Icasa has hit back hard at Telkom’s application to interdict the upcoming spectrum auction, warning that if the company is successful, it will serve to entrench Vodacom and MTN’s “duopoly” – the very thing Telkom claims it wants to avoid.
Browsing: Competition Commission
The Competition Tribunal has given its blessing to investment firm Actis’s acquisition of a controlling stake in Cape Town fibre broadband operator Octotel, and has attached no conditions to this approval.
Vodacom Group hiked its interim dividend by 9.2% to R4.15/share (R3.80 previously) on strong headline earnings growth in the first half of its 2021 financial year and a dividend receipt from Kenya’s Safaricom.
Telkom CEO Sipho Maseko said on Tuesday that the company has briefed its lawyers to “consider and advise” on its available options given its deep unhappiness with Icasa’s invitation to apply for broadband spectrum.
Gijima, the IT services group founded by businessman Robert Gumede, has agreed to acquire the South African subsidiary of T-Systems, the IT services arm of German telecoms giant Deutsche Telekom.
Cell C has net debt, excluding leases, on its balance sheet (prior to a planned recapitalisation) of almost R10-billion, but it still wants to participate in South Africa’s upcoming spectrum auction.
View the latest contribution from TechCentral cartoonist Jerm.
The commission’s “Competition in the Digital Economy” paper says that South Africa doesn’t set up a regulatory framework, it could soon find itself trying to govern companies that have amassed huge power.
Telkom dropped a bombshell on South Africa’s telecommunications industry this week when it said it was approaching the Competition Tribunal to object to Vodacom’s roaming agreements with Rain. But why?
South Africa has proposed the radical relaxation of rules over foreign ownership in local broadcasters as well as the scrapping of restrictions that prevent cross-ownership of broadcasting services.