Browsing: Vodacom

A judge in the North Gauteng High Court has overturned an interdict preventing Vodacom from disconnecting the customer lines it supplies to Gogga Tracking Solutions. In his ruling, Judge Neil Tuchten cites a number of irregularities in documents Gogga presented to the court and awards all legal costs to Vodacom. He criticises both Gogga and its legal counsel for their conduct during the case.

Vodacom has quietly sold its 24% stake in Wireless Business Solutions (WBS) Holdings to the company’s other shareholders. The cellular operator hopes its disposal of its shareholding in iBurst’s parent company will clear the way for it to successfully bid for radio frequency spectrum in the 2,6GHz and 3,5GHz ranges.

Cell C’s third-generation (3G) cellular network went live in Bloemfontein today, making the city the second in SA to benefit from the operator’s 3G offering. Bloemfontein residents hoping to start using the network will have to wait until Friday, which is when the modems will become available.

Nic Haralambous and Vincent Maher plan to take on the global market with Motribe, an ambitious social networking offering for the mobile Web.The product, which will go live on Tuesday, is a platform that enables “users, brands and agencies to build and manage their own social networks on their mobile phones”.

Events conspired against us and we missed last week’s TalkCentral recording. But we’re back with a bumper episode 9 of SA’s business technology podcast, and there’s plenty to talk about. Your hosts, Duncan McLeod and Candice Jones, delve in detail into Cell C’s launch of its broadband wireless network and look at how it’s taking the fight to bigger rivals MTN and Vodacom.

MTN and Telkom, which recently signed a cellular roaming agreement, are facing off in a dispute over wholesale mobile termination rates. Telkom, which is due to launch its own mobile network within the next couple of months, wants to charge MTN — and presumably other operators — 93c/minute to carry calls onto its new network.

South Africans are a cynical lot. When it comes to telecommunications, that cynicism is often justified. Too often, SA operators are big on promises and short on delivery. But Cell C’s new strategy may indeed shake up SA broadband. Cell C CEO Lars Reichelt is a dynamic and colourful character. His colleagues at the cellular network operator say he works harder than anyone they’ve met, often pulling stints late into the night and insisting that his team be available to work similarly long hours.

Cell C, which launched its third-generation (3G) mobile network in the Eastern Cape city of Port Elizabeth on Friday, is playing up its launch offering of two broadband modems with 24GB and 60GB data bundles. But the company has also quietly introduced two new data-only products at prices that are significantly lower than the offerings that are bundled with modems and much cheaper than anything offered by rivals MTN and Vodacom.

The Grid, Vodacom’s somewhat rival to Naspers’s MXit social chat service, is going global. After launching the service in Nigeria and Tanzania in 2009, the cellular network operator has decided to make the service available to cellphone users worldwide.

Telecommunications operator Cell C will launch the first leg of its mobile broadband network in Port Elizabeth. TechCentral has established that Cell C will launch its third-generation (3G) network, on which it is spending about R5bn in 2010, in the Eastern Cape city.