Episode 6 of SA’s business technology podcast, TalkCentral, is now available for download. This week, your hosts Duncan McLeod and Candice Jones reflect on Gareth Knight’s superb Tech4Africa conference. We also talk about Andile Ngcaba’s fibre network roll-out plan, Steve Song and the Mesh Potato project, Justin Spratt’s appointment as managing partner at Quirk eMarketing, the corruption allegations involving department of home affairs officials and Lefatshe Technology, Neotel’s launch of prepaid services
Browsing: Steve Song
Could an electronic “potato” rescue Africa from poorly developed and expensive communications infrastructure? Steve Song, telecommunications fellow at the Shuttleworth Foundation, thinks it could go a long way in helping. Song is involved in a project that is developing an innovative open-source project called the Mesh Potato, a sub-US$100 device that he says will bring cheap communications access to the continent.
Durban-based software developer and occasional TechCentral columnist Greg Mahlknecht has built a free map showing the world’s submarine telecommunications cable systems. The map, which took Mahlknecht several months to complete, is free of charge and will remain so. It’s available at cablemap.info.
Technology billionaire Mark Shuttleworth has slammed government’s failure to fix problems at the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa), warning ongoing capacity problems at the regulator are hampering economic growth. Shuttleworth, speaking to TechCentral following Icasa’s decision last week to postpone an auction of valuable radio frequency spectrum, says there is no “clear prioritisation of telecommunications as a vital source of growth in the SA economy”.
State-owned Sentech will use its telecommunications licence to land a new, high-capacity international cable system in SA. A consortium comprising…