of StarSat parent On

I have been trawling through Google and Facebook for an hour, looking for an angle of attack. Finally I stumble on to a service where people share maps of their jogging routes. The online alias matches my target’s, and I already know it’s her home