Just when telecommunications industry players and analysts thought SA couldn’t possibly get any more undersea broadband infrastructure, news is emerging of a raft of new cable systems that will serve both SA and the region. On Monday, Brazil, Russia, India, China and SA — the so-called Brics countries — announced plans for a new high-capacity

Five years ago, SA had one cable, Sat-3, running down Africa’s west coast and connecting it to the global Internet. Today the continent is surrounded by high-capacity cables, with plenty more, even bigger systems to come. There are now so many cables and such a great deal of capacity that Steve Song, author of the popular

Although some US analysts are predicting that Apple’s share price could push past the US$1 000/share barrier in the next 12 months, making it the first $1 trillion company, I believe the more “boring” technology companies such as Dell, Microsoft and Intel offer a more sensible prospect for investors. The market is valuing Apple’s operating

The launch of the e-tolling system on 30 April must be delayed until all public concerns about it have been addressed, Business Unity SA (Busa) said on Tuesday. “It is disappointing that Sanral … has not fully addressed the public’s concerns. This should have been done several months ago,” the organisation said in a statement. “Unless these serious

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

A common dig at Apple-desktop users is that they are delusional about its operating system’s resistance to viruses, worms and other malware. Your correspondent has been a Mac owner since 1985, and has lived through the original waves of viruses and worms, which targeted the Mac long before Windows. He and many other IT wonks

Microsoft has finally shed some light on the different versions of Windows 8 we’ll see upon release and, thankfully, things are much simpler than past versions. This time around, there are only three flavours Microsoft is pushing heavily: Windows 8, the version geared towards most consumers; Windows 8 Pro, for enterprise and

Two weeks after Telkom cut the cost to Internet service providers of accessing its fixed-line digital subscriber line (DSL) network by 30%, MWeb has slashed the prices of two of its uncapped data products. The price of its 384kbit/s and 1Mbit/s products have both been cut to R199/month, from R219/month and R299/month respectively. However, the

Chinese networking equipment manufacturer ZTE is taking ZTE Mzanzi, an SA company in which it has a minority equity stake, to the high court in Pretoria in an effort to have an interdict the latter company won against Telkom overturned. ZTE Mzanzi, led by Tumi Magasa, won the interim court interdict at the end of March, preventing

At just under 2,3kg, Samsung’s Series 7 Chronos is a hefty machine, inside and out, but one that’s sure to turn heads. But with an equally hefty price, it will be interesting to see how well it competes with some of the slimmer competitors on the market, including Samsung’s own ultraportable Series 9 range. In SA, the Series 7 carries a sizeable