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7
July 2010 |
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A FAULT in the Seacom undersea cable which runs along Africa's east coast has interrupted internet access for millions, including local users. Seacom said yesterday that its undersea cable system had collapsed, disrupting services from Kenya to India and Europe. "This is the one thing we have been dreading," said Suveer Ramdhani, Seacom's spokesman. The undersea cable has been in operation for a year and provides broadband internet access. Internet Solutions and MWeb subscribers appear to be worst hit. ... |
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7
July 2010 |
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A NUMBER of big name telecom operators will this week submit additional information to the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) on draft call termination regulations after the regulator extended its deadline to Friday. This follows public hearings held from June 28-30, hosted by Icasa, on the draft call termination regulations which seek to reduce the wholesale price licensees charge each other for reaching their customers from the current rate to a regulated rate based on the cost ... |
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7
July 2010 |
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R5m. That's how much Vodacom paid its former CEO, Alan Knott-Craig, to restrain him from working for or advising competitors in the telecommunications industry. He was paid this money after he retired. Included in the amount, which is disclosed in Vodacom's 2010 annual financial report, released this week, is payment to Knott-Craig for any advice and assistance requested by his successor, Pieter Uys. The group has also disclosed in the annual report that it paid Knott-Craig nearly R12m in respect of a... |
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7
July 2010 |
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Submarine bandwidth cable Seacom was still down on Wednesday, continuing to wreak havoc for internet service providers in South Africa. The USD600m cable system connects the east coast of Africa to Europe and has been operational for almost a year. However, analysts say the outage has revealed how Seacom really gets to Europe. Said Steven Ambrose, MD of research and consulting firm World Wide Worx Strategy: "We were told about a cable connecting directly to London, but what has now transpired is that Seacom... |
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6
July 2010 |
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Seacom, a provider of submarine fibre-optic cable connecting communication carriers in South and East Africa, said on Tuesday that the overall repair process of a faulty cable affecting Internet users locally, could last a minimum of 6-8 days. The group said on Monday that a submarine failure had resulted in service downtime between Mumbai and Mombasa. "We note Seacom services between Mumbai and Mombasa are down since 9.19am GMT/5th July 2010. We are still investigating," it said in an official statement.... |
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6
July 2010 |
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Undersea fibre optic cable system operator Seacom on Monday stated that the company's service was down, and it was actively seeking options to restore the service. The problem has been identified, and the repair process was said to take only a few hours, however the overall process could last a minimum of between six days and eight days. External factors such as transit time of the ship, weather conditions and time taken to locate the cable, made it difficult to estimate the duration of the repair, Seacom... |
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6
July 2010 |
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The decision to start an official probe into allegations of conflict of interest against communications minister Siphiwe Nyanda will be taken at the end of July. Public protector Thuli Madonsela is currently compiling reports based on her investigations into the complaints received against the minister, according to her spokesperson, Kgalalelo Masibi. Masibi says the reports will be ready at the end of the month and the findings will guide the public protector in deciding whether an official probe is... |
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6
July 2010 |
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Internet service provider, MWEB, said on Tuesday that it was in urgent and ongoing discussions with a number of providers to obtain alternative bandwidth after Seacom confirmed a failure on its international cable off the coast of Mombasa. MWEB uses Seacom as its primary provider of international bandwidth with a limited amount of redundancy available via Telkom's SAT3 cable. Seacom, a provider of submarine fibre-optic cable connecting communication carriers in South and East Africa noted on its website... |
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2
July 2010 |
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The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) has granted stakeholders until Friday 9 July to make further written submissions regarding draft call termination regulations. According to the draft regulations, interconnect rates were meant to drop to 65c per minute from 1 July, to 50c in 2011, and to 40c from July 2012. However, the authority has a number of objections to work through that were raised at the public hearings on the draft call termination regulations, held in Midrand, this... |
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2
July 2010 |
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By the time the industry regulator finally unbundles the local loop, many operators are likely to have bypassed the need to use the copper infrastructure and will go directly to people's homes and businesses. The Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) is meant to unbundle access to the last mile by next November. The last mile, or local loop, is the copper link between the end-user and Telkom's network and is currently owned by Telkom. However, the process has repeatedly been delayed, after... |
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1
July 2010 |
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Vox Telecom has accused cellular giants Vodacom and MTN of abusing interconnection agreements that the two voluntarily entered into in March as part of the government's intervention to bring down interconnection rates to less than R1 a minute. Commenting yesterday at the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) hearings before it finalises its draft interconnection regulations, Vox Telecom said MTN was charging peak rates in excess of R1 a minute for interconnect fees. The network... |
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1
July 2010 |
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CELL C has asked the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) to compel rivals MTN and Vodacom to pay a high interconnection rate to small operators like itself to help them grow their businesses. Cell C has proposed that smaller companies pay 65c to operators that the regulator has declared to have significant market power, while companies such as MTN and Vodacom pay smaller operators 75c. These are referred to as asymmetric mobile termination rates. Asymmetry is when companies pay mobile... |
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1
July 2010 |
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SOUTH Africas third mobile network operator, CellC, broke ranks yesterday when it called on the c ommunications authority Icasa to exclude the group from conditions imposed on rivals MTN and Vodacom, in particular the call termination charge of 65c with effect from this month. Cell C said it did not have the same degree of market power as MTN and Vodacom. Icasa is in the process of conducting hearings into the Draft Call Termination Regulations, published in April 2010. In its submission to Icasa, the ... |
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30
June 2010 |
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Cellular operator Vodacom Group is up in arms about recent reports that it threatened legal action against the independent communications authority of South Africa (Icasa) over the lowering of mobile termination rates (MTR). Vodacom says that it has done no such thing and is in favour of the reductions - its only problem is with the timing of their implementation. These interconnect rates, which are paid by telecommunications providers for carrying calls on each other's behalf, were reduced by Icasa in... |
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30
June 2010 |
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Mobile telecommunications giant MTN joined its competitor Vodacom in calling for a delay in the second call termination rate cut scheduled for July 1, until March 2011. Icasa is in the process of conducting hearings into the Draft Call Termination Regulations, published in April 2010. MTN, along with its mobile competitors, Cell C and Vodacom, already reduced its fees from R1.25 to 89c on March 1. They are expected to reduce rates further to 65c from July 1, and to 50c in 2011, and again to 40c from July... |
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