The East Africa Submarine System (Eassy) cable has not made the sort of splash on the SA broadband market as many had expected it to. The 10 000km-long submarine fibre cable, which runs along Africa’s east coast, is the second new cable to arrive on SA shores in the past year. The first was Seacom, which went live in 2009.
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Microsoft may eventually build two data centres in Africa, possibly in SA, to serve the continent, but no decisions have been made yet. However, the company will aggressively expand its cloud-based (server-hosted) services to the region, beginning in SA later this year with the launch of Xbox Live, its online gaming and entertainment offering.
The Grid, Vodacom’s somewhat rival to Naspers’s MXit social chat service, is going global. After launching the service in Nigeria and Tanzania in 2009, the cellular network operator has decided to make the service available to cellphone users worldwide.
In a surprising move, MWeb is lobbying government to give Telkom the more than R1bn in cash stashed away in the universal service fund so that it can plough that money into upgrading its network. CEO Rudi Jansen is especially keen for the money to be used to upgrade the so-called last mile of copper cables that connect customers to Telkom’s network.
Ousted Kelly Group director Mthunzi Mdwaba will have his say at disciplinary hearing on 22 September. Until then, sources say, he has been placed on paid leave. Mdwaba was stripped of his directorship and his position as deputy CEO of the Kelly Group, a recruitment and technology training business, last week. He was also suspended from the company “pending an investigation”.
Telecommunications operator Cell C will launch the first leg of its mobile broadband network in Port Elizabeth. TechCentral has established that Cell C will launch its third-generation (3G) network, on which it is spending about R5bn in 2010, in the Eastern Cape city.
Could former SABC CEO Dali Mpofu or former Vodacom CEO Alan Knott-Craig be approached to take the reins at listed telecommunications group Telkom? Mpofu and Knott-Craig are two of the high-profile people external to Telkom whose names have been linked to the job in recent weeks.
Broadcast signal distributor Sentech received a hard rap across the knuckles from members of parliament’s communications portfolio committee on Tuesday for its late distribution of crucial documents. “This is disrespect of the highest order,” ANC MP Eric Kholwane said, after members heard an apology and explanation from Sentech board chairman Quraysh Patel for MPs only receiving copies of his organisation’s revised strategic plan that morning.
Parliament’s portfolio committee on communications called off a meeting it was due to hold with executives from dysfunctional state-owned signal distributor Sentech on Tuesday morning. Sentech flew four company members, including its chairman, Quraysh Patel, to Cape Town this week to present its turnaround strategy to the committee. However, Sentech’s “plan for sustainability” did not reach the parliamentarians until Tuesday morning, giving them no time to review the document ahead of the meeting.
Cell C has finally released a few details about its €240m (R2,2bn) loan agreement with China Development Bank. The money will be used to restructure the company’s debt. TechCentral reported on 24 August that the mobile operator had secured the loan.