Here they are, TechCentral’s South African Newsmakers of 2013. These are the individuals, in ascending order from five to one, who we believe were the most newsworthy in the technology and telecommunications space this year, for good reasons and bad
Browsing: Vodacom
Five years after media giant Naspers put MWeb up for auction unsuccessfully, corporate action involving the Internet service provider may again be looming. According to a well-placed industry source, Dimension Data and Naspers have been engaged in talks about merging MWeb and Dimension Data
Vodacom has to withdraw claims that it has South Africa’s “fastest” and “widest” 3G network as these have not been substantiated and are therefore in breach of the code of advertising practice. These are the findings of the Advertising Standards Authority, which has instructed Vodacom
MTN has introduced a token-based billing system to tackle what it describes as “simmering distress” experienced by customers who are “unwittingly billed for content services they have not subscribed for by unscrupulous wireless application service providers
As any international traveller can attest, roaming overseas with a South African Sim card can be prohibitively expensive, with data charges often running to hundreds of rand per megabyte. Vodacom has introduced a new product that should help jetsetters reduce
Tensions are growing in South Africa’s mobile telecommunications industry as the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa gets nearer to publishing final regulations that will govern decreases in wholesale inter-network call charges over the next three years
Cell C acting CEO Jose Dos Santos has accused his counterpart at MTN South Africa, Zunaid Bulbulia, of crying wolf over termination rates. Dos Santos has described claims Bulbulia made in an exclusive interview with TechCentral this week as “exaggerated and misleading
MWeb plans to tackle the incumbents in the public Wi-Fi hotspot market in South Africa with an aggressively priced offering of its own. The Internet service provider, which is owned by media group Naspers, plans to launch the product this weekend at Canal Walk, a large shopping mall near Cape
MTN South Africa CEO Zunaid Bulbulia has lashed out at telecommunications regulator Icasa, accusing it of behaving “irrationally” and threatening future investments in network infrastructure through its plan to cut wholesale mobile call termination rates from 40c/minute to 10c/minute
Cell C CEO Alan Knott-Craig is making a strong recovery after suffering a stroke, the mobile operator’s acting CEO, Jose Dos Santos, said on Thursday. Last Monday, Knott-Craig suffered what Cell C is describing as a “minor stroke”. He has suffered a number