Browsing: Top

Communications minister Siphiwe Nyanda says a task team appointed by him in July 2009 had identified “anomalies” and an “illegal operational model” at state-owned Sentech. Though he doesn’t state it explicity, Nyanda is clearly referring to Sentech’s controversial 2007 spectrum deal with Global Web Intact (GWI).

Microsoft is waiting for the department of trade & industry to give it the go-ahead for its empowerment plan where it wants to invest nearly R500m in several local black-owned software development companies.

In between another crazy news week and TechCentral deputy editor Candice Jones winging her way off to the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, we’ve managed to squeeze in another episode of TalkCentral, TechCentral’s weekly business technology podcast.

Vodacom has fired a shot across the bow of new mobile entrant, Telkom’s 8ta, in what could be the beginning of what one analyst calls “price skirmishes” between the operators. A full-blown price war looks less likely, analysts say. Vodacom at the weekend announced a R1,40/minute all-day tariff

The accounts of thousands of MWeb broadband customers appear to have been compromised, with their logon and password details apparently published on the Internet by hackers. As many as 2 390 users of MWeb’s business digital subscriber lines have been affected.

Sentech’s contract that allowed Screamer Telecoms, a wireless Internet access provider, to use the state-owned company’s spectrum to provide WiMax services would not have been unlawful under new draft regulations proposed by the telecommunications regulator.

Altech UEC, a Durban-based manufacturer of digital decoders and set-top boxes, has filed papers in the Pietermaritzburg high court against state-owned broadcast signal distributor Sentech. Sentech has been given until next Thursday

An argument over whether SA’s telecommunications regulator has jurisdiction to rule in a dispute between Telkom and Vodacom, MTN and Cell C over interconnection fees, could spell bad news for the traditionally fixed-line operator.

There are few guilty pleasures as satisfying as a new film from Robert Rodriguez, especially when the director is on top form. Like takeaway hamburgers, his movies are deliciously excessive, mostly interchangeable, and leave you feeling somewhat queasy after you’ve consumed them.

The cash-strapped state-owned signal distributor, Sentech, appears to have cut an illegal deal to sell wireless broadband spectrum that benefited politically connected businessmen, led by Eddie Funde, the controversial former chairman of the SABC who is now South Africa’s ambassador to Germany.