The leafy Johannesburg suburb of Parkhurst, one of the first in South Africa to get high-speed fibre-to-the-home broadband, now looks set to be the scene of a turf war between two competing fixed-line telecommunications providers. It’s a David vs Goliath battle that could also help decide which
Browsing: Opinion
Nobody likes to feel like they’re being watched. Societies will tolerate a lot from their governments but few things cause more outrage than the kind of mass surveillance practiced by America’s National Security Agency (NSA) and its cronies. But true to form, the Internet has spontaneously generated
Driven by the rise of broadband, the era of linear television broadcasting will draw to a rapid close in the next decade. New media empires will be built on the back of this change. Established broadcasters that don’t adapt will crumble. A revolution is at hand — a revolution that is going
Early e-commerce market entrant in Nigeria, Naspers’s Kalahari.com, came and went, with many suggesting it was inevitable given that the number of online customers was tiny. But Rocket Internet start-up Jumia and Konga, backed by Sweden’s Kinevik and Naspers, are now estimated by those
Love the company or hate it, Google has fundamentally changed the way we use the Internet. The company has set the standard for two of the Internet’s biggest drawcards, Web search and e-mail, for more than a decade. And it’s showing no signs of slowing down. This week, Google unveiled
Human beings are fickle creatures. As soon as any trend reaches its peak, its polar opposite is suddenly the next big thing. Technology is particularly prone to these societal mood swings. Take the latest surge in online anonymity, for instance. The last decade of the Web has been dominated
The irony about the Post Office strike, former First National Bank CEO Michael Jordaan tweeted this week, is that the longer it drags on, the more its customers will move to electronic alternatives — never to return. That the Post Office is in crisis
Two of South Africa’s biggest online retailers, Takealot.com and Kalahari.com, surprised just about everyone this week when they announced plans to merge their operations. The proposed deal is surprising because, until now
Several delays in the regulatory process necessary to roll out government’s subsidised television set-top boxes for digital terrestrial television indicate continuing indecision and possible manipulation by broadcasting industry players, individuals in state entities and deployed ANC
If there’s one group of local companies that doesn’t need help, it’s our telecommunications providers. For decades, this cosy oligopoly has reaped the enormous benefits of rapidly growing new markets, from cellular telephony to data. And yet now they are whining about unfair