Cell C has signed a €240m (R2,2bn) loan agreement with China Development Bank, according to a statement issued by an SA government delegation, led by President Jacob Zuma, that is visiting China this week. The loan comes just months after Cell C shareholders agreed to restructure the mobile operator’s debt by converting billions of rand of debt into equity.
Ousted communications department director-general Mamodupi Mohlala looks set for a court date his week after she spurned a second offer from President Jacob Zuma to settle the matter amicably. Communications minister Siphiwe Nyanda fired Mohlala a month ago, saying trust between the two had “broken down irretrievably”.
We’re back in our home studio this week. Your panel, of Brett Haggard, Duncan McLeod and Simon Dingle, discuss Brett’s new website, 3D television, Telkom’s 10Mbit/s ADSL upgrade, MTN’s planned rural broadband network, Cell C’s branding controversy, and much more
A technology start-up’s biggest enemy is technology itself, says local business incubator Aurik Business Accelerator. Aurik CEO Pavlo Phitidis says technology innovation often becomes the be all and end all of a start-up and many of the other business processes get left behind.
Broadband Infraco, the state-owned infrastructure provider that is expected to launch commercially within the next few weeks, pumped R407m into its network in the 2010 financial year, up from R373m in 2009.
The increase is mainly due to the cost of network operations, maintenance and repairs, the company says in its latest annual report.
State-owned telecommunications infrastructure provider Broadband Infraco has used its latest annual report to criticise a decision not to grant it a service licence under the Electronic Communications Act. It says the decision, taken by the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) and backed by communications minister Siphiwe Nyanda, undermines financially its investment in a new undersea cable system.
The seventh episode of SA’s business technology podcast, TalkCentral, is now available for download. This week, your hosts Duncan McLeod and Candice Jones talk about the significant flow of news around MTN’s interim financial results presentation, including plans by its SA subsidiary to build a rural broadband network. We also talk about Cell C’s problems trying to trademark its new logo, communications minister Siphiwe Nyanda’s press conference on digital terrestrial television, Vodacom in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Super 5 Media’s letter to Icasa.
Crystal Dynamics may have made a conscious choice not to sell the new downloadable Lara Croft game under the Tomb Raider brand name, but don’t be fooled. Lara Croft & the Guardian of Light is the best Tomb Raider game that this console generation has given us. The game eschews the third-person camera of traditional Tomb Raider games in favour of an isometric view on the action. Despite the change in perspective, this is a Tomb Raider game in every way that matters, from the devious environmental puzzles to the treacherous traps and precarious platforming.
MTN president and CEO Phuthuma Nhleko has described suggestions that India’s Bharti Airtel poses a big threat to the JSE-listed telecommunications group’s interests in Africa as “exaggeration and oversimplification”. Analysts this week raised concerns that Bharti, which recently acquired Zain’s African assets, could start a price war with MTN in several key markets, including Nigeria.
Government remains committed to switching off analogue terrestrial television, and completing the switch to digital broadcasts, by November 2011. But communications minister Siphiwe Nyanda has conceded the deadline may have to be revisited if the country decides to adopt a new standard for digital television. Nyanda was speaking at a press conference in Pretoria, where he announced the new members of the Digital Dzonga advisory council, which will advise government on the country’s planned migration from analogue to digital terrestrial television.