JSE-listed technology group Gijima has its sights on the local telecommunications market. It says it will either acquire or partner with a company that has its own network. CEO Jonas Bogoshi says Gijima has decided to play a more direct role in cloud computing, including hosted services and voice and data technologies.
Zimbabwe cellphone subscribers have increased four-fold since a unity government took office last year, but local firms say they battle to attract investors who worry the political truce won’t last. In 2008, when the local currency was ravaged by world-record hyperinflation, Sim cards were selling for up to US$220 — not including a phone.
Sub-Saharan Africa will soon be drowning in international bandwidth. France Telecom’s Orange has announced an extension to the Lower Indian Ocean Network (Lion) cable, adding yet more capacity to the east coast of Africa.
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.
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.
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.
Yet more submarine fibre capacity is coming to SA. And, for the first time, a transatlantic link connecting Southern Africa with Brazil is on the cards. SA-based technology investment company eFive Telecoms plans to extend the Main One cable, which connects Europe and Nigeria along Africa’s west coast, to Cape Town.
State-owned signal distributor Sentech is in dire straits. A submission from the company’s board to parliament reveals its auditors are concerned about its ability to continue as a going concern. TechCentral is in possession of a strategic presentation the company was supposed to deliver to parliament on Tuesday this week in which it has revealed that its auditing firm — which it doesn’t name — has raised concerns about its financial standing.
Kenyan telecommunications operator Safaricom has increased its market share from about 60% three years ago to over 80% on the back of its M-Pesa cellphone money transfer service. Now Vodacom is hoping to emulate those market share gains in SA. That’s the word from Mark Taylor, newly appointed MD of Vodacom Payment Services, the company that houses the company’s M-Pesa offering.
Vodacom expects to sign up 10m M-Pesa mobile money users within three years. The telecommunications operator’s director in charge of the product’s launch, Romeo Kumalo, revealed the ambitious target during the product’s launch in Midrand, north of Johannesburg, on Tuesday.
