Browsing: Opinion

A full-blown price war has erupted in fixed-line broadband in SA. Internet service providers are racing to outdo each other to provide unmetered bandwidth cheaper. This is great for consumers and the economy, but it should have happened 10 years ago.

Writing in defence of rights management and in response to my comment on his interview, Spoor & Fisher’s Owen Dean says he and I “approach copyright from two diametrically opposed departure points”. We do. But Dean goes on to misconstrue what I wrote in a number of ways

First came the news that Cell C is planning to sell its national network of base stations to a third-party tower operator. Now MTN SA, looking to cut costs, may begin selling space on its towers to competitors. Why, suddenly, is infrastructure sharing all the rage?

Andrew Rens has commented on the recent interview TechCentral conducted with me in which I expressed critical comment on the state of SA’s copyright laws and, more particularly, as they affect the music industry. Rens and I approach copyright from two diametrically opposed departure points, so it’s not surprising that we have differing views on what constitutes appropriate protection under copyright.

In an article in the 1 December 2005 edition of Fortune magazine, Paul LaMonica wrote that the new AT&T (just merged with SBC) was “not worth buying”. He anticipated declining margins due to fierce competition. He worried that the company was a “middle weight” in the mobile phone industry. And he fretted that it

In a recent interview with TechCentral, Owen Dean of specialist intellectual property lawfirm Spoor & Fisher urges that SA should ratify a treaty that requires anti-circumvention provisions meant to stop copyright infringement

SA consumers, used to high prices for telecommunications, must be rubbing their hands in glee. The cost of broadband and voice telephony has begun falling, in some cases dramatically, as competition finally begins to take effect

It’s like a movie about America’s Old West. Except this is SA, and it’s not a gripping story on the silver screen where actors get shot, dust themselves off, have a good laugh, and head back to their trailers. No, in the Wild West we’re heading into

Television in SA is on the verge of its biggest changes since its introduction in 1976. Two new pay-TV operators will finally launch soon to take on DStv, and the move to digital terrestrial television will change the competitive dynamics of the industry forever.

Operating systems were all the talk last week at Mobile World Congress, the cellphone industry’s annual confab in Barcelona. Apple, Microsoft, Google, Nokia and others are engaged in a battle over whose software will run the next generation of smartphones