As South Africa inches slowly towards migrating from analogue to digital terrestrial television, communications regulator Icasa has provisionally granted licences to five new pay-TV operators following an exhaustive hearings process that took place in 2013. The companies and consortia that have bid for the licences
I have such a complicated relationship with Google and Facebook that I sometimes find it hard to write about them. I don’t mean complicated in the sense of conflict of interest, although it is true that one of the organisations I do work for now receives funding from Google, so there is that, but what I am really talking about is
A fortnight after rival MTN announced it was cutting its prepaid rates to 79c/minute, Cell C has introduced four new prepaid vouchers – on a promotional basis – to its product line-up. To be launched on 1 May and available until 31 July, the new Supacharge vouchers give consumers “free” rand value and flexibility
South Africans have been doing it for generations. Social lending, familiar to many in the form of groups like stokvels, has been a hallmark of how many people make do, outside of formal financial networks. Thanks to the Web however, social lending, also known as peer-to-peer (P2P) lending, has begun to take off in developed countries
Most people outside of technology circles have never heard of Vic Gundotra. The charming, bespectacled 45-year-old with the flawless Californian accent might be mistaken for a professor or a paediatrician. Yet many of us have used one or more of the products he championed during his eight years at Google. On 24 April, Gundotra
United Arab Emirates telecommunications firm Etisalat said on Monday that it has raised €3,15bn to fund the acquisition of French media giant Vivendi’s 53% stake in Morocco’s main provider, Maroc Telecom. The funds were raised with a group of 17 international, regional and local banks in the UAE. “Financing consists of
Should we be worried about Cell C? Despite a recent high court ruling that was at least partly in the mobile operator’s favour, noises coming out of the company aren’t exactly painting a rosy picture. There are several reasons for concern, chief among them the ability of the company to engage in a protracted price war while ensuring it
On the streets of Lagos and across God-fearing southern Nigeria, it’s not uncommon to see people with a leather-bound Bible in one hand and a mobile phone in the other. But the Good Book’s days could be numbered – in printed form at least – if 25-year-old Kayode Sowole’s idea takes off. The computer science student
Eskom on Sunday defended its proposed upgrades to Megawatt Park, its head office in Johannesburg, as a necessity despite the utility being under financial constraints. “This are essential, they aren’t lavish upgrades,” spokesman Andrew Etzinger said. He said the upgrades were necessary for the health and safety of staff, data
A solar-powered lamp, which doubles as a cellphone charger and as a fully fledged Wi-Fi hotspot, could soon bring safe lighting to poor users in South Africa and elsewhere on the continent. The next model, also due for release soon, will offer wireless broadband. The “solar jar” project is the
