Durban-based software developer and occasional TechCentral columnist Greg Mahlknecht has built a free map showing the world’s submarine telecommunications cable systems. The map, which took Mahlknecht several months to complete, is free of charge and will remain so. It’s available at cablemap.info.
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Telecommunications research and training body, the Link Centre at Wits University, has called on the department of communications to scrap the proposed Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) Amendment Bill. The Link Centre says the proposed changes to the act will have “profound public interest implications and potentially a far-reaching impact on policy, governance and regulation across the entire communications technology sector”.
Axed communications department director-general Mamodupi Mohlala was planning to challenge her dismissal, Business Day reported on Monday. “There is no settlement. They dismissed me. And I will be challenging the dismissal,” said Mohlala.
Communications minister Siphiwe Nyanda has fired his director-general, Mamodupi Mohlala, saying that trust between the two had “broken down irretrievably”. “In the interests of the department, the staff and the government, the minister has come to the conclusion that it would be best to release Mohlala from her position as director-general with effect from 23 July 2010,” Nyanda’s spokesman Tiyani Rikhotso said in a terse statement issued on Friday evening.
Vodacom has lost one of its top executives to Kenya’s Safaricom. The JSE-listed cellular group announced after the markets closed on Thursday evening that its chief officer for corporate affairs, Bob Collymore, was leaving to take over as CEO of Safaricom. Collymore, previously a Vodafone executive, will join Safaricom in September. Both Vodacom and Safaricom have significant shareholding from the UK’s Vodafone. Like Vodacom in SA, Safaricom is Kenya’s largest mobile operator.
President Jacob Zuma on Thursday told a press conference in Pretoria that he had heard from his communications minister, Siphiwe Nyanda, that there was a “problem” involving the department’s director-general, Mamodupi Mohlala. “The minister in passing indicated there is a problem. He has not given a proper and formal report. Once this happens, we move in,” Zuma said.
There’s finally some good news on the Seacom front. If all goes according to plan, the undersea cable system will be fully operational again from tomorrow (Friday). According to a Seacom spokesman, physical repairs to the submarine cable are in the final stages of completion. “The entire system is currently undergoing testing before the cable is lowered back into the water,” the spokesman says.
Vodacom will make a decision about what to do with its troubled business in the Democratic Republic of Congo by the end of this year, says the group’s CEO Pieter Uys. “The company is still running and there is a board meeting coming up soon,” Uys says. He doesn’t say what will be discussed at the meeting.
A triumvirate of Sentech executives has been appointed to lead the troubled state-owned broadcast signal distributor until a full-time CEO can be appointed. TechCentral has learnt from sources at Sentech that a caretaker team has been appointed, led by acting chief operating officer Dingane Dube.
In spite of a solid performance in mobile data, SA’s largest telecommunications operator, Vodacom, has reported flat group revenue growth of 3% in the first quarter of its 2011 financial year. The company released its trading statement for the three months ended 30 June 2010 on Thursday, saying that although international markets are stabilising, weaker African currencies and a strong rand hampered growth.