Last week’s national policy colloquium, organised by the department of communications, drew a degree of cynicism from the telecoms industry. The view among many industry players is that it’s the same old rhetoric with no action. Will this time be different? The industry can be forgiven for suffering from “colloquium fatigue”. Politicians
The reaction of various interest groups to a year-long study by Research ICT Africa into prepaid mobile prices across the continent and SA’s relatively poor showing in it are perhaps not surprising. They nevertheless prompt clarification and hopefully further debate before the issue of the high price of communications in SA is again swept
I’d like to respond to communications minister Dina Pule’s call for a policy overhaul at this week’s information and communications (ICT) policy colloquium in Midrand. Pule should be applauded for taking action in her call for a policy review for the ICT sector, it should come as no surprise that some in the industry remain deeply sceptical
The release last week of Research ICT Africa’s report on mobile phone pricing in Africa has provoked a little controversy. The facts are quite damning. SA has some of the highest mobile costs on the continent. This is odd given the country’s comparative wealth and infrastructural advantages. By rights, SA ought to have the cheapest phone
On Monday, Moody’s, the ratings agency, downgraded Nokia’s debt to near junk status. The share price has been in freefall in the past year, with some analysts painting a bleak future for the Finnish company. Yes, it’s bad. But Nokia is already planting the seeds of its turnaround. There’s no doubt that fortunes are made and lost
With the abundance of cables landing on SA’s shores, you could be forgiven for thinking it’s one the most connected countries in the world. In a sense, it soon will be: there’s no shortage of international capacity on the way. What’s lacking is widespread local access to take advantage of it. The problem isn’t without solutions, but
It’s like 1999 all over again. On Monday, Facebook announced it was buying photo-sharing company Instagram for US$1bn, netting the start-up’s cofounder, Kevin Systrom, a cool $400m. It’s paying over the odds, but the deal makes sense for Facebook ahead of its flotation on the stock market. At first glance and based on the
Telkom has embarked on a multibillion-rand refresh of its access network into homes and businesses. Investors will probably decry the cost of taking fibre-optic infrastructure closer to and even into homes, but group CEO Nombulelo Moholi is at least leading the fixed-line operator in the right direction
Anecdotal evidence suggests there’s been huge growth in the SA technology start-up space in the past year, most of it coming from the Western Cape. It appears the stars are aligning for local tech entrepreneurs: bandwidth is getting cheaper, investor numbers are growing and SA is being seen as an important entry point into Africa
Remember five or six years ago when everyone thought they could start their own social network? Then Facebook arrived and effectively crushed everyone else in the market. There was no point anymore — it owned the market. But while the bean
