With more than half a dozen SA operators rolling out their own national networks, consolidation in SA’s telecommunications industry looks inevitable. There’s a chance Cell C and Dimension Data could be the ones to kick it off. Didata division Internet Solutions looks a bit like the odd man out these days. The converged service provider, which remains a powerful force in the corporate market, is the only big player in its space that doesn’t have its own significant investment in telecoms infrastructure.
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A free telecommunications industry conference, set to take place on 8 September in Midrand, north of Johannesburg, will explore the whether smaller market players can compete effectively with the big incumbent providers. The event, called VoiceSA, will explore how the smaller players can take on the big boys.
Well-known and colourful Internet industry personality Justin Spratt has resigned from Dimension Data division Internet Solutions and will join Quirk eMarketing on 1 September. Spratt has been appointed as managing partner of the 80-person digital marketing agency, which was founded by Rob Stokes in 1999.
Deputy home affairs minister Malusi Gigaba’s plan to fast-track the drafting of a law that will compel Internet service providers to filter adult content on their networks has telecommunications industry players concerned. They say the bill is not practical. Earlier this year, the Justice Alliance of SA (Jasa) produced a draft Pornography Bill, which holds Internet and mobile providers legally responsible if their users download porn onto their computers.
Dimension Data’s telecommunications division Internet Solutions (IS) may make use of some of the innovative technology coming out of Japan’s Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp (NTT) as it steps up the roll-out of its own telecommunications network infrastructure. That’s the word from Didata chairman Jeremy Ord, who was speaking to TechCentral a day after the London- and Johannesburg-listed group announced it was being acquired by NTT in an all-cash deal worth R24,4bn.
The proposed acquisition by Japan’s Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp (NTT) of Dimension Data will give the SA-headquartered IT group’s Internet Solutions (IS) division access to one of the world’s largest telecommunications companies. IS MD Derek Wilcocks, reacting to the news of the proposed R24,4bn all-cash deal, says it’s “incredibly positive” for IS as it will make the Didata unit part of one of the “strongest global networks, with data centres around the world”.
Seacom, the undersea cable, may be offline until 22 July. A Seacom spokesman warned on Friday that repairs may only be finalised much later than initially thought because of various factors, including the depth under the ocean of fault. Seacom went offline on Monday, cutting off broadband users whose service providers buy capacity on exclusively on the Seacom system. The service disruptions have hit MWeb, part of Naspers, and downstream service providers from Dimension Data’s Internet Solutions particularly hard.
Seacom has secured alternative capacity options for its customers, but Internet service providers will be charged a “small premium” to use them. A fault on the Seacom cable between Mumbai in India and Mombasa in Kenya cut off many Internet users on Monday, with repairs expected to take a week or more.
Dimension Data division Internet Solutions (IS) has won a tender from Airports Company SA (Acsa) to provide “exclusive broadband and telephony” for public telecommunications access in eight of the country’s airports. IS says the deal will result in it supplying Wi-Fi, fixed-line Internet access
Dimension Data division Internet Solutions (IS) has fired a broadside at SA’s three mobile operators, promising cheaper mobile calls for…