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Embattled national consumer commissioner Mamodupi Mohlala-Mulaudzi urged trade & industry minister Rob Davies on Wednesday to extend her employment contract. “I believe I have worked very hard. I have excelled,” she told the National Press Club in Pretoria. “I have gone beyond my call of duty

Mxit Money, a partnership between Standard Bank and mobile social network Mxit, has been launched and allows Mxit users to send money to one another for free, transact with that money, and even withdraw it. Users can also send money to other mobile phone users for a nominal fee. Mxit CEO

The Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) will hold public hearings concerning the revised set of draft digital terrestrial television regulations it released last month for public comment. The decision comes after Icasa said it would take written submissions up until 31 July but wouldn’t hold

A number of Altech Autopage Cellular customers experienced service problems with their mobile devices on Monday after a system error resulted in future-dated transactions, including package changes, contract cancellations and service add-ons, being triggered on Monday morning rather than at their allotted time

The Competition Tribunal last week fined Telkom R449m for abusing its dominance in the telecommunications industry between 1999 and 2004. Assuming Telkom doesn’t appeal against the decision, half of the penalty is to be paid within six months of the tribunal’s decision, with the balance is payable within 12 months

German-based media streaming company Simfy is set to launch a local offering of its music streaming service before the end of the month. Simfy Africa will have more than 18m tracks available for streaming and has secured licensing deals with all of the big international record labels, including Sony Music

Although Nokia and BlackBerry are slipping in developed markets, both brands continue to be wildly successful in SA. This is according to a market research report released this week by World Wide Worx. The research shows Nokia remains the most popular cellphone brand among SA’s urban residents

IBM is opening its first research laboratory on the African continent and has chosen Kenya, and not SA, as the location for the facility. IBM Research labs are credited with the creation of many of the foundations of information technology, including the invention of the relational database, disk storage

Another senior SA telecommunications executive, recruited recently to Nigeria’s Glo Mobile, has resigned. Richard Morse, who was appointed three months ago to head up strategy and innovation at Glo, says he left as a result of the way the company is being managed. Glo is Nigeria’s second biggest

Computer maker Lenovo has its sights set on Africa, and it’s not just the PC market in which it wants to compete more aggressively. The company is set to release a dual-Sim, low-cost smartphone in SA before the end of the year, a move that could annoy operators while delighting consumers