Telkom has denied that it is underinvesting in its network after the company revealed on Monday that its capital expenditure in the six months to 30 September 2014 fell sharply, with capex-to-revenue coming in well below guidance provided previously. This fall in capex prompted analysts on Monday
In the past 20 years, Telkom has lost almost every aspect of the absolute monopoly it once held over South African telecommunications. First, it lost its supremacy over voice communication as cellular rivals challenged it for dominance and won. Today, the cellular operators carry the vast majority of
The business logic is clear; only the timing remains to be settled. Everything in telecommunications, including voice, will soon be data. In a world where everything is data, there will be two types of companies. And they will not be mobile operators. There will be content companies and there will be data
In this hour-long edition of the TalkCentral podcast, your hosts Duncan McLeod and Regardt van der Berg discuss – and sometimes rant about – the big news stories of the week. And there’s plenty to talk about. First up on the agenda is Telkom’s launch of LTE-Advanced and its decision
In a significant development, MTN has lodged objections at both communications regulator Icasa and the Competition Commission against Vodacom’s proposed R7bn acquisition of Neotel, putting a potentially big hurdle in the way of the conclusion of the deal. TechCentral has established that
Facebook and other so-called over-the-top service providers cannot put propositions on the table that are not profitable for mobile operators and doing so would be “contrary to our goal”. That’s the view of Chris Daniels, who heads Internet.org, the Facebook-led initiative to bring affordable Internet
As the debate over so-called over-the-top (OTT) service providers such as WhatsApp and Facebook continues to rage in the mobile telecommunications industry, MTN South Africa CEO Ahmad Farroukh has called for “balanced cooperation” between operators and OTT players. Farroukh says in a statement
“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” So reads the opening line of Leon Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. The novel comes to mind when looking at the prospects that confront mobile money. Success stories have many similarities, but failed efforts fail for their own
Vodacom intends rolling out high-speed fibre-optic broadband to 250 000 end points within the next three years. This will include connecting 150 000 homes and 100 000 businesses, the telecommunications operator’s
The Competition Tribunal has approved MTN’s acquisition of a majority 50% stake in Internet service provider Afrihost without attaching any conditions to the deal. The approval follows the recommendation last week
