Government’s plans for shaking up the management of radio frequency spectrum in South Africa could backfire badly, crimping investment and harming consumers. It’s a risk that’s too big to take. The department of
Browsing: Duncan McLeod
It all started in the late noughties, I think around 2006 or 2007, when the former communications minister, the late Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri – a former chairwoman of the SABC – declared that South Africa would complete
President Jacob Zuma has drawn criticism for his failure to deal meaningfully with broadband roll-out in his 2016 state of the nation address delivered in parliament on Thursday evening. Throughout his more than hour-long speech, the
It’s time to call the situation South African telecommunications group MTN is facing in Nigeria what it really is: a state-sanctioned mugging. The Nigerian government, through its communications commission, is pointing a gun at MTN’s head, demanding that it hand
Something significant transpired on Friday last week that prompted South Africa’s largest telecommunications operator, Vodacom, to review the structure of its acquisition of Neotel, a
It is hugely encouraging to see South Africa rising up the World Economic Forum’s latest global competitive rankings as a result of the strides the country has made in getting more people onto the Internet
The South African economy may be teetering on the brink of a recession, but that isn’t keeping the country’s telecommunications operators from ramping up their capital spending. Telkom, Vodacom, MTN and Cell C, along with a host of smaller players, are all gearing up to make
Did the Competition Commission do the right thing in seeking to block – in the process scuppering – the network sharing deal between Telkom and MTN? On the surface, it appears it was the right move for consumers, but dig a little deeper and one has to question whether the
The television entertainment industry in South Africa is in for significant disruption in the next 18 months. And couch potatoes look set to be the biggest beneficiaries as competition intensifies between traditional broadcasters and new Internet streaming providers
Finally, there’s a move to try to do something about the dysfunction crippling the department of telecommunications & postal services. The mess at the department has become a barrier blocking the development of South Africa’s information and