Should we be worried about Cell C? Despite a recent high court ruling that was at least partly in the mobile operator’s favour, noises coming out of the company aren’t exactly painting a rosy picture. There are several reasons for concern, chief among them the ability of the company to engage in a protracted price war while ensuring it
If there was anyone still doubting that the price war, triggered in part by communications regulator Icasa’s cuts in call termination rates, is starting to take its toll on South Africa’s mobile industry, they would have been disabused of that notion this week with the news that the Reunert-owned Nashua Mobile is to close down. As many as 600 people
Korea’s Samsung Electronics this week began selling its latest flagship handset, the highly anticipated Galaxy S5. Early reviews are already in and, although largely positive, some reviewers are asking if the insane pace of innovation in the smartphone industry in
Bewilderment. That’s the word that best described the look on the faces of mobile communications industry executives crammed into a courtroom on the 11th floor of the high court in downtown Johannesburg on Monday afternoon as they listened to judge Haseena Mayat hand down her decision in a key industry battle
Nearly R1,5bn — that is what was wiped off the market capitalisation of technology group Pinnacle Holdings in just two trading sessions this week after news emerged that one of its directors and biggest shareholders, Takalani Tshivhase, had been arrested on
The war of words that erupted between MultiChoice and communications minister Yunus Carrim this week is extraordinary. It is also, unfortunately, very damaging. It is unusual in South Africa – or most countries, for that matter – for a large company to take on a cabinet minister directly, aggressively and in public like this. One has to
Communications regulator Icasa this week kicked off a high-level formal inquiry into the state of competition in South Africa’s information and communications technology sector. In the coming months, the authority, which regulates the telecommunications, broadcasting and postal services sectors, has promised
While all the focus in the telecommunications industry is on the fight over call termination rates, an even more important battle is looming large, this time over access to radio frequency spectrum. Billions of rand are at stake as South Africa’s big telecommunications operators
South Africa’s telecommunications industry has never been in such a heightened state of flux as it is today. The regulator, Icasa, has managed to enrage the two biggest operators, MTN and Vodacom, which have both now lodged voluminous applications at the high court in an effort to get new call
Nineteen billion dollars. Two hundred and ten billion rand. Nearly R500/user. That’s how much Facebook has agreed to pony up for WhatsApp, the fast-growing but still very much loss-making cross-platform mobile instant messaging platform. It’s a daring – perhaps insane – bet by Facebook’s
