Holding out for cuts in wholesale mobile termination rates to lower the extortionate cost of mobile communication in SA is a sure recipe for disappointment. If you want to see action, you have to look for a more direct intervention. Mobile termination rates are the tip of the iceberg that makes up SA’s mobile call cost structure. According to AfricaNext Research, the differential between peak on-network and off-network airtime prices is less than 20%.

The Democratic Alliance has made sweeping changes to its communications shadow ministry. The changes have resulted in shadow minister Niekie van den Berg being demoted and replaced by the shadow deputy minister for justice and constitutional development, Natasha Michael.

Yet more submarine fibre capacity is coming to SA. And, for the first time, a transatlantic link connecting Southern Africa with Brazil is on the cards. SA-based technology investment company eFive Telecoms plans to extend the Main One cable, which connects Europe and Nigeria along Africa’s west coast, to Cape Town.

A fast-growing online publishing industry has been waiting for an easy-to-use, versatile and affordable publishing system for years. No one knows this better than Jason Norwood-Young, founder of start-up 10Layer, who wants to rival large international development houses with a new publishing framework.

Google SA is sending out its Street View cars and tricycles again, with plans to photograph more of the country’s streets for the popular service. It even has plans to map out the Western Cape winelands. TechCentral has learnt that Google is expanding its existing Street View coverage by sending out its fleet of specially kitted-out cars.

Telkom will focus its energies on training new communications technology skills to keep pace with industry demands, says acting CEO Jeffrey Hedberg. Hedberg, speaking at Telkom’s annual Satnac conference, says Africa is a technology opportunity waiting to happen. However, he says the greatest challenge the continent faces is a lack of skills.

Local mobile security business FireID has raised €5m (about R48m) from Jersey-based capital investment firm 4D Innovative Capital (4Di Capital) International to help it expand internationally. FireID started in 2006 and over the past few years the company has been pushing into international markets, including the US and the UK.

If Mafia 2, the new game from 2K Czech is to be believed, life as a mob wiseguy in the 1950s was less like The Godfather and more like Driving Miss Daisy. After spending 12 hours completing the game, the memories that linger are those of driving from one side of Empire Bay to the other at 30 miles an hour in a car that handles with the finesse of an ocean liner.

JSE-listed telecommunications equipment and electronics company Jasco has made an offer to buy another fellow listed company, communications business Spescom. Jasco CEO Martin Lotz says the combination of the two businesses will create a business with annual turnover of R1bn.

Cell C, which launched its third-generation (3G) mobile network in the Eastern Cape city of Port Elizabeth on Friday, is playing up its launch offering of two broadband modems with 24GB and 60GB data bundles. But the company has also quietly introduced two new data-only products at prices that are significantly lower than the offerings that are bundled with modems and much cheaper than anything offered by rivals MTN and Vodacom.