| |
 |
|
22
May 2008 |
|
Neotel is aggressively expanding its coverage area, and is set to double its base stations in Gauteng within the next 30 days, says MD Ajay Pandey. This morning, Neotel officially unveiled its consumer services, which the ICT industry has been eagerly awaiting since the company was licensed as a second national operator more than a year ago. Pandey says Neotel's roll-out will be... |
| |
|
|
22
May 2008 |
|
The company's executives are quick to stress that this is "just the start". As of today, coverage only exists in parts of Johannesburg and Pretoria, but this is growing daily. Testing is underway on Neotel's Cape Town and Durban networks and consumers can expect rollout in those areas in the next few weeks. Neotel MD Ajay Pandey says that the size of the network will "virtually... |
| |
|
|
22
May 2008 |
|
Telkom says that its ADSL service beats all other broadband offerings when it comes to contention ratio. This, they say, is evident from the more consistent throughput experienced on ADSL when compared to wireless broadband services. The contention ratio of broadband services in South Africa has been a much debated issue over the last few years, but Telkom has last year started to... |
| |
|
|
22
May 2008 |
|
SOME 16 years after the government sowed the seeds of liberalisation and deregulation in the telecommunications industry, the tree has sprouted, but is yet to bear fruit. Liberalisation is the lowering of entry barriers to all or part of a market, thereby allowing third parties to compete with established — generally monopoly — providers of goods or services. On the other hand, ... |
| |
|
|
21
May 2008 |
|
Neotel will officially launch it's suite of consumer products tomorrow. Up until now, though, they have not promised much publicly, and will deliver much more than expected. Those details will be announced at a briefing in Joburg on Thursday morning, but the company hasn't been closed for business until then. Neotel launched its first consumer product (NeoConnect Prime) a little... |
| |
|
|
21
May 2008 |
|
Troubles with the Electronic National Traffic Information System (eNatis) are now a thing of the past and the system has proved to be operating far better than expected, says transport minister Jeff Radebe. Speaking during a parliamentary media briefing yesterday, Radebe said: “I am told that eNatis is one of the best, if not the best, system of its type in the world.” He went... |
| |
|
|
21
May 2008 |
|
Local business is taking the teller out of a credit card transaction, with software that uses mobile phones as a credit card processing platform. Stepp Mobile Payment Solutions has taken internationally developed financial platform Paylink and tweaked it for the South African environment. The solution turns any WAP- or WIG-enabled phone into a point-of-sale (POS) device that can ... |
| |
|
|
21
May 2008 |
|
Parliament has selected the candidates it wants to interview for the two Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) counsel positions that are due to fall vacant on 30 June. All parties within the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications yesterday decided to nominate professor M Dumisa, T Dlamini, Fungai Sibanda, Nomnuyiso Batyi, Lehlang Sono, N Rau, and Thabo ... |
| |
|
|
21
May 2008 |
|
Vodacom CEO Alan Knott-Craig’s imminent retirement opens up one of the most sought after executive positions in the country. Speculation suggests that Vodafone wants to appoint a new CEO as a matter of urgency, fuelling the debate as to who will take the reigns at Vodacom. Knott-Craig founded and led Vodacom since its launch in 1993. He has built up one of the most profitable... |
| |
|
|
21
May 2008 |
|
Barely a week goes by without another cry for funding from state-owned broadcast signal distributor Sentech. But, six years after receiving two lucrative telecommunications licences, it might be time for the company to give up on its ambitions of expansion. Earlier this month, Sentech warned that a government plan to have digital terrestrial broadcasting in place in time for the... |
| |
|
|
21
May 2008 |
|
FatPipe and Kinetek recently forged a partnership to bring Fatpipe’s RAIL (Redundant Array of Independent Lines) technology to South Africa. FatPipe’s RAIL technology can aggregate and load-balance over multiple connections and sits between a company’s local area network and the Internet, using two or more connections to any ISP. Kinetek recently ran trials with ISP SybaWeb, aggr... |
| |
|
|
21
May 2008 |
|
AN INDIAN telecoms watchdog has threatened legal action if the proposed deal between Bharti Airtel and MTN breaches India’s foreign-ownership rules. But MTN’s suitor is reportedly teaming up with its Singaporean partner to form a special purpose vehicle (SPV) to avoid the anticipated legal hump. MTN and Bharti are holding talks that might see Bharti acquire Africa’s largest... |
| |
|
|
20
May 2008 |
|
THE ERA OF MOBILE television has been on the horizon for a number of years. As early as 2005, pay-TV operator MultiChoice had tested mobile TV in conjunction with South Africa's cellular operators, allowing trialists to watch events such as the 2006 Football World Cup, music and even full-length movies on special cellphones. However, it hasn't been able to launch a commercial... |
| |
|
|
20
May 2008 |
|
A large number of African prepaid mobile phone subscribers want prepaid Internet access. This is according to research by Alcatel Lucent, which was released at ITU Telecoms Africa 2008, in Cairo, last week. The quantitative survey looked at Internet access and usage in 10 emerging market countries. These are Kenya, Egypt, Malaysia, India, China, Brazil, Russia, Vietnam, Indonesia... |
| |
|
|
20
May 2008 |
|
Telkom users accessing the Verizon Business Network using the Johannesburg-Cape Town link continue to suffer from high latency and packet loss. This problem started early last week, and Verizon Business indicated that a lack of infrastructure on Telkom’s side of the peering infrastructure is causing problems. “The matter has been escalated by Verizon to the relative executives... |
|
