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13
Oct 2009 |
If ye seek coverage, soon ye shall find.
Neotel SA will upgrade its CDMA network with help from Chinese telecoms solutions provider Huawei. After the expansion, for which Huawei is providing a 4th-gen base transceiver station that supports EVDO Rev A and is upgradeable to Rev B or LTE, the capacity and speed will be virtually doubled. Neotel will now be able to offer more affordable, quality data services to customers, which complements Neotel's ability to have new users up and running within 48 hours of applying for a service. Neotel's CTO, Angus... |
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12
Oct 2009 |
Consumers still waiting with baited breath, oddly enough.
Communications services provider Telkom said on Monday that continued investment in submarine cables has seen the cost per gigabit after each upgrade reduced. There are at least nine undersea telecommunication cables (including SAT3 and Safe) that will connect various parts of sub-Saharan Africa to the rest of the world by the end of 2011, it said. And figures from 2003 to 2009 indicated that, STM-1 IPLC (International Private Leased Circuit) pricing to Europe had seen substantial reductions, while cable ... |
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12
Oct 2009 |
Translation: Cell Cartel tight-lipped.
Mobile operators are keeping their thoughts about interconnect under wraps, following the Department of Communications' decision to cut interconnect rates to cost by November. In an interview with ITWeb from Geneva, on Saturday, DOC director-general Mamodupi Mohlala said the DOC had decided to intervene in the interconnect debate by forcing the Independent Communications Authority of SA to regulate mobile interconnect rates to cost. She said the DOC will present the policy to the Parliamentary Portfolio... |
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12
Oct 2009 |
At the Telkom CEO's house, if you ask us.
Seacom, the much-touted answer to South Africa's broadband woes, has arrived, but the price war that many expected to arrive with it has not. It was anticipated that the new undersea fibreoptic cable would revolutionise the broadband market in bandwidth-starved South Africa. But it appears that most major broadband players have been content to sit tight, praying that their competitors don't rock the boat. Major players such as Telkom and MWeb decided to offer their customers more bandwidth for their buck... |
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12
Oct 2009 |
One more industry added to the list.
Exponential growth of services, data and capacity is forcing SA to play catch-up with the rest of the world. However, SA is slipping and has fallen behind in keeping up with the latest technology. This is according to Dr Angus Hay, CTO of Neotel, who spoke at last week's ITWeb Broadband conference held at the Indaba Hotel in Fourways. "We do have broadband in SA but we are still falling behind because broadband is changing. The real role of the communications player today is distribution, and the problem ... |
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12
Oct 2009 |
And for a change it's not backwards.
Cell C and Vodacom say they have not yet seen the government's proposed policy around the slashing of interconnect fees, and won't comment on it until they've had sight of the document which will see them charging much less for calls between networks. The Director-General of Communications, Mamodupi Mohlala, said cabinet had approved moves by the Department of Communication to force operators to reduce interconnection and cellphone costs before the festive season. Spokesman Tiyani Rikhotso confirmed... |
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11
Oct 2009 |
Even Crystal Meth less of a problem.
The government is heading for a showdown with cellphone giants MTN and Vodacom, ordering them to cut high interconnection costs from the end of November. Instead of waiting for the industry to come up with its own proposals on how it planned to cut costs, Mamodupi Mohlala, the director-general of communications, said yesterday that the cabinet had approved moves by the Department of Communications to force operators to bring down interconnection and cellphone costs before the festive season. "We want to... |
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10
Oct 2009 |
Other customer-screwing measures already being formulated.
After months of negotiations, the Department of Communications has now flexed its muscles to ensure that consumers will effectively pay "cost price" for making regular and video calls; for calls from cellphones to land lines and vice versa; text messages; Internet access and mobile TV - which would save consumers "billions of rands". The department's director-general Mamodupi Mohlala, speaking from Geneva, confirmed yesterday that parliament's communications portfolio committee would be informed of the move... |
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8
Oct 2009 |
♫♪♫ Money for nothing and your sims for free. ♫♪♫
Telecommunication companies are again ahead of the pack in the ICT sector, with Blue Label Telecoms, MTN and Telkom all rewarding their CEOs handsomely. The 2009 Mabili Directors' Remuneration Report shows that, in 2008, CEOs of telecommunication companies earned the best in the ICT sector. At the top of the earnings pile, according to the research, are the Blue Label Telecoms CEOs. Siblings Brett and Mark Levy scored R50.4 million and R49.5 million respectively, due to the cancellation of a pre-listing... |
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2
Oct 2009 |
But alas we LOL, government knows not the stubbornness of SA's communications gargoyles.
Newly appointed communications director-general Mamodupi Mohlala says government wants mobile operators to reduce prepaid tariffs by passing on a planned reduction in interconnection fees to consumers. At the same time, Mohlala says her department is working hard to push through an amendment to the Electronic Communications Act to make it easier for the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) to regulate interconnection rates. These are the rates the mobile operators charge one another and other... |
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2
Oct 2009 |
Vodacom sighs with relief as government bungles again.
Government did have concerns about the structure of the MTN-Bharti deal and how it would shape the management of the merged entity. Speaking to ITWeb yesterday, communications minister Siphiwe Nyanda said the primary issue was that MTN remain managed and controlled by South African hands. However, he said the deal would have been a coup for the country and MTN. The negotiations between MTN and Bharti, which began in May, fell through late Wednesday afternoon, with Bharti lambasting the South African... |
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30
Sept 2009 |
Hopes high for unbundling within the next oh, decade or two.
SA consumers got their first taste of a broadband price war last week when a small Internet service provider, Afrihost, slashed the price of bandwidth to below cost. It's a promising start, but matters little until Telkom is forced to open its network to rivals. It was a ballsy move. Last week, Afrihost cut the cost of fixed-line bandwidth on broadband digital subscriber lines to just R29/GB. To put that in perspective, the average selling price for this type of bandwidth has, until now, been R50-R70/GB.... |
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23
Sept 2009 |
R1.25/minute interconnect fee shows mobile operators DO care for their customers.
There is a mounting and increasingly incontrovertible body of evidence and experience from throughout the world that the high mobile termination rates (MTR) prevailing in South Africa (1.25 rands per minute) cannot be justified on the basis of costs. Nor should they be maintained to avoid the alleged adverse consequences of much lower MTRs for the revenues and margins of mobile... |
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22
Sept 2009 |
Fortunately contract users not affected by pesky lower prices.
Vodacom has introduced two new packages, which cut call rates for its prepaid customers. From 1 October, prepaid customers can choose between Vodacom's existing packages or its new packages: All Day or Per Second Plus Prepaid. Vodacom SA MD Shameel Joosub says: “While we have not had a tariff increase for over six years, we have heard our customers and are lowering prepaid peak r... |
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22
Sept 2009 |
Cream phone lines are so 2000-and-late.
SA's second national operator, Neotel, aims to hit R3 billion in revenue this year as its growth plan starts to pay off, says MD and CEO Ajay Pandey. Pandey says the operator is confident of achieving at least R2.5 billion revenue, as it has not yet passed the half-year mark to September and is on R2.2 billion on an annualised basis. Last year, it was talking about reaching R1... |
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