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14
Sept 2010 |
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Telecoms regulation has not affected retail rates in SA and telephony remains one of the biggest expenses in business. This is according to Rob Lith, director at Connection Telecom. In a study titled 'SA voice services market forecasts', research and advisory firm BMI-TechKnowledge forecasts that during the period 2009 to 2014, fixed and mobile revenues for SA will grow at CAGRs of 3 percent and 7 percent respectively. Lith points out that the majority of the costs are related to the charges of... |
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14
Sept 2010 |
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Finally, there's competition when it comes to mobile broadband. Albeit only in Port Elizabeth. Port Elizabeth residents now have the best mobile broadband networks in the country. Cell C's 4Gs service (3.75G or HSPA+), capable of speeds of up to 21Mbps, has just gone live. You can be sure that rivals Vodacom and MTN have "tweaked" their networks in the coastal city too, to improve their consumers' experience. It's astonishing what the mobile operators know about each other's plans. Cell C has some ambitious... |
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13
Sept 2010 |
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MWeb has expressed concerns that the Carrier Preselect Regulations (CPRs) could be undermined by Telkom and the cellular network operators, making it financially unviable for alternative telecommunications providers to carry calls that originate on those networks. The Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) had the final CPRs promulgated on 20 August. This gives fixed-line operators Telkom and Neotel and mobile operators MTN, Vodacom, and Cell C, two and four months, respectively, to get ready... |
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13
Sept 2010 |
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The black economic empowerment share offer of mobile phone operator MTN Group has drawn enthusiasm from investors and analysts alike. Dubbed Zakhele, a Zulu word meaning 'build your own', it offers black investors - among them Africans, coloureds, some Chinese and Indians - an opportunity to own some of MTN's 80.9 million shares. Individuals can buy shares for R20 each, but they must invest at least R2 000 to take advantage of the opportunity. Each share is valued at R107.46, so the difference will be... |
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13
Sept 2010 |
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Looking for information about cheap telephone calls is an overwhelming experience - and immensely frustrating. The reason is that telecommunication seems to be cheaper almost everywhere else in the world, and there's very little we can do about it here, says telecommunications specialist Raven Naidoo. "The primary problem is that cellphone calls, which cost from R1.60 to R2.80 a minute, are increasingly the mode of operation. Up to 60% of the calls we make are on cellphones. Landline calls cost from 30c... |
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10
Sept 2010 |
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MTN's empowerment scheme has received a big response from investors since it opened to the public last week, with the bulk of applications coming from KwaZulu- Natal and Gauteng, the company said yesterday. MTN will sell 80,9-million shares worth R8,1bn to the black public and black-owned groups. The company said transaction volumes recorded in the first week of the offer show much interest in the MTN Zakhele share scheme, with almost 100% of individual and group investors who lodged their Zakhele share... |
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10
Sept 2010 |
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MTN has described the response to its Zakhele public share offer, which opened to the black members of the public on 30 August 2010, as "overwhelming". According to the mobile company, the first week of the offer showed unprecedented transaction volumes, with the majority of investors paying for the shares immediately upon application, and many investors lodging their applications within hours of the public offer going live. MTN would not reveal the number of shares that have been bought so far, saying it... |
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9
Sept 2010 |
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Telkom's foray into mobile telephony faces its first hurdle - to overcome wrangling over an interconnection rate with MTN, which if not resolved amicably, could set back its plans to launch a cellphone service before this year ends. MTN is aiming to protect the bottom line in South Africa, its second-best market, and three months ago refused to sign an agreement that would mean MTN paid Telkom 93c a minute for its clients to access and roam on Telkom's network. Graham de Vries, the head of MTN's regulatory... |
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9
Sept 2010 |
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TELKOM told a hearing yesterday that cellphone operator MTN was refusing to sign an agreement on interconnection fees to delay the start of Telkoms cell phone service, a claim MTN rejected. MTN was not using "string- along" tactics to delay the start of Telkom Mobile and was questioning the 93c that the fixed-line operator wanted to charge for connecting MTN calls to its network, MTN lawyer Alfred Cockrell told the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa). The hearing began yesterday but was... |
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9
Sept 2010 |
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There's been something of a furore in the local market, after Neotel came out and baldly stated it's not interested in the consumer telecommunications market. Those who were paying attention when it launched in August 2006 will recall that it said the same thing then. Neotel is not mandated, or obliged, in a legal or any other sense, to go after the consumer market. It is not obliged to be a fixed-line competitor to Telkom. It was awarded a licence that enabled it, when Telkom still had exclusivity in... |
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9
Sept 2010 |
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Incoming Telkom Mobile is entering the mobile market swinging, not only taking on MTN, but now also Vodacom and Cell C in its fight for an asymmetrical interconnect rate of 93c per minute. Yesterday, it was revealed that Telkom and MTN were at loggerheads over Telkom's proposed rate of 93c per minute, with MTN insisting on maintaining its standard rate of 89c. The Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) has intervened in the matter, which will be heard at the end of this month. But the fight... |
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9
Sept 2010 |
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Telkom's freeze on network build during the Soccer World Cup cost MWeb a lot of money, says group CEO Rudi Jansen, but it also forced the ISP into new infrastructure investments sooner. Jansen says that as a result of the "freeze", MWeb had to pay at least R29 per gigabyte of data, after temporally transferring at least 50 000 of its ADSL subscribers to Telkom's SAIX wholesale Internet service. This compares to the R19 it would have paid by having them all on its own network. "However, Telkom really did... |
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9
Sept 2010 |
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According to Matthew Tagg, CEO of local Internet Service Provider, Web Africa, Naked DSL could seriously spice up competition in the SA telecoms space. Naked DSL is an ADSL broadband service without a traditional analogue phone line attached. In South Africa that sounds almost like a revolution, so accustomed have we become to the bundling of a phone line with ADSL services. Consumers in countries such as Australia, Switzerland, Portugal and France, amongst others, are turning to Naked ADSL for the... |
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8
Sept 2010 |
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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. The details of Telkom's proposed interconnection fee were revealed at a hearing held on Wednesday morning in front of the Independent Communications Authority of SA's complaints and ... |
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8
Sept 2010 |
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MWEB has announced that it has boosted its uncapped capacity and redundacy by purchasing additional IPConnect infrastructure. Although Telkom has made efforts to supply MWEB with all its IPC needs, all of the requirements could not be delivered in time before the network freeze around the Soccer World Cup. This is mainly a result of the pent up demand that was unleashed with the launch of uncapped services. As a result, MWEB moved a portion of their customers back onto Telkom's SAIX wholesale network to... |
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