Browsing: In-depth

The department of communications’ policy summit next week has generally been welcomed by analysts and industry players, who say the event is long overdue, especially in light of Africa slipping down world connectedness rankings. Communications minister Dina Pule said on Tuesday that the colloquium had been

A lot of people are scratching their heads this week at the news that Facebook is acquiring photo-sharing site Instagram for US$1bn. The allure of retro-styled photo filters is pretty weak justification for a price tag that high. But of course it’s not about the photo filters, it’s about the fact that Instagram engages your

“Ideas so simple,” reads a cartoon on an elevator door, “that they feel like the completion of a thought,” continues its twin. Similar doodles adorn the walls of HTC’s headquarters in Taoyuan, near Taipei, and business cards carried by the smartphone-maker’s staff. John Wang, the chief marketing officer, lays out a set of four: concentric

MTN is facing a storm over claims that it helped the Iranian government to spy on local subscribers and assisted the regime in its brutal crackdown on protesters in 2009 and 2010. In court papers lodged in the US last week, rival mobile operator Turkcell alleged that MTN told its Iranian military-linked partners it

Telkom’s management team failed to follow internal tender procedures and is to blame for a court interdict on Friday that prevents it from continuing with work to improve its access network into homes and businesses. This is the allegation levelled against the operator by networking equipment vendor ZTE Mzanzi, a joint venture between China’s ZTE and local black empowerment

News on Friday that the cost of IP Connect, the product Internet service providers have to buy from Telkom to access the fixed-line operator’s last-mile broadband network, was to fall by 30% from 1 April should lead to lower retail prices as early as this week. However, service providers polled by TechCentral on Monday still want to understand the mechanics

Cellphone giant MTN was so desperate to win a mobile operating licence in the “virgin” territory of Iran that it allegedly put together a package of bribes, trading opportunities in sophisticated weaponry, capital investment and diplomatic influence that the Islamic Republic could not resist, write Sharda Naidoo, Craig McKune and Stefaans Brümmer

For the first time, the operator is also talking about delivering fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) services, though Bashier Sallie, the company’s MD of wholesale and networks, says it’s important that a “pragmatic” approach is taken to delivering FTTH given challenges such as how spread out SA’s population is compared to some other countries that

Computer passwords need to be memorable and secure. Most people’s are the first but not the second. Researchers are trying to make it easier for them to be both. Passwords are ubiquitous in computer security. All too often, they are also ineffective. A good password has to be both easy to remember and hard to guess, but in practice

Neotel has doubled the number of retail subscribers on its network in the past 11 months, growing this customer segment from 50 000 to 100 000, according to CEO Sunil Joshi. However, the company, licensed in the mid-2000s as the first competitor to incumbent Telkom, is still struggling to make much on an impact in the consumer market, with less