SA’s three biggest cities are all pushing ahead with ambitious fibre-optic network projects, promising businesses and even residential customers cheaper and faster broadband. The municipalities of Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town are all pushing ahead with plans to build thousands of kilometres of fibre infrastructure as they try to drive down communication costs in their cities.
A plan by the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) to cut wholesale call termination rates may be delayed until next year, parties close to the process say. The rates, which were supposed to be cut last month as a first step on a two-year glide path down, are the fees the operators charge each other to carry calls onto their networks.
The Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) has taken tentative steps towards regulating Internet Protocol television (IPTV) and video-on-demand services. The authority released a position paper at the weekend following industry input as to how it should approach the management of the technology.
Are Cell C, Dimension Data and Andile Ngcaba’s investment firm Convergence Partners planning to build a national fibre-optic telecommunications network? Rumours have begun circulating that the three companies are in talks about doing exactly that. TechCentral has established from various parties that preliminary talks are already underway.
SA’s mobile operators are upset at the growing delays they face in having environmental impact assessments concluded for the construction of new base stations. They say it’s holding back the sector. Cell C CEO Lars Reichelt used a media briefing earlier this week to criticise municipal bureaucrats for the lengthy delays.
More than four years after the first mobile-TV service was introduced, only 3,2m users worldwide are paying to receive broadcasts to their handsets, according to research by international analyst firm Juniper Research. This is probably bad news for pay-TV incumbent MultiChoice and cellphone operator Vodacom, both of which have recently introduced mobile-TV products.
Cell C is like a new company. In a presentation to media on Wednesday morning, CEO Lars Reichelt set out a radical new strategy and unveiled a revitalised brand image for the mobile operator. It may still be SA’s smallest cellular network by market share — Telkom hasn’t launched its mobile business yet — but under Reichelt, who was appointed to the job last year, Cell C is fast becoming the market’s feistiest player.
Pay-TV operator Super 5 Media on Tuesday retrenched all of its remaining employees, more than 40 people in all, and is now facing the prospect of liquidation if it isn’t able to pay one of its biggest creditors by the end of the week. TechCentral, which last week broke the news of the problems at the company, has now learnt Super 5 Media is facing a claim of as much as R25m from Rothschild, an international investment advisory company.
Kenya and Tanzania are to get high-speed fibre-to-the-home connections offering a triple-play bundle of broadband, telephony and cable television thanks to a US$200m investment from the private sector. The company behind the project, Wananchi — which is backed by Cisco Capital and East Africa Capital Partners — says it would love to do the same in SA, but the regulatory environment here precludes it from doing so.
Telkom is trying urgently to renegotiate multiple contracts entered into by its troubled Nigerian subsidiary Multi-Links. If it can’t reach new agreements with the suppliers, Multi-Links could be forced to shut up shop. That’s the stark warning from Telkom acting CEO Jeffrey Hedberg, who had been running the Nigerian business until a few weeks ago, when he was called on by Telkom’s board to head up the group following the premature departure of former CEO Reuben September.
