And here they are. TechCentral’s top five newsmakers of 2011. Our “Newsmakers of the Year” award is presented to individuals we believe had the biggest impact on SA’s technology sector in the past 12 months. For the most part, they’re also the the people who made the headlines during the
The Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) hopes SA operators will emulate the Russian model of infrastructure sharing for next-generation mobile broadband networks based on long-term evolution (LTE) technology, TechCentral has learnt. LTE, which will pave the way to
After a series of false starts, humbly acknowledged, the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) yesterday came out with a new proposal to allocate the sought-after spectrum in the 2,6GHz band and, rather progressively, spectrum in the 800MHz band, too. Previous
MTN SA chief financial officer Zunaid Bulbulia came to the telecommunications industry almost by accident. It was December 1993 and Bulbulia, the son of a shoe salesman, was doing his articles for his CA degree at a Johannesburg accounting firm when he was asked by one of the firm’s senior
MTN has sold 1 000 of its base stations in Uganda to a new company, 51% held by tower-sharing company American Tower Corp (ATC) and 49% held by the JSE-listed mobile telecommunications group. The new company is known as TowerCo Uganda. The $175m deal comes
Troubled state-owned telecommunications wholesaler Broadband Infraco has promised to ramp up its spending from next year as it seeks to establish more network points of presence in towns and cities across the country. Newly appointed chief technical officer Kiruben Pillay
The Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) has surprised the telecommunications industry by announcing on Wednesday that it will publish a framework for licensing of spectrum in the 800MHz and 2,6GHz bands on Thursday and would
SA’s four largest telecommunications companies together spent nearly R1bn on advertising in the first eight months of 2011, with Vodacom leading the pack with spend in the period of R348,8m. The findings, which are contained in the annual AdFocus magazine
Earlier this year, Cell C lost a battle with its larger rivals, Vodacom and MTN, over its use of the term “4Gs” in its advertising campaigns. MTN and Vodacom argued to the final appeal committee of the Advertising Standards Authority, which found in their favour, that ordinary consumers
MTN SA MD Karel Pienaar is a smiling but imposing figure whose name commands respect in the halls of the company’s gleaming 14th Avenue head office in Fairlands, Johannesburg. Impossible as it sounds, having been part of MTN’s bid for a licence in SA, technically the
