Ben Kelly, Brett Haggard and Jon Tullett are our panellists this week. They join Simon Dingle to discuss Wave’s demise and Google’s long-term prospects, Telkom’s apparent new aggression, the Eassy cable going live, MWeb and Afrihost, Kenya’s Wananchi, Cell C’s new brand and direction, and much more

JSE-listed technology services group Gijima is still in talks with government to resolve a dispute over the validity of the R2,5bn “Who Am I Online” contract. However, the company may head to court if discussions remain deadlocked.

Are Cell C, Dimension Data and Andile Ngcaba’s investment firm Convergence Partners planning to build a national fibre-optic telecommunications network? Rumours have begun circulating that the three companies are in talks about doing exactly that. TechCentral has established from various parties that preliminary talks are already underway.

JSE-listed technology group Altech is putting its muscle behind its Internet business, Technology Concepts, with plans to turn it into a tier-one service provider. Altech bought Technology Concepts last April, before it signed a deal with undersea cable Seacom. The move led many in industry to believe Altech would become a champion of local Internet provision.

Predators, a reboot of one of the most loved 1980s action franchises, wants so badly to be badass that you almost feel sorry for it. It’s like a gawky adolescent straddling uncomfortably on a big motorbike he can barely control in a bid to impress the toughest kids in the schoolyard. At its every step, the film invites you to compare it to the manly swagger of the 1987 classic, Predator, which paired Arnold Schwarzenegger with Die Hard director John McTiernan when both were at the top of their game. But the comparison does it no favours.

Episode 5 of SA’s business technology podcast, TalkCentral, is good to go. This week, your hosts Duncan McLeod and Candice Jones talk about Cell C’s dramatic overhaul, looking at its bold new branding strategy and its plans to build a powerful new network. We also talk about the apparent demise of Super 5 Media and the launch plans of Walking On Water Television, the increased bandwidth on the East African Submarine System cable, the changes to Nokia’s online music store.

SA’s mobile operators are upset at the growing delays they face in having environmental impact assessments concluded for the construction of new base stations. They say it’s holding back the sector. Cell C CEO Lars Reichelt used a media briefing earlier this week to criticise municipal bureaucrats for the lengthy delays.

Flat batteries. They’re the bane of a gadget-loving geek’s life. As phones get more powerful, with bigger screens, battery life is just not what it used to be. Users of modern smartphones know the drill only too well: grab that bit of precious juice when you can, be it from your computer’s USB trickle-charge when you’re at your desk, or from a car cigarette-lighter charger while you’re driving around town.

More than four years after the first mobile-TV service was introduced, only 3,2m users worldwide are paying to receive broadcasts to their handsets, according to research by international analyst firm Juniper Research. This is probably bad news for pay-TV incumbent MultiChoice and cellphone operator Vodacom, both of which have recently introduced mobile-TV products.

Songs in Nokia’s SA music store will be free of digital rights management (DRM) software from 9 September, meaning consumers will be able to copy their downloaded tunes and listen to their purchases on any device of their choosing. They’ll also be in MP3 format and available for Apple Mac and Linux users for the first time. At the same time, the name of the Finnish company’s music store is changing from the Nokia Music Store to Ovi Music.