http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3556/3425536138_53c24dd9ee_o.png

Motorists urged to be patient as Cape Town upgrades telecoms

April 30, 2009 Edition 2

Staff Writer

THE Cape Town council says it has a strategy to keep traffic and pedestrian traffic flowing as areas of the city are dug up to lay fibre-optic internet cabling and to build infrastructure for 2010.

"The extensive trenching and roadworks resulting from the installation of fibre-optic cables, as well as 2010-related projects, are trying the patience of everyone, and we apologise for this," said Elizabeth Thompson, mayoral committee member for transport, roads and stormwater.

"These are, however, legacy projects which will enhance our lives in many ways in years to come, and while our tolerance might be stretched now, it will eventually be rewarded."

Some of the 2010-related projects include the high-voltage electricity cables being installed through the Foreshore and Western Boulevard to the new stadium; the construction of two bridges over Buitengracht at Coen Steytler and Waterkant Street; the upgrading of the Grand Parade, St Andrew's Square and Pier Place; and the pedestrian upgrading of Waterkant/Somerset/Main Road Green Point.

At the same time, service providers such as Telkom, Neotel and Vodacom are installing fibre-optic cables to provide clients with the latest in technology. The capacity of this technology is too big for wireless transmission and therefore has to be installed in ducts and cables in the ground.

The installation of these services in a city already full of underground services is proving extremely difficult and is, by its nature, very disruptive, Thompson noted.

A monthly meeting with 11 different service providers, including the Central City Improvement District, tried to streamline the process and, where possible, ensure that all services use the same trench at the same time.

"The city is closely monitoring all trenching operations to ensure that the highest standards are maintained and that there is total compliance with bylaws," said Eddie Chinnappen, the transport, roads and stormwater executive director in the council.

"These operations will test our patience for months to come, but we will enjoy a variety of benefits in the decades that lie ahead."

FNB enters telecoms market with new voice and data offering

Banking group First National Bank (FNB) on Wednesday announced its entrance into the telecommunications sector, as it offers its clients FNB Connect, which it said could save customers up to 50% of telephone and Internet costs.

FNB Connect offers online voice over Internet protocol (Voip) and data products that could be used on a personal computer (PC) or cellular phone. It is a pay-as-you-go offering with no contracts or penalties, the company stated.

FNB Connect is accessed by downloading the free software application, which was developed in-house by FNB. The company said that the product is a ‘value-add’ for existing customers, rather than competition for existing Internet service providers (ISPs).

FNB CEO Michael Jordaan said that the banking group could use its existing infrastructure and billing system, as well as experience gained through cellphone banking to enter this market.

Armed with its individual electronic communications network service (I-ECNS) and electronic communications network services licences, it essentially made FNB an ISP, although the company will not provide the equipment needed to connect, and will remain entirely virtual.

The ‘talk’ option, enables calls and short message services (SMSs) at low rates and instant messaging (IM) for free, as well as international calls for about 31c. For the voice option a client would need an existing asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL), WiFi or 3G connection.

“By remaining virtual, we piggyback off everyones network, so it comes down to the network providers. We rely on them, and push that they get things correct,” explained FNB Connect chief information officer Luis Simoes.

Calls could be made to land-line and mobile numbers in South Africa as well as overseas, however, the interconnect agreements to receive incoming calls from Vodacom and Cell C were yet to be finalised.

The ‘surf’ product, allowed ADSL users to purchase prepaid data, at a competitive R0,06,9c/Mb, and carry over this data for up to 12 months.

It is essentially a bandwidth only service, so while using a Telkom line for example, the client would be paying for FNB data, or bandwidth.

FNB procures its bandwidth from multiple vendors and then makes this available to its customers.

There is a one-off account activation fee of R69, which includes a 1Gb data voucher to the value of R69. Once this is used up, a customer can purchase data from a minimum of R20 to R1 000.

The bandwidth is ‘unshaped’, meaning that one gets the same allocation, no matter how many users are online.

FNB said it was developing the application for Macintosh computers, and Blackberry devices, as well as other phones outside the Nokia range, which it currently caters for.

In the current economic climate, consumers are looking for ways to save money and FNB is challenging the status quo by providing voice calls and data at affordable rates.

“FNB has always been at the forefront of innovation having already created FNB’s messaging service, inContact and the bank’s unique Cellphone Banking offering. FNB Connect is yet another step in fulfilling our brand promise of helping our customers,” said FNB Connect CEO Carmen Roux.

“Companies that will thrive in the current environment are those that find creative ways to add value to their customers while integrating global trends. We believe FNB Connect provides this offering,” added Roux.

Jordaan said that FNB was sending about 700-million SMSs to customers every year, and out of six-million banking customers, 1,4-million of those were cellphone banking clients.

http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/fnb-enters-telecoms-market-with-new-voice-and-data-offering-2009-05-06

Cell C users up 34%, earnings down

South Africa's third-largest wireless firm Cell C reported a 34% jump in subscriber numbers in 2008, but its earnings fell in a tough market dominated by mobile operator Vodacom.

Cell C said total subscriber numbers grew 34% to 6,4-million in 2008.

It also said full-year earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) was at R812-million, but this reflected a decline compared to more than one-billion rand in 2007.

Unlisted Cell C, in which Saudi Arabian group Saudi Oger holds a majority stake, said revenue rose 14% to R8,6-billion.

"The results are positive, given the tough economic environment, and the pressure on consumers' personal budgets and disposable income," Cell C outgoing CE Jeffrey Hedberg said in a statement on Tuesday.

He said the company's strategy was paying handsome rewards as the operator declared increases in customers and revenue.

Simon Duffy, chairperson of Cell C's board, said Cell C's shareholders are fully committed to the company and would continue to invest in its success.

In a competitive South African market, Cell C competes with Vodacom, which is due to be listed in Johannesburg on May 18, and MTN, Africa's largest mobile phone operator.

MTN said on Monday that in South Africa its customers had risen 2% to 17,4-million in the first quarter this year, while Vodacom had 26,45-million users in the nine months to the end of December last year.

Vodacom is majority-owned by UK's Vodafone, which wants to use the South African firm to expand in Africa.

http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/cell-c-users-up-34-earnings-down-2009-05-06

MTN subscriber base reaches 100m mark

Telecoms operator MTN on Monday said that it increased subscriber numbers by 8% in the quarter ended March 2009, to 98 202 000 subscribers, and further reported that the group reached the 100-million subscriber milestone in April.

The company stated that strong subscriber growth continued in almost all countries where it operates, (the exception being Syria) and was in line with its subscriber guidance.

However, currency volatility has generally had a negative impact on average revenue per user (Arpu) reported in US dollars. The decline of many local currencies against the US dollar has negatively affected Arpu trends, however, larger operations including Nigeria, Cote d’Ivoire, Syria and Sudan experienced significantly more resilience in local currency Arpu than reflected in the reported US dollar number.

MTN also said that changes to spending patterns have been varied as economies responded to the global economic situation.

The company stated that the growth in subscriber numbers meant that in the 21 markets where MTN operates, one in five people was a subscriber to the MTN network.

“For a 15-year-old company operating amid increased competitive intensity in all its markets, this is a most satisfactory performance by MTN. This affirms our leadership position in many areas of our business,” said MTN group CEO Phuthuma Nhleko.

South and East Africa (SEA) region increased its subscriber base by 4% for the quarter. The South African operation contributes 69% to the region’s subscribers, increasing 2% to 17 428 000 for the quarter ended March 2009. The modest increase in subscribers was said to be owing to the mix of seasonal trends, weakening economic conditions and aggressive competition.

MTN South Africa’s blended Arpu decreased by 6%. This is as a result of increased penetration into lower market segments, seasonal trends and a slowdown in consumer spending.

Uganda increased its subscriber base by 13% thanks to the success of MTN Zone.

The West and Central Africa region increased its subscriber base by 10% for the quarter. The strong growth in the region was attributed to growth in Nigeria, which contributed 59% to the region’s subscribers and recorded a 12% increase in its subscriber base to 25 908 000. This was mainly owing to improvements in network quality and capacity with 173 base transceiver stations added in the quarter.

Ghana increased its subscriber base by 5% despite fierce competition. Both Cameroon and Cote d’Ivoire increased their subscriber bases by 7% to 3 824 000 and 3 810 000, respectively.

The Middle East and North Africa region recorded a 9% increase in subscribers for the quarter. This was because of continued growth from the Iran operation, which contributes 63% to the region’s subscribers and increased its subscribers by 14% to 18 252 000.

Iran’s Arpu remained relatively stable notwithstanding seasonal trends and increased penetration.

MTN said that the disappointing slowdown of subscriber acquisitions in Sudan and Syria was mainly attributed to the economic downturn in the respective countries. Sudan increased its subscriber base to 2 658 000 while Syria experienced negative growth of 3% to 3 428 000 subscribers.

The proportional subscriber contribution between the regions remained relatively unchanged with that at the quarter ended December 2008.

The SEA region contributed 26% (from 27% in December 2008) of the group’s total subscribers while WECA and MENA contributed 45% (from 44%) and 29% (from 29%), respectively.

Subscribers were classified as customers which had participated in revenue generating activity in the last 90 days.

http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/mtn-subscriber-base-reaches-100m-mark-2009-05-04

Cosatu attempts to stop Telkom/Vodafone deal

Cosatu has applied to the High Court in Pretoria to halt the deal between Telkom and Vodafone, so the Independent Communications Authority of SA's (Icasa) role in the transaction can be probed.

Congress of SA Trade Unions general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said on Friday the federation had, on May 5, lodged an application against Icasa, Telkom SA, the minister of communications, Vodafone Plc, Vodafone Holdings SA, the Vodacom Group, and Vodacom.

The deal involves ending the joint shareholding in Vodacom by Telkom and UK-based telecommunications giant Vodafone.

The R22,5-billion transaction allows Vodafone to take an additional stake of 15 percent in Vodacom, with the remainder of the stake being unbundled.

Vodacom was expected to list on the JSE on May 4, but this was postponed due to a delay in obtaining all necessary regulatory approvals.

The listing was then set down for May 18.

"Cosatu is seeking an order reviewing and setting aside Icasa's decision of April 16, 2009 to the effect that its approval was not required in respect of the Telkom/Vodafone share transaction," Vavi said.

“Cosatu is also seeking orders declaring that Vodacom, the seventh respondent in the proceedings, is obliged in law to obtain the prior written approval of Icasa for the transfer of shares pursuant to the Telkom/Vodafone transaction and that without such approval the transaction is void and/or that Icasa is entitled to cancel Vodacom's licence," he added.

According to Cosatu, the respondents in the application were required to give notice within 15 days of their intention to oppose and thereafter to file their answering affidavits within 30 days of giving such notice.

Vavi said Cosatu had, together with its legal advisers, considered Icasa's view that the authority's approval was not required for the transaction, and dit not accept that such view was legally correct.

"In Cosatu's view, the sale by Telkom, would not only result in the sale of 15 percent of its shares to Vodafone Plc, but would also result in Telkom's remaining 35 percent also changing hands."

Vavi added that properly interpreted, there would be a change in Vodacom's voting power, which would enable a controlling shareholder to alter the company's board.

Cosatu also contended that under the regulations, Telkom's sale of its Vodacom shares to Vodafone Plc and the disposal of its remaining 35 percent would result in it ceasing to have any interest at all in Vodacom and would thus result in a transfer of a controlling interest.

Vodacom would then become a subsidiary of Vodafone Plc.

"There is public interest in the Vodafone/Telkom share transaction in that Telkom's 50 percent interest in Vodacom constitutes, in Cosatu's view, a public asset and that the SA government would no longer have an interest in SA's largest mobile operator."

Cosatu was also concerned the transaction would threaten the livelihood of Telkom's workers.

"Cosatu brings this application in its own interest, the interest of its members and in the public interest as contemplated in Section 38 of the Constitution," Vavi said.

Vodacom spokeswoman Dot Field said she was able to confirm that court papers had been served on Icasa and several others, including Vodacom as a respondent.

"The application is not a request for an interdict and has not been set down as a matter of urgency.

"Given that this matter will be the subject of court proceedings, Vodacom declines to make any further comment at this stage," she said.

Icasa also confirmed that it had been served with court papers.

"We have been served with those papers and we are studying their content.

"We cannot respond until we've put our minds to the content but we will respond accordingly," said Icasa spokesman Sekgoela Sekgoela.

Telkom could not comment immediately.

http://engineeringnews.co.za/article/cosatu-attempts-to-stop-vodacom-listing-2009-05-08

Micro-financier Blue gets Icasa approval to set up VSAT network

Pan-African micro-financier Blue Financial Services (Blue) has become the first company to be granted a private electronic communications network license exemption from the South African communications regulator, the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa).

This exemption, combined with the spectrum frequency license, would be used to implement a secure network that would allow Blue to service its clients more effectively through its more than 300 outlets across South Africa and the African continent.

“These key business enablers will dramatically expand Blue’s reach into the remote rural areas of South Africa, where asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) or broadband connectivity does not exist. Our branch in Bergville, KwaZulu-Natal, is a perfect example, there is no Internet connectivity and it takes a long time for loan applications to be processed and approved,” said Blue information and communications technology executive Sam Brink.

“This exciting new technological development will speed up this process.”

The frequency spectrum license would allow Blue to use very small aperture terminal (VSAT) technology to increase its coverage around the African continent. Gaining access to this level of technology would also contribute to a significant reduction in Blue’s communication costs, the company said in a statement.

“The network rollout and satellite dish installations have started and should not take more than six to eight months to complete, ultimately ensuring that all Blue’s branches are connected through live communications. The Blue community, especially those in remote areas where communications infrastructure is limited or lacking, should be better served,” Brink concluded.

http://engineeringnews.co.za/article/micro-financier-blue-gets-icasa-approval-to-set-up-vsat-network-2009-05-08

Telkom rejects MTN’s network failure claims

Fixed-lined operator Telkom on Friday defended itself against claims that it was responsible for the network failures of mobile operators, following earlier statements made by MTN South Africa MD Tim Lowry that Telkom and Eskom were, in part, responsible for network failures by mobile operators.

Lowry had told journalists at a media forum on Thursday that while every operator had its faults and failures, the quality of mobile networks was very reliant on Telkom and Eskom.

He added that the most consistent area of failure occurred when MTN SA’s base stations experienced downtime as a result of link availability by Telkom, noting that this was responsible for about 53,11% of its network problems.

“Telkom rejects the claims made by Lowry where he reportedly blamed the company for their own network and capacity shortcomings as an attempt to deflect attention from MTN’s own failure to adequately service its customers,” the State-owned utility said in a statement.

It added that it was “ironic and unacceptable” that mobile operators blamed Telkom for problems every time they were made to account for their network availability and reliability.

“Over the last few weeks, there were no extraordinary circumstances or network problems on the Telkom network that could have contributed to the problems encountered by MTN or the other mobile operators,” Telkom asserted.

Mobile operators were called to discuss their network quality with the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa earlier this week, following complaints by the public over dropped calls and delayed messaging.

“Delays in messaging and dropped calls is not a function of Telkom’s access or core network but a reflection of the switching and transmission capacity of the mobile operators’ network dimensioning practices,” noted Telkom.

The State-owned utility commented that MTN SA had to be “challenged” to prove to the public that dropped calls and short message service issues could be directly correlated to Telkom over the past month.

SERVICE LEVEL AGREEMENTS

Further, the utility emphasised that the mobile operators, and not Telkom, were fully responsible for the end-to-end performance of their networks.

It confirmed that links were ordered from Telkom at a specific Service Level Agreement (SLA) by the mobile operators, but said that: “Telkom has been consistently designing and providing these links to the operators at the mutually agreed service levels with all our mobile operators”.

It added that it had, in fact, achieved its SLAs regarding network availability, with all three mobile operators over the past 12 months, except for November last year, when it was 0,007% outside the SLA for MTN.

“This has been achieved even if we take into account that whatever network failures were encountered are usually outside our immediate control. These include weather conditions, construction activity, theft of cable, etc,” stated Telkom.

http://engineeringnews.co.za/article/telkom-rejects-mtns-network-failure-claims-2009-05-15

CT's fibre-optic project on track
BY PAUL VECCHIATTO , ITWEB CAPE TOWN CORRESPONDENT

[ Cape Town | ITWeb, 25 May 2009 ] - Plans to lay a R400 million fibre optic network for the City of Cape Town are ticking along steadily.

Negotiations are under way for the city to buy parts of networks laid by telecommunications operators Telkom and Neotel.

City of Cape Town CIO Andre Stelzner says the negotiations are proceeding, with the main objective being the reduction in the digging up of public roads and pavements in laying these cables.

“Over the past couple of years, we have seen quite a lot of activity as telecommunications companies have laid a lot of ducting for their fibre-optic cables. What we want to do is reduce this disruption and allow telecoms operators to then lay their cables through the ducting that we own,” he says.

Stelzner says he expects the negotiations, including the settling of the prices to be paid, to be completed within a month.

The second phase of the project is to meet the city's 2010 Soccer World Cup commitments. This includes the laying of fibre-optic cabling around fan sites and areas that will be the most frequented by tourists during the period.

This cabling will be mainly oriented for security purposes, such as the facilitation of close circuit TV systems to monitor crowd behaviour and reduce incidences of crime.

The last phase of the entire project will be to connect the hundreds of municipal-owned buildings, to improve service delivery and ensure the city's IT systems are connected at the lowest rate.

Stelzner says the total budgeted cost of R400 million, which was originally set almost two years ago, still looks like a viable estimate.

Icasa seeks to clarify Vodacom-Vodafone decision


The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) “at no point” tried to deny Vodacom the right to list on the JSE, the regulator said on Friday.

The authority sought to clarify its position on the Vodacom-Vodafone transaction, after a percieved last-minute attempt to block the deal, when Icasa rescined its decision to allow the merger to go ahead without a public hearing into the process. This was done two days before the listing.

“It should be noted that the authority’s primary function is to regulate the electronic communications sector in the public interest. It is for this reason that the authority deemed it fit, in the interest of transparency, that a public process be followed to allow all interested parties to be heard on the transaction before a decision was taken on the matter,” Icasa said in a statement.

Icasa explained that Vodacom had notified it on February 5, of a transaction involving the transfer of the shares held by Telkom SA in Vodacom.

“After careful consideration of the matter in terms of the regulations in respect of the Limitation of Ownership and Control of 2003, and on the basis of two external legal opinions, the council of Icasa came to the conclusion that the transaction did not require its approval and published a notice on its website to this effect on April 16.”

On May 6, Icasa received notification of a review to be filed in the High Court by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), challenging the decision of Icasa. The review sought by Cosatu was set to be heard in August 2009.

Icasa said it sought a declaratory order, as the transaction was taking place in a “contentious atmosphere” .

“The order was sought ahead of the Vodacom listing so that a court could reach a decision on the correctness of the decision taken by the authority on April 16.”

Icasa said it had then asked Vodacom whether, in the light of Cosatu’s challenge, it intended proceeding with the listing and on its views on the implication of the listing on the court process. Vodacom responded saying that it would not delay the listing, at which point the authority decided to rescind its decision of April 16 and to request that the matter be brought before a court on an urgent basis.

Icasa said it accepted the judgment as handed down by the Gauteng North High Court, and in light of that, would not continue with the public hearings as envisaged and stated in its prior statement rescinding its initial decision.

http://engineeringnews.co.za/article/icasa-seeks-to-clarify-vodacom-vodafone-decision-2009-05-25

Oh please, ICASA is one of the main reason we're so backwards ICT-wise. Anything they say should be taken with a handful of salt.

Tell me about it. It's not so much a "regulator" as a "deregulator."

MTN may buy into Bharti parent to meet rules - sources

MUMBAI/NEW DELHI - India's Bharti Airtel may structure a stake sale to South Africa's MTN Group, part of a larger merger plan, through its holding company and parent firm so there is no need for an open offer, two bankers and a legal source said.

Bharti and MTN are working on a deal worth $23-billion in cash and stock, under which the Indian firm would get 49 percent of MTN, after MTN and its shareholders get a 36 percent stake in Bharti, with a full merger the long-term goal.

MTN would get a 25 percent stake in Bharti, and its shareholders would get 11 percent under the deal.

Under Indian regulations, the purchase of 15 percent in a listed company triggers a automatic open offer to buy a further 20 percent from the open market.

"We believe that the proposed transaction structure would not trigger a mandatory tender offer in India," Bharti Airtel said on Wednesday in an emailed response to questions sent by Reuters.

The sources said the deal was likely to be structured in such a way that MTN got shares in either Bharti Telecom, the holding company of Bharti Airtel, or its parent Bharti Enterprises or in both.

Under this route, Bharti Airtel would file the deal as a 'scheme of arrangement' under the Indian Companies Act that would exempt MTN from an open offer.

"At this juncture, regulatory hurdles are the steepest. Bharti and MTN seem to have thought of it quite carefully," said one banker, who had knowledge of the deal, but declined to be named as he was not authorised to speak to the media.

Bharti and MTN's previous merger talks collapsed a year ago over who would control the combined entity.

Bharti also said on Wednesday the deal would meet laws limiting foreign investment in Indian telecoms at 74 percent.

"Bharti Airtel's current FDI level is in the low-40 percents... Bharti Telecom will continue to be the largest shareholder in Bharti Airtel and together with MTN and SingTel shall have a majority economic interest in Bharti," the company said.



VOTING RIGHTS

Even if a scheme of arrangement leads to changes in the management control, board reconstitution and economic interest in the firm, an open offer is still exempted under the takeover code. The process needs to be approved by a court.

Bharti Telecom is the largest shareholder in Bharti Airtel with a 45,3 percent stake, according to estimates by CLSA released in February. Bharti Telecom is 67 percent owned by Bharti Enterprises and 33 percent owned by Singapore Telecommunications.

SingTel also has a direct 15 percent stake in Bharti Airtel, giving it a total holding of 30,4 percent, according to CLSA. If MTN were to get its stake through the holding firm or parent, they would not necessarily have board representation or voting rights equal to their holding, the sources said.

When announcing the deal on Monday, the firms said MTN "would have appropriate representation on the Bharti board."

Further, MTN shareholders may get a stake in Bharti Airtel through global depositary receipts that do not carry voting rights unless converted into equity shares, the bankers said.

http://engineeringnews.co.za/article/mtn-may-buy-into-bharti-parent-to-meet-rules---sources-2009-05-27

At last, bandwidth

JASON NORWOOD-YOUNG
JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA - May 28 2009 16:15

The quiet tourist area of Mtunzini, 140km north of Durban on the North Coast, boasts scenic beaches, great bird watching, a nine-hole golf course, and the most internet bandwidth in South Africa.

The completion of the infrastructure for the Seacom (South-east Asian telecommunications) cable at Mtunzini on Thursday finally takes South Africa off of the internet cow paths and on to the “digital superhighway”, to use a cool eighties reference.

Before Seacom, most internet traffic travelled out of South Africa on the primarily Telkom-owned Sat3 cable, which was artificially limited by the telecommunications monopoly to 40 gigabits per second (Gbps).

Seacom boasts 1,28 terabits per second (Tbps) -- 32 times that of Sat3. The monopoly has kept South African telecommunications prices the highest in the world. The first in South Africa to benefit from Seacom -- the country's universities -- will pay one-hundredth of the current cost on Telkom's cable.

“It's enormously exciting, and has huge historical significance for all of Africa as it breaks the Telkom stranglehold on bandwidth,” said Arthur Goldstuck, managing director World Wide Worx.

“The moment it goes live will be the moment it breaks that stranglehold.”

Goldstuck said the sudden buffet of international connectivity the Seacom cable gives South Africa“gives us the indication of the extent that bandwidth was being held back by Telkom”.

It was this stranglehold that will create a massive influx of bandwidth on the African continent over the next three years, believes Goldstuck.

“In the next three years there'll be a series of new cables connecting Africa. What's caused the big flood is Telkom's micromanagement of the Sat3 cable. By not releasing capacity at better prices, Telkom gave every other telco in Africa an incentive to pursue undersea cables.”

Goldstuck says that in the next three years, a total of seven new cables will be connected to Africa.

“By 2012 we should have a total of 10,5Tbps connected,” he said.

Now that the infrastructure is complete, Seacom and its local partners will commence testing of the system to go live in a little over a month.

“We can expect around a 20% to 25% drop in bandwidth prices this year, and a similar drop next year,” says Goldstuck. “Over the next three years there will be a cumulative 75% drop in cost of additional data. However, access costs won't come down dramatically.”

http://www.mg.co.za/article/2009-05-28-at-last-bandwidth

It was longer but appeared on page 1 - so was cut.

Have pics but don't know to post.

Get set for faster, cheaper Net accessMay 29, 2009 Edition 1

Suren Naidoo
THE cost of telecommunications and internet connectivity is set to be slashed soon when the much-anticipated 17 000km SEACOM fibre-optic undersea cable comes on line next month.
The cable landed quietly in Mtunzini, on the Zululand coast, in March and is on track to go live on June 27.
Speaking at its Mtunzini Cable Station near Empangeni yesterday, SEACOM CEO Brian Herlihy said that much progress had been made in the groundbreaking $650 million project.
"With the system substantially completed and testing already under way, we are one step closer to delivering on our commitment. SEACOM is set to become the first project to provide eastern and southern Africa with equal and open access to inexpensive bandwidth.
"This is going to have a huge catalytic economic impact on South Africa and, more especially, east Africa, connecting several countries in the region to the rest of the world via hubs in London and India.
"In about a month, southern and eastern Africa will finally get truly connected to international broadband networks.
"Readily available bandwidth will result in lower telecommunications costs and new opportunities across many sectors, in particular the call centre and business process outsourcing industries.
"This means that South Africa will finally be part of the high speed internet highway with true broadband capabilities - such as HDTV and multi-media over the internet - in the near future."
Herlihy said critical portions of the subsea cable and land-based infrastructure had been completed on schedule.
SEACOM would offer wholesale internet bandwidth - several times the current availability - to companies such as Neotel, Telkom, MTN and Vodacom.

SOURCE: http://www.themercury.co.za/?fArticleId=5005008

"SEACOM would offer wholesale internet bandwidth - several times the current availability - to companies such as Neotel, Telkom, MTN and Vodacom."

Good. No more of this Telkom monopolistic bullshite.

MTN's No. 2 shareholder backs Bharti deal

MTN's number-two shareholder, Lebanon's Mikati family, said it supported merger talks with India's Bharti Airtel and would vote in favour of an initial $23-billion cash and share swap.

Azmi Mikati, CEO of the family's M1 Group, told Reuters in a telephone interview that a proposed deal, under which the firms take stakes in each other, was "fair for all parties" and said the family would back it if a firm offer was made.

"We are fully supportive of the transaction. It will add value for both Bharti Airtel and MTN shareholders," Mikati said.

"We are fully behind the transaction and the management of MTN. We will vote in favour of it. We don't look at any transaction with short-term view, but through a long-term view."

MTN, Africa's biggest mobile operator and Bharti, India's leading cellular firm, have revived talks aimed at creating the world's third-biggest wireless group with more than 200-million subscribers and combined revenue of $20-billion.

They are discussing an initial cash and share swap deal worth more than $23-billion that could lead to a full merger of the companies, which have a combined market value of about $60-billion based on current market prices.

The Mikati family owns about 10% of MTN via the M1 Group, making it the second biggest shareholder after South African state pension fund Public Investment Corporation.

The Mikati family is the first major MTN shareholder to publicly support the deal, which smaller investors have said said is skewed in Bharti's favour. They want the terms to be sweetened.

Shares in MTN extended losses after the comments, falling 1,1% to R118,21 in brisk volume, lagging a 2% firmer JSE Top-40 index of blue-chip stocks.

Bharti Airtel shares closed 3% higher at 819,65 rupees, outperforming the broader Mumbai market, which gained 2,3%.

The Mikati family became a major MTN shareholder when the South African firm bought its majority-owned Middle East operator Investcom in 2006.

http://engineeringnews.co.za/article/mtns-no-2-shareholder-backs-bharti-deal-2009-05-29

Pretoria varsity joins global 
IT training initiative

The University of Pretoria is the first tertiary institution in Africa to join information technology (IT) infrastructure solutions provider EMC Corporation’s global EMC Academic Alliance programme.

The programme offers a technology curriculum, which provides students with the foundations for designing and managing IT infrastructure, a skill that is viewed as increasingly important for growing a country’s 
information economy.

“Currently, undergraduate students enrolled for computer 
engineering will benefit from the inclusion of the EMC information storage and management course in their curriculum. We are committed to providing the best education possible by giving students the edge, which is required in the industry. 
“We realise the important role that information storage and management will play in the very near future,” says University of Pretoria Department of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engi-neering senior lecturer Jacques van Wyk.

The information storage and management course educates students on the concepts and prin-
ciples of information management and storage technologies and 
helps them grasp the technologies that are critical to IT professionals.

On completion of the course, students will have an opportunity to achieve their first EMC Proven Professional certification. As a Proven Professional, students can demonstrate their proficiency to potential employers, and also progress to more advanced storage education courses.

According to EMC global services education services vice-president Tom Clancy, a study conducted by market research 
organisation IDC has revealed that by 2011 the digital universe will be ten times the size it was in 2006. 

“Managing this deluge of data is quickly becoming an enormous challenge for IT organisations worldwide, and our research shows that the number of avail-
able employees with the neces-
sary skills and training to deal with this challenge are in short supply.

“By becoming a part of the programme and offering students the EMC curriculum, the university is giving its students skills and training that will provide a substantial advantage for their future careers,” he adds.

As part of the EMC Academic Alliance programme, the University of Pretoria joins more than 265 universities and colleges across 14 countries which are 
incorporating EMC’s information storage and management cur-
riculum into their technology and computer science programmes.

http://engineeringnews.co.za/article/university-of-pretoria-is-the-first-african-country-to-join-global-it-training-initiative-2009-05-29

Telco market ready to be 'prostituted'
BY PAUL VECCHIATTO ,
ITWEB CAPE TOWN CORRESPONDENT

[ Cape Town | ITWeb, 2 June 2009 ] - Telecommunications market liberalisation has allowed the entry of companies that are ready to prostitute it to meet their own ends, says Richard Came, director of Community Investment Ventures (CIV).

CIV is a venture capital firm that specialises in investing in the telecommunications and power sectors. One of its key vehicles is Dark Fibre Africa, which is building fibre-optic networks on behalf of a number of clients, including academic network Tenet, Vodacom, MTN and Neotel.
Came made his reputation as one of the founders of IT group Dimension Data, before moving into the venture capital direction from 2002.

Liberalisation of the market, including the proliferation of fully licensed operators and the pending increase in international connectivity, has created certain imbalances in the market, believes Came.

Late last year, communications group Altech took the communications minister, the Department of Communications and regulator ICASA to court. It won a ruling that has effectively allowed any value-added network service licensee to get a full individual-electronic network service licence, giving them the same rights as the incumbent operators.

Furthermore, the imminent landing of the Seacom East Coast undersea cable and at least two other such systems over the next few years has raised the prospect of international connectivity prices falling dramatically.

Outstripped ability

“We are now in the situation where the local link is the main expense for telecommunications. A link between Gauteng and Durban is about the same as the link from Durban to the UK,” Came says.

While he does not have any direct cost comparisons, Came asserts that any fall in telecoms prices has to be predicated on the local links being available and cost-effective.

“The whole issue of the dropped calls on the cellular networks is basically because subscriber growth has outstripped the ability of the backhaul systems to handle the loads.”

Came notes a number of non-traditional telco players have gained VANS (now I-ECNS) licences, allowing them to offer telecommunications services as a means to protect their core businesses and thus “prostitute” the sector.

“We saw it before with banking group Absa, which offered a very cheap ISP service to get clients and retain clients, and now FNB is doing a similar thing with their service. I will not be surprised if we see other companies doing it as well.”

Viable option

The rolling out of fibre networks by local authorities is a step in the right direction to alleviate the lack of infrastructure, but Came has his doubts as to whether government is the right entity to do it.

“There are concerns about government rolling out these networks. Firstly, do they have the expertise and, secondly, there is always a question mark over government control of these networks. However, in an ideal world, government would be rolling out such networks.”

Came says fibre to the home (FTTH) is a viable option for the future in SA and not just for the affluent areas.

“Some years ago, FTTH was not considered a viable option in the US, until Verizon said they were investing $23 billion to do so and that changed the face of the market there. We have been encouraged by the huge amount of interest shown in the fibre-optic network we have been rolling out in Soweto and this points that, in the longer run, it is viable in SA.”

http://www.itweb.co.za/sections/telecoms/2009/0906021042.asp?A=TEL&S=Telecoms&T=News&O=ST

Nice, informative article...

----------------------

Kings of fibre

"South Africans don't yet know what broadband is." All the Seacom details...

Hilton Tarrant
02 June 2009 10:45

For all the chatter about MTN (JSE:MTN) and Neotel's national fibre network, there are two other entities which will end up being more important to the provision of true broadband in SA. Arguably, they're already more important.

Seacom gathered an extraordinary amount of publicity from a pretty average site visit to a $55m pre-built room on the east coast which will effectively break SAT-3's stanglehold on South Africa's connection to the "internet".

This $600m undersea cable will see anywhere from a ten- to a hundred-fold increase in international bandwidth available in SA. This increase is tough to quantify because SAT-3 is operated by an opaque consortium (of which Telkom (JSE:TKG) is a member), and bandwidth is allocated on a fractional basis, depending on the percentage of the consortium each carrier owns. Neotel through parent Tata also has access to SAT-3.

Currently it's thought that SAT-3 (which runs up the west coast of Africa to Portugal) has capacity of anywhere from 120 gigabits per second (Gbps) to 300Gbps. However, and this is where it gets interesting, SAT-3 shareholders have access to bandwidth based on their proportional shareholding. So Telkom doesn't have access to 120Gbps of bandwidth, its portion is considerably smaller.

Seacom, by comparison, will have capacity of 1.28 terabits per second. That's 1 310Gbps, more than ten times that of SAT-3. Not all of Seacom's capacity will be live from the start. At "switch on", there'll be a 96Gbps link from Mtunzini to Mombasa, where traffic will be switched onwards to Europe and India.

"South Africans don't yet know what broadband is," says CEO of Seacom, Brian Herlihy. He explains that he has been taken to task by a journalist for saying this before, but he maintains our browsing experience is incomparable to that in New York, for example. Overseas, YouTube videos don't buffer before playing, he says by way of example.

Herlihy, recalls that getting buy-in from investors, governments and potential clients when the cable was merely an idea was tough. Even then, "we we're $180-200m into the project before there was anything to see".

The shareholders in Seacom are betting big. Johann Rupert's private-equity/venture capital outfit Venfin has a 25% stake, as does Industrial Promotion Services (a company owned by the Aga Khan). BEE groups Shanduka and Convergence Partners own 12.5% each. Herlihy's investment group, Herakles Telecom owns the remaining 25%.

The planned return on investment of five years is impressive, and the group could reach this target quicker, depending on demand.

But the idea has proved itself. Seacom is a few weeks away from going live, and Herlihy maintains the company will meet its June 27 deadline (barring any major last-minute complications). Seacom is a wholesale international bandwidth provider. Consumers won't access it directly, but carriers and operators will use (cheaper) capacity on this link to route traffic to and from the rest of the world.

The fibre cable will link essentially South Africa to London as well as to India, with landing stations in Mozambique, Madagascar, Tanzania, Kenya, Djibouti and Egypt.

But Seacom ends (and starts) at Mtunzini, south of Richards Bay. There's probably less than 1km of the cable on land in this country

From Mtunzini, Neotel's installed fibre to Durban (it's busy with a second trench) and other service providers will no doubt rush to lay their own.

One of those is Dark Fibre Africa (DFA). Richard Came, executive director of the company's majority owner Community Investment Ventures says simply there is no way every operator and recently-licensed value-added network services (VANS) provider can install their own fibre backbone in urban areas. Absa Capital has invested, and Venfin owns a stake in DFA.

Came also saw the light at the end of the tunnel years ago (pun, intended). The idea is simple: DFA is criss-crossing metropolitan areas with fibre. Its open-access model means that anyone can lease capacity on its network. In fact, it doesn't really even operate a network per se. It's an infrastructure provider, much like a toll road company.

DFA has over 800 km of fibre in Johannesburg, Pretoria (together +/- 450km), Cape Town (+/- 70 km) and Durban (+/- 180 km). It aims to lay another 750km in the next year.

It counts Vodacom (JSE:VOD) as a major client, and there is speculation some other major carriers and telecoms operators are also leasing fibre. DFA has signed six customers in six months. The big driver is mobile backhaul, ie, linking cellular towers to each other. Carriers currently rely (mainly) on Telkom for this, but are starting to lease fibre capacity, and in some cases self-provide.

"We've deliberately over-supplied," says Came. He explains that there is capacity for hundreds of pairs of fibres in each piece of trunking the company installs.

"We set out with very conservative targets," says Came. "And we've comfortably exceeded them."

Came says that lots needs to be done for households to be able to experience true broadband; for HDTV to be delivered via fibre, as an example. "That's a long way from where we are at the moment".

He adds that while DFA has immediate plans for a network spanning 2 000km, the addressable area is closer to 100 000km. There's so much potential here he says, there should be four or five companies building fibre networks.

* Hilton Tarrant travelled to Mtunzini as a guest of Seacom.

* Hilton Tarrant contributes weekly to "Broadband", a column on Moneyweb covering the ICT sector in South Africa. If he had a couple of million to throw around, he'd be investing in or building a fibre network in South Africa...

http://www.moneyweb.co.za/mw/view/mw/en/page39?oid=294671&sn=Detail

All very interesting.

I'm hoping all these promises will materialise.

A big bang in broadband isn't going to happen. It all depends on who makes the first move with regards to pricing restructuring and their position in the market. If Vodacom, for example, were to drastically drop prices, other providers would have no choice but to follow suit as Vodacom is the largest broadband provider in the country (Telkom is 2nd). Of course, if Telkom were to do the same it could trigger a price war too. In the end, companies are most likely going to drop prices steadily over a long period of time.

Which is precisely what I had in mind.

All the hoolabaloola re Seacom may come to nothing! once again they only see profits. Like the Barclays buyout of Absa- which we all regarded as messiahic, Seacom has no intention of bailing us out either! :bash:

'No fast price cuts with Seacom'
2009-06-04 09:57

Cape Town - South African consumers and businesses should not expect broadband prices to fall by a dramatic amount overnight when the Seacom cable goes live in a few weeks from now.

That's according to Steve Briggs, Head of Commercial at iBurst. He said that the 1.28 Tbps East African undersea fibre-optic cable system promises some relief from high international bandwidth prices over the medium-to-long term.

However, consumers will need to wait for more submarine cables like the West Africa Cable System (Wacs) and the Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (Eassy) to go live before prices start to tumble dramatically.

The construction of the Seacom cable was recently completed and end-to-end testing of its services has commenced.

The cable should be fully operational by late June or early July, bringing extra and much-needed international bandwidth into the South Africa.

Added Briggs: "The Seacom cable is a welcome development in the evolution of South Africa's telecom industry since it breaks the stranglehold that the incumbent operators held on most of the country's international bandwidth through the Sat3/Safe cables.

"However, consumers should not expect to see the sharp falls in broadband pricing that some of the more optimistic commentators have predicted."

Many other costs

In the short term, the new cable may cause a slight drop in costing for international bandwidth, which many service providers will pass on to their customers in turn, said Briggs.

However, international bandwidth is only one of the input factors which make up the overall cost of internet services in the country.

The input bundle for internet services is made up of factors beyond international bandwidth, including the costs of the network providers’ infrastructures, the costs of the customer’s modem, as well as marketing, distribution and support.

“Unfortunately, the popular press has created a perception that lowering the cost of international bandwidth alone would prove to be the panacea for higher internet broadband prices”, states Briggs.

Briggs said that most internet service providers will also be reluctant to rely exclusively on the Seacom cable because it is a standalone system without a redundant back-up.

Most service providers will therefore need to continue using the SAT-33/Safe infrastructure to provide a reliable broadband service to their subscribers.

'Full and equal access'

Initially, the operator that stands to benefit most handsomely from the cable is second network operator, Neotel, which has its own Sat-3/Safe capacity as well as a significant stake in Seacom.

However, Seacom will also benefit other service providers because it is to be operated on an equitable, open-access basis and bandwidth will be sold to all operators at wholesale prices.

"We are pleased that the Seacom cable will be operated on an Open Access basis, whereby all carriers in South Africa will have full and equal access to the submarine fibre cable," said Briggs.

"All licensed or license-exempt operator will have the right to co-locate and interconnect equipment at the cable station, with reasonable, cost-based fees for co-location.

"This means that all service providers will have equal access to this essential facility, which could help us to compete more effectively with the incumbents."

The arrival of Seacom is an important step forward for the SA telecom market, but not a silver bullet for all of its international bandwidth woes, concluded Briggs.

While I support ICT development in rural areas, if this report is true, I am disgusted with the SABC. The only positive thing is that Snuzi Zikalala, who is largely to blame for messing up the Coroporation, is now gone, while the Chair of the SABC Board has also just resigned.

-------------------

Vultures circle around Madiba

June 06 2009 at 06:45AM

By Kashiefa Ajam and Janet Smith

The cash-strapped SABC could make millions when Nelson Mandela dies - for an investment of as little as R400 000.

That's how much it has cost to secure the best vantage point at the Mandela homestead and purported burial site in Qunu in the Eastern Cape, under the guise of creating a computer centre and Internet cafe in the Nelson Mandela museum.

Community members have already been approached by international media to rent out their houses to camera crews.

Now it is suspected the SABC will turn the centre into a lucrative media command centre, renting out the facilities to news crews to beam their audio-visual feeds across the globe.

On Friday, the SABC said it had invested R400 000 in the computer centre project, which it insisted is a "far-reaching community intervention for neglected rural youth".

Last week it was claimed that the corporation had earmarked R700-million for the "M Project", Mandela's funeral, an amount almost equal to its current budget deficit. And it was claimed the SABC had paid Mandela's grandson Mandla R3m for the exclusive broadcast rights to Madiba's funeral service and burial.

Mandla Mandela - who is the chief of Mvezo village, adjacent to Qunu, and an ANC MP - has denied these claims. The SABC's former head of news and current affairs, Snuki Zikalala, told Sunday World last week the "M Project" existed.

The younger Mandela - who is a member of the National Assembly's portfolio committees on rural development and land reform, as well as public works - has expressed shock at the allegations and insisted he "had no deals with the SABC".

Asked on Friday whether he was aware of the SABC's plans, he said he did not live in Qunu.

SABC spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago told Weekend Argus the SABC news division had considerable community engagement as part of its corporate social investment programme, well before the computer centre project was sealed in July 2007.

"The project was conceived with the purpose of empowering youth with a working knowledge of computers and technology."

This week, SABC technicians were hard at work at the centre in Qunu.

It is claimed that international media are booking space in homes and rondavels in and around Mthatha and the villages so that when Mandela dies, they will already have accommodation. Hotels, guest houses and even the residences at Walter Sisulu University in Mthatha could be booked out.

Yet village elders and those close to the Mandela family say they do not expect Madiba to die any time soon. He turns 91 in July.

Traditionally, they explain, they are alerted to an impending death through premonitions and dreams - and no one has had any of those yet.

"What usually happens is that one person (at a particular level of Tembu society) will have a dream, which will be confirmed by another, and then we will begin to be concerned that someone close to us will die soon. Nothing like that has happened, for which we are very, very grateful. We don't want to lose him yet."

Meanwhile, the broadcaster is also facing unprecedented public protests from independent producers of soap operas demanding to be paid R60m in unpaid bills. Marching under the umbrella of the TV Industry Emergency Coalition, about 1 000 actors, producers, writers and technicians protested at Radio Park.

Complaints include the SABC not paying for work on time, causing a knock-on effect in the industry; not commissioning enough local content; and not paying for repeat programmes.


This article was originally published on page 1 of Cape Argus on June 06, 2009

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=vn20090606061813598C683632

:ohno: Just waiting for the old man to croak.

Durban today launched its 2010 FIFA World Cup website! :banana:

http://fifaworldcup.durban.gov.za

366 days to go!

Award-winning ICT expo to come to SA

African events organiser Specialised Exhibitions has entered into a joint venture with events organiser for the information and communications technology (ICT) market in the UK Imago Communications, to host the award-winning IP Expo in South Africa.

IP Africa 2009 will be held at the Sandton Convention Centre from September 30 to October 1.

Specialised Exhibitions COO Gary Corin says IP Africa will change the face of ICT expos in South Africa forever. “The market for Internet Protocol (IP) networking is growing rapidly. The biggest challenge for network providers is not in developing relevant products and services; it is the art of reaching the right customers, therefore, the expo will offer exhi- bitors a unique opportunity to meet such an audience easily.”

The expo will cover key areas of ICT, including mobility and wireless, unified communications, virtualisation and the underlying network infrastructure and security.

It is designed and targeted at CIOs and decision-makers investing in technology and solutions that deliver true enterprise flexibility.

The expo will feature over 60 education sessions presented by industry experts, providing education and information on all the latest trends and developments around convergence.

At the expo, four theatres covering key convergence themes will host the education seminar programme, which is designed for business and information technology professionals involved in implementing converged IP network solutions.

http://engineeringnews.co.za/article/ip-africa-2009-to-change-the-face-of-ict-expos-forever-2009-06-19

Digital TV plan on track?

The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa said the country’s migration to digital television is well on track.

Icasa released its broadcasting frequency plan governing the shift from analogue to digital transmission in Johannesburg on Friday.

Icasa said three digital multiplexes will be available after the shift which is set to take place by 2011.

Ten percent of broadcast capacity in the first multiplex will be controlled by the SABC while etv and M-Net will own between 50 and 60 percent of the remaining two.

Fifteen percent of each digital platform will be set aside for digital audio broadcast.

Three thousand of the new digital decoders are being tested by the SABC and etv.

Icasa said its biggest challenge will be to make these affordable and accessible to all South Africans in the next two years with the rest of the SADC region following by 2013.

http://technology.iafrica.com/news/technology/1778081.htm

When we will see dramatically cheaper broadband
If not when Seacom goes live on Thursday, when?

Over-hyped expectations around the 90% drop in prices we were suddenly going to see with the arrival of the Seacom undersea cable are now somewhat more "grounded"

If we're not going to wake up on Thursday (when the $600m cable officially lights up) suddenly paying 50c or even R1 per MB for mobile data (this we know, Seacom will not mean a massive drop in prices), when might we?

Wayne de Nobrega, CEO of Altech's recently acquired ISP business Technology Concepts, believes that real and meaningful decreases in prices will be some way off.

That said, De Nobrega says "In the next two years, we're probably going to see more change than we've seen in the last ten years." This is from a capacity, pricing, and even user-experience/satisfaction point of view.

"Everybody talks about convergence between voice and data - I think the reality of that convergence is much more real today than it was a year ago," he says.

The beauty of what's happening, by the driving down of prices we have seen and will continue to see is that the internet "is going to become more accessible to a bigger audience".

He admits that there are some limits on a national level, specifically on the Johannesburg to Cape Town link. Price, too, is an issue.

With international pricing having come down, "we're already very close to the price of national bandwidth," he says.

But, there are a number of projects which will improve capacity (and pricing) on a national level. He lists Infraco's plans, as well as the Neotel/MTN/Vodacom national backbone.

With this capacity, adds De Nobrega, we'll see the prices differences between international and national charges "balancing out again".

However, the arrival of Seacom will not suddenly herald cheap or affordable internet access, he says.

De Nobrega uses ADSL access as an example: "Your DSL connects into a Telkom exchange, and that goes through a Telkom backbone."

"Now, as a service provider, let's say I've got a Seacom connection coming into my data centre and I need to take you and bring you into my data centre... I've got to have an IP Connect between Telkom and myself," he says.

"That IP Connect will cost me R390 000 for a 140Mbps line."

"That cost is probably more than what I'm paying for that capacity on the Seacom cable," he says matter-of-factly.

De Nobrega stresses the importance of these other components when considering bandwidth pricing.

"If I'm on a contract on the SAT-3 cable and let's say the price (for argument's sake) is R100, and the price on Seacom is R10. I might have 70% of my bandwidth going through on the SAT-3 because I'm contractually bound to it still and I've got 30% going through at R10," he describes.

"Well, the average price is going to be closer to, say, about R70."

But (and this is a big "but"), over time, we are "going to see that pricing [on SAT-3] coming down as the contracts change," says De Nobrega.

"Telkom will address this pricing issue, they have to. Otherwise, when the contracts come up for renewal, they're going to end up with a cable doing nothing," he laughs.

The contracts signed between internet service provides and Telkom for connectivity on SAT-3 typically last for five to ten years, according to De Nobrega.

"Now it's not five or ten years we signed last year," he adds quickly, "From an ISP perspective, a lot of those contracts will be closing off over the next two to three years."

De Nobrega explains that that whenever there is a need to increase capacity, he can dilute his investment by bringing more and more Seacom capacity online.

"Its not that on July 23, we turn the switch and suddenly everybody's got a price point that's acceptable," he says.

"But it is the catalyst, the start of this entire process of driving down the price points."

"The big price change will be when Eassy comes on as well," says De Nobrega, "so you're talking a year from now".

He adds, however, that we will see a steady, curved drop in pricing over the next 12 months until we hit a "price point where we say ‘wow, this is acceptable'."

* Hilton Tarrant contributes weekly to "Broadband", a column on Moneyweb covering the ICT sector in South Africa. Roll on 2010!

Seems more believable that way.

Price drops are already evident...OpenWeb, for example, have a planned new product (384K uncapped DSL for R599/month). Currently the closest product to that is R999/month and has 10-day thresholds.

they're still taking us along for a nice long ride....i say the two years is so they can make insane profits, which will undoubtedly be shared with the evil bankers......

Who is "they?"

I'm guessing he means those companies who are direct shareholders in the cable.

That doesn't make much sense, considering SEACOM is already priced at that very low price point. The issue is that ISP's etc. still have to use Telkom's fixed line network for the most in order to connect to SEACOM, and they will most likely also not suddenly drop prices now that SEACOM allows them to afford it.

^^ Telkom being made to give the local loop at gunpoint would be a good start. :bash: As if.

South Africa may have missed out for good on the dirt cheap, uncapped Internet access. American companies are starting to cap their “heavy users” (or at least consider it) ... and if I read between the lines it has got to do more with media companies trying to control content than bandwidth. Only in Asia have they truly seen the light. :ohno:

ADSL price war triggered
2009/07/22 04:36:00 PM

Johannesburg - Internet service provider group WirelessG has dropped its ADSL prices by 25%, ahead of the launch of undersea cable Seacom on Thursday.

Seacom runs up the east coast of Africa delivering 1.3 terabits per second of bandwidth to the continent.

It was scheduled to go live in June, but this was postponed because of piracy threats off the African coast.

Said CEO of WirelessG, Carel van der Merwe, "I do think Seacom will have a positive effect on the market, but it will not be the cure-all. For really amazing cost reductions, service providers will have to re-engineer their business processes and look for efficiencies they're not currently exploiting."

According to Van der Merwe, the price drop sees WirelessG's prepaid ADSL access rates decrease from 6.5c per MB to 4.9c per MB; during its happy hour (between 17:00 and 20:00 daily) prices will drop to 4.5c per Mb from 4.7c per MB.

"That's a 25% decrease over our previous normal rate," he said.

Digital TV here in April 2010

DoC gives details about cost of Digital TV set top boxes and the number of new channels which can be expected

The Department of Communications today officially launched its Digital Dzonga, an advisory body for South Africa’s broadcast digital migration. The advisory body will offer government council on the movement towards digital terrestrial television (DTT), a process that has been underway since 2007.

The council includes representatives from the public and private sectors, each of whom hold relevant experience in the broadcasting, media and technical fields associated with the initiative. This includes members from ICASA, the Department of Communications, SABC, eTV, MNET and Sentech.

Lara Kantor, Chairperson of the Digital Dzonga noted that the council is targeting April 2010 as the commencement date for the dual illumination process, whereby television will be broadcast in both analogue and digital formats. Both the Department of Communications and the Digital Dzonga advisory council speculate that by 2011 South Africa will be ready to move forward with full digital broadcast.

Kantor also revealed that broadcaster trials, which commenced in late 2008, were still underway and that the SABS recently approved the hardware specifications for the set top boxes that will be required for normal televisions to display digital signals. Karen WIllenburg, a member of the Digital Dzonga, added that once the software specifications were approved by the SABS, the local manufacturing of set top boxes would commence.

“We urge all software partners to conclude their agreements so that we can move ahead with the manufacturing of set top boxes” said Minister of Communications Minister Siphiwe Nyanada at today’s event.

The Digital Dzonga will be targeting a price tag of R700 per set top box, adding that this was a reasonable amount to expect for manufacture costs. Poor households are set to receive a 70% subsidy from the government on this cost, although they will have to prove that family members own a TV Licence and receive either a government grant or a pension. “R400 million has been allocated for this reason, from the universal access fund” said Minister Nyanda.

Kantor also revealed that South African television viewers can expect to receive 16 TV channels, data channels and an electronic program guide upon final completion of the digital migration process.

Although April 2010 seems a lofty goal for digital signal broadcast, only 60% of the country is set to be switched on in the coming year. The process will also be incremental in the respect that selected areas would be switched on one by one.

Digital TV migration - give your views

SA cellphone call costs 'exorbitant'
22 July 2009 at 12h20

Cape Town - Cellphone call costs in South Africa are among the highest in the world and need investigating, Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille said on Wednesday.

In a statement, De Lille said she had lodged a complaint with the Competition Commission to investigate whether local cellphone service providers were "acting anti-competitively or are guilty of any prohibited practices".

The "exorbitant costs" of cellphone calls were worrying, and affecting both business and the poor, she said.

“I believe that South Africans have long suffered poor competition and exorbitant telecommunications costs unnecessarily, and that it is vitally important that this be investigated by the Competition Commission urgently."

In her complaint to the commission, a copy of which was attached to the statement, De Lille says South Africa’s mobile operators were charging about 1 000 percent more than India's mobile operators.

Local interconnection rates had increased 500 percent over the 12-year period ending in 2007, and 515 percent between 1998 and 2001.

"South Africa’s interconnection rates are among the highest on the African continent."

Among other things, the complaint calls on the commission to investigate "possible collusion between the dominant operators, particularly with regards to interconnection fees". - Sapa

http://www.ioltechnology.co.za/article_page.php?iArticleId=5094319

Vodacom slashes its Africa budgets
LESLEY STONES Published: 2009/07/23 06:26:29 AM

VODACOM has cut back its budgets in Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo after its international operations suffered an 8,1% slump in revenue in its past trading quarter.

The two countries were hit by weak economic conditions, intense competition and high excise duties, CEO Pieter Uys said yesterday.

Capital expenditure would be slashed as a result, with no more cash to be invested in boosting their network coverage. Vodacom had earmarked R8bn for capex this year, with R5bn for SA and R3bn for the rest of Africa. That R3bn would now be channelled into Mozambique, where Vodacom was still growing, although the cutbacks meant it might not all be spent.

Vodacom’s first trading update since listing on the JSE showed a healthy 19,5% growth in subscribers in the quarter ending June 31, with 41,3-million customers in five countries. Group revenue rose 12,2% to R14,2bn for the quarter.

But the average amount that South African users spend each month fell a noticeable 4,7% as they struggle under poor economic conditions and as cellphones reach deeper into the lower-income markets. Customers in SA spent an average of R64 a month in the quarter, down from R65 a month previously. Partly compensating for that was Vodacom’s ability to sign up 1,1-million new customers in SA to reach 28,7-million users.

Uys said the main reason for its growth was innovative pricing. He hoped the gradual lowering of its call fees — and some dramatic savings when the network is not busy — would take pressure off the operators to cut the interconnection fees they charge each other for switching a call from one network to another. Uys said he had met Communications Minister Siphiwe Nyanda to discuss interconnection fees and they were working on some proposals.

Of equal concern is the new legislation calling for anyone who owns a SIM card to be registered. Uys said the operators had spent “a couple of tens of millions” of rands on installing equipment to capture those details. Now they faced a fee of about R3 a person for capturing data on SA’s existing 50-million SIM card owners.

Uys said the number of new users signing up for a cellphone would slow because of the hassle of identifying themselves. More worrying was that the operators were supposed to disconnect anyone not registered after 18 months.

stonesl@bdfm.co.za

http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=76592

Vodacom grows total customer base to 41.3 million and increases revenue by 12.2% year-on-year



In its first trading results since listing on the JSE Limited in May this year, the Vodacom Group achieved double-digit year on year growth in the first quarter ended June 2009, increasing total customers by 19.5% to 41.3 million and group revenue by 12.2% to R14.2 billion compared to the same quarter last year.

Gateway contributed R800m in this quarter, resulting in overall organic group revenue growth of 5.9%, with an 8.2% growth in South African operations, offset by 8.1% in our international operations.

“With consumer spending under pressure, we focussed on promotional activities to our customers that offered more value, in line with the first leg of our growth strategy to grow our core mobile business,” said Pieter Uys, CEO of the Vodacom Group.

“The second leg of our strategy - to increase our mobile broadband penetration – saw the number of customers increasing by 98 000 in the first quarter, bringing the total mobile broadband customers (http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=103) to 825 000. A further increase in telemetry broadband packages of 18 000 brought our total data connectivity customers to just over one million, entrenching our broadband market leadership position.”

Vodacom Business, which drives Vodacom’s corporate efforts in the converged ICT space – its third strategic focus - signed up a substantial number of corporate customers on connectivity, hosting and related service contracts.

During the first quarter Vodacom South Africa attracted 1.1 million new customers to bring the total to 28.7 million customers, maintaining its market share at 53%. “The main reason for this success is our innovatively priced prepaid product Yebo4Less, which now represents 7.2 million customers at 30 June 2009, getting close to a third of our prepaid base,” Uys said.

“Our targeted loyalty programmes firmed up our market share and reduced prepaid churn during the first quarter decreased by 2.5%, with overall churn reducing by 2.4 percentage points to 34.1%.”

Blended South African ARPU declined 4.7% from the previous quarter as a result of penetration into the lower market segments, low revenue in April 2009 and the impact of weaker economic conditions. Uys said he was pleased that prepaid ARPUs remained relatively stable at R64 per month compared to R65 per month in the quarter to 31 March 2009. “But our contract customers limited spend outside of their bundles, resulting in a 3.5% decline in ARPU on the previous quarter,” he said.

Vodacom’s international operations recorded strong customer growth, up 30.0% to 12.6 million on the prior year quarter and 4.9% up from 12.0 million at 31 March 2009. The strongest performance was in Mozambique, where Vodacom gained further market share with a 47.8% year on year growth to 1.9 million customers.

Revenue in the international mobile operations declined 8.1% compared to the prior year quarter. The revenue in both Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo continued to be affected by weaker economic conditions and intense competition, coupled with higher excise duties. Excluding excise duties, revenue from the international mobile operations decreased 4.2%. Mozambique and Lesotho delivered strong revenue growth in the quarter.

The ratio of customers contributed by the international and South African operations remained almost unchanged during the quarter, with the South African customer base at 69.6% (31 March: 69.7%) and international mobile operations contributing 30.4% (31 March 2009: 30.3%) at 30 June 2009.


Vodacom growth (http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?t=183430) - give your views

And for those who haven't heard, Telkom are suddenly feeling the urge to triple the capacity of the SAT3 cable :|

New Google SA country manager to focus on access and awareness, but no word on local Google servers



Stephen Newton took the reins at Google South Africa this month after the search giant’s previous SA Country Manager, Stafford Masie, resigned suddenly in March this year. Before coming to South Africa Newton was Google head of analytics and commerce for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA).


Newton said that he will focus on two key areas as the new head of Google SA: Access and Awareness-raising. “In South Africa, we want to educate people and businesses about the value of online, and online advertising. There are plenty of people who know how to run a business offline very well. We want to translate some of the technology jargon and to help them to understand the benefits of getting their business online,” said Newton.


“For the 90% of the country's population who can't access the Internet through desktop computers, we are focusing on access. There is very high mobile phone penetration in South Africa, with 98% of people having access to a mobile phone. So, as elsewhere in Africa, we'll also be thinking about how to provide better access to the internet with our continuing innovations in mobile technology,” said the new Google SA head.
Newton’s predecessor told local Internet users in 2007 that Google was planning to establish a local presence in South Africa, bringing services like Gmail and Google Maps closer to local users. Since then Google has been mum on locally hosted services.


Newton would not be drawn into discussions about locally hosted Google servers, only saying “We can’t give you any specific comment on the local hosting.” Newton did however add that “Fast, innovative products are crucial for our users and require significant computing power. As a result, Google invests heavily in technical facilities around the world and is constantly on the look-out for additional locations. However, we don't comment on possible sites or locations.”


Google SA (http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?t=183540) - give your views

Tripling, heh? Typical Telecom.

Neotel launches Neogo data service

Neotel’s Neogo service offers up to 3.1 Mbps download speeds; contract and month-to-month offerings available

Neotel today launched its Neogo service, a portable datacard service providing users with peak download speeds of up to 3.1Mbps and peak upload speeds of up to 1.8Mbps.

The service is available on contract, where the data card is financed over a 24 month period, or month-to-month where users will have to purchase the data card up-front at R 1,499.00.

The contract option is priced at R 299.00 per month and includes 1.5 GB of data, a NeoMail account and an out-of-bundle rate of 8c per MB. The month-to-month option costs at R239.00 per month.

Mukul Sharma, Head of Consumer and Channel Sales at Neotel, says the company is rapidly changing the way consumers experience its wireless communication. “The NeoGo Data card with its data bundle at a competitive price is just what the consumer needs and we don’t hide our out of bundle rate which at 8 cents per MB redefines market pricing for data cards,” he says.

“The data card offers consumers a simple and hassle-free method of connecting to email and the Internet. It is compatible with multiple operating systems such as Windows 2000, XP, Vista and Mac and the attractive price range gives it an edge over other existing data cards available in the market today,” he concludes.

The service is available in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town and Durban.






____


The out of bundle 8c/MB cost is comparable to even US markets btw...and this makes Neogo the cheapest wireless offering...well done :)

It's cheap for a wireless service, but the problem is that Neotel's network isn't exactly the most extensive, and the speed pales in comparison to Vodacom and MTN's.

HSDPA isn't always needed for business though...Neogo's speed is okay. And well yes, their coverage sucks...but at least this is a step in the right direction. Maybe starting shutting up all the 'Seacom won't have an effect til next year' people.

It is indeed good news regardless, though, for sure :)

Now maybe they'll reduce the prices of their other products :P

Telkom to build 10 Gbps SANReN network

Staff Reporter MyBroadband
30 July, 2009

CSIR awards national research network tender to Telkom

The CSIR (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research) has awarded the contract for the installation of the national backbone network of the South African National Research Network (SANReN) to Telkom.

SANReN forms a crucial part of the national cyberinfrastructure initiative funded by the Department of Science and Technology (DST). This development concludes the process of negotiations for the installation of the national backbone, which was undertaken on behalf of the DST by the CSIR Meraka Institute.

The CSIR Meraka Institute is responsible for the implementation of the DST’s cyberinfrastructure initiative which, in addition to SANReN, comprises the Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC) and the Very Large Data Base data storage initiative.

The national backbone will interconnect Pretoria, Johannesburg, Bloemfontein, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, East London and Durban on a 10 Gbps (Gigabits per second) optic fibre ring network. This network will enable the research community to engage in meaningful online collaboration. It will also be used to link to international bandwidth acquired for research purposes.

Negotiations have been underway with potential providers for the national backbone since the start of the SANReN project in 2007. Recent progress in the liberalisation of the South African telecommunications sector contributed to positive action by key players, resulting in the competitive tender process that has just been concluded.

The most important factors considered during bid evaluation were the ability to deliver a next-generation network of the type required for research and education, the acceptability of the price offer and the national telecommunications footprint.

Commenting on this milestone, centre manager of the Meraka Institute, Kagiso Chikane states, “The national backbone will give institutions access to facilities such as the CHPC (http://www.chpc.ac.za/ ) in Cape Town, enable the establishment of a national computing grid, and allow for large volumes of data transfer amongst institutions - typically a requirement of the research community. Of immediate relevance is the importance of the national backbone in supporting South Africa’s Square Kilometre Array bid to host the world’s most powerful radio telescope.”

Godfrey Ntoele, Telkom’s Group Executive for National Sales and Marketing Operations, adds: “We are pleased to count the CSIR as one of our most valued customers alongside the likes of Absa, the IEC and FIFA. That such a diverse array of customers has chosen to work with us attests to our network’s ubiquity and resilience as well as our management capabilities and expertise.”

Adds Ntoele: “It also highlights our growing reputation as a trusted adviser which tailors solutions based on the specific needs of individual customers. This is complemented by our capacity to deliver Next Generation Network solutions based on leading-edge technologies and support functions rendered from our National Network Operations Centre in Centurion.”

Future plans for SANReN are the completion of metro networks in Pretoria, Cape Town and Durban. The national network will interconnect with the metro networks and enable all research institutions to have access to SANReN.

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/Telecoms/9006.html

In order words their own version of what Dark Fibre Africa just did?

Telkom...always innovating :)

CT broadband sprints to finish line

By Paul Vecchiatto Posted: 12th August 2009

The City of Cape Town's R330 million broadband project is on track to be completed 12 months ahead of schedule and for R70 million less than originally estimated, says the city's telecommunications manager, Leon van Wyk.


Almost three years ago, the Mother City announced it would roll out a R400 million fibre-optic broadband network to link all its facilities and get the city ready for the 2010 Soccer World Cup. It also stated it would resell spare capacity to other users.
However, it took two years of planning and issuing requests for information before the final shape of the project became apparent.
“Since we received final approval from the municipal council on 29 October last year, things have really speeded up,” Van Wyk says. “We have fine-tuned the process, started consulting with private sector partners, and now we have found ways in which to reduce the overall costs, speed up fibre-optic deployment and minimise disruption of the trenching process.”
Van Wyk says the city is in the “head in the trenches and manholes” part of the project, but that once those parts are completed, the rest will follow in short order.
Top priorities

Recent tenders issued by the city are for:
* A telecoms facilities management system, published on 17 July and closed on 7 August;
* A materials and equipment tender for ducting and manhole lids and other such equipment, published on 19 June and closed on 23 July;
* An outside services construction tender for the building of ducting trenches and manholes, published on 10 July and closed on 11 August; and
* A switching centre tender, published on 10 July and closed on 11 August.
Van Wyk declines to put values to each of those tenders, but says the total value is around R100 million and the entries are being evaluated.
He says the first priority is for the city to be geared for the World Cup. This includes ensuring fibre-optic cabling – to cater for the safety and security demands, such as CCTV, around and near the Green Point stadium and the fan parks – is laid. This is on track to be finished by the first quarter of next year.
The rest of the fibre broadband project, which will also include the CCTV facilities for the Integrated Rapid Transport System, is now scheduled to be completed by the end of next year.
Working together

“One of the reasons for the rapid completion of this project is that we have signed 'co-build' agreements with other players, such as Neotel and Dark Fibre Africa, whereby we all cooperate on digging trenches and share facilities where it makes sense.”


He says the city is also preparing to allow other players to use its fibre-optic network. It is about to sign an agreement with the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, for it to lease cable from the city as part of the South African National Research Network.


“We are about 99.9% of the way on that deal. Letters of interest have also been received from a number of commercial players and we are in discussions with them.”


The City of Cape Town is also about to start developing a new “wayleave and rights of use policy” for telecommunications operators that may need to dig trenches or use other public land to lay facilities. However, he notes that details are still being worked out and the policy is still in the very early stages.


According to Van Wyk, “wayleave” means the permission granted to dig trenches, and “rights of use” is the right to use the cable on a continuous basis.

Core Group reveals local Mac OS X Snow Leopard pricing and availability

Apple announced on Monday that its next-generation Snow Leopard operating system tailored for Macintosh computers will be launched on Friday.

"Snow Leopard builds on our most successful operating system ever and we're happy to get it to users earlier than expected," said Apple senior vice president of software engineering Bertrand Serlet.

A representative from Core Group, exclusive distributors of Apple products in South Africa, said that South African Mac users can also expect the new OS on Friday.

“The product should be available from Friday [28 August] at all Apple Premium Resellers or early next week in the larger retailers, all going well with the shipment,” said Core Group.

According to the Core Group representative, “The cost will be R329 for the upgrade. If you purchased a Mac from the 8th of June onwards you qualify for the $9.99 upgrade that is done through Apple’s website.” US consumers will pay a VAT exclusive $29 (R227) for the new Apple Operating System while UK Apple users will pay 25 Pounds (R319).


http://mybroadband.co.za/news/Software/9368.html

^^Surprised at the reasonable pricing.Either way the Core Group is still a ruthless dictator that should be stopped.

As am I...but I guess this is one area in which they can't blatantly rip us off without being called out.

Personally I am really sick and tired of the ridiculous prices we have to pay for Apple products over here... Just went yesterday to buy some accessory for my iPod, and *BWAHM*....$$$$

^^ Thank The Core Group for that :) They've been ripping us off for ages.

oh... AND... why oh why do we have to be satisfied with stupid-ass Apps in iTunes in SA? Why can't we have at least freaking games?? Jis it makes me MAD!! :mad:

We were supposed to get the full iTunes music and app store a few months after the launch of the iPhone 3G here, but I guess that, too, has fallen to the back-burner.

Sigh. I just use the US store :)

I just use the US store :)

But how??

think you can use certain international credit cards...American Express I think is one. BUt not sure. I use to use a friends account.

There is a pot of gold in deep outer space
August 9, 2009

By Kelvin Kemm

A contract for R46 million has just been awarded to a Brits-based company, Optic 1, for the construction of a 33kV power line, and a fibre-optic cable link, in the Karoo.

This is just not any ordinary power line and fibre-optic link: these elements are part of the MeerKAT project - a major radio telescope that will gaze out deep into the starry realms of space.

The radio telescope grew out of the earlier plan for a Karoo Array Telescope (KAT) but was expanded by adding more radio dishes to the original concept. The telescope is a cluster or "array" of very sensitive radio dishes that will focus on points of interest in deep space.

This set of radio dishes will operate together as a unit. The principle is that if a set of radio dishes are all connected into an array then they produce the effect of having one large telescope, and the larger the collecting area of the telescope the further it can "see", by detecting very faint radio signals.

The radio signals are so faint that any unwanted radio "noise" from power lines or any other radio source, such as radio masts, will interfere with the operation of the dishes. That is why the construction of the 33kV power line is such a hi-tech business. It must not "leak" radio noise to the dishes.

The fibre-optic connections between dishes, and also to the operations centre in Cape Town, have to operate to extremely high specifications, with a speed that really can be termed "lightning fast". The first seven dishes, each of 12-metre diameter, are now being constructed in the Karoo, not far from Carnarvon. The whole MeerKAT project will consist of about 80 dishes and is scheduled to be operational by December 2012.


MeerKAT is a major project but it is also a stepping stone to a much bigger prize, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). The SKA is a planned telescope that will have an effective collecting area of 1km2 and will be the most powerful telescope on Earth.

The SKA will be able to see the beginning of time, by detecting very weak radio signals from deep space that were created at the time of the birth of the Universe, and which have been travelling through space ever since.

The price tag for the SKA is R15 billion! This is a major international project and, of the original group of countries that bid to host the project only two are left, South Africa and Australia.

Winning this project tender would mean not only that the R15bn would come into South Africa for the construction phase but so would the additional substantial running costs of the project, for many years to come.

There may or may not be a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow but there certainly is one in deep space.

Kelvin Kemm is a nuclear physicist and is chief executive of Stratek Business Strategy Consultants

http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=1646&fArticleId=5116761

MTN deserves a big fine for this atrocious marketing campaign

---------------------

MTN misled subscribers - watchdog

September 07 2009 at 08:39AM

In a hard-hitting ruling against MTN last week, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) essentially accused the network of deliberately misleading its subscribers into spending vast sums on expensive SMSes in a bid to win big prizes.

Six people lodged complaints with the ASA, claiming the adverts stated it cost R7.50 to enter the MTN 15 competition via SMS, but it took many more SMSes to be in the running for one of the big prizes.

MTN claimed innocence. It said everything was revealed in the competition's terms and conditions, and in light of the complaints, it had halted the competition in July, a month earlier than planned.

The network asked that an adverse ruling should not be made. The directorate was having none of it, saying MTN was no stranger to the ASA and it ought to have known its advertising had to comply with the ASA code.

MTN gets to keep the millions it made
"This was no more to celebrate 15 years of MTN's existence than to generate a huge income by luring subscribers and other people into entering a lottery-type competition," the ruling stated.

The directorate found "they omitted to state that the costs would accumulate, as multiple SMSes were required before an entrant stands in line to win something. "At best they were ambiguous about the cost of entering the competition."

So what happens now?

Not a lot. The competition and the misleading adverts are history, and MTN gets to keep the millions it made from its misled subscribers.


This article was originally published on page 7 of Cape Times on September 07, 2009


http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=vn20090907063211909C620534

Not to mention the fact that some people got a hold of a URL that revealed exactly how many SMS's to send to win and indeed won.

Icasa: Call termination rates to be reduced
JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA Sep 08 2009 14:37

The Independent Communications Authority of South African (Icasa) and telecommunications companies will embark on a process to cut call termination rates, the authority said on Tuesday.

Following a meeting between Icasa, Vodacom, MTN, Cell C, Telkom, Neotel and the Internet Service Providers' Association, Icasa said the interconnect rate had been discussed.

Interconnect rates are the amounts charged by networks for carrying calls on behalf of one another, with South Africa having exorbitant interconnect fees when compared with most other countries.

"The meeting was necessitated by the ongoing public discussions around the cost of call termination in the country," Icasa said in a statement.

After deliberations, the meeting had resolved to embark on an industry-led process to reduce termination -- or interconnection -- rates, with Icasa exercising an oversight responsibility.

The meeting resolved to ensure that in negotiating a new termination rate regime they took into account competition law requirements.

The meeting decided to conclude negotiations between the operators by the end of December 2009, with Icasa proposing an implementation date of February 1 2010.

"Meanwhile, Icasa will continue with its process in terms of Chapter 10 of the Electronic Communications Act.

"This process will entail the publication of the necessary regulatory framework pursuant to regulations defining the relevant market; evaluating the effectiveness of competition; a declaration of licensees with significant market power; and the implementation of pro-competitive remedies." -- Sapa

http://www.mg.co.za/article/2009-09-08-icasa-call-termination-rates-to-be-reduced

New satirical website aims to shed light on data transfer speeds in South Africa



A new project called Pigeon Race 2009 aims to highlight the inadequate data transfer speeds over fixed lines in South Africa. The website http://pigeonrace2009.co.za/ states that “The Unlimited faces great challenges in getting data from its locations across KZN back to its central location for storage. These are large files, and it was postulated that a pigeon could do this faster than a normal landline could.”


The company behind the Pigeon Race 2009 is The Unlimited World describing themselves as a “dynamic company that is Making a Difference in South Africa.” The company offers insurance and lifestyle products including 911Assist, Motor Assist and SOS Assist.


The Pigeon Race project could be viewed as a viral campaign which is mainly aimed at promoting The Unlimited World brand and giving the company additional exposure through an innovative online advertising campaign.


Online transfer speeds versus movable data storage
The Pigeon Race2009 campaign follows a similar campaign a few years back where it was shown that it was cheaper and faster to fly to Hong Kong, download 100 GB of data and fly back to South Africa than download it here using Telkom’s ADSL service.


While the Hong Kong example holds some value, since it compares broadband speeds and cost, the Pigeon Race2009 project is of more satirical value than it’s real ability to reveal poor broadband performances.
The mathematics behind this type of experiment is quite simple. The time taken to download a file of a certain size is: time = ‘file size’ / ‘connection speed’. The time for the physical movement of data – in the case of Pigeon Race 2009 which is around 50 minutes – must therefore be smaller than the file download time for the experiment to be successful.


This is easily achieved by making the ‘file size’ sufficiently large – in this case 4 GB. Even in the case of a 100 Mbps connection where 35 GB can be downloaded in 50 minutes the experiment will work by merely increasing the size of the flash disk to 64 GB.
It is in fact possible to force a favourable outcome – in this case to prove that it is faster to physically move data using a homing pigeon – by either decreasing the time (shorter distance to fly) or increasing the file size to transfer.





The pigeon named “Winston” will make its first carrier flight – from Howick outside Pietermaritzburg to Hillcrest in Durban - on Wednesday.


ADSL speed race (http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?t=190783) - comments and views

SA tweets its way to tenth place in world

South Africa has become the 10th largest user of Twitter in the world, while the country has the most Facebook users on the continent, even surpassing Egypt.

The figures speak for themselves. Research company Sysmos claims that South African Twitter users make up 0.85 percent of total online Twitter interaction.

Twitter receives about 55 million visits a month, generating a whopping 467 500 visits a month. In visited site terms, next best is SABCnews.com (60 730).


Research data processing organisation Startup Africa states that there are 1.4 million Facebook users in South Africa, the highest number on the continent.

MXit has 20 million visits - 35 000 messages sent a second in peak times - 15 million users.

But as people continue to flock to them (a recent report found nearly one in four Britons uses Facebook for an average of six hours a month, up four hours from this time last year, while Twitter has gone from 100 000 users to 2.6 million in the past year) and as most corporate websites are akin to brochures with a library attached, it's little wonder social networking sites are increasingly being seen as the bread and butter of customer relations management.

Gurus go so far as to predict they will have superseded corporate websites in terms of influence and power in two years' time.

"Businesses should be using social media because their customers are all using it," says Nancy Williams, managing director of the social media marketing consultancy Tiger Two.

"More and more people are going online to converse, be entertained and research purchases. The fact is, conversations are already happening online about their business or product, so they need to be involved with that."

Because social media is a conversation rather than a broadcast, it's a hugely effective marketing tool, she says - and what's more, it's free.

"Most people will respond more positively to a two-way conversation with a brand instead of being shouted at with yet another marketing message."

The result can be your supporters evangelising your brand in their own communities and thus delivering the holy grail of personal endorsement.

"Social media also provides brands with the ultimate focus group," says Gavin Sheppard, development director at the communications charity Media Trust, who believes the rise of social media is taking businesses by surprise just as much as the internet did a decade ago.

"Social networking enables companies to discover not just the answers to their questions, but the answers to questions they'd never thought of asking."

Virtually any kind of business can benefit, insists Robert Epstein, head of small and medium businesses at Microsoft.

"Take a restaurant, for example. They could use YouTube or MySpace to take customers behind the scenes visually. They could use Twitter to provide regular updates and Facebook and LinkedIn to enable people to post electronic versions of their CVs and to connect to other people to get ideas about how to improve."

Matt Rhodes, head of client services at social media experts FreshNetworks, says the starting point for any business is ensuring you know what you want to achieve - increased brand awareness, customer retention, a feedback mechanism and so on.

"Next, establish who you want to engage - new or existing customers, a certain part of your customer group or more general. Then work out where these people congregate and what will engage them best."

Rhodes also encourages brands to create their own online communities. "Ask people to upload their memories of a particular experience with a brand or to work with you to develop a product."

Always facilitate genuine dialogue. A survey by the Global Web Index found people think better of brands that provide a page on a social network where you can ask questions.

Audi recently used this to its advantage by using Facebook to help gather views as part of its product development cycle.

Don't forget the power of social networking for recruitment, adds Lucie Bickerdike, account executive at the Hoffman Agency.

"I was recruited exclusively through Twitter. My line manager was searching profiles for people looking for PR jobs, and my profile matched the criteria. We set up a meeting through Twitter, and I was offered the job." - The Independent

source : http://www.ioltechnology.co.za/article_page.php?iArticleId=5207669#

Quite a surprising statistic. Anyway im @grantpenny49.

The government and business are on track to reaching full digital migration by November 2011


The government and business are on track to reaching full digital migration by November 2011, Communications Minister Siphiwe Nyanda said on Thursday.

Speaking after addressing a set-top-box (digital decoders) manufacturing summit in Midrand, Nyanda said: "We are not running behind, we are on track. For the man on the street it means they will have access to more television channels."

Nyanda said the aim of the summit was to set guidelines for the manufacturing of the decoders so that all South Africans would be able to have access to digital television broadcasting by 2011, when the current analogue transmitters would be switched off.

These criteria included promoting black economic empowerment and enabling smaller companies to reap financial gains.

The department's director general Mamodupi Mohlala said the government had allocated R5 million to subsidise decoders for around 44 million poor households.

This would be 70 percent of the approximate R700 a decoder would cost. Currently between six and seven percent of the population already used the digital technology.

Digital TV migration - discussion (http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?t=198623)

The government and business are on track to reaching full digital migration by November 2011


The government and business are on track to reaching full digital migration by November 2011, Communications Minister Siphiwe Nyanda said on Thursday.

Speaking after addressing a set-top-box (digital decoders) manufacturing summit in Midrand, Nyanda said: "We are not running behind, we are on track. For the man on the street it means they will have access to more television channels."

Nyanda said the aim of the summit was to set guidelines for the manufacturing of the decoders so that all South Africans would be able to have access to digital television broadcasting by 2011, when the current analogue transmitters would be switched off.

These criteria included promoting black economic empowerment and enabling smaller companies to reap financial gains.

The department's director general Mamodupi Mohlala said the government had allocated R5 million to subsidise decoders for around 44 million poor households.

This would be 70 percent of the approximate R700 a decoder would cost. Currently between six and seven percent of the population already used the digital technology.

Digital TV migration - discussion (http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?t=198623)

I was think that, why dont they put a smart card in these decoders and then if you dont have a TV liscence no TV and if you get your TV through another method you can pay that seprately still, just a thought.

From what I can remember they did mention the use of a smartcard system.

Regardless, I just care about ODM, hope they launch in Q1 2010 as planned and have a great channel offering =P

^^Nyani?Thought they'd disappeared into the sunset with Telkom bloody Media.Was the channel offering given out already?In any case,the old lady swears by the likes of the Home Channel,TCM and E News,doubt ODM will deliver the same channels.

Nope...ICASA have, surprise surprise, held them up with some licensing issues.

They said they'll have a different channel offering to DStv, but they'll allow you to choose individual channels to make up your own boquet. The price will also be significantly cheaper.

What ISP are you guys using these days? What would you recommend? I will need to get a new internet connection end of November, and I don't know what is best... Especially looking at forums at mybroadband.co.za... it seems like every ISP is giving crap service these days.... :ohno:

What are you looking at getting in terms of line speed/cap, and is latency important or not? :)

What are you looking at getting in terms of line speed/cap, and is latency important or not? :)

Thanks Lydon. Im not sure about latency... (the meaning thereof really). But what I've had for the past two years is a Data Contract with Vodacom and running a 3G connection. This has served me well, but I kinda figure that at R450p/m for 2Gb, I should look for a better deal. Also something that has a better out-of-bundle charge per Mb.

Thanks Lydon. Im not sure about latency... (the meaning thereof really). But what I've had for the past two years is a Data Contract with Vodacom and running a 3G connection. This has served me well, but I kinda figure that at R450p/m for 2Gb, I should look for a better deal. Also something that has a better out-of-bundle charge per Mb.

If you're not sure what latency is, then you have no reason to worry about it.

I'm not sure if the promotion is still running, but AfriHost are/were hosting a R29/gigabyte deal for a limited time. I suggest you quickly hop on over to their site and have a look. If it's still available, sign up ASAP.

But to be honest, as much as we hate them, Telkom does have a good value offering with its Do Broadband packages. If speed isn't a huge issue, the 384Kbps Do Broadband package should suffice, which comes with a certain amount of data (1-3Gb depending on which package you choose), and includes line rental. You can top these accounts up.

Over here we use the Do Broadband account in conjunction with accounts from AfriHost and WebAfrica.

If you're not sure what latency is, then you have no reason to worry about it.

LOL
Thanks Lydon. Im not sure about latency... (the meaning thereof really). But what I've had for the past two years is a Data Contract with Vodacom and running a 3G connection. This has served me well, but I kinda figure that at R450p/m for 2Gb, I should look for a better deal. Also something that has a better out-of-bundle charge per Mb.

Um is the mobility important to you? and are you in an area covered by adsl? (only asking cos you were using 3G)

Um just my 2c is that if you have a ADSL router/dont mind paying up front a month to month contract can be a better deal (mainly cos you can change ISP quite easily) That said Im currently on an MWEB business account (which is very much a rip off and completely unstable but I get it free, If I didnt I wouldnt use it)

Q1 2010? http://i653.photobucket.com/albums/uu258/Onkez/OffDigitalMedia.jpg

Not quite the article I was looking for, but it'll do :)

DStv competitors give feedback


Despite numerous false starts in 2009, South Africa pay-TV looks likely to see competition entering the market in 2010.

In 2007 four prospective broadcasters were issued with pay-TV licences by the Independent Communication Authority of South Africa (ICASA), namely E-Sat, ODM, Walking on Water and Telkom Media.

It has been a slow start for DStv competitors with not much happening but the remaining prospective broadcasters have assured interested consumers that operations will begin in 2010, citing ICASA’s slow licensing process as one of the major difficulties which has in turn pushed back delivery dates.

Below is an investigation into each provider and their current status within the market.

e-Sat

E-Sat is the only pay-TV provider to withdraw its application to broadcast. In late 2007 the company signed a deal with MultiChoice to supply channels to the provider rather than compete with it. In doing so the company forfeited its broadcasting licence.

But that’s not say they haven’t done anything. E-Sat launched a 24 hour eNews channel via DStv which has enjoyed positive viewer reception.

On Digital Media

Thus far On Digital Media (ODM) arguably appears to be the most viable competitor to MultiChoice within the pay-TV sphere.

With reported funding of over R1-billion the company initially hoped to begin offering a choice-based package, where subscribers would select the channels they wished to view for between R149 and R359 per month, in mid 2008.

The broadcaster has since been forced to push its launch date back several times. In September Vino Govender, CEO for ODM, told MyBroadband that the company had been forced to delay its projected date to the first quarter of 2010. This was attributed to a “major setback in the issuance of [the company’s uplink licence” from ICASA; as a result ODM “lost about four months due to the delay”.

At the time of publication ODM could not confirm if it had received the licence, having not responded to requests for further information.

Despite this Govender has acknowledged in the past that ODM has secured a number of channels and still intends to introduce significant competition to MultiChoice in the future.

Walking on Water

Walking on Water (WoW) has distinguished itself from the other prospective pay-TV operators in that it plans to implement a family friendly service which will not include programming that features nudity, sex, violence or coarse language.

Despite this Luyanda Mangquku, Chief Financial Officer and co-founder of WoW stressed that the broadcaster is not religious but instead aims to provide family orientated entertainment.

Currently WoW is entering its testing phase in which it will broadcast to 100 households across South Africa in order to “debug the system”. Although ICASA has issued a test licence the company is still waiting for its final uplink licence to be approved. If all goes according to schedule the company will move directly from its testing phase to public broadcast added Mangquku.

Initially the service will offer between three and five channels upon commercial launch, depending on the company’s ability to secure channels which meet its content requirements.

Subscribers will require a separate WoW TV decoder and dish to receive the service, although no confirmation on which decoder models and what cost will be associated with this have yet been revealed.

Mangquku also added that WoW “will cater for subscribers who can afford HD broadcasts because it’s all produced in HD format from source. We will even be able to offer PVR boxes depending on what the subscribers want.”

Telkom Media

In March this year Telkom sold its 75% interest in Telkom Media to Shenzhen Media South Africa for a nominal amount. The company revealed that it wished to reduce its investment in this area to focus on other pursuits.

Telkom Media has since been renamed Super5 Media confirmed company representative Chris Van Zyl.

In order for the transaction to be approved, ICASA was informed of the sale and submitted a notice to other prospective pay-TV providers in order for comment to be lodged. According to Van Zyl ICASA received comments from ODM, to which Super5Media responded.

As it stands the company is “of the opinion that [it has] complied with all regulations in terms of the transaction and therefore have a licence to broadcast. The company remains committed to fulfilling ICASA’s Invitation to Apply (ITA) for commercial satellite and cable subscription broadcasting services.”

“The company plans to launch services in the first half of 2010. More details regarding the services to be launched...will be announced shortly,” said Van Zyl.

It looks likely that the pay-TV market will begin to see competition in early 2010. Whether this will make an impact on MutliChoice’s dominance within the market remains to be seen.

Despite this MultiChoice “welcomes competition within the pay-TV market” said a company representative, who added that this would have a positive impact on the industry and would encourage further investment.

Uncapped ADSL for R 399 per month; capped at R 23 per GB

Staff Writer MyBroadband | 15 November, 2009
http://mybroadband.co.za/news/ADSL/10447.html

Screamer Telecoms enters ADSL market with very aggressively priced ADSL services using SEACOM bandwidth

Screamer Telecommunications today announced its entrance into the ADSL market with a full ADSL product range which includes an unlimited 384kbps service for R399 per month.

When asked why Screamer Telecoms has entered the ADSL market, CEO Gavin Hart said that it was becoming obvious that the incubment ADSL broadband providers were not going to decrease prices as they had too much to lose on their existing client base.

“If anyone was going to break the deadlock, it had to be a company that had the infrastructure to provide the full range of services, but would not slash its bottom line” said Hart. “Screamer is ideally positioned because we have a substantial technical, administration and support infrastructure which has been restructured to include the complete array of ADSL products in the market place.”

The range comprises of Unlimited ADSL and ADSL Data packages, which supply fibre-based international bandwidth and are all available on flexible month-to-month contracts at truly affordable prices.

Screamer’s Unlimited ADSL, which they define as having no caps, no thresholds and no time-based throttling, are available in a selection of line speeds. Unlimited 384kbps retails for R399 per month, Unlimited 512kbps for R799 and Unlimited 1Mbps for R1 499. Unlimited 4Mbps is available at R2 499 per month.

The ADSL Data packages are priced at R23 per GB, with an out-of-package rate of 3 cents per MB.

“The selling prices cover the costs,” said Hart when asked how much Screamer is subsidising the broadband, “This is achieved by economies of scale with our existing WiMAX business but more importantly, by the breakthrough that the engineers have made by blending Seacom bandwidth with our two other upstream-broadband suppliers’ fibre based bandwidth. The end result is stable, high performance bandwidth which is redundant and cost effective.”

Screamer’s existing WiMAX clients can benefit from these prices as this blend of bandwidth is also available over its WiMAX network. Potential clients who are located outside an ADSL service area or those frustrated with an unstable ADSL connection, are able to get a Screamer WiMAX connection, provisioned with the same affordably priced broadband.

Hart comments that because their WiMAX network is under their control, they are able to ensure that clients get speeds and latency closer to what they have applied for, whereas their ADSL clients will be dependant on a Telkom provisioned connection.

Screamer has stressed that although this offer has no cut off date, Screamer will not over contend its bandwidth. “In other words first come, first served,” the company said.

Hopefully going to give them a try :)

I'm glad to see them selling bandwidth the way they're supposed to be selling it. They pay for bandwidth, not gigabytes of data, so we should be billed accordingly.

Here's to hoping this ship gets captained with Chinese efficiency.
DStv rival Super5Media gets Icasa go-ahead
Posted by Editor on Nov 9th, 2009
The pay-TV operator formerly known as Telkom Media has received the green light from the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) to begin operating, according to an article in Business Report.

The newspaper says the prospective broadcaster, now known as Super5Media, has received approval for its change in shareholding from the telecommunications and broadcasting regulator.

It’s been a circuitous route to air for Super5Media, which began life as a subsidiary of Telkom. The fixed-line operator later decided that broadcasting was not part of its core business and sold the company to a consortium called Shenzen Media SA.

Super 5 Media shareholding

At one time, Telkom Media had been seen as the likely strongest competitor to incumbent pay-TV operator MultiChoice, which owns DStv.

According to Business Report, Super5Media must submit its shareholders’ agreement to Icasa within 60 days and provide an assurance that it will not contravene regulations which prohibit foreign companies from owning more than 20% of SA broadcasters. — Staff reporter, TechCentral
http://www.techcentral.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/shareholding.jpg

Website is doesn't give away much.
http://i653.photobucket.com/albums/uu258/Onkez/super5media.jpg

Meanwhile at On Digital Media...

http://i653.photobucket.com/albums/uu258/Onkez/ondigitalmedia.jpg

My Monnopoly money is on Super5media.

Mine is still on ODM. Super5Media is still a long way away from actually broadcasting anything. Whilst we aren't hearing much from ODM, we're heard more :nuts:

^^ my money is on ICASA screwing them both over, and then when they finaly get running they screwing us over as much as the incumbent while provideding a limited service or simply joining the incumbent and providing 2 news channels.

Africa’s First All Digital Cinema Complex
Fri, 27 Nov 2009


On 1 December Nu Metro Cinemas will open Africa’s first all digital cinema complex – a six screen multiplex - at the Emporium at Johannesburg's Emperors Palace.

“This new cinema complex features the very latest in cinema design and equipment, with all six luxurious cinemas equipped with Barco 2K digital projectors, which will enable a wider range of movies to be shown in the highest possible viewing quality,” says Mark Harris, Content Executive for Nu Metro Cinemas.

The multiplex also boasts 3-D cinemas, Dolby Digital Surround Sound, stadium seating, ample leg room, bar and lounge facilities, a family movie cinema that has a combination of beanbags to top end seating and one of the largest cinemas in Africa known as the Pantheon - featuring 517 leather VIP seats.

All in all, R91 million was spent on the redevelopment of the spectacular new Emporium at Emperors Palace over the last few months which now features the best restaurant and entertainment facilities in Africa.

Just as an addition to the R399 uncapped adsl article.


Digichilli should be launching soon with packages from R300 for uncapped. I'm currently doing some testing on their network, and as it stands right now its pretty decent.

256Kbps though...

How's the latency? I've been told it's a little meh. Latency is very, very important for me.

Its minimum 256kps... bursts to full line speed/capacity on the network.

The latency is a bit up and down atm, but the guys are working on it.

I just use the account for downloads and stuff... for the moment my normal web traffic is routed through a different account.

Durban gets true broadband

The Durban University of Technology becomes the first campus to get true broadband speeds with the opening of the Seacom-Tenet link.


A taste of true broadband access speeds was experienced yesterday when the Tertiary Education Network (Tenet) downloaded the first test data over its network, connecting the Seacom cable with the Durban University of Technology (DUT).

At 4.32pm, on Thursday, packets of data at a speed of 10Gb/s, or one full circuit, sped down the Seacom East African cable onto the 160km Dark Fibre Africa (DFA)-built cable to DUT. The packets of information contained data that tests the veracity of the links.

Illustrating how fast this is, it is the equivalent of downloading a full-length DVD movie in 3.5 seconds.

No more incumbents

Tenet CTO Andrew Alston says this is the first time in SA that data has been passed between this country and Europe, with none of the telecommunications incumbent's involvement.

“In the past, we have always had one of the incumbents being involved one way or another on fibre-optic. No more,” he says.

Alston says the speeds experienced so far have been 50 times the capacity of anything that Tenet has on its national network that supplies connectivity to the academic institutions. He says testing of the link will continue for sometime and that it will eventually be incorporated into Tenet's national backbone network around 1 December.

Tenet is a non-profit organisation that runs a national research and education network of more than 100 academic sites within SA.

DUT vice-chancellor Roy du Pre says the difference the new link makes is “like night versus day”.

“Our students and staff will be able to make use of this link immediately. The importance of this to our research is immeasurable. Our researchers will be able to keep in constant contact with their colleagues and peers overseas, be able to download the latest data, research journals and other information. Until now, they had to go to the library and find the book they were looking for and often it would be out of date,” Du Pre says.

All welcome

DFA CEO Gustav Smit says the link between Mtunzini and Durban is based on open access principles, which means that any licensed provider can use it.

“Tenet has taken up 1% of the physical capacity on the link between Mtunzini and Durban. The remainder is available to any licensed service provider, of which a number are currently in negotiation with DFA,” he says.

Smit says the infrastructure between Mtunzini and Umhlanga can accommodate up to 1 008 fibre strands. At Umhlanga, it interconnects with the DFA metro infrastructure (currently 120km and expanding), which can accommodate 2 016 fibre strands. There are more than 250 access points (manholes) in the Ethekweni metro area.

He says the total DFA investment in that province to date is approximately R140 million. DFA is also busy constructing infrastructure from Mtunzini to Gauteng that should be completed in the first quarter of 2010. Total investment is approximately R249 million.

Broadband revolution

“The link for Tenet was the fastest roll-out of an infrastructure network in the history of SA fibre deployment,” says DFA sales and marketing executive Malcolm Kirby, adding that it was completed within two months.

Kirby says DFA's speed and its use of sophisticated trenching equipment enabled it to roll out the link at more than two kilometres per day per team.

“With the launch of Seacom's undersea cable, bandwidth supply will be increased significantly. We are anticipating a bandwidth revolution. Consumers can look forward to substantially faster and cheaper Internet connectivity in the near future,” says Kirby.

DFA plans to complete its fibre network connecting Mtunzini and Johannesburg by early 2010.

“We decided to take the long route and not merely follow the N3, to ensure that major towns such as Piet Retief, Ermelo, Richards Bay and Vryheid are covered by our network, thus also providing them access to international gateways and increased bandwidth,” says Kirby.

http://www.itweb.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=24775:durban-gets-true-broadband

Super5Media and ODM will have to start broadcasting soon; they give some details about their offerings


Incoming pay-TV operator Super5Media has confirmed that their broadcast services must commence in February 2010. This is to meet the regulations provided by the Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) in the company’s broadcast licence agreement.

Super5Media Director Tian Du Pisanie confirmed that the company must begin broadcasting by February 2010 to adhere to the conditions stipulated in their Satellite and Cable broadcast licence.

In November former Super5Media spokesperson Chris van Zyl revealed that the broadcaster was targeting a launch within the first half of 2010 adding that the company was finalising its product offering. Du Pisanie has since added that Super5Media is currently in the process of negotiating final channel packages that are “in line with [the company’s] licence requirements”.

Upon launch the company will “have a similar DTH offering to MultiChoice” in that subscribers will require a set top box and a satellite dish to receive the broadcast signal; this will offer a “comprehensive suite of products which may include Video on Demand”.

On Digital Media Head of Regulatory Affairs Dimitri Martinis revealed that ODM was obligated to deliver services by February 2010, but has been granted an extension until July 2010. Martinis stressed that this extension will not impact on their broadcast delivery date as the company is targeting a launch of April 2010.

Martinis further confirmed that ICASA has now granted ODM its ECNS licence which will allow the company to broadcast its own signal. In September ODM CEO Vino Govender criticised the regulator for not issuing this licence, thereby delaying broadcast launch by roughly four months.

On Digital Media subscribers will require a set top box and a satellite dish to receive the ODM signal. This will be installed by an accredited technician said company spokesperson Eloise Kelly, who added “quite a few” channels had been confirmed and that a group of ODM executives were currently overseas finalising channel offerings.

ICASA was contacted regarding the repercussions Super5Media and ODM will face if they fail to meet broadcast deadlines, but no response had been received at the time of publishing.

DSTv competitors broadcast deadlines (http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?p=3415811#post3415811)

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/Telecoms/10724.html

Cell C investing billions of Rands in 21 Mbps HSPA+ network with big broadband plans


Cell C revealed today that it will be investing R5 billion in its network in 2010, with a strong focus on rolling out an HSPA+ network supporting speeds of up to 21 Mbps. The company did not reveal exactly how much of the R5 billion investment will go into their 3G network, but it is understood that there will be a strong focus on its new high speed HSPA+ network.

Up to this point Cell C had not been competing in the local broadband market, but company CEO Lars Reichelt commented that consumers can expect Cell C to be a broadband player in 2010. Reichelt did not reveal any further details but added that Cell C will have significant broadband coverage by the end of next year.

Reichelt added that the company has applied for 2.6 GHz LTE spectrum, but he is not too optimistic about the operator's chances of being allocated spectrum or about the immediate value of LTE. Reichelt said that LTE is a highlycomplex technology and may well suffer the same problems as first experienced when UMTS arrived on the scene earlier this decade.

Cell C planning broadband offering (http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?p=3424063#post3424063) - Give your views

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/Telecoms/10777.html

What's the difference between a set top box and the dstv decoder?

They're essentially the same thing, but obviously built to specific requirements.

Cut-price pay TV is coming
Jan 12 2010 22:18
Simon Dingle

Johannesburg - Pay television operator On Digital Media (ODM) has revealed details of the service it plans to launch in South Africa in May.

In an exclusive interview with Fin24.com, it was revealed that pay-television channel bouquets will be priced from R99 to R249 a month.

ODM will provide a range of both local and international television channels, including Fox Entertainment and MGM.

Said CEO of ODM Vino Govender, "We're acquiring a lot of stuff internationally and creating seven local channels that will broadcast both locally produced and international content."

Govender said that ODM would not compete head-to-head with Multichoice's DStv service.

"We're creating a more affordable product in the second pay-tv window. We buy the content post-Multichoice before it goes free-to-air and therefore offer it at a much better price," said Govender.

"Our product is designed to offer more choice and affordability."

Govender also revealed that:

ODM will provide Fox Entertainment, MGM and other international channels for the first time in SA.
Packages will begin at R99 for a basic package with 30 channels and range up to R249 for a premium package with a full range of channels grouped by genre.
ODM is in discussions with Multichoice to explore the possibility of acquiring content from DStv.
Customers will be able to use existing DStv satellite dishes with the ODM service, but the dish will have to be repositioned.
ODM recommends a 75cm dish and the ODM service has been designed to be more stable in bad weather than DStv.
ODM's satellite footprint runs from northern Nigeria to Cape Town.
ODM decoders are being provided by UEC, a division of the Altech Group.
ODM plans to launch a PVR decoder within 12 months from launch.
The electronic programme guide (EPG) for ODM has been designed by the NDS Group, a division of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp and is more sophisticated than what is used by Multichoice, according to Govender.
Govender said that ODM's market research suggests that many Multichoice subscribers will look at purchasing an ODM decoder and service to compliment DStv and gain access to channels that are not available from the Multichoice service.

"There are roughly 10.5 million television households in South Africa. Multichoice has chewed up about two million of those - so there are about eight million that cannot afford pay-TV at the moment. In our view our core target market is about three million of those eight million," he said.

"Our main mission is to take Pay TV to the middle income group, who haven't been able to access multi-channel environments before," added Govender.

Sport propositions

While ODM will not provide rugby, cricket or PSL football at launch, Govender explained that ODM would gain rights to niche sporting content such as martial arts.

"Sport drives about 40% of Multichoice's market, the rest is general entertainment. Sporting rights to things like the PSL and the English Premier League can run into hundreds of millions of dollars and our market just can't afford it. But we do have some interesting sport propositions on the table," said Govender.

"The sport products we will put on the table will be sufficient to support our viewer's needs. We'll have one channel on our package at launch that will have key sports highlights on it and then other channels with things like UFC Fighting, some soccer rights that haven't been taken, basketball and other content that Multichoice hasn't set its sights on," he added.

Govender said that ODM would also pursue rights for other sports as the contracts with Multichoice expire and become available.

On Digital Media's shareholders include First National Media Investment Holdings (28%), Cosatu's investment arm Kopano Ke Matla (20%), SES Astra (20%), the IDC (10%), National Empowerment Fund (10%), First A1 investments (10%) and an ex-Multichoice executive Mervin Moodley (1%).

- Fin24.com

Not very sure about the Fox scoop,Dstv already has the rights to most of Fox programming right?Imagine Glee being simulcast on ODM,Multichoice would throw a fit!I like how Dstv-user friendly their system will be and think that households like mine which have multiple Dstvs,will be enticed into trying out ODM.

I don't quite like the fact that they plan on broadcasting older content once it's already been broadcast on DStv.

But I wasn't expecting their channel offering to be anything wonderful, as in all honesty DStv has scooped the better of what there is to scoop...

South Africa’s Internet growth accelerates
Staff Writer | MyBroadband | 14 January, 2010

The number of South African Internet users has passed the 5-million mark for the first time, finally breaking through the 10% mark in Internet penetration for the country.

This is the key finding of the Internet Access in South Africa 2010 study, conducted by World Wide Worx and jointly sponsored by Cisco. The headline data, released today, shows that the Internet user base grew by 15% last year, from 4.6-million to 5.3-million, and is expected to grow at a similar rate in 2010.

“The good news is that we will continue to see strong growth in 2010, and we should reach the 6-million mark by the end of the year,” says Arthur Goldstuck, MD of World Wide Worx

“A sustained growth in Internet penetration is a key factor that will positively influence the economy of South Africa”, says Reshaad Sha, Senior Manager for Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group. “The varied range of application services and social networking platforms used by local consumers has fuelled the uptake that we see today.”

Growth in the number of Internet users in South Africa was relatively stagnant from 2002 to 2007, when it never rose above 7%. However, this rate almost doubled in 2008, and continued accelerating in 2009.

World Wide Worx found that the landing of a SEACOM was only one of a range of factors behind the growth. Of greater significance was the granting of Electronic Communications Network Service licenses to more than 400 organisations. This meant that service providers that were previously required to buy their network access from one of the major providers, could now build their own networks or choose where they wanted to buy their access.

The result was that a market previously characterised by a limited range of providers and services suddenly exploded as small providers were able to repackage the services provided by the large telecommunications corporations in any way they wished. The large providers, in turn, began to offer far more competitive packages to both customers and resellers.

World Wide Worx found that a second key factor in growth over the past two years has been the continued uptake of broadband connectivity by small and medium enterprises migrating from dial-up connectivity. Each company moving from dial-up to ADSL, for example, extended Internet access to general office staff. This process was found to add an additional one to 20 new users to the Internet user base for every small business installing ADSL.

While the headline findings examine the general numbers of users, the final Internet Access in SA 2010 report, due to be released in March, will highlight the extent of new fibre-optic networks laid down across South African cities and between the cities. It will also examine the impact of the range of new undersea cables that will be in place by the end of 2011, and which is expected to enhance competitiveness even further.

“In the coming year, operators will begin to leverage the combination of new undersea cable capacity and new fibre-optic networks to supply corporate clients and resellers with bigger, faster and more flexible capacity,” says Goldstuck. “Almost every large player in the communications industry has realigned its business to take advantage of this relentless change.”

“South African consumers and businesses are demanding access to online applications and services that can only be experienced via high speed connectivity, such as fibre-optic networks. The year ahead will see the proliferation of high speed connectivity materialising more widely than ever before”, concludes Sha.

Internet growth in SA (http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?t=211571) - comments and views

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/Business/11103.html

12 Mbps ADSL upgrades trialed

Staff Writer MyBroadband | 24 January, 2010

Telkom is currently trialing an 8 Mbps ADSL service, but speeds may be bumped up to as high as 12 Mbps

MyBroadband earlier reported that Telkom is trialing an 8 Mbps ADSL service, with plans to upgrade current 4 Mbps subscribers in the next few months. 8 Mbps is however the minimum speed upgrade, and if subsequent DSL2+ trials prove successful speed upgrades of up to 12 Mbps are possible.

Telkom Wholesale’s Mike Vos recently explained that as part of the trials, which are conducted in Pretoria and Cape Town, the percentage of 4 Mbps subscribers which can sync at higher speeds without any service problems are recorded. The results so far have been very promising.

In Pretoria Central and Constantia Park – the two first trial areas – around 99% of 4 Mbps ADSL subscribers synced at 8 Mbps without any stability problems. These results were so encouraging that Telkom will now conduct similar tests at 10 Mbps and 12 Mbps and assess the upgrade success rate at these higher speeds.

If the success rate of the 10 Mbps or 12 Mbps also proves to be sufficiently high, Telkom said that it may decide to upgrade 4 Mbps ADSL subscribers to the higher speed profiles if their line quality is good enough. Uplink speeds will be in the region of 10% of the downlink speed - hence around 1 Mbps for a 10 Mbps ADSL service – but these speeds will also be dependent on line quality.

Vos explained that if a subscribers’ line quality is not good enough to support a stable 8 Mbps (or 12 Mbps in the case of higher speed upgrades) service, they will be assigned the highest possible speed where the connection is stable and will provide a good quality of service. This will happen in speed profile increments of 1 Mbps each (hence 7 Mbps, 6 Mbps, 5 Mbps etc).

Not all at once

Telkom however explained that not all 4 Mbps subscribers will be part of the first set of upgrades, which is set to take place in the next few months. Only ADSL subscribers who are served by suitable DSLAMs – which are connected to Telkom’s Metro Ethernet network and have the latest DSL2+ equipment – will be upgraded.

These restrictions may seem petty to some ADSL users, but Telkom explains that they want to be certain that the overall experience of their ‘highest speed’ broadband customers are what they expect. This means adequate backhaul bandwidth and the flexibility to quickly and affordably assign more bandwidth if needed, which Metro Ethernet makes possible (as opposed to ATM which does not provide the same flexibility and affordability).

Telkom plans to have 30% to 40% of DSLAMs, which are currently serving 4 Mbps ADSL subscribers, ready by March/April and are aiming to increase this figure to 60% by August/September.

Good news for current Telkom 4 Mbps ADSL subscribers is that the speed upgrade is likely to be free, and it will be an automatic upgrade without the need to contact Telkom.

12 Mbps ADSL speeds (http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?213354-12-Mbps-ADSL-speeds-tested) - comments and views

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/ADSL/11233.html

Cell C plans to be first with 21 Mbps HSPA+

Cell C CEO says ZTE deal is first big step in bringing 4G to South Africa

Following Cell C’s announcement that it has signed a US$378m (approx R2.9bn) deal with the Chinese telecom equipment provider ZTE Corporation, company CEO Lars P. Reichelt has hailed this development as the operator’s first big step towards transforming Cell C into a ‘possibilities provider’.

This development comes on the back of Cell C’s announcement that it will be spending over R5bn on a 4G network to be rolled out during the course of 2010. Cell C will very shortly announce the appointment of the second vendor that will carry out the remaining part of the nation-wide rollout.

“The process to appoint ZTE was an extensive one and we are glad to say that we are on track to deliver a 4G network that will offer the kind of connectivity that South Africans have been craving.” commented Reichelt.

“Few would have predicted that Cell C would ever lead the industry as far as network infrastructure is concerned but it is a fact that Cell C will be the first South African operator to roll out HSPA+ technologies incorporating download speeds of up to 21Mbit/s – three times faster than anything currently available.”

An important factor in the decision to appoint ZTE is its ability to offer 4G services using Cell C’s 900MHz frequency band which offers wider and deeper coverage than existing 2100 MHz networks, enabling cost effective deployment to rural as well as metropolitan areas.

“We will be shedding more light on our 2010 plans towards the end of the first quarter of this year, but we can assure South Africans that world-class, effective and affordable wireless connectivity is on its way.”

Congrats for setting up the ADSL 2+ !

iBurst ADSL service here this month

iBurst will start trialing its iDSL offering this week, with a commercial launch set for 15 February


In December last year iBurst announced that it was planning its own ADSL service, named iDSL, early this year. The company further announced that all iBurst iDSL subscribers will have access to the standard iGame platform and as an introductory launch offer will receive 1 Gigabyte of free gaming bandwidth per month for a period of three months.

The company has now said that it will start testing its iDSL service on 4 February, and plans an official launch of the service on 15 February. “We will be testing the service with external users who we have identified as candidates who can provide the technical feedback required,” iBurst said.
iDSL packages are available on a month-to-month contract with data allowances ranging from 1 gigabyte to 60 gigabytes per month. Package options of 1 GB, 2 GB, 5 GB, and 8 GB are priced at R49 per Gig, 15 GB at R39 per Gig with a 60 GB offering at only R29 per Gig. An additional package option, the iDSL Starter solution has also been introduced and costs R19 for 80MB of data a month.

iBurst's iDSL leverages a Telkom IP Connect pipe which means that iBurst will be terminating DSL Internet traffic directly on its own network instead of doing so via Telkom. The result is reduced latency for all on net applications which should be good news for iGame regulars.

"Though we have delayed the launch of this solution to fine-tune our offering and conduct more extensive testing, we are now on track to launch iDSL in mid-February. We are sure that customers will agree that this highly competitive offering was worth the wait," said Jannie van Zyl (http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?208401-Jannie-van-Zyl), iBurst Group CEO.

iBurst's new iDSL product range launches in conjunction with iGame Unlimited. iGame is iBurst's online gaming platform, with the enhanced iGame Unlimited service offering subscribers on packages of 5 gigabytes and higher uncapped gaming bandwidth and priority status on the iGame servers for an extra R99 per month.

Apart from the advantage of an unlimited iGame bandwidth option, data not used during the month can be carried over to the following month.

iBurst iDSL service (http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?214485-iDSL-service-here-this-month) - comments and views

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/ADSL/11317.html

Vodacom 21 Mbps HSPA+ network live
Vodacom will upgrade all their customers to 7.2 Mbps at the end of March; 21 Mbps HSPA+ network already live

Vodacom CEO Pieter Uys today announced that Vodacom has made significant progress in the upgrade of its mobile data network, and is set to bump up all their subscribers to 7.2 Mbps at the end of March. To date ‘Vodacom Advanced’ customers had access to speeds of up to 7.2 Mbps, with the rest of the customer base seeing downlink speeds of up to 3.6 Mbps.

Uys further announced that Vodacom has switched on its HSPA+ network in Midrand, offering speeds of up to 21 Mbps – the first live HSPA+ network in Africa. This service will however not be available immediately, but Uys said that 21 Mbps HSPA+ will be available in areas like the World Cup stadiums and airports “where it makes sense”.

Uys added that the full Vodacom network will be 14.4 Mbps capable by the time the 2010 World Cup kicks off. Good news for Vodacom subscribers is that they will get access to 14.4 Mbps HSPA from the end of March, but Uys highlighted that only around 100 sites will be 14.4 Mbps enabled at the time.

Cell C announced in January (http://mybroadband.co.za/news/Cellular/11280.html) that it is planning to roll out its 4G network this year, and launch 21 Mbps HSPA+ services in 2010.

Vodacom HSPA+ network (http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?214720-Vodacom-21-Mbps-HSPA-network-goes-live-in-Midrand) - comments and views

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/Cellular/11340.html

Those sound like good news BUT I wont celebrate. I know that these guys sell hype rather than real service. I have full bars of Vodacom HSDPA even under my bed but when I surf the net the download speed hardy peaks 600kps when I have a HSDPA modem and I suppose to surf at least 3mbps at peak.

4G is on cards then let's prepare ourselves for daylight robbery AGAIN as they will screw us in an excuse of the ''4G speeds''. Lets be honest 3G is hardly available across the country when I go to my relatives in the small towns around the country they only have GPRS and they stare at your face when you talk about 3G and on.
Personally I will prefer that they expand the wireless service to small towns around the country rather than going hypersonic in the metros leaving everyone behind.

I rarely have issues with speed, but all these speed increases are only going to further expose how expensive data is. A 1gig cap on 21Mbps HSPA+ is not going to last long at ALL.

Finally, relief is on the way re: high connection charges...

------------------------

Icasa approves connection rate cut
February 11, 2010

The Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) has approved a cut in the rate charged by the three main cellphone operators to connect calls between networks, Business Day reported on Thursday.

Vodacom, MTN and Cell C last month filed an agreement with Icasa proposing a cut in the peak interconnection rate from R1.25 to 89 cents on March 1.

Icasa rejected the plan because it would have forced it to agree to a fixed gradual reduction over three years.

The operators submitted revised agreements without the "glide path" on Monday and Tuesday.

With the approval of those proposals, the peak rate will fall on March 1, as initially planned.

Icasa said the rate reduction must be passed on to consumers.

It also plans to release draft call termination regulations next month.

MTN's Robert Madzonga said the speed of Icasa's response was commendable.

"We will immediately start making all the necessary technical changes to ensure the rates come down on March 1."

A Vodacom spokeswoman said the company was pleased the matter had been handled quickly.

Lars Reichelt, CEO of Cell C, said the company had "championed this cause in the interest of consumers and believes it is a significant step forward in creating more competition in the market". - Sapa

http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=5348179

what is the revised rate now?

EASSy cable promises bandwidth price cuts


The long awaited 1.4 Tbps East African Submarine Cable System will land in SA tomorrow; ready for commercial service from August 2010

The East African Submarine Cable System (EASSy) – one of the nine undersea telecommunications cables that will connect various parts of Sub-Saharan Africa to the rest of the world by 2011 – will land at Mtunzini, on the northern KwaZulu-Natal coastline, tomorrow.

Telkom is the South African landing partner for EASSy. In all, there are nine EASSy landing stations in Sudan, Djibouti, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Comoros, Madagascar, Mozambique and South Africa, with shore-end landings already having occurred in Mozambique and Sudan.

“EASSy is one of the elements of Telkom’s cable investment strategy and is a key step towards the process of establishing a Telkom fibre ring capability around Africa,” said Alphonzo Samuels, Telkom’s Managing Executive for Wholesale Services.

He added: “EASSy further increases the robustness of Telkom’s international bandwidth offerings and portfolio. Together with other undersea cables and/or land based fibre routes, EASSy creates redundant fibre access prospects into East Africa.”

EASSy is a 10 000 km undersea cable system currently being constructed along the east African coastline. Its 1.4 Tbps system design capacity, coupled with its two fibre-pair configuration, equips EASSy with the highest capacity of all undersea cable systems along the east coast of Africa.
Interconnection with various other undersea international cable systems will enable traffic on EASSy to connect to Europe, North and South America, the Middle East and Asia, thereby enhancing the east coast of Africa’s connectivity into the global telecommunications network.

“EASSy is routed from South Africa to Sudan, linking the coastal countries of East Africa. An extensive backhaul system linking landlocked countries to the coastal countries has been developed and is at various stages of completion,” stated Samuels, adding that EASSy is scheduled to be ready for commercial service from August this year.

Samuels explained that submarine cables held many benefits such as superior transmission quality, considerably lesser delays compared to satellite, high transmission capacity, access to the global optical fibre network, lower unit costs (compared to satellite), no electromagnetic interference and higher resistance against adverse weather conditions.
“However, activities such as fishing and anchoring, ocean drilling, fish bites and earthquakes constituted some of the commonly known submarine cable hazards,” cautioned Samuels.

Various initiatives were nevertheless undertaken to protect submarine cables. These included conducting ocean bed surveys to select the safest undersea routes; burying cable in sand where possible, especially at the shallow end; avoiding heavy shipping lanes when approaching landing points; selecting safe beaches, bearing in mind that later beach erosion could expose cables; designing the shortest land cable route for maximum security; and, manufacturing cables to exceed the 25 year design life of the cable system.

“Redundancy, protection and – where necessary – restoration are also key considerations,” said Samuels.

He explained: “Redundancy means that we have duplicated equipment at the cable stations, duplicated power converters, generators, etc. Therefore, if a single piece of equipment should fail, we have another piece of equipment standing by to take its place.”

Protection ensures that a fully duplicated amount of capacity is available to re-route traffic on the same cable in the event of an internal failure impacting only one path or fibre. Protection therefore implies that for everything that is duplicated, automated switching takes place.
Samuels added that restoration required traffic to be routed onto other cable systems via completely different traffic paths and even different routes. “This usually happens when a complete failure of a cable system occurs, usually via an external influence such as a ship’s anchor breaking a cable, to the extent that ‘in-system’ protection on the same system is not possible.”

He also explained that customers have a choice between the regular international private lease circuits that includes restoration for their bandwidth or a product that excludes restoration, which would be termed non-restorable bandwidth or traffic.

“It must be emphasised, though, that in the event of submarine cable service interruptions, every attempt is always made to expedite customer services,” emphasised Samuels.

Although EASSy will not be commercially active by the time this year’s 2010 FIFA World Cup kicks off in June, Samuels stated that “Telkom’s undersea capacity has been significantly upgraded”. “For example, by end-October last year, SAT-3 and SAFE were upgraded to at least three times their former capacity.”

He added that SAT3 provided the shortest route to Europe while SAFE was the shortest link to Asia. From an undersea capacity perspective, therefore, it’s all systems go for the World Cup,” emphasised Samuels.
As its investment in EASSy (http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?216377-EASSy) highlighted, Samuels said that Telkom had a robust strategy with regard to undersea cable investments. The Company’s cable investments included COLUMBUS3, SEA-ME-WE3 (South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe), SAT3/WASC/SAFE (South Atlantic Telecommunications / West Africa Submarine Cable /South Africa Far East), EASSy, EIG (Europe India Gateway) and WACS (West Africa Cable System).

“Our investments are geared by the participation of other operators and we firmly believe that investment sharing translates to better unit costs and improved customer prices,” he added.

“Ultimately, we believe that EASSy will also go a long way towards increasing Africa’s bandwidth capacity, affordability and create increased diversity and fibre redundancy between SA and Europe as well as within East Africa” concluded Samuels.

EASSy cable in SA (http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?216396-EASSy-cable-promises-international-bandwidth-price-cuts-more-bandwidth) << discussion
http://mybroadband.co.za/news/Telecoms/11469.html

More DStv competitor details emerge


On Digital Media concludes deal with international technology provider

Incoming pay-TV operator On Digital Media (ODM) announced today that it will partner with NDS, an international provider of technology solutions for digital pay-TV, to launch its commercial offering in the second quarter of 2010.

Earlier this year the company’s Chief Marketing Officer Elouise Kelly revealed that ODM was currently in discussions with various networks and channels throughout the world, adding that these negotiations were due to be concluded by the end of February.

In the interim the company has concluded its agreement with NDS. This will see ODM securing its MPEG4 DVB-S2-based service using NDS’s Video Guard conditional access technology, which is an advanced suite of Conditional Access (CA) and Digital Rights Management (DRM) solutions.
In addition to this ODM has revealed that its commercial offering will be known as TopTV.

The launch of the TopTV platform will provide South Africans with a choice of satellite service providers. TopTV will offer a competitively priced basic package of approximately 30 channels.

ODM will allow subscribers to choose their channels and pricing options will start from R99 right through to R249.

“We chose to partner with NDS as it offers the most secure encryption for pay-TV and a middleware roadmap that will allow us to introduce more advanced features including a DVR service in the future. The design and ease-of-use of NDS user interfaces was also a key factor in our decision,” said Vino Govender, CEO of On Digital Media.

“Moreover, we are benefiting from NDS’s professional services as they bring unique experience from their involvement on similar engagements around the world.”

ODM subscribers will be able to use an existing DStv dish for the service, but will need a new decoder. According to Kelly the “box we are going with at launch is what is known as a basic zapper box, however it will have some great functionality. “

More DStv competitor details emerge (http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?217913-Additional-DStv-competitor-details-emerge&p=3641425#post3641425)<< Discussion
http://mybroadband.co.za/news/General/11554.html

Their website is finally finished its maintenance period - http://www.ondigitalmedia.co.za/

SA's Digital TV live test channels revealed

MyBroadband gets a live preview of the new Digital TV channels being trialed.

South Africa officially started the migration from Terrestrial Television (ATT) to Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) on 1 November, promising more efficient use of spectrum and additional channels to all South Africans.

One of the primary benefits of digital television is spectral efficiency. The SABC has estimated that a digital multiplex using the same bandwidth as a single analogue channel can carry up to eight digital video channels.

In July 2009 Lara Kantor chairperson for the Digital Dzonga, the advisory council for DTT migration, said that broadcasters would potentially carry additional channels for local viewers upon launch. She added that “some additional channels are already being broadcast on the DTT trial.”

Some of the details behind this migration remain sketchy, but more information is starting to emerge regarding the channels being tested. MyBroadband recently viewed a live preview of the SABC and eTV test channels which are currently broadcasted.

The channels currently on the DTT trial are:


SABC 1
SABC 2
SABC 3
eTV
eClassics – dedicated primarily to movie broadcasts
SABC Movies
SABC Sport
SABC NI (News International)
SABC Knowledge
SABC Tots
SABC Junior

In addition to this the trial is also broadcasting several radio stations including Radio 2000, Metro FM, Good Hope Radio, 5fm, Lesedi and Lotus FM. MultiChoice is also trialing a number of channels from its DStv bouquets.

Although it has not yet been confirmed if television owners will have access to the DTT channels during the dual illumination period, it seems likely.

DTT rollout delay

The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) recently confirmed that South Africa’s switch over to DTT will be delayed until 2013 at the earliest. This is over a year and a half later than cabinet had initially envisaged.

The time frame for dual illumination will be communicated to broadcasters by the Regulator at least 60 days prior to the intended start date for dual illumination. The dual illumination period will terminate three years after the commencement date.

ICASA has not yet given official notice to DTT players to prepare for the dual illumination process.

Digital TV channels (http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?218542-Digital-TV-live-test-channels-revealed) << comments and views

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/Telecoms/11592.html

More SABC channels... yay

I lol'ed at eClassics. I mean as if their movies aren't classic enough :lol:

Free 10 Mbps ADSL upgrades considered


Telkom’s 8 Mbps to 12 Mbps ADSL trials successful; speculation suggests that Telkom may do free upgrades to 10 Mbps

MyBroadband reported in January this year that Telkom is trialing an 8 Mbps ADSL service, with plans to upgrade current 4 Mbps subscribers in the next few months. At the time Telkom revealed that 8 Mbps was the minimum planned upgrade, and that the company was also trialing 10 Mbps and 12 Mbps ADSL2+ services (http://mybroadband.co.za/news/ADSL/11233.html).

Telkom Wholesale’s Mike Vos recently explained that as part of the trials, which are taking place in Pretoria and Cape Town, the percentage of 4 Mbps subscribers that can sync at higher speeds (8 Mbps, 10 Mbps and 12 Mbps) without any service problems are recorded. From these results it would be decided what the optimal speed is to which current 4 Mbps ADSL subscribers can be recorded.

Information has now come to light that Telkom’s ADSL2+ trials were very successful, and that the company is onsidering upgrading its current 4 Mbps ADSL subscribers to 10 Mbps free of charge.

There is further speculation that the exchange upgrades to Metro-Ethernet backhaul are progressing well, and that the national rollout plans have been shortened as a result of the successful trials.

Telkom previously warned that not all 4 Mbps subscribers will be upgraded to the higher speeds at the same time since the upgrades need exchanges with the latest DSL2+ equipment & software and they must have Metro Ethernet connectivity.

Telkom would not officially confirm or deny the speculation that it is planning 10 Mbps ADSL upgrades. Ajith Bridgraj, Telkom's Senior Specialist for media relations, merely said that “Telkom is in the process of assessing the results of trials conducted. The way forward will be determined by this assessment.”

Free 10 Mbps ADSL upgrades (http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?220310-Telkom-considering-free-10-Mbps-ADSL-upgrades) << comments and views

Related articles
Free 8 Mbps ADSL upgrades likely (http://mybroadband.co.za/news/ADSL/11215.html)

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/adsl/11713.html

Free 10 Mbps ADSL upgrades considered


Telkom’s 8 Mbps to 12 Mbps ADSL trials successful; speculation suggests that Telkom may do free upgrades to 10 Mbps

MyBroadband reported in January this year that Telkom is trialing an 8 Mbps ADSL service, with plans to upgrade current 4 Mbps subscribers in the next few months. At the time Telkom revealed that 8 Mbps was the minimum planned upgrade, and that the company was also trialing 10 Mbps and 12 Mbps ADSL2+ services (http://mybroadband.co.za/news/ADSL/11233.html).

Telkom Wholesale’s Mike Vos recently explained that as part of the trials, which are taking place in Pretoria and Cape Town, the percentage of 4 Mbps subscribers that can sync at higher speeds (8 Mbps, 10 Mbps and 12 Mbps) without any service problems are recorded. From these results it would be decided what the optimal speed is to which current 4 Mbps ADSL subscribers can be recorded.

Information has now come to light that Telkom’s ADSL2+ trials were very successful, and that the company is onsidering upgrading its current 4 Mbps ADSL subscribers to 10 Mbps free of charge.

There is further speculation that the exchange upgrades to Metro-Ethernet backhaul are progressing well, and that the national rollout plans have been shortened as a result of the successful trials.

Telkom previously warned that not all 4 Mbps subscribers will be upgraded to the higher speeds at the same time since the upgrades need exchanges with the latest DSL2+ equipment & software and they must have Metro Ethernet connectivity.

Telkom would not officially confirm or deny the speculation that it is planning 10 Mbps ADSL upgrades. Ajith Bridgraj, Telkom's Senior Specialist for media relations, merely said that “Telkom is in the process of assessing the results of trials conducted. The way forward will be determined by this assessment.”

Free 10 Mbps ADSL upgrades (http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?220310-Telkom-considering-free-10-Mbps-ADSL-upgrades) << comments and views

Related articles
Free 8 Mbps ADSL upgrades likely (http://mybroadband.co.za/news/ADSL/11215.html)

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/adsl/11713.html

Oh wow - this will truly make my day.....and for no extra cost - thanks Telkom!! We're getting close to the speeds of UK now, with their ADSL2+ offerings! Pity about the per Gb cost from ISP's but this will also sort itself out soon with the local loop unbundling and all the undersea cables landing in SA!!

384Kbps and 512Kbps are supposedly going to be upgraded to 1Mbps too.

We can hope...:)

Broadband jumps 50% in SA
2010-03-17 12:02

Johannesburg - Findings from a new survey out on Wednesday revealed that the number of South Africans accessing the internet via broadband connections has increased by more than 50% in the past year.

The Internet Access in South Africa 2010 study, conducted by technology research and strategy organisation, World Wide Worx in collaboration with Cisco, found that wireless broadband has grown almost three times as fast as fixed line broadband in SA.

The study revealed that most of the growth in fixed line broadband comes from small and medium enterprises (SMEs) upgrading to ADSL. This in turn has extended internet access to more than half-a-million South Africans working in small offices, who did not previously have access.

Wireless broadband subscriptions have grown by 88% in the past year, against 21% for ADSL, according to World Wide Worx, with corporate users the major driver of this growth, through the deployment of 3G cards.

The group noted that the ability to collaborate and share information in real time would help to increase business productivity and profitability across the region.

Impact

The study also reported on the current and expected impact of the new undersea cables.

"If all current cable projects come to fruition, by 2011, the total capacity of undersea cables connecting Africa to the rest of the world will have increased 150-fold over 2008. At the end of 2009, the capacity was 1 690Gbps. At the end of 2010 it will be 5 410Gbps, and a year later 14 770Gbps," World Wide Worx said.

The availability of both fibre access and new licences has also sparked an 18% increase in the number of internet access and service providers in SA, according to the study.

"Wireless broadband is neither cheaper nor better quality, but it is more convenient and flexible, and it changes the way we think about where and how we use the internet," said Arthur Goldstuck, managing director of World Wide Worx.

"The combination of new undersea cables and terrestrial fibre-optic networks means we are seeing the emergence of the next generation of connectivity technology, both in fixed line and wireless services. The missing ingredients now are the next generation of customer access equipment for those who are connected, and affordable availability of access for those who are not," he added.

- I-Net Bridge (News24)

I've been following "FreeTheWebSA" on Twitter and Facebook for just over a week now. They apparently have some huge announcement to make tomorrow. According to http://twitter.com/matthewbuckland/status/10613568403 on Twitter:

"i have, in front of me, a confidential press release that could revolutionise SA's web landscape. Details: News24 tom @ 10am"

I'm really interested to see what said announcement is.

Edit

I have one prediction for the "Free The Web" crowd...

They will announce nothing fancy, it will be a damp squib and they will disappear into obscurity

Free the Web = Mweb

They've slashed uncapped data plans:

384Kbps uncapped = R219/month
512Kbps uncapped = R299/month
4Mbps uncapped = R539/month

Excellent prices!

http://www.mweb.co.za/adsl/?p=default

Shit.. I stand corrected then... damnit....

Uncapped ADSL for R219: The details
Rudolph Muller MyBroadband | 18 March, 2010

MWEB CEO promises great service levels and more to follow in the broadband market

MWEB stunned the local broadband market today when they announced that they will launch uncapped ADSL services next week starting from as low as R219 per month.

Rudi Jansen, MWEB CEO, says the time has come for South Africans to experience unlimited internet access that is within their means. “Internet penetration in South Africa remains below par - in fact, South Africa has fallen behind a number of other African countries in recent times. The lack of well-priced, generously-provisioned bandwidth has been holding us all back, and as a result we are missing out on an immense economic opportunity.”

MWEB Uncapped ADSL

This prompted MWEB to take the bull by the horns and launch uncapped ADSL services at prices never seen before in South Africa.

MWEB is introducing six data-only ADSL packages for consumers and businesses. The consumer data-only products will cost R219, R299 and R539 per month for line speeds of 384Kbps, 512 Kbps and 4Mbps respectively.

In addition, MWEB will offer three consumer all-inclusive packages (ADSL line rental included) for R349, R599 and R899 per month for line speeds of 384Kbps, 512 Kbps and 4Mbps respectively.

MWEB points out that any ADSL subscriber can take advantage of these new uncapped offerings, even if you are a Telkom Closer subscriber.

Business Products

At the same time MWEB launched uncapped services aimed at the business market.

The MWEB Business data-only offerings will cost R499 per month for a 384Kbps line, R699 per month for a 512Kbps line, and R1 999 per month on a 4Mbps line. The all-inclusive offerings for businesses will cost R629 for the 384Kbps option, R999 for the 512Kbps option and R2 259 for the 4Mbps package.

Jansen explains that the business products are significantly different from the consumer products, adding that all business products are unshaped and come with dedicated support, a Cisco router and other business related benefits and requirements.

The higher price for the business products are therefore directly related to the added benefits and higher service levels associated with this product line.

Shaping and capping

While the MWEB uncapped business products are completely unshaped and uncapped, port prioritization may be applied to the consumer accounts during peak hours to ensure fast email and browsing.

Jansen however points out that the service will be completely unshaped during off-peak hours, and that the offering will be totally uncapped. Peer-to-peer traffic and large downloads are therefore allowed on the network, but this may be shaped during peak hours if it starts to affect web browsing and other standard protocols.

Jansen made it clear that shaping/port prioritization will be kept to a minimum and will only be applied during periods of particularly high traffic.

Service levels

The MWEB CEO is confident that they will be able to provide great service levels on their uncapped ADSL offerings. Jansen said that they acquired significant international bandwidth capacity on SEACOM, with additional SAT-3/SAFE capacity to provide full redundancy.

MWEB is also leveraging its own fibre network in Gauteng and Cape Town to ensure cost savings on local bandwidth.

More to come from MWEB

This announcement from MWEB is sure to shake up the local broadband market, but Jansen said that this is merely the first step in a drive to bring true broadband to South Africans and ‘Free The Web’.

Jansen said that they are working hard behind the scenes to ensure better peering arrangements and conditions, bring about wireless local loop unbundling and ensure more favorable ADSL line charges.

The MWEB CEO added that consumers can expect much more from them this year, both in the ADSL and mobile broadband markets.

- http://mybroadband.co.za/news/adsl/11819.html
:cheers::banana::cheers::banana::cheers::banana::cheers::banana::cheers::banana::cheers::banana:

On Digital Media ‘Top TV’ channels revealed
Tom Manners MyBroadband | 18 March, 2010

Incoming pay-TV operator On Digital Media announces full channel listing; pay-TV packages will range between R99 and R249 per month

Pay-TV operator On Digital Media (ODM) today announced details about its broadcast offering, which is due to be commercially launched in May, including a full list of channel options.

Upon launch the company’s offering will be known as ‘Top TV’.

Customers will have the choice of over fifty channels which will be divided into Movies, Series, Documentary, Children, Music, Religion, News, Sport and Local Content categories.

Pricing of the company’s pay-TV packages will range between R99 per month and R249 per month. This is a downward adjustment from their previously planned pricing models which ranged from R149 to R349 a month according to the channels selected by the subscriber.

ODM’s big selling point is that subscribers will have the ability to choose the channels they wish to watch. This signals a departure from MultiChoice’s channel bouquet business model which is currently the only pay-TV option available to South African consumers.

The channels ODM will offer upon launch are as follows:

Top Movies, Top Movies 2, Top Movies 24, Fox FX, Silver, Showtime, Top Junior, Jim Jam, Baby TV, KidsCo, Fuel, Kiss, Kerrang, Q, Magic, Smash Hits, C Music, Classica, Top Explore, Top History, Natura, Discovery Science, Discovery 10

Discovery Travel and Living, Star, Fox Entertainment, Fox Retro, Top Crime, BET, Top One (flagship channel), Top Gospel, Goo TV, Inspiration, Christian Channel, Hi Nolly, Zee Cinema, MGM, BBC World, Fox News, MSNBC, Al Jazeera

France 24, Current TV, Eurosportnews, Setana Africa, SABC 1, SABC 2, SABC 3, E-TV, Educational Channel, RTPi, Fashion TV, Fine Living Network, Music Choice (audio channel),

During a recent interview with MyBroadband company CEO Vino Govender said that “we’ve [ODM] done a fantastic job on our content and we’ve got a full package offering.”

With regards to adult content Govender commented that ODM currently has no “intention of launching any porn channels on our platform right now. We run our operator on the basis of a Christian ethos and we don’t want to poison the minds of the children”.

ODM customers will be able to use the DStv satellite dishes to receive their signal but Govender has urged subscribers to invest in an 80cm dish to ensure optimal picture quality.

In addition the company will also embark on a marketing drive in April to make potential customers aware of the service.
- http://mybroadband.co.za/news/broadcasting/11818.html

Today's a good day for ICT in SA :cheers:

Very good day.... :)

Also a good day for spending money.. got me a PS3 for R2299 as well.. brand spanking new.

You'd better have an Xbox already, otherwise *shun* ;)

Of course I do... the PS3 was bought as a Blu-Ray player... that has the added benefit of being able to play a few games ;)

Phew :D There is hope after all!

^^ Bunch of xbots

Pay TV competition: What to expect


The South African pay-TV market is set to become competitive in 2010; where do the players fit in?

The South African pay-TV environment has changed considerably over the past twelve months. On Digital Media (ODM) and Super5Media have now said they intend to begin offering commercial services in competition to market leader MultiChoice in 2010 with other offerings such as Walking on Water following closely behind.

MyBroadband explains where each provider is currently positioned within the local pay-TV market.

MultiChoice

At present MultiChoice is the sole provider and therefore market leader in the South African pay-TV environment. The company recently announced a number of increases across its product range which will come into effect in April.

In December MutliChoice also revealed that it would be adding two additional channels to its High Definition offering, namely SuperSport HD and Discovery HD, as well as releasing a second HD PVR manufactured by UEC.

This has gone some way to bolster the provider’s HD offering. Despite this, a group of subscribers have criticised MultiChoice for failing to implement DStv on Demand and Series recording with its HD PVR package.

On Digital Media

After months of speculation pay-TV operator ODM confirmed that it would launch its ‘Top TV’ broadcast service in May and confirmed the initial channel packages it would be offering. These include the likes of Kerrang, Q, Discovery Science, Discovery 10, Discovery Travel and Living, Star, Fox Entertainment and BBC World among others.

Pricing of the company’s pay-TV packages will range between R99 per month and R249 per month and subscribers will be required to purchase a Top TV decoder and reposition their existing satellite dish or install a new 80cm unit in order to receive the service.

Top TV subscribers will also be able to choose the channels they wish to view. This is one of ODM’s biggest value propositions.

According to ODM CEO Vino Govender the company plans to directly compete with DStv’s Compact and Select packages and to reach customers in a lower income bracket who are not served by the existing pay-TV offerings.

Super5Media

Labelled as the other hopeful for pay-TV competition Super5Media, previous known as Telkom Media, is due to launch commercial services in the second quarter of 2010 says company Director Tian du Pisanie.

Recently the company was embroiled in a High Court case in which competitor ODM filed an interdict in an attempt to prevent Super5Media from going forward with its commercial launch. This was due to alleged irregularities in the regulator ICASA’s issuance of a broadcast licence to Super5Media.

The case was however dismissed with du Pisanie adding that Super5Media is now “able to proceed with regulatory uncertainty behind us”.

At present little is known about the channel offerings Super5Media intends to incorporate or how its packages will be priced. The company has however confirmed that it will follow MultiChoice’s bouquet model in which customers will subscribe to set packages.

Walking on Water

Walking on Water (WoW) has distinguished itself from the other prospective pay-TV operators in that it plans to implement a family friendly service which will exclude programming that features nudity, sex, violence or coarse language.

At present the company is awaiting licensing confirmation from ICASA and hopes to offer between three and five channels upon commercial launch in 2010.

The company also added that it plans to cater for High Definition subscribers.

Telkom planning uncapped ADSL offering
Staff Writer MyBroadband | 21 March, 2010

Telkom reveals that an uncapped ADSL service aimed at the consumer market is in development

The last few days have been a rollercoaster ride for both ADSL subscribers and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) after MWEB stunned the market with its cost effective ADSL offerings.

On Thursday MWEB introduced various uncapped ADSL packages aimed at consumers and businesses, including consumer data-only products priced at R219, R299 and R539 per month for line speeds of 384 Kbps, 512 Kbps and 4 Mbps respectively.

Vox Telecom responded quickly and announced that @lantic will be launching bundled ADSL offerings - which include both ADSL access and an uncapped ISP account. Pricing starts at R339 for a DSL384 bundle while a 512 Kbps service will cost R589 and a 4 Mbps solution R889. This undercuts MWEB’s bundled pricing by R10 per month.

Openweb also joined the price war by announcing that they will resell MWEB accounts at the same rates as MWEB.

This is however not where it ends. Afrihost said that consumers can look forward to their uncapped ADSL services next week, and G-Connect also indicated that they will respond to MWEB’s recent announcement with a competing service.

Telkom planning an uncapped ADSL service

Telkom is fighting fit and determined to not be left out in the cold. The fixed line provider said that they have been tailoring uncapped ADSL offerings for the past three years as a customer-specific solution to enterprise customers and first took the Uncapped Usage-Based Service to market to cater for organisations requiring higher data packages.

“The usage-based packages aggregate all usage from all ADSL access locations, regardless of the number of sessions and locations utilised by the customer. This enables organisations to aggregate their usage on a quality service and to obtain data in bulk from Telkom,” said Telkom’s Ajith Bridgraj, Senior Specialist for Media Relations.

“There is also no port shaping or data utilisation limitation in this offering and it works on any of Telkom’s three ADSL offerings (Fast DSL up to 384 Kbps, Faster DSL up to 512 Kbps and Fastest DSL up to 4096 Kbps).”

An uncapped offering aimed at consumers is also in the pipeline. “Uncapped speed-locked ADSL service consumer offerings are in development. However, no time-frames, offering specifications or price points can be disclosed at this stage. In the development process, Telkom is striving for optimal quality, reliability and affordability,” Bridgraj concluded.
- http://mybroadband.co.za/news/adsl/11848.html
:banana:

Sweet, sweet competition :banana:

I wouldn't hold my breath about Telkoms offering tbh....

This just sounds like a knee-jerk reaction to keep them in the mix so to speak.

Oh yeah definitely...I'm not expecting anything wonderful from them. But the longer they wait the more customers they lose :lol:

How convenient of Naspers' Mweb to steal the spotlight from TopTV.I'm still on a BET high!

TopTV vs DSTV

March 22, 2010 by Phathu (http://www.justcurious.co.za/author/phathu/)


Leave a comment (http://www.justcurious.co.za/2010/03/toptv-vs-dstv/#respond)


http://www.justcurious.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/top1.jpg (http://www.justcurious.co.za/2010/03/toptv-vs-dstv/top-2/)Last week, On Digital Media unveiled themselves as the young David who is about to take on the mighty Goliaththat DSTVhas become. The new pay television provider will be known as Top TV. Like many of you, I had questions – will this channel offer DSTV any competition at all, what is it that Top TV has which DSTV does not offer?
Many years ago, in my varsity days at film school, I attended a lecture that was offered by Jan Du Plessis – he was still the head of programming at M-NET. Some naïve student asked him why we were not getting American TV channels on DSTV , like HBO, ABC and FOX. His response was that there is no need to have them, DSTV has all their best programs already, and it would be like duplicating content. Television is about content, not how many channels you have – but what will people watch in those channels. When it comes to pay television – exclusive content is King.
Here is a breakdown of what to expect from Top TV:
Let’s start with their basic package: the truth is that Top TV offers nothing new, the content‘s genres are the same as the ones on DSTV. They have some gospel channels, Bollywood movie channels – which never worked on DSTV – that is why they offer it for an extra fee, Nigerian movie channels and a couple of odd news channels, that are also on DSTV and no one really bothers to watch. The basic banquet also has Aljazeera, BBC WORLD and France 24, which are on DSTV. So why should I go and get this thing when I already have DSTV? The positive thing about the package is that it has MGM’s movie library, which contains a large number of movies, but they are not exclusive to them – I can still watch James Bond on M-NET HD!
They have channels that target kids as well as music channels. Another package is called Family and Knowledge. They have STAR, which focuses on Hollywood, think E! , without Ryan Seacrest. They also have Fox entertainment, which will offer the same kind of American content that M-NET provides. I am assuming Fox entertainment will be like Sony Entertainment television on DSTV. They will show us reruns of premium shows like Idols, Grey’s Anatomy and Boston Legal – which are already on DSTV! This package also has a couple of Discovery spin-off channels and criminal shows – still nothing new. However, I have to applaud them, their biggest draw card is BET, which is a popular cable network in America that focuses on black people. This is a biggie for them. On the premium package – the only thing worth writing home about is Showtime, another hit American cable network, which is the home of shows like Weeds and Californication – both on M-NET.
http://www.justcurious.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/DStv-Logo2.jpg (http://www.justcurious.co.za/2010/03/toptv-vs-dstv/dstv-logo2/)As you can see, there is nothing new about Top TV neh? Let us turn the spotlight on DSTV:
The biggest flaw is that DSTV is bloody damn expensive and some still view it as a primarily white thing. The good thing is that DSTV has long-term contracts with some of the biggest channels and studios in America. If it’s good content, you will surely find it on DSTV. Look out for HBO series later this year.
If there are people who know good television, it is the people at M-NET, and they know how to penetrate into their market. When ICASA made the call for new pay television channels years ago, they knew that their monopoly will not reign forever and prepared themselves for this. DSTV has historically been aligned with the higher LSM viewers – it was something of a luxury and the people at Randburg- the home of multichoice knew that whoever was going to come into the pay television market was going to be forced to target the lower LSM market and they went big to capture the lower LSM.
For the past three years, DTSV has aggressively marketed itself to the lower LSM – they used their compact banquet to lure in black people who never would have considered having a dish into buying one. They bought the PSL games and pumped Niger movie channels on the banquet. Have you realized that almost every major township entry point has a big DSTV banquet billboard? Their marketing worked, even RDP houses now have DSTV.
DSTV and its affiliates also started investing millions into local productions, something they have shunned away from for years and yet they have managed to keep a strong grip on their Afrikaans audience, KYK-NET and M-NET soapies are a proof of that. They also started courting the black market with shows like Jacob’s Cross and other short-lived dramas and talk shows. Is Let’s Chat with Mel still on? As you can see, DSTV has been waiting for this fight and they are ready.
The only way I see TOP TV taking on DSTV is by targeting people who are still stuck on welfare TV, that means your SABC 1,2,3 and that weird free to air E-TV. For them to survive, they will have to try to convince those people that pay television is the future and they need to be part of it. It would be much harder for TOP TV to convince someone who already has a dish to move to them since the content is pretty much the same or similar. Now the problem with the people that are still stuck in Welfare TVland is the affordability, what were they waiting for when other poor black people were buying DSTV compact? That means they are probably the poor of the poorest, who might still not care about pay television. See, TOP TV has a mountain to climb, bigger than Mount Kilimanjaro.
My advice is that do not rush to buy Top TV, wait until another friend wa o phapha buys and have a sneak peak before cancelling your monthly subscription with DSTV. When all is said a done, I wish Top TV all the best of luck, they are surely going to need it.
And the winner is : DSTV or am I wrong?
By Phathu Makwarela (http://www.justcurious.co.za/author/phathu/) ©

http://www.justcurious.co.za/2010/03/toptv-vs-dstv/

Some people may find this handy...a short summary of Top TV's channels:

ODM Top TV channels explained

Breakdown of On Digital Media’s full Top TV channel offerings

Incoming pay-TV competitor On Digital Media (ODM) announced that it plans to begin offering commercial broadcast services in May. In addition to this the company also unveiled the channels it would be providing to its ‘Top TV’ subscribers.

Here is a description of each of the channels which will be on offer upon launch.

Top One

Top One is a 24-hour general entertainment channel, featuring drama series, children’s shows and movies.

Top Gospel

Top Gospel is a Christian lifestyle channel with talk shows, Christian music videos as well as faith based movies.

God TV

GOD TV is a global media ministry founded by South African couple, Rory & Wendy Alec. GOD TV reaches nearly half a billion people globally.

Christian Channel

ODM is still finalizing negotiations on a Christian Channel, which shall be named in due course says the company.

Inspiration

Inspiration TV has become the fastest growing international Christian network in the world, servicing 118 countries throughout Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Australia and New Zealand.

Zee Cinema

Zee Cinema will feature Bollywood related content.

Hi Nolly

Hi Nolly displays some of the best movies and entertainment from the Nigerian market.

MGM

MGM is a 24 hour movie channel offering the content from Hollywood’s famous Metro-G Goldwyn-Mayer library.

BBC World

BBC World has 24 hour news and information coverage from around the world.

Fox News

Fox News is rated as one of the more controversial news channels to air out of the United States and covers everything from world news and politics, to health, business as well as science & technology, entertainment and sports.

MSNBC

MSNBC is the fastest growing cable news channel in the United States.

Al Jazeera

Al Jazeera English is a news and current affairs channel with headquarters in the Middle East.

France 24

France 24 covers international current events from a French perspective.

Current TV

Current TV focuses on dishing up current affairs in a format attractive to a younger market.

Setana Africa

Setanta Africa is a 24 hour sports channel which focuses on football.

Eurosport News

Eurosport News features sports bulletins which run every thirty minutes.

SABC 1,2,3 and e-TV

South African channels that have various local and international series.

Educational Channel

ODM is finalizing discussions for the supply of an educational channel customized for the South African market. An announcement will be made when talks have been concluded.

RTPi

RTPi is a general entertainment channel targeting Portuguese speaking communities worldwide.

Fashion TV

Fashion TV (FTV) provides glamorous entertainment with emphasis on the latest trends, up and coming models, events, news and glamour.

Fine Living Network

FLN is Top TV's lifestyle network and will include a line up of relationship, wedding, cocktail and competition shows.

Music Choice

Music Choice is a 24 hour channel audio service featuring music of different genres.

Kids and Music

Top Junior

Top Junior provides entertainment for children.

Jim Jam

JimJam is a TV channel dedicated to pre-school children aged between 1 – 6 years and their parents.

Baby TV

Baby TV is a 24 hour commercial-free channel for growing infants and toddlers, and their parents.

KidsCo

KidsCo is a global TV channel which targets a number of age groups.

Afro Music

Afro Music is a 24 hour music channel featuring a mix of artists from across Africa.

Nigezie

Nigezie is a brand new music and lifestyle channel with the main focus on Nigerian artists, music videos, fashion and entertainment.

FUEL TV

FUEL TV is a 24/7 extreme sports channel featuring base-jumping, skateboarding, snowboarding, surfing and BMX.

Kiss

Kiss is a 24 hour music channel with a concentrating on urban and hip-hop music.

Kerrang!

Kerrang! TV is a music channel consisting of hard rock music videos.

Qtv

Qtv features indie bands and music 24/7.

Magic

Magic TV airs music videos from the 80s and 90s.

C Music

C Music provides viewers with the world’s classical, crossover, cinematic and chill-out music videos 24 hours a day.

Classica

Classica is a channel devoted to classical music, opera, ballet and jazz as well as documentaries and interviews.

Family and Entertainment

Star!

Star! is an entertainment channel covering celebrity news.

Fox Entertainment

Fox Entertainment is dedicated to television series including The Simpsons, Family Guy, 24, Grey’s Anatomy, Criminal Minds and Boston Legal.

Fox Retro

Fox Retro showcases classic TV series.

Natura

Natura is a 24 hour documentary channel.

BET

Black Entertainment Television showcases African-American entertainers with series, talk-shows, sitcoms and interviews.

Top History

Top History is a 24 hour channel that featuring historical documentaries, with programming which includes South Africa and Africa.

Discovery ID

Investigation Discovery (ID) is a brand new channel from Discovery covering the stories behind crime forensics and criminal investigations.

Discovery Travel and Living

Discovery Travel & Living explores distant locations.

Discovery Science

Discovery Science is a documentary channel with programmes that tackle scientific and technological interest areas.

Top Explore

Top Explore is a 24 hour travel channel.

Premium

Silver

Silver is a movie channel sourced from independent suppliers in the US, Europe and other parts of the world.

Showtime

Showtime is as 24 hour action channel with blockbuster titles covering action, horror and sci-fi.

Fox FX

Fox FX is aimed primarily at men with a mix of character-driven drama and quality.

Top Movies

Top Movies is one of Top TV’s flagship channels. A 24 hour premium movie channel with recently released blockbuster titles and other award-winning movies.

Top Movies 2

Top Movies 2 is Top Movies time shifted by 2 hours.

Top Movies 24

Top Movies 24 is time shifted by 24 hours. The channel gives the viewer the opportunity to catch up on Top Movies from the previous day.

Top Sport

Top Sport is a premium sports channel featuring sports preferred by SA audiences.

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/broadcasting/11847.html

-----

Yay for Kerrang! :D

Next round incoming on the uncapped front

Afrihost unveils its uncapped ADSL offerings, undercutting MWEB’s pricing

The local broadband environment has been a hive of activity after MWEB’s announcement on Thursday morning that it is now offering subscribers uncapped ADSL services from R219 per month.

Many Internet Service Providers (ISPs) responded quickly, including Openweb which is reselling MWEB’s services at the same price and Vox Telecom which undercut MWEB’s bundled uncapped ADSL prices.

Many consumers have asked what Afrihost, the ISP which started the per-GB price war late last year, will do in response to MWEB’s announcement, and their subscribers will not be disappointed.

Afrihost today announced that it has developed its own uncapped ADSL services, with pricing which compares favourably against other offerings in the market.

Afrihost has launched three data-only uncapped offerings, with the following pricing:

1. Uncapped ADSL 384 Kbps: R197
2. Uncapped ADSL 512 Kbps: R297
3. Uncapped ADSL 4 Mbps: R497

According to Afrihost Sales Director Greg Payne their uncapped offering is sustainable, and users can expect good service levels from them. “With an uncapped model you have certain users subsidising other users, and as long as you can control the shaping you can still give a decent service to the majority of your users,” said Payne.

"When we launched our R29 per GB offer almost six months ago, we knew that South African users craved more affordable ADSL. At the time, most ISPs charged around R70 per GB (and many still do) so our move really shook up the ISP industry," said Gian Visser, CEO at Afrihost. "But we knew that many users wanted more. Over the past few months, we have been testing an uncapped product, which we are now ready to introduce to the market."

Afrihost is surprised that another ISP has beaten it to the punch with an affordable uncapped ADSL offering, but is now ready to respond with a set of products that are now the cheapest on the market, added Visser. "Our intention when we introduced our R29 offer was to put pressure on the incumbents to lower their prices, and I think we can safely say that we have achieved that goal," said Visser.

“Initially we are only making the Uncapped 4096 kbps package available so that we can comprehensively test our Uncapped performance,” said Visser. “The Uncapped 512 and Uncapped 386 will be available for purchase as soon as we've finished monitoring the Uncapped 4096 performance.” (http://mybroadband.co.za/news/adsl/11859.html)

Telkom 10 Mbps ADSL preparation
28 March, 2010

Telkom systems get upgraded to start reflecting 10 Mbps ADSL speeds; but company remains mum on planned upgrades

Recent developments within Telkom suggest that the company is set to upgrade its 4 Mbps ADSL lines to 10 Mbps and not 8 Mbps as previously planned.

While Telkom’s official position is that it is ‘in the process of assessing the results of trials conducted, and that the way forward will be determined by this assessment’, recent system upgrades within Telkom use 10 Mbps as the new “Fastest” broadband offering.

According to Telkom correspondence the company is looking into upgrading current 4 Mbps ADSL subscribers to ADSL synchronization rates of 10 Mbps, and this change is already reflecting in certain backend systems.
Telkom would however not officially confirm or deny that it is planning 10 Mbps upgrades: “As part of the constant upgrading of its network, Telkom is currently developing its systems to provision for faster ADSL services. However, the exact speed and date of readiness for this upgrade has not been finalised as yet,” said Ajith Bridgraj, Telkom's Senior Specialist for Media Relations.

ADSL upgrade time frames
Telkom CEO Reuben September previously said that he is keen to launch an 8 Mbps ADSL service as quickly as possible, adding that it will happen before the 2010 World Cup.

Telkom Wholesale further said that they are looking at a possible March/April 2010 implementation date, but highlighted that it is dependent on network upgrades which are needed to support the higher speeds.
Telkom would again not say when the first ADSL speed upgrades are likely to start, merely indicating that the final dates have not yet been formalised.

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/adsl/11929.html

Very informative article...

-----------------


Hilton Tarrant

20 April 2010 09:06 Bandwidth explosion = cheaper broadband

JOHANNESBURG - The over-hyped and long-expected broadband price cuts have begun. This has translated into the launch of affordable (cheap?) uncapped ADSL packages from most of the larger internet service providers in South Africa.

But just how much has the bandwidth situation changed in the country?

Before July last year, we were reliant on two providers (Telkom (JSE:TKG) and Neotel) for international bandwidth (via the SAT-3/SAFE cable system). Worse still, before April 2008 international access was only available from one provider: Telkom.

One route into and out of the country. With limited access. That's how bad things once were.

The arrival of Seacom in the middle of last year saw the early beginning of true competition. The price of international bandwidth on Seacom was significantly lower than what was previously available in the market. Seacom's total capacity is 1.27Tbps, but only 10Gbps was provisioned to South Africa.

No surprises then that in October, Telkom announced significant upgrades to the SAT-3/SAFE cable system. The capacity of the cables was 120-130Gbps, and this was roughly tripled to 340Gbps (for the SAT-3 link to Portugal) and to 440Gbps (for the SAFE link to Malaysia). Prices fell and Telkom launched (non-redundant) City-to-City international private leased circuit packages at a price even lower than Seacom's.

Here's an example of the type of price declines Seacom has forced: the monthly lease cost for a STM-1 circuit dropped from R2.1m per month in 2006 to less than R800 000 per month. This is why you're able to buy ADSL bandwidth at R29/GB. This is why uncapped services are viable.

Deals for international bandwidth are typically complex, multi-year ones (especially on SAT-3) and many suggested that those still in effect would need time to run their course before they could be renegotiated at steeply lower rates. We're no doubt starting to see this.

Ironically, despite the lack of interest in Seacom capacity at launch, the entire allocation of capacity has been sold out. Neotel's executive head of technology Angus Hay confirms that the operator is in discussions with Seacom to have more capacity lit up.

Seacom capacity "lands" at the Neotel campus in Midrand, and there will surely be an increase in the quality of service and added redundancy when the Joburg to Durban leg of the national fibre network lights up after the World Cup. If you've driven down to Durban from Gauteng recently, you'll have seen the trenching.

This R2bn network, spanning 5 000km will connect all major centres in the country. It's being co-built by Neotel, MTN (JSE:MTN) and Vodacom (JSE:VOD) and (roughly) follows the routes of the N3, N2 as well as a combination of the N12 and N1 between Cape Town and Joburg.

This massive fibre network won't only help with Seacom backhaul between KZN and Gauteng, it'll also dramatically increase the amount of bandwidth in the country. This will push fairly steep national bandwidth prices lower.

Industry experts joke (with more than a hint of sincerity) that national bandwidth (mostly provisioned by Telkom) is now more expensive than international capacity.

Despite the national fibre network and the criss-crossing of the major metros with fibre by Vodacom (through Dark Fibre Africa), MTN and Neotel, this disconnect between the two prices may actually worsen.

The 1.4Tbps EASSy (East African Submarine Cable System) cable, which will come on stream during the fourth quarter of 2010 will mean another steep drop in international bandwidth prices. Many thought this cable, led by governments and telecoms operators in the region, would never be built. The memorandum of understanding was signed in 2003 - with construction only starting five years later.

Even more impressive though is the West Africa Cable System (WACS) being built up the west coast (along a similar route to SAT-3). This cable will have a capacity of 5.1Tbps and will land in mid-2011.

By the end of next year we'll be awash in bandwidth. The problem is Telkom still remains in control of the local loop - the so-called last mile from an exchange to your home/business. There have been continuous delays in the freeing up of access to that infrastructure (local-loop unbundling).

Now we only need to solve that conundrum.

* Hilton Tarrant contributes to "Broadband", a column on Moneyweb covering the ICT sector in South Africa. For what its worth maybe Patricia de Lille should start a crusade focused on local-loop unbundling. But will it be populist enough?

Write to Hilton Tarrant: hilton@moneyweb.co.za


http://www.moneyweb.co.za/mw/view/mw/en/page292671?oid=481915&sn=2009+Detail&pid=287226

Further Vodacom Broadband Advanced price cuts
Staff Writer MyBroadband | 01 May, 2010

Vodacom reduces more Broadband Advanced prices and further increases the data allowance on some bundles

Vodacom announced in April that all their mobile broadband subscribers will start to enjoy speeds of up to 14.4 Mbps from the 1st of May, and at the same time increases current data bundle sizes free of charge.

Vodacom broadband customers will receive between 17% and 60% more data free of charge on all Data Bundles smaller than 3GB.

Vodacom further revealed that it will re-introduce its standard 500 MB, 1 GB and 2 GB Broadband Advanced data bundles later in May, but at significantly reduced rates.

The price of a 500 MB Broadband Advanced service will be reduced from the current R279 per month to R185 per month. The cost of a 1 GB bundle will fall to R285 per month from the current R389 while the price of a 2 GB bundle is slashed from R599 to R385.

In the latest development Vodacom has also reduced the planned prices - and increased the data bundle sizes further - on its new Broadband Advanced data bundles to make them more competitive.

Anomalies

With the new pricing structure come a few strange anomalies. The per-MB price for a 3 GB data bundle is now significantly higher than that of the 2 GB and 2.5 GB offerings – something which also holds for the 5 GB, 10 GB and 20 GB options.

With an in-bundle rate which is the same as the out-of-bundle rate consumers will actually save money by rather purchasing a 2.5 GB data bundle than one of the larger data bundles.

The value proposition of the ‘standard broadband’ offerings (which have far higher out-of-bundle rates) is also essentially removed, begging the question whether the two different broadband offerings should exist at all.

24 month Broadband Advanced contracts, where users receive a free modem, are in fact cheaper than the Broadband Standard options which carry higher out-of-bundle rates.

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l103/eduardm2/Untitled.png

This Standard and Advanced thing is just stupid. Way to confuse potential customers...

International bandwidth boom: SEACOM, EASSy, Main One, WACS

Staff Writer MyBroadband; 04 May, 2010

Main One and SEACOM team up to bring more international bandwidth to South Africa

Less than one year ago South Africa’s international bandwidth needs were only served by one cable system: the Telkom controlled SAT-3/SAFE.

In July 2009 SEACOM broke Telkom’s monopoly on international bandwidth, and it was not long before consumers saw the benefits of competition filtering down to them in the form of lower broadband pricing and higher usage limits.

SEACOM’s landing was however only the beginning. EASSy is set to become operational in July 2010, with WACS following in 2011.

Main One joins the club

Good news is that Main One, SEACOM and eFive Telecoms have recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for a submarine cable from SA to Nigeria. This forms part of a plan to launch a project to develop a Pan-African fibre ring solution.

The Main One and SEACOM networks will be extended to create a system that offers redundancy and additional capacity on both the east and west routes around Africa.

The new addition would follow the completion of the first phase of the Main One cable project which connects Nigeria to London, by June 2010. The SEACOM cable, which became operational in July 2009, currently runs from South Africa along the east coast of Africa and onwards to the rest of the world via India and Europe.

Funke Opeke, Main One CEO, explained: “Main One’s plan in 2008 included building in two phases with phase one connecting London and Nigeria through a 7,000Km cable. Phase two will connect Nigeria to South Africa once the right partnership with the right level of funding is secured.
With the first phase scheduled to be completed on time and on budget in June 2010, we believe that the proposed partnership with SEACOM and eFive telecoms is the best way forward.”

Massive international bandwidth growth

In early 2009 SAT-3/SAFE had a capacity of 120 Gbps, but this was ‘tripled’ to 340 Gbps in late 2009. This additional capacity on the SAT-3/SAFE upgrade is however only a drop in the bucket of the overall increase which can be expected with the new cable systems.
SEACOM has a design capacity of 1.27 Tbps of which 90 Gbps has been lit to date. EASSy will add a theoretical 1.4 Tbps to the mix while WACS will bring an additional 3.84 Tbps to the country.

If one adds Main One’s 1.92 Tbps the theoretical total amount of international bandwidth coming into the country is set to be 8.77 Tbps – a massive jump from the previous 120 Gbps in the SAT-3/SAFE era.

International bandwidth in SA (http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?229446-SEACOM-EASSy-Main-One-WACS-International-bandwidth-boom-in-South-Africa) << comments and views
(http://manypossibilities.net/african-undersea-cables/)

oops. wrong thread.

Anyone know anything about this Sunningdale development, by the way?

-----

20 Mbps ADSL2+ rollout
04 May, 2010

Wozacom and iBurst partner to roll out triple-play services for new 1300-home Cape Town Residential Development

In November last year iBurst Business launched their 20 Mbps ADSL2+ service to the South African market.

iBurst CEO Jannie van Zyl said at the time that many consumers and businesses had been waiting years for an upgrade of ADSL speeds to world standards, he added that the extended wait and touted speed upgrades are not good enough. “ADSL has been in jail, and we intend to set it free,” said van Zyl.

Instead of waiting for Local Loop Unbundling (LLU) to arrive in November 2011, iBurst is utilizing existing copper infrastructure in multi-tenant environments like shopping centers, apartment blocks and gated villages to roll out their own ADSL2+ services.

One of the first environments where iBurst Business will roll out their 20 Mbps ADSL services is in the new Sunningdale development in Cape Town.
Wozacom has recently announced that it will, in partnership with iBurst, provide copper wire infrastructure and ICT services for the future residents of the Sunningdale development.

According to Wozacom copper wire will be reticulated from individual homes to equipment buildings situated in the area, where iBurst’s ADSL2+ DSLAM equipment will be installed.

Internet traffic will be backhauled over iBurst’s core network while voice services will be delivered by Wozacom. Video-On-Demand services will initially be provided by GTS.

“Traditionally, Garden City planners (who is in charge of the Sunningdale development) would automatically cater for Telkom’s cabling requirements to facilitate delivery of Telkom’s telephone and internet services to residents as a given. This is the first time that Garden Cities has taken the step to explore what alternatives are out there since market liberalisation and found Wozacom - in partnership with iBurst - to be an attractive alternative,” said Wozacom CEO Pierre du Randt.

“Garden Cities were attracted to iBurst’s high ADSL2+ speeds (up to 20Mb/s) for a relatively low monthly subscription and also Wozacom’s low call rates,” said Garden City’s technical manager Renier Smith.
“Moreover, thanks to ADSL2+ technology, the possibility to support multimedia services offered by independent content providers becomes a reality for residents in the future too,” said Smith.

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/adsl/12278-Mbps-ADSL2-rollout.html

MWEB Exclusively brings you DStv ON DEMAND

We are proud to announce that we are the first Internet Service Provider in South Africa to offer free DStv ON DEMAND service to our ADSL customers.

MWEB ADSL customers who also subscribe to DStv Premium will be able to catch up on many of DStv’s most popular shows.

What is DStv ON DEMAND?


As an MWEB ADSLcustomer, you now have access to so much more than just superfast Internet.
All MWEB ADSL Customers with a DStv Premium Subscription have exclusive access to DStv ON DEMAND and will be able to download or stream their favourite shows to the computer. Check it out now. (http://ondemand.dstv.com/)
DStv ON DEMAND offers a variety of general entertainment, sport and actuality programming. The programs are available within hours after first being broadcast on DStv and are normally available for viewing for a full 7 days thereafter (may vary on certain titles, check expiry date for confirmation).


*DStv ON DEMAND is available to both Capped and Uncapped ADSL Customers but given the amounts of data consumed we recommend MWEB ADSL Uncapped to enjoy the benefits of DStv ON DEMAND without ever having to worry about your data cap.

What do I need?
To be eligible to enjoy DStv ON DEMAND, you will need:


To be an MWEB ADSL Customer. Sign up for MWEB ADSL now. (https://www.mweb.co.za/adslsignup)
To watch online you will need a PC connected to your MWEB ADSL line and, a DStv Premium subscription, (Note: this service is not available to subscribers of DStv Compact, DStv Select, etc.) Not a DSTV Premium subscriber? Click here (http://www.dstv.com/dstvsa/content/en/sa/get_dstv)
For an optimal viewing experience MWEB recommends a 4mbps connection speed
Registered for DStv ON DEMAND.Register Now. (http://ondemand.dstv.com/Account/Registration/RegisterStep1.aspx?retunUrl=/Help/AboutDStv/Default.aspx)


*DStv ON DEMAND is available to both Capped and Uncapped ADSL Customers but given the amounts of data consumed we recommend MWEB ADSL Uncapped and a 4mbps connection speed to enjoy the benefits of DStv ON DEMAND without ever having to worry about your data cap.

How much does it cost?


DStv ON DEMAND services are currently included in the cost of your DStv Premium subscription.
Get registered now for DStv ON DEMAND (http://ondemand.dstv.com/Account/Registration/RegisterStep1.aspx?retunUrl=/Help/AboutDStv/Default.aspx)

http://www.mweb.co.za/adsl/?p=dstvo

Cell C’s 21.1 Mbps broadband plans
07 May, 2010

Cell C’s HSPA+ network rollout has started, but exact launch dates still uncertain

Cell C announced in January that it has signed a R2.9bn deal with the Chinese telecom equipment provider ZTE Corporation, something which Cell C CEO Lars P. Reichelt hailed as the operator’s “first big step towards transforming Cell C into a possibilities provider”.

This development came after Cell C’s announcement in late 2009 that it will be spending over R5bn on a 4G network in 2010 which will provide broadband access in the 900MHz band.

Cell C has now revealed that Nokia Siemens Networks was appointed as the second vendor in its network expansion and upgrade plans.

According to Cell C the network rollout has started, and it is planning to launch services when they have “meaningful coverage and good quality levels.”

One of the biggest obstacles in providing high speed mobile broadband services is the provisioning of adequate transmission capacity across the cellular network.

Both Vodacom and MTN are building their own fibre networks to compliment their current Telkom controlled infrastructure, but Cell C opted to partner with Dark Fibre Africa and Neotel to provide fibre backhaul links to its base stations.

While no pricing plans have been discussed yet, Reichelt has indicated that he is well aware that he will have to be competitive on price if they want to gain market share in an aggressive mobile broadband environment.

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/cellular/12312-Cell-211-Mbps-broadband-plans.html

Mobile internet booms in South Africa
JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA
May 27 2010

World Wide Worx on Thursday released a report stating that the use of mobile internet services has exploded in South Africa, although less than half of urban cellphone users who have internet-capable phones use the internet.

This emerged from the "Mobile Internet in South Africa 2010" study, conducted by World Wide Worx and backed by First National Bank.

The study was conducted face to face among urban cellphone users aged 16 and older, representing 16-million South Africans.

The report shows that usage of specific applications like Mxit and Facebook Mobile far outpace browsing on the phone, even though both are available on almost two-thirds of the phones used by South Africa's urban cellular users, the company said.

While 28% of the urban cellular market is using mobile instant messaging (IM), as many as 65% have the capacity on their phones, meaning that only 4,5-million out of 10,5-million potential mobile IM users actually use it.

In many cases an application has been installed on the phone and the owner may even have registered to use the service yet he is not in fact a user.

While 60% of users in this market have phones that can browse the internet, only 21% report that they use this form of mobile internet access.

'Quite startling'
Arthur Goldstuck, MD of World Wide Worx, adds: "It is quite startling to find how many have these features on their phones but don't use them, either out of ignorance or because of cost concerns."

The findings suggest, on the surface, that more than half of urban cellular users, 8,5-million, are capable of accessing email on their phones and as many as 60%, or 9,5-million, are able to browse on their phones.

The implications of these numbers are significant: in one fell swoop they would turn the South African internet user base from the 5,3-million reported by World Wide Worx at the end of 2009 to 9,6-million. By adding instant messaging users to the number, the total becomes 10,56-million.

This is exactly double that of the internet user base at the end of last year.

"The truth is, many people with these applications on their phones do not use them and do not even know how to use them," says Goldstuck.

"It is clear that the cellphone has the potential to take South Africans across the digital divide, but the phones themselves need to become more user-friendly, and a vast amount of consumer education is needed."

Ravesh Ramlakan, CEO of FNB Cellphone Banking Solutions, says that while the overall cellphone banking service has grown more rapidly than online banking, the adoption of FNB's mobile banking WAP site has been relatively slow.

"Customers either do not know how to access it via their cellphone, or their phone needs to be configured first in order to access. However, with technology lifecycles, the adoption to internet banking via the cellphone will feature more prominently in future," he says. -- I-Net Bridge

http://www.mg.co.za/article/2010-05-27-mobile-internet-booms-in-south-africa

Durban stadium gets quantum security
By Farzana Rasool, ITWeb journalist.
Johannesburg, 6 May 2010
World Cup Communication channels from the operations centre at Durban's Moses Mabhida stadium to the Joint Operations Centre of Durban will be secured by a quantum cryptography system.
However, analysts say this may not be required for the event.

Project manager Abdul Mirza says this initiative by the University of KwaZulu-Natal's Centre for Quantum Technology (CQT) is called QuantumStadium. He explains that it uses quantum cryptography, or more accurately quantum key distribution (QKD), to allow for secure communication and will be unveiled at the stadium later this month.
Johann van der Merwe, part of the advisory for PricewaterhouseCoopers, adds that QKD is used to establish shared, secret keys in support of encryption.
The project specifically aims to secure communication – e-mails, video links and phone calls – between the operations centre at Durban's World Cup stadium and the Joint Operations Centre of Durban, according to Mirza.
Head of Durban's Strategic Projects Unit and 2010 Programme, Julie-May Ellingson, says: “A joint operations centre will mobilise and reallocate resources and the overall safety and security planning will be collated by the Provincial Joint Operational and Intelligence Structure. This structure will report directly to a national structure to allow for consistent and unified safety across SA.”
Mirza says this is the first public global event to use such technology. Previously, it had been used in the Geneva elections and also as research demonstrations in various other countries.
Mirza explains that the QuantumStadium project is a spin-off of another joint initiative by eThekwini and the CQT, known as the QuantumCity initiative. This project uses similar technology to provide quantum-secured communication between some links in the eThekwini region.
Securing communication
“Quantum cryptography encodes information into a quantum system, which is then sent to the receiver. This differs from conventional cryptography that uses 'complex' computer algorithms that are hard to reverse in order to scramble the information,” says Mirza.
Van der Merwe further explains that this system differs from conventional cryptography, because it relies on information-theoretic secrecy, based on the laws of physics, as opposed to mathematical techniques that are based on computational complexity.
“The technology is theoretically secure. However, this guarantee is dependent on the implementation of the system. As the research continues, further enhancements are made to the systems to bring them to their theoretical limit,” says Mirza.
Van der Merwe says two communicating parties will know if there is any interference in their communication because the principle which QKD is based on states that anyone measuring a quantum system will disturb it. “This means you cannot interfere with the channel without introducing noise, which may be detected by the communication parties, if the system is correctly implemented.”
Despite this, he adds that communication can still be at risk without additional security measures, since many attacks on communication systems are not on the methods used to protect information in transit.
“Quantum cryptography also cannot provide, for example, authentication of the communicating parties, so you need a conventional authentication scheme to secure a QKD implementation; after the key has been shared it falls back on conventional cryptography. Quantum cryptography only prevents eavesdropping on the communications channel so it is still possible to eavesdrop at the end points.”
He also says quantum cryptography does not provide network security or computer security. Because of this, Van der Merwe says more security measures need to be in place at the stadium, alongside this system.
“QKD only provides secure key establishment, which is one of many security building blocks needed to secure a communication system.”
Unnecessary?
Van der Merwe and director of Information Security Group Africa Karel Rode say there are certain factors that will determine whether this system is needed or not.
Van der Merwe says there will be nothing wrong with using it, if the system is correctly implemented.
“I will only be able to justify such a technology once I determine the 'value' of the information that we need to protect, the threat potential and frequency, and through that derive the value proposition of such a technology, compared to something that is better known and easy to maintain after deployment,” says Rode.
However, Rode does not see the practical use for such an excessive solution to deliver potentially a very high level of protection to data in motion. “This protection level only has value to time-sensitive information, while it is in motion, as it is very hard to force compliance to third-party policies once data has moved out of my/our control.”
In terms of World Cup needs, Van der Merwe says security systems based on conventional cryptography, that are properly designed and implemented, will be adequate. He also says the cost of a system of this nature as opposed to a conventional one will be difficult to justify in practice.
But he adds that this system symbolises advancement, since the project is moving into a new stage of security.
Post World Cup
Mirza says quantum cryptography technology looks at improving the ICT sector through nanotechnology and quantum physics and so, after the World Cup, the system can either remain at the stadium, or be moved to other vital links within the municipal network.
He adds that a company is being set up in order to make the technology commercial.
Van der Merwe says companies are unlikely to take up this type of technology at the moment.
“A quantum cryptography system can be used within any environment that needs secure key establishment in support of protecting the confidentiality and integrity of sensitive information. The cost of a quantum cryptography system versus using conventional security systems will be difficult to justify.”
Source: http://www.itweb.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=32872:durban-stadium-gets-quantum-security

MTN spends R500m on network upgrade
By Candice Jones, ITWeb online telecoms editor
Johannesburg, 31 May 2010

MTN, Africa's first global sponsor of the Fifa 2010 Soccer World Cup, has spent close to R500 million upgrading its network in preparation for the soccer spectacular, which kicks off next week.

Speaking at the MTN media forum this morning, MTN CTO Sameer Dave explained that the company's investment only covers specifications for the World Cup, and not the entire network. The entire network investment for this year will be R4.1 billion.

Dave says that, over the past two years, MTN has implemented “super” coverage for the stadiums. Each of the stadiums will house around 22 base stations, have 38 cells or point-of-radio contacts, and will be fed by 6km of fibre.

In addition, each stadium will have 348 antennae, sending and receiving cellphone calls for the duration of the matches. MTN has also hired a team of engineers that will be present at the stadium to monitor the network during each match.

According to Dave, Cape Town International Airport, OR Tambo International and Durban's new International Airport have all been kitted out with the same technology.

In case of an emergency, Dave says MTN also has eight mobile base stations that can be deployed if network capacity becomes constrained.

For the fans

MTN chief marketing officer Serame Taukobong says international visitors will also be catered for, as the company is hiring dedicated staff to manage its help-desk. Staff will include translators of the various languages represented during the tournament.

The cellular company has also upgraded all of its base stations around all the 11 stadiums for data capacity of 21Mbps. There are currently about 120 towers that support that speed, which is a 3G evolution called HSPA+.

Another 1 300 sites across the country are now either running 7.2Mbps or 14.4Mbps, which is an upgrade to 3G. The company uses both its own fibre backhaul and Telkom infrastructure to link up these towers.

MTN handles about 220 terabytes of data across its network every month and expects the World Cup to add between 20 terabytes and 30 terabytes of additional data during the month-long games.

Legally complaint

According to Taukobong, international visitors will be able to purchase an MTN starter pack and comply with the SIM registration Act by registering at either the airport, or an MTN outlet using their hotel as a residence and passport as proof of identification.

Through MTN's partnership with Match, the company has already sold 600 000 starter packs as part of ticket sales. Taukobong says these SIMs will be activated at the airport and already comply with the registration laws as Match has captured the subscriber details.

MTN will also work with tourism operators to aid fans in activating their SIM cards.


http://www.itweb.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=33593:mtn-spends-r500m-on-network-upgrade&catid=44

Free Internet access tested in Cape Town
Staff Writer MyBroadband | 31 May, 2010

V&A Waterfront in Cape Town to offer visitors free Wi-Fi Internet access during and after the World Cup 2010

The V&A Waterfront has recently announced that it will provide its visitors with free Internet access during and after the month-long World Cup tournament.

“The initiative is being driven in collaboration with HipZone and is part of the V&A Waterfront’s commitment to continuing to offer world-class services to its visitors,” the company said in a press statement.

Chantelle Kidd, Marketing Executive at the V&A Waterfront says, “While free Wi-Fi has become the norm overseas, it is still relatively new in South Africa. As the only retail shopping centre in the country to partner with HipZone, we have raised the bar to benefit international travellers and our locals visiting during the World Cup. We’re also looking into extending the service across other parts of the property once the football fever is over.”

The initiative kicks-off in early June. “Visitors can view emails, connect via social networking sites or simply surf the web on their laptops or mobile phones,” explains Kidd.

“Moreover, as it launches during the World Cup, it is a convenient way to share the V&A Waterfront football experience - which includes interactive events, food and beverage offerings and four spectator zones - with friends and family virtually and in real-time.”

To access free wireless internet across the Victoria Wharf, visitors can choose ‘HipZone free Wi-Fi’ from their wireless internet connections and follow the simple login instructions.

HipZone’s ambitious goal is to provide free Wi-Fi, nationwide as “people should never have to pay for the bandwidth they need – instead, we’ll pay for it”. To achieve this, HipZone has partnered with brands such as Adidas, Kauai and Vida e Caffe, in addition to airports, restaurants and now the V&A Waterfront, to provide users with free access. It is funded through tailored dipstick research and online advertising.

“All users need to do is tell us what they think about events in their lives, for example comment on where they are sitting, the ads they see around them, and their general interaction with brands - all with the aim of improving user experience, services and products,” says HipZone.

Every user will get 25 MB of data per session, something which should stop people from using the service to download large files and possibly deteriorating the overall experience of the service.

According to the Annemie Liebenberg, Communication Manager at the V&A Waterfront, the popularity of the free Wi-Fi access will be assessed and a decision as to whether they will continue to offer free Internet access will be based on this trial run.

Source (http://mybroadband.co.za/news/broadband/12745-Free-Internet-access-tested-Cape-Town.html)

Durban’s iconic Moses Mabhida Stadium is not only the most impressive new stadium built for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
It will also officially take its place as the world’s first quantum stadium when Durban’s opening World Cup match kicks off, between Germany and Australia, at 8:30 p.m. South Africa time on Sunday June 13 before a capacity international crowd.
“We started an initiative with the university (of KwaZulu-Natal) to firstly create a quantum network for the City of Durban,” says Jacquie Subban. “This (quantum network) happens to be a first for a city in the world. We’ve now translated that to FIFA World Cup 2010.”
Subban is head of Geographic Information and Policy for Durban and the eThekwini (greater Durban) Municipality. Her department heads Durban’s long-term strategic planning initiatives; the city’s short-term (five year) integrative development plans; and a number of research, sustainability, information technology and planning initiatives. Several involve international collaboration.
“With the World Cup, we are going to be the only stadium in the world to have a quantum security link to the Joint Operating Centers — the area we deal with in terms of monitoring security and security threats and so on.”

Subban, in her functional office with a view of Durban harbor, is sharing some of Durban’s innovative initiatives.
Among those I find more easy to comprehend, I learn that this is the only city in South Africa with a permanent vegetable garden at City Hall. Harvested veggies are supplied to a facility for the elderly in the city center.
Vegetable gardens have also been planted at several schools, which makes me think that Mrs. Obama and Alice Waters are in good company with their fresh, local and sustainable focus.

“What quantum security does is provide a much higher level of security on a network compared to your normal cryptology,” Subban tells me, and which sounds impressive.
Quantum cryptography provides hacker-proof super-security. A person who tries to hack into the information, Subban explains, needs to first break the established laws of quantum physics.
“This (World Cup 2010) is the first public global event to use such a quantum based encryption solution,” says Professor Francesco Petruccione of the University of KwaZulu Natal’s (UKZN) Centre for Quantum Technology, a research group comprising mainly academics and post-graduate students, which has led the project in partnership with the city of Durban.
“The project provides a high-level security system along the optical fiber communication link between the stadium and the Joint Operations Centre during the World Cup,” says Petruccione. “To achieve this we use quantum mechanical methods to distribute ultra secure encryption keys.”
The system will make it virtually impossible for hackers to tap into communication between the two points via telephone, e-mail and video links.
See more on Durban's quantum stadium here.
Read about hybrid quantum encryption technology and the secure world cup link here.
Since 2008, Durban has positioned itself to become the Smart City of Africa, explains Subben.
This vision included the development (now well under way) of an optical fibre communication backbone to provide citizens with e-services such as online learning, health advice, internet business solutions, public sector productivity tools and surveillance.
Durban City Manager, Dr. Michael Sutcliffe — who, says Subben, encourages innovation in all departments — believes that quantum information and communication technology will boost the transformation of the Municipality into a high-tech information-driven organization and turn Durban into an incubator for future technologies.
“The whole field of quantum physics and nanotechnology is new and evolving,” says Subben.
“Because a quantum physics industry does not exist at present anywhere in the world, we as a city have an opportunity, given the breakthroughs we’ve made here, to start creating centers of excellence supporting different areas of quantum technology.
“That is very exciting because we can see the birth, in a couple of years time, of new technologies and new industries in an area that was previous not around.
“So we in Durban could be a leader in that process.”
We asked Jacquie Subban a few questions about Durban's quantum city and quantum stadium initiatives:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAZ1BVYjtQY&feature=player_embedded

Source: http://www.examiner.com/x-25057-South-Africa-Travel-Examiner~y2010m6d3-World-Cup-2010-security-hackerproof-as-Durban-leads-world-in-quantum-technology

First Tier-IV data centre in the southern hemisphere
03 Jun 2010 - eProp - GLTA

Intro
Grinaker-LTA has completed its contract for the construction of a vast new data centre - believed to be the largest in Africa – at Samrand, in Tshwane.

The centre, measuring over 27 000m2 in extent, includes several data halls supported by specialised ancillary services.

It is the first data centre in the Southern Hemisphere to achieve Tier IV design and facility certification from the Uptime Institute in the United States.

Esrom Phaka, contracts director at Grinaker-LTA Building Inland, elaborates: "There are two categories in the very demanding Uptime Tier IV certification - for the design and the facility. The Samrand Data Centre has been awarded both, following a successful inspection by the Uptime Institute. These certifications mean, in the words of the Institute, that 'the data centre's electro-mechanical facility is completely fault-tolerant and concurrently maintainable, and in the event of a catastrophic failure, the centre will operate as normal'. It's a huge achievement," he stresses.

Another project first for Grinaker-LTA has been the simultaneous achievement of practical and works completion. Apart from delayed waterproofing of a few bulk diesel fuel storage bunkers, the project is complete. "The very high summer rainfall resulted in a high water table so the client has elected to defer this activity to winter when the table is lower,” says Phaka. The bunkers supply day tanks within the plant rooms with top-up diesel so the operation of the centre is unaffected. "The rains also presented challenges to the road works, landscaping and the six large water attenuation ponds, but they were completed on schedule so the storm water system is fully functional."

Intensive commissioning and integration testing of the electro mechanical infrastructure of the facility and its sophisticated building management system took almost three months. The integrated commissioning entailed tying together all the mechanical, electrical, security, detection and fire suppression installations, and caters for diesel top-up, water ingress, water top-up, security, door activation, access control, lighting control, temperature control and maintenance and servicing, including dial-up functions to certain plant suppliers. The entire data centre can effectively be controlled from the central control room, which provides views and alerts via an array of monitors. The commissioning team worked tirelessly to have the installation integrated and "talking to each component" ahead of the Uptime Tier IV facility inspection, Phaka reports.

"Having gone from ground-breaking to handover of a Tier-IV certified centre in just 21 months is a great achievement and the project team really deserves to be commended. The deadlines were very tight and numerous changes had to be accommodated and challenges had to be overcome. It's been a testing contract, but Grinaker-LTA rose to all of the challenges and is proud to have delivered a very exciting, unique and high quality end product," Phaka concludes.

Source (http://www.eprop.co.za/news/article.aspx?idArticle=12562)

Google set to peer at CINX
Rudolph Muller MyBroadband | 14 July, 2010

Google is likely to peer at the Cape Town Internet Exchange (CINX) in the near future, making services like YouTube and Google search directly available to ISPs

It is well known that Google has had an established network presence in South Africa since 2009, serving content like certain YouTube videos and Google search results from locally hosted servers.

The exact location of Google’s Global Cache servers are typically not communicated, and although it has been published that the search giant has a presence on the TENET, Internet Solutions and Vodacom Business networks these providers usually don’t market this information.

It has now come to light that Google is planning to start peering with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) directly at the Cape Town Internet Exchange (CINX) in the near future. According to one source Google’s node at CINX is ready and waiting, and that it is just waiting for additional infrastructure to activate its peering.

It is understood that Google is keen to peer openly with any ISP with a presense at CINX, an initiative which will not only mean savings on bandwidth costs by ISPs but also faster loading and better service levels associated with Google services in South Africa.

Google’s relationship with CINX stretches back a few years, and in 2008 the Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) revealed that Google had offered to provide a switch for its Cape Town Internet Exchange (CINX) and that ISPA had accepted "this kind offer".

CINX officially went live in September 2009, allowing ISPs in the Western Cape to interconnect with each other. "We decided to reintroduce the CINX to meet overwhelming demand from members with operations in Cape Town for a local exchange in the city. Cape Town business and consumers are now producing more than enough Internet traffic to justify an exchange for the city," Rob Hunter, Chair of JINX Working Groups said at the time.

It is rumoured that Google is not immediately looking at peering at the Johannesburg Internet Exchange (JINX), but Google could not confirm or deny these rumours.

Google and ISPA were asked for comment about Google’s peering plans at CINX, but they did not reply by the time of publication.

Source: MyBroadband (http://mybroadband.co.za/news/telecoms/13758-Google-set-peer-CINX.html)

First, some comic relief. (http://mybroadband.co.za/news/broadband/13746-Broadband-for-all-2019.html)And now on to more realistic matters.

Undersea cable linking Brazil and Africa seen as economic priority
0 COMMENTS |
http://us-cdn.creamermedia.co.za/template/en/spacer.gif ADD A COMMENT (http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/undersea-cable-linking-brazil-and-africa-seen-as-economic-priority-2010-07-14#comment-new)PRINT http://us-cdn.creamermedia.co.za/template/en/spacer.gif (http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/print-version/undersea-cable-linking-brazil-and-africa-seen-as-economic-priority-2010-07-14) EMAIL http://us-cdn.creamermedia.co.za/template/en/spacer.gif | (http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/sendemail/undersea-cable-linking-brazil-and-africa-seen-as-economic-priority-2010-07-14)


By: Chanel de Bruyn (http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/author.php?u_id=1018)
14th July 2010


TEXT SIZE
http://us-cdn.creamermedia.co.za/template/en/text_smaller_disabled.png (javascript: void(0);) http://us-cdn.creamermedia.co.za/template/en/text_bigger.png (javascript: void(0);)



Building an undersea cable to connect Africa to Brazil was high on Brazil's agenda, Telkom Caribe CEO Mike Singh said on Wednesday.
Speaking at the Submarine Networks World Africa 2010 conference, in Johannesburg, he noted that the development of an undersea cable connecting West Africa to Brazil was an economic priority and imperative for South Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Such a cable would allow for linking South Asia and Latin America through Africa, rather than the traditional northern hemisphere routes.
All these regions were developing regions, faced similar challenges and could complement each other's development, said Singh.
He highlighted that by 2025, the Indian and Chinese economies would eclipse that of the US and other western countries. The growth that had been recorded in the last 100 years in these western countries would swing to the east by 2020, he added.
As South Asia, Africa and Latin America accounted for about 75% of the world's population and as these regions had a relatively young population, this would be where future economic growth, and growth in demand for telecommunications services, would come from.
Cables connecting Latin America and South Asia through Europe were cost prohibitive and counterproductive and there was no reason that such cables could not be connected through Africa, said Singh.
He stated that, with the world's economic power expected to move to the southern hemisphere in future, the southern regions did not have to play second fiddle to western countries anymore and should dictate and insist on controlling the bandwidth flows that connect south-south countries.
Not only would a cable connecting these three regions benefit those in the southern hemisphere from a social and economic perspective, but such a cable would also be able to generate a return on investment, said Singh.
Failing to build a cable to connect Latin America and South Asia through Africa would be a failure for the southern hemisphere and for generations to come, he emphasised.

Edited by: Creamer Media Reporter

-Engineering News (http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/undersea-cable-linking-brazil-and-africa-seen-as-economic-priority-2010-07-14)

It's getting hard to keep up now! From only having SAT-3 we're going to have SAT-3, SEACOM, EASSy come Friday, WACS next year, as well as Main One next year too now!

-----

Main One's South African plans
Rudolph Muller MyBroadband | 15 July, 2010

The Main One submarine cable went live recently, and plans to extend the cable to South Africa are under way

Main One recently announced that it's 1.920 Tbps, 7000 kilometres long, submarine fibre optic cable system linking West Africa to Europe has been completed and commissioned.

With landing stations in Nigeria and Ghana and branching units in Morocco, Canary Islands, Senegal and Ivory Coast, the cable will deliver a broadband capacity to West Africa of more than ten times what is currently available.

Plans are already under way to extend the Main One cable system to South Africa. Bernard Logan, Business Development Executive of the Main One Cable Company, said that they are in advanced discussions with SEACOM and other companies to extend the cable to SA.

Logan pointed out that the initial Main One plan was to build a cable which will link South Africa and other West Coast countries to Portugal, but that financial constraints and regulatory issues in SA meant that the cable is being built in two phases: Taking the cable to Nigeria and then bringing it to South Africa and other countries along the way.

With the first phase of Main One complete and many operators currently lighting circuits on the system Logan said that it is far easier to secure finance and hence extend the cable system to South Africa.

One of the biggest challenges facing Main One is the actual West Coast landing point in South Africa. The now outdated SAT-2 landing station in Melkbosstrand will fall away which means that adequate space is available for the modern Main One cable system to place their equipment down.

But the sticking point is that Telkom must agree to this - and hence welcoming a competitor into its landing station - which could be challenging.

Logan however said that they will bypass this problem by extending the cable to the SEACOM landing station in Mtunzini if they need to. The best and cheapest solution will however be to land close to Cape Town and use Dark Fibre Africa or Neotel for their terrestrial backhaul needs within South Africa.

The Main One system is an open access system similar to SEACOM where capacity is sold to any interested party at set bandwidth rates. It is therefore not particularly surprising that Main One is partnering with SEACOM to bring a comprehensive international connectivity solution to South African companies.

"We work together with SEACOM as brothers," said Logan. "We have the same philosophy and with our partner E5 we can definitely make this project happen."

Questions have been raised about the viability of a local Main One presence when the 5.12 Tbps WACS cable is set to land in the country by the end of 2011, but Logan said that he is confident that they have a sound business model.

The WACS cable is run by a consortium - similar to SAT-3/SAFE - raising questions as to whether the shareholders will be keen to sell bandwidth at affordable rates to their competitors. Logan said that Main One will not only provide affordable and abundant bandwidth, but since it is an open access system anyone will be able to buy from them without any vested interest from a shareholder.

Logan added that they are not only interested in South Africa's business through their cable extension, but are looking at other growing markets like Angola and Ghana.

Main One is expected to start building their South African leg in early 2011 with a planned launch date of late 2011.

Source: MyBroadband (http://mybroadband.co.za/news/telecoms/13764-Main-Ones-South-African-plans.html)

Telkom increases ADSL bundle sizes, cuts top-up prices
Staff Writer MyBroadband | 27 July, 2010

Telkom has unveiled their new ADSL data bundles, increasing usage limits and cutting top-up per GB prices

Telkom has unveiled their new ADSL data bundles and Do Broadband packages which see both an increase in data bundle sizes and a reduction of top-up per GB rates.

TelkomInternet will be increasing its blended data allowance on their TelkomInternet AllAccess 3 GB standard and TelkomInternet AllAccess 5 GB Advance products to 5 GB and 9 GB respectively. Telkom’s Do Broadband 2 and 3 subscribers will also get a monthly blended cap increase of 2 GB and 4 GB respectively.

Telkom will also reduce its TopUp per GB prices from R64.76 per GB to R49.00 per GB for shaped bandwidth and from R113.34 to R69.00 for unshaped bandwidth.

(check the link below for tabular comparisons)

Source: MyBroadband (http://mybroadband.co.za/news/adsl/14052-Telkom-increases-ADSL-bundle-sizes-cuts-top--prices.html)

Cell C’s 21 Mbps network update
Staff Writer MyBroadband | 04 August, 2010

Cell C is getting ready to launch its 21 Mbps mobile broadband service with growing coverage

Cell C CEO Lars Reichelt today gave an update on their HSPA+ network rollout. The company has been rolling out an HSPA+ 900 network over the last few months which will support its imminent 21 Mbps mobile broadband offerings.

Reichelt explained that their network is based on world leading software defined radio technology, is a full IP network, supports speeds of up to 21 Mbps and is designed for latency of less than 80 ms.

The Cell C CEO added that their 900 MHz HSPA+ network provides far better coverage than 2100 MHz HSPA+ rollouts, and further improves in-building penetration. “HSPA+ 900 allows for a 10DB to 20DB gain when compared to UMTS 2100,” said Reichelt.

Reichelt said that their network gives them the freedom to use UMTS 2100 in areas where more capacity is needed which means that the Cell C network provides them with more flexibility and bandwidth than their competitors.

To date Cell C has rolled out over 1300 HSPA+ 900 transmitters with a fibre backbone and IP access secured. The company also has SEACOM online with a backup service.

The company is planning to have over 30% of the South African population covered with HSPA+ 900 by the end of the year.

Reichelt added that they currently have hundreds of friendly users testing the service in six cities with encouraging results.

The company is planning a city by city launch of its mobile broadband services, and Reichelt explained that they will learn from each rollout to improve future rollouts.

Source: My Broadband (http://mybroadband.co.za/news/cellular/14248-Cell-Mbps-network-update.html)

Telkom reaches 100% ADSL ‘coverage’
Staff Writer MyBroadband | 03 August, 2010

Telkom recently announced that 100% of their exchanges are now ADSL enabled, serving 650,000 ADSL customers

Telkom’s ADSL subscriber base has grown steadily over the last seven years, and one of the reasons is the company’s growing ADSL footprint.

Telkom has recently announced that 100% of their exchanges are now ADSL enabled, which consist of 4,000 digital subscriber line access multiplexers, serving approximately 647,462 ADSL customers country wide.

Telkom currently has 4.273 million fixed line subscribers which mean that there is still a significant growth potential in terms of ADSL fixed line penetration.

Increased network investment

In its recently released annual report Telkom pointed out that its baseline capital expenditure of R2.366 billion was largely for the deployment of technologies to support the growing data services business –including the ADSL footprint - links to the mobile cellular operators and expenditure for access line deployment in selected high growth areas.

This investment has partly gone to upgrading ADSL exchanges in anticipation of Telkom’s 10 Mbps ADSL offering. 10 Mbps ADSL will only be offered in areas where the exchanges are served by ADSL 2+ exchanges and Metro-Ethernet backhaul, and upgrades of many exchanges were needed to support the higher speeds.

Telkom’s 10 Mbps ADSL service is expected to be launched later this month.

Source: My Broadband (http://mybroadband.co.za/news/adsl/14236-Telkom-reaches-100-ADSL-coverage.html)

1) Looks like they may have a new logo:

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/thumbnail.php?file=cellc_broadband_747633262.jpg&size=article_medium

2) I wonder which two cities it could be? The logical bet would be Johannesburg and Cape Town...

3) Glad to hear Virgin can enter the broadband space too, should they wish!

All in all, good news. Cell C are definitely going in the right direction with this and having finally added BlackBerry services to their network.



Cell C’s 21 Mbps mobile broadband plans
Staff Writer MyBroadband | 04 August, 2010

Cell C confirms its first broadband services will be launched in August, and aggressive pricing expected

Cell C CEO Lars Reichelt today unveiled the company’s new branding and strategy, highlighting that the cellular provider is aiming to become a truly consumer centric organization.

Reichelt further announced that they are planning to launch mobile broadband services within the next three weeks, starting with two cities and extending their reach in coming months.

Reichelt would however not divulge where they will launch their services first to protect their network as other operators may boost their capacity in those regions before the Cell C launch.

The Cell C CEO said that they will use the lessons learned in their initial launches to improve the subsequent launches in other cities as they extend their reach.

According to the company they currently have ‘hundreds of friendly users’ in six cities testing their services, and the initial feedback is very encouraging. Reichelt added that their network is built to support latency of less than 80 ms – and showed a screenshot of a 43 ms ping test result to a local server.

Reichelt is further confident that they have adequate capacity on their network to support the higher speeds, both on their radio network side and their transmission network. He explained that their backhaul requirements on their HSPA+ network are mainly served by fibre connections, with a few microwave links in challenging areas.

Cell C’s pricing plans

Cell C would not give away much information about their planned mobile broadband offerings, but MyBroadband has now received information from three independent sources showing that the company may be planning to initially launch two different broadband services:

For R999 you will get a modem capable of speeds of up to 7.2Mbps and 2GB of data every month for a period of 12 months.
For R1,999 you will get a modem capable of speeds of up to 21.6Mbps and 5GB of data every month for a period of 12 months.
This means that the two products will cost subscribers R42 per GB on the R999 product and R33 per GB on the R1999 product – multiple times cheaper than Vodacom and MTN’s current pricing.

According to the leaked documents the services will officially launch on 20 August – in line with Reichelt’s ‘three week’ estimate.

Cell C was asked for comment about their future mobile broadband plans, but the company remains tight lipped and would not confirm or deny the leaked information.

Cell C did however confirm that Virgin Mobile will have access to the new HSPA+ network and services from Cell C, but it is unclear whether consumers can expect mobile broadband services from Virgin Mobile.

Virgin Mobile was not immediately available for comment.

Source: My Broadband (http://mybroadband.co.za/news/broadband/14256-Cell-Mbps-mobile-broadband-plans.html)

New logo indeed:

http://www.itweb.co.za/sections/pictures/2010/CellC-logo.jpg

Cell C revamps
By Leigh-Ann Francis
Johannesburg, 4 Aug 2010

Third mobile operator Cell C today unveiled a new logo and has teamed up with comedian Trevor Noah as it rolls out an extensive customer centric campaign.

Noah recently poked fun at SA's horrendous cellular market, zeroing in on Cell C as the worst of the lot. Cell C responded with a full-page advert in major newspapers across the country apologising to its customers for dropped calls and spotty coverage.

In the advert, the operator also outlined a turnaround strategy, which included the roll out of its 4Gs network, as well as a new customer care and billing system. The operator emphasised that it was aware how frustrated South Africans are with the cellphone industry and said it was committed to change.

Trevor Noah for Cell C CEO
At a press briefing this morning, Cell C announced that it has completely rebranded itself as a customer centric organisation, with a new logo, and Trevor Noah as its customer experience officer (C.E.O).

“We know we have to improve. Clearly, we have to improve,” stated Cell C CEO Lars Reichelt. He explained that Cell C has no intention of expanding beyond SA so the operator's success would have to be determined within this country.

For this reason, Cell C has unveiled a corporate identity that includes a six-colour bar, which represents the colours of the South African flag. The revamp also includes the unveiling of a complaints Web site: TellTrevor.co.za

This part of the campaign will be focused on inviting customers to participate with Cell C to improve and transform the organisation. Noah will play a watch dog role on the site, encouraging customers to complain.
The Web site will also give customers from all networks the opportunity to indicate where their calls drop or where they have connectivity issues.
Noah highlighted that he was working with Cell C and not for Cell C and vowed to remain objective and critical of whether or not the operator was improving.

City-by-city
The company also gave an update on its 4Gs ['s' stands for speed and service, accordimng to Cell C] network, which it believes will solve many of the service-related issues its customers have been experiencing.

Cell C's 4Gs network will be rolled out city-by-city to six cities across SA within the coming weeks. The network is neither 4G nor LTE, but is an improvement on 3G.
Reichelt noted the concept of 4G has not yet been defined by the global industry, but Cell C's network is based on software – defined radio technology – which could be adapted for LTE or anything else in the future.

The operator also committed to 34% coverage of the South African population by the end of the year and 67% population coverage by mid 2011
Reichelt noted that the new network would be based on HSPA+ technology and would operate in the 900MHz and 2100MHz frequency bands.

He explained that its HSPA+ 900 transmitter allows for coverage in areas that may not have been economically viable before and speeds up roll-out of high-speed broadband to larger numbers of consumers.

The decision to go with HSPA+ 900 allows for lower capital and operating expenditure, allowing for more competitive offerings going forward, added Reichelt.

Cell C has already rolled out more than 1 300 HSPA+ 900 transmitters with a fibre backbone and IP access secured. Reichelt added that the company currently has hundreds of users testing the service in six cities, with encouraging results.

Source: ITWeb (http://www.itweb.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=35560:cell-c-revamps&catid=69&Itemid=58)

Now Vodacom, MTN, Cell C, Telkom and possibly Virgin in future will all have 21Mbps networks :cheers:

-----

Telkom’s 21 Mbps HSPA+ plans
Staff Writer MyBroadband | 05 August, 2010

Telkom already has an established 7.2 Mbps HSPA network, and is now rolling out a 21 Mbps HSPA+ network

It is no secret that Telkom’s mobile plans are a top priority after its sale of Vodacom last year. The company already has an established HSPA mobile network with plans to extend this network to 2,000 towers by March next year.

To data the take-up of Telkom’s mobile products has been mediocre at best. At the end of March 2010 Telkom had 16,299 W-CDMA subscribers, an increase of 210.3% from the 5,253 subscribers reported in March 2009.

Telkom South Africa MD Pinky Moholi however explains that their mobile network is currently mainly used as a fixed line replacement service, and that far stronger growth can be expected when Telkom Mobile officially launches under a new brand later this year.

Moholi promised consumers very competitive prices and a better overall value proposition than current mobile offerings. “We will give better value for money in both the mobile voice and data space,” Moholi told MyBroadband.

When Telkom launched its 7.2 Mbps HSPA data service towards the end of 2008 it was on the cutting edge of mobile technologies, but since then both Vodacom and MTN have launched 14.4 Mbps and 21 Mbps HSPA and HSPA+ services. Cell C is also rolling out a 21 Mbps HSPA+ network with mobile broadband services expected this month.

Telkom has already penned a roaming agreement with MTN which will give the company access to MTN’s network in areas where it does not have coverage, but to be truly competitive it may have to join the other three cellular operators in investing in 14.4 Mbps and 21 Mbps network upgrades.

Good news is that Telkom is indeed investing in an HSPA+ network. Telkom said that all sites in the network that Telkom Mobile is currently deploying are HSPA+ capable.

Telkom added that Telkom Mobile is planning to enable 21Mbps on sites in areas where there is a demand for the service and where there is sufficient backhaul to support the service.

“This service will be enabled as and when required and hence no definitive date can be provided,” Telkom said.

Source: My Broadband (http://mybroadband.co.za/news/broadband/14276-Telkoms-Mbps-HSPA-plans.html)

*mutter*

Telkom need to sort out their fixed line network as well..

Bah, the day...

Virgin Mobile HSPA+ broadband offerings planned
Staff Writer MyBroadband | 10 August, 2010

Virgin Mobile is planning its own unique mobile broadband services and products using Cell C’s 21 Mbps HSPA+ network

Cell C recently announced that it will be launching its first 21 Mbps HSPA+ mobile broadband services this month, made possible by the company’s R5 billion investment in a 900 MHz HSPA+ network.

Cell C currently has over 1300 HSPA+ 900 live transmitters, with a fibre backbone and IP access secured. Cell C is however not stopping here, and is planning to have 30% HSPA+ population coverage by the end of this year.

Virgin Mobile has been relying on Cell C’s network to provide its subscribers with voice and data services, and Cell C CEO Lars Reichelt recently confirmed that Virgin Mobile will have access to their new HSPA+ network to offer services.

Virgin Mobile’s Chief Strategy & Marketing Officer Jonathan Newman confirmed that they are planning to launch their own brand of HSPA+ services. “Virgin Mobile looks forward to offering its own unique products and services based on Cell C’s HSPA+ network,” said Newman.

Virgin Mobile has not yet announced a launch date for their planned HSPA+ products and services, but the company promised that consumers can expect “the best value for the cellular services that our subscribers use the most.”

“So expect simple, market challenging broadband offerings designed to meet the real needs of savvy South African consumers,” Newman concluded.

Source: MyBroadband (http://mybroadband.co.za/news/cellular/14306-Virgin-Mobile-HSPA-broadband-offerings-planned.html)

ATC’s big plans in the ADSL and ISP market
Staff Writer MyBroadband | 08 August, 2010

Altech Technology Concepts is building its own tier 1 network with numerous new ADSL and telecoms services in the pipeline

In April last year JSE listed Allied Technologies Limited (Altech) announced the acquisition of 100% of Technology Concepts. The renamed Altech Technology Concepts has been flying under the radar, but is set to become far more visible with a range of new developments.

Altech Technology Concepts CEO Wayne de Nobrega explained that ATC to date had a strong focus on the corporate market with products like its bonded ADSL solution, but things are set to change towards the end of the year.

While ATC will continue its focus and growth in the corporate market, it is planning to develop a new range of services aimed at the SME and consumer markets. The company will also launch a wholesale division providing ISPs with white labeled solutions and other suitable products.

While ATC will continue to be hands on with both corporate and business clients, it is unlikely to directly enter the consumer market. Their likely consumer channel to market will initially be Altech Autopage which already has a very strong presence across the country.

In March this year Altech Autopage Cellular unveiled their Broadband Central initiative with a range of “tailor made solutions” aimed at the consumer broadband market.

Becoming a first tier ISP

ATC’s expansion plans are underpinned by their investment in a tier one network. To date ATC relied on hosting facilities and other infrastructure provided by Internet Solutions and MTN Business, but this is set to change.

De Nobrega explains that ATC has acquired a significant amount of space in the new Teraco Data Centre (DC) in Isando, which will form the core of its network. The company will extend its DC presence to Cape Town and Durban in the beginning of next year.

These three core network points-of-presence (PoP) will be connected via high speed connections acquired from Telkom, Neotel or Infraco.

ATC will further terminate Altech’s SEACOM capacity – which currently consists of two STM-16 circuits which can scale to 5 Gbps – in its Johannesburg DC. De Nobrega added that ATC will at all times have fully redundant bandwidth on SAT-3 to ensure the highest possible service levels.

To serve its national bandwidth needs ATC will peer at JINX as well as acquire transit from Internet Solutions. The company will also invest in its own IPC service from Telkom for its wholesale ADSL needs, and while De Nebroga would not divulge the initial IPC capacity which they plan to buy, he said it is ‘significant’.

The company’s core network is built on Cisco equipment, and to serve ATC’s growing range of services they partnered with various companies, including M86 Security, Zimbra, i356, Xiotech and Dell.

The first phase of ATC’s network will be live in the beginning of November while the company’s Cape Town and Durban POPs will come online in early 2011.

New services

The ATC CEO said that consumers and business can expect high quality, aggressively priced products from them. De Nobrega however explained that users should not expect them to be the cheapest in the market, but rather a provider with affordable high quality services.

The company is planning to launch a slew of new services aimed at the SME and consumer market in November which will include ADSL and other connectivity solutions, voice services, hosting offerings and managed services.

De Nobrega explained that they are currently negotiating interconnect agreements with the various operators, but even if these agreements are not in place in three month’s time the company will still launch voice services through its partnerships with other players.

Source: MyBroadband (http://mybroadband.co.za/news/telecoms/14334-ATCs-big-plans-the-ADSL-and-ISP-market.html)

Telkom 10 Mbps ADSL: Upgraded areas emerge
Staff Writer MyBroadband | 10 August, 2010

Numerous ADSL subscribers’ speeds have been bumped up to 10 Mbps, but Telkom is not in the mood to talk

Telkom started their much anticipated 10 Mbps ADSL upgrades last weekend. According to unconfirmed information the planned migration of around 19,000 4 Mbps ADSL services which began at 20:00 on Friday night will take 7 days complete.

It is understood that users who are in the region of 1.5 km from the exchange will be upgraded to 10 Mbps while other users can expect speeds of around 8 Mbps.

The upgrades are only applied to 4Mbps ADSL users on Metro-Ethernet and ADSL2+ enabled exchanges. Telkom would however not reveal the exchanges where consumers can expect upgrades to occur.

In response to questions about the ongoing ADSL speed increases, Telkom merely said that “an announcement is imminent and Telkom will communicate details in due course."

Information shared on the MyBroadband Forums however is far from ‘imminent’ as users update the details of their upgrade to 10 Mbps on an hourly basis.

Numerous ADSL subscribers in Durban, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth and Bloemfontein are reporting that their line speed has been upgraded. This includes users in:

Johannesburg: Cresta, Bryanston, Honeydew, Rosebank, Atlasville, Bromhof, Malanshof, Parkview, Aasvoëlkop, Weltevredenpark, Northcliff, Parktown
Pretoria: Lynnwood Ridge, Capital Park, Garsfontein, Maroelana, Brooklyn/Waterkloof, Pretoria North, Pretoria DBD/Capital Park, Waterkloof Ridge, Pretoriuspark
Cape Town: Kenilworth, Proteavalley, Tamboerskloof, Foreshore, Woodstock, Claremont, Rondebosch, Gardens, Clareinche, Durbanville, Plumstead/Wynberg, Vredehoek
Durban: Durban North
Port Elizabeth: Port Elizabeth

This information is based on anecdotal feedback from the forums, and is by no means a full list of upgraded areas. For more information you may want to discuss the upgrades here:

Source: MyBroadband (http://mybroadband.co.za/news/adsl/14360-Telkom-Mbps-ADSL-Upgraded-areas-emerge.html)

South Africa is classified in 94th place worldwide in download speed and 95th in upload

Household Download Index
Based on millions of recent test results from Speedtest.net, this index compares and ranks consumer download speeds around the globe. The value is the rolling average throughput in Mbps over the past 30 days where the mean distance between the client and the server is less than 300 miles.


Household Quality Index
South Africa is classied in 33rd place
Based on millions of recent test results from Pingtest.net, this index compares and ranks consumer broadband quality around the globe. The value is the rolling average R Factor over the past 30 days where the mean distance between the client and the server is less than 300 miles.

source http://www.netindex.com

SA to get Wikimedia Chapter
Jan Vermeulen MyBroadband | 11 August, 2010

Volunteers gathered over the long weekend to discuss the establishment of a local Wikimedia Chapter in South Africa

A group of volunteers met on 7 and 8 August to discuss the creation of a local Wikimedia Chapter.

With the support of the Wikimedia Foundation, The African Commons Project facilitated a meeting for local Wikipedians and other individuals interested in participating in a local Chapter.

The Wikimedia Foundation is a non-profit organisation which supports such projects as Wikipedia, an online encyclopaedia which is free to use and free to contribute to or amend by anyone.

Achal Prabhala, who is on the Wikimedia Foundation Advisory board, attended the meeting along with Delphine Ménard and Bence Damokos from the Wikimedia Chapters committee.

Damokos and Ménard explained that local Wikimedia Chapters are a mechanism to structure the efforts of volunteers, be a partner for local institutions or organisations, as well as provide a local presence.

Chapters usually take the form of non-profit, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that are rooted in a country and that register according to local law, said Damokos and Ménard. They are also membership organisations that have an elected board.

Part of the proceedings involved developing a draft vision and purpose for the Chapter which needs to be included in the founding documents to be submitted to the Wikimedia Foundation.

Potential activities and initiatives were also brainstormed. These included running drives to acquire or generate content, rewarding local contributors, raising awareness and getting more people involved.

The results of the discussion are visible on the South African Chapter's Meta-Wiki page.

From the information presented by the representatives from the Wikimedia Foundation and Kerryn McCay, director of The African Commons Project, the setup of a local Chapter would take anything between 7 and 10 months.

Ménard and Prabhala encouraged the volunteers in attendance that activities could still be arranged while the Chapter was being set up.

Source: MyBroadband (http://mybroadband.co.za/news/internet/14382-get-Wikimedia-Chapter.html)

SA cities in big fibre roll-out push

Posted by Editor on Aug 18th, 2010

SA’s three biggest cities are all pushing ahead with ambitious fibre-optic network projects, promising businesses and even residential customers cheaper and faster broadband.

The municipalities of Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town are all pushing ahead with plans to build thousands of kilometres of fibre infrastructure as they try to drive down communication costs in their cities.

Durban’s eThekwini municipality appears to be leading SA’s other big cities in its fibre roll-out.

The eastern coastal city already has 700km of fibre in the ground and is providing non-contended access to 350 companies in the region at speeds of up to 100Mbit/s.

The network is operated on the city’s behalf by IT group Dimension Data, which says the all-fibre network extends from Tongaat north of Durban to Umkomaas in the south. A western leg reaches as far as Botha’s Hill, near Hillcrest.

Much of the fibre was already in the ground before the city decided to open it up to commercial service providers, though it has extended it to provide connectivity in areas where it didn’t already have network infrastructure.

Jay Reddy, Didata’s executive regional director in KwaZulu-Natal, says 13 licensed network service providers purchase “dark fibre” (fibre that hasn’t been lit up, or used) from the city and resell bandwidth and applications on this to their clients.

Companies interested in accessing the network must apply to a commercial service provider, which will then submit an application to the city for a new fibre spur to be built, if necessary.

Access is available in speeds ranging from 500kbit/s to 100Mbit/s, though Reddy says most clients opt for connections of between 2Mbit/s and 4Mbit/s.

Though fibre access is not available to end-user consumers yet, Reddy says the city’s long-term goal is to build fibre to the home.

Developments in Johannesburg have been a lot slower. Discussions around the city’s fibre project started five years ago. However, it only got off the ground in January with the launch of a company called BWired.

BWired was started by Ericsson SA, which won the tender to implement Johannesburg’s planned R1bn broadband network project. Unlike Durban’s network, which mainly serves business customers, BWired will lay fibre in underserviced areas.

BWired MD Keith Kenneth says the project involves the deployment of 900km of fibre, which will take around three years to complete. However, he says the company is hoping to have the network ready sooner than that.

The project was put on hold for a few months around June and July because BWired was not allowed to dig fibre trenches during the World Cup. However, Kenneth says workers will be digging again soon.

The first areas expected to have fibre are Orange Farm and Soweto. Once they are online, other sections of Johannesburg will be lit up area-by-area in six-monthly increments.

The City of Cape Town could not be reached for comment. However, in May the first segment of its broadband project went live.

A section of cable running through the city centre between Cape Town Stadium and the Civic Centre is in operation and being used to improve communications between buildings owned by the city.

Cape Town’s council approved the project in 2008, and the city invested R125m rolling out the first segment of fibre.

The next step for Cape Town is to complete a southern route that will include the suburbs of Plumstead and Claremont. It still needs to source the funding for this section.

The city says the plan, ultimately, is to benefit underserviced areas like Khayelitsha, Athlone and Mitchells Plain. — Duncan McLeod and Candice Jones


http://www.techcentral.co.za/sa-citi...ut-push/16265/

when can we expect direct to home fibre?

MTN boost broadband capacity
Staff Writer MyBroadband | 19 August, 2010

MTN grows broadband coverage and significantly boosts data usage

MTN today released its interim results for the six months ended 30 June 2010, showing subscriber growth across many of its operations.

MTN CEO Phuthuma Nhleko also discussed infrastructure and data highlights for the company’s local operations, saying that 140 2G and 108 3G base stations were added over the last six months.

Nhleko added that MTN South Africa currently has 99% 2G population coverage and 48% 3G population coverage.

MTN is however not applying the breaks just yet. The company is planning to pick up its rollout in the second half of the year, and is also pushing forward with its fibre network deployment.

According to the MTN CEO 440km on their Durban to Johannesburg route - which forms part of the joint MTN/Neotel/Vodacom national fibre network – has been trenched. The company’s Gauteng fibre network’s northern ring and southern ring were also completed.

This increased investment in infrastructure bodes well for MTN’s increased focus on data services. The company has shown a 49% increase in data usage since December 2009, and with increased smartphone and broadband penetration this trend is likely to continue.

Nhleko further indicated that MTN – which has already signed a roaming agreement with Telkom Mobile – will look at more infrastructure sharing as the market share stabilizes in the mobile environment.

Source: MyBroadband (http://mybroadband.co.za/news/broadband/14557-MTN-boost-broadband-capacity.html)

when can we expect direct to home fibre?

A few years after Telkom crumbles and dies :ohno:

Cell C to double network speed to 42Mbit/s
Cell C will begin upgrading its new wireless broadband network to 42Mbit/s within the next six to eight months, CEO Lars Reichelt says.

On Friday, Cell C switched on the first leg of its third-generation (3G) cellular network in Port Elizabeth, offering peak speeds of up to 21Mbit/s. It is expected to expand the network to two more cities in September – probably Bloemfontein and Durban.

The operator’s new network, which it is building in the 900MHz frequency band, can be upgraded through software.

The upgrade to 42Mbit/s will take place first in Port Elizabeth because it has relatively few customers using older GSM technology on 900MHz in the city. Reichelt says it’s therefore relatively trivial to “refarm” the spectrum for additional 3G services, allowing it to upgrade to 42Mbit/s.

“Port Elizabeth will be our test bed for some time to come,” Reichelt says.

Cell C is the first SA operator to launch a 3G network at 900MHz. Reichelt believes this will give it a big advantage over rivals MTN and Vodacom.

Both MTN and Vodacom have begun testing 3G at 900MHz but because they have so many GSM customers in the band already it’s much more difficult for them to refarm their spectrum. — Duncan McLeod, TechCentral
TechCentral (http://www.techcentral.co.za/cell-c-to-double-network-speed-to-42mbits/16691/)

Funny thing is that all of this is happening just weeks after I signed my very own Vodacom 3G contract.Eish.

^^ That article doesn't list the best part - their prices! :)

Cell C officially launches 21 Mbps HSPA+ service
Staff Writer MyBroadband | 03 September, 2010

Cell C officially launched its 21 Mbps HSPA+ service in Port Elizabeth at very aggressive rates; 40 Mbps around 6 months away

Cell C today officially launched its new 21 Mbps HSPA+ mobile broadband service in Port Elizabeth – the first city to gain commercial access to Cell C’s newly deployed HSPA+ network.

Cell C is offering clients two broadband services:

For R1,499 you will get a modem capable of speeds of up to 7.2Mbps and 2GB of data every month for a period of 12 months.
For R2,999 you will get a modem capable of speeds of up to 21.6Mbps and 5GB of data every month for a period of 12 months.
Out of bundle pricing is 39c per MB, well below the standard prepaid rate of R2 per MB from Vodacom and MTN.

This pricing is setting a new standard in the local cellular market with a far lower per-GB price than any competing service in the market.

According to Cell C CEO Lars Reichelt they are experiencing an average throughput of 5 Mbps to 6 Mbps. This speed, says Reichelt, is significantly higher than ‘Competitor 1 at 2-3 Mbps and Competitor 2 at 1-2 Mbps.

Reichelt added that realistic uplink speeds on their service is between 1 Mbps and 2 Mbps, again higher than their competitors which he says typically achieves between 0.5 Mbps and 1.5 Mbps upload speeds.

Reichelt added that Cell C will be in a position to upgrade their network to 40 Mbps in the next six to eight months.

There have been suggestions that Cell C selected Port Elizabeth because the company is experiencing network issues in the bigger cities. Reichelt said that PE was selected because it represents a good cross section of customers, it is big enough to be meaningful but not big enough to be a problem.

Source: MyBroadband (http://mybroadband.co.za/news/broadband/14917-Cell-officially-launches-Mbps-HSPA-service.html)

Cell C 21 Mbps HSPA+ launched in Bloemfontein
Staff Writer MyBroadband | 15 September, 2010

Cell C today switched on its HSPA+ network in Bloemfontein

Cell C today extended its 21 Mbps HSPA+ network to Bloemfontein, making it the second city after Port Elizabeth to gain access to the cellular providers’ new high speed mobile broadband offerings.

Cell C launched their 900 MHz HSPA+ network in Port Elizabeth two weeks ago, offering subscribers aggressively priced mobile broadband services with speeds of up to 21.6 Mbps.

“What is significant about Cell C’s network, is that the HSPA+ release 7 network is IP across all network elements. This is a first for Africa, and will be rolled out countrywide and not only in pockets. The same Software Defined Radio (SDR) technology will be used across our entire network. It will be HSPA+ all the way from day one,” said Cell C CEO Lars Reichelt.

“The combination of R7 all IP networking along with the SDR technology will offer our customers a low latency, high capacity network that can evolve quickly as new standards are released.”

Reichelt said at the PE launch that the first phase of their HSPA+ network rollout, expected to be completed by the end of 2010, will cover approximately 34% of the South African population.

Reichelt explained that the network will be launched on a city-by-city basis and one more city will come “on-air” in September – widely speculated to be Durban.

Cell C made it clear that they will continue to expand their network rollout and aim to cover 67% of the population by mid 2011.

Nigel Hall, Cell C's Deputy CEO, pointed out that while Bloemfontein is not fully covered at this stage, it plans to cover 90% of the city by the end of 2010.

Cell C’s mobile broadband packages will go on sale in Bloemfontein on Friday.

Source: MyBroadband (http://mybroadband.co.za/news/cellular/15185-Cell-Mbps-HSPA-launched-Bloemfontein.html)

Cell C’s new high-speed network reaches third city
By: Creamer Media Reporter
28th September 2010

Mobile operator Cell C on Tuesday launched its evolved high-speed packet access (HSPA+) 900 network, which it calls its 4Gs network, in a third city – East London.

The HSPA+ 900 network has already been launched in Port Elizabeth and Bloemfontein.

The first phase of the rollout of the 4Gs network in East London has seen 81% of the city’s population covered by the network. A second phase, which would ensure 100% coverage for the city and surrounding areas, would be completed by the end of this year.

Cell C executive head of marketing Simon Camerer said that data speeds averaged between 4 Mb/s and 7 Mb/s in East London

From twitter:

CellC Today we can offer Durban the most advanced network in the Southern Hemisphere and on par with most of Europe. Durban welcome to #4Gs

That means Port Elizabeth, East London, Bloemfontein, Cape Town and now Durban are covered.

ASA shuts down Cell C campaign
2010-10-07 14:34
Duncan Alfreds

Cape Town - The Advertising Standards Authority has found that mobile operator Cell C's 4G campaign is misleading and dishonest.

The ASA was responding to complaints lodged by competitors MTN and Vodacom over Cell C's campaign that featured the 4Gs logo in both print and electronic media.

"The complainants, in essence, submitted that the respondent's '4Gs' logo is dishonest and misleading as consumers will mistake it to be a reference to the '4G standard of network. This is especially so as the 's' in '4Gs' is extremely small.

Consumers have become accustomed to seeing the term '3G' in connection with broadband capable devices in South Africa, which always denotes speed and connectivity capability," the ASA said in its ruling.

Cell C has been driving its connectivity as "speedcover 4Gs" in several cities, including Port Elizabeth, Bloemfontein, East London and Cape Town.

'Big positive'

"Cell C's 4GS network has come to the Mother City covering 94% of the population with average speeds of between 4 - 7 Mbps and the best broadband pricing in South Africa," Cell C CEO Lars P Reichelt said in a statement to News24.

The ASA found that the networking, in essence, was "on par" with competitors, and the company was offering a competitive advantage that it "did not possess".

In its response Cell C said that its 4Gs was not a technical term and the company was using it to highlight its service. It also disputed that it was subject to the ASA as information was "conveyed in editorial publicity".

Vodacom welcomed the ruling.

"We welcome the decision, it's a big positive for the consumer," Vodacom's Richard Boorman told News24. He said that there was an internationally accepted definition of 4G and Cell C didn't have it.

The ASA however, ruled that Cell C may not use the 4Gs logo, and the campaign must be withdrawn.

http://www.news24.com/SciTech/News/ASA-shuts-down-Cell-C-campaign-20101007

24% improvement in global broadband quality
18 Oct 2010 by Editor
Filed in Web World 24% improvement in global broadband quality

According to Oxford University's third annual study of the quality of broadband connections around the globe, there are continued improvements worldwide, with more countries already prepared for the applications of tomorrow than in previous years and two thirds of the countries analysed meeting or surpassing today’s needs.

Overall, thanks to a range of investments in infrastructure, global broadband quality has improved by 50% in just three years and penetration of broadband continues to improve, with about half of the households (49%) of the countries investigated now having access to broadband (up from 40% in 2008).

South Africa showed a marked improvement from 2009 increasing 10% in its broadband quality score. However, it still remains below the threshold of meeting the quality requirements of today’s applications.

Quality was evaluated by scoring the combined download throughput, upload throughput, and latency capabilities of a connection, the key criteria for a connection’s ability to handle specific Internet applications, from consumer telepresence to online video and social networking. These criteria are expressed as a single ‘Broadband Quality Score’ (BQS) for each country. By combining this BQS with broadband penetration figures for each country (i.e. the proportion of households who have access to broadband, obtained from Point Topic in 2010), the researchers were able to map out the world’s broadband leaders – those with the best combination of broadband quality and penetration.

Building on last year’s study, the 2010 data also includes analysis of the broadband quality of 239 cities, providing further insight into the evolution of smart connected communities around the world. South Africa’s top cities, Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban had an average BQS of 22,3.

The measurement of mobile broadband quality, was first introduced to the study last year, has also been expanded significantly to include 68 countries (94% of the overall sample).

The study was conducted by a team of MBA students from the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford and the University of Oviedo’s Department of Applied Economics, and sponsored by Cisco.

Key Facts/Highlights

Global broadband quality continues to improve at a pace

Overall broadband quality has increased by 48% since 2008 (although some countries have shown significantly larger improvements):

The average global download speed has increased 49% in just three years (3,271 Kbps in 2008, 4,882 Kbps in 2009 and 5,920 Kbps in 2010)

The average global upload speed has increased 69% in three years (794 Kbps in 2008, 1,345 Kbps in 2009. 1,777 Kbps in 2010)

Average latency has fallen by 25% to 142ms. This is slightly up from 140ms in 2009, but still significantly lower than 189ms in 2008

South Africa ranks 42nd globally and has the following contributing attributes for BQS, the average download speed is 1,557 Kbps; the average upload speed is 337 Kbps and the average latency is 157 ms

48 countries, (66%), are meeting the requirements to enjoy all the major services offered by the Internet today (defined in the study as social networking, low-definition video streaming, basic video-conferencing, small file sharing, as well as not so demanding applications such as instant messaging, email, web browsing. This adds ten countries since 2009, and 18 since 2008. This is in spite of global Internet traffic volumes rising by 166% from 2008-2010 (source: Cisco Visual Networking Index 2010)

Link to socio-economic development

Broadband quality is directly linked to a nation’s advancement as a knowledge economy. In order to reflect this in the results, and to see which countries were outperforming their economic group and subsequently were well prepared to make economic leaps, the researchers compared the results according to the country’s stage of economic development as defined by the World Economic Forum.

South Korea topped the list of Innovation-driven (Stage 3) economies with a score of 157. Slovakia came last within this group with a score of 60.

Bulgaria topped the list of Efficiency-driven economies (Stage 2), with a score of 71. South Africa came at the bottom of this group with a score of 34.

Ghana topped the list of Factor-driven (Stage 1) Economies, with a score of 38. Angola came at the bottom with a score of 5.

Qatar topped the list of Stage 1 to 2 Economies, with its score of 106. Algeria came at the bottom with a score of 31.

Bahrain topped the list of stage 2 to 3 Economies, with a score of 100, placing it amongst the broadband leaders of the world (rank 12 in broadband leadership albeit with a low score on BQS at 23). Russia came at the bottom of this group with a score of 50.

Middle East and Africa data:

Many emerging economies are leaping ahead, often leapfrogging by focusing on bringing the best broadband to their cities, acknowledging their relevance and impact in the economy.

Biggest jump in Broadband Penetration ocurred in UAE, Malta, Cyprus, Ireland and Greece

Broadband Quality Score 2010, Application Readiness:

Ready for tomorrow – no countries in MEA

Comfortably enjoying Today’s applications – no countries in MEA

Meeting needs of Today’s applications – Ghana, Saudi Arabia

Below Today’s Application Threshold – South Africa, United Arab Emirates; Qatar; Bahrain; Tunisia; Pakistan; Morocco; Jordan; Egypt

Basic Applications - Algeria ; Nigeria; Kenya; Angola

South Africa is 67% ready for today’s applications in download terms, 57% ready from an upload perspective and only 8% ready from a latency perspective. The latency is skewed unfavourably due to the number of mobile broadband subscribers which in itself has a very high latency.

Executive Quotes:

Tony Hart, associate fellow, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford“If I had to pick one key aspect of this year’s study, it would be the unprecedented speed at which a country can become a broadband leader. While average broadband quality has improved by 20% in three years and penetration by 22%, some countries have seen improvements of over 50% in this time. Some emerging economies, such as Latvia and Bulgaria have been able to show improvements in broadband leadership of around 60% in just one year. Kenya has the record with a 174% improvement over three years―albeit from a very small starting point. Compared to the many growth-enabling infrastructures of the past - the telephone, electricity, railways, etc., which took many decades or even centuries to impact the wider population, we can see that high quality Internet access can have an impact on the bulk of the population within just a few years, and its impact will reach the developing world much faster than any other technology of the past.”

Reshaad Sha, Director – Strategy, Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group

“The first Broadband Quality Study was published in September 2008 to highlight each country’s ability to benefit from the Internet applications of today and tomorrow. Now with three years’ worth of data, the study can really prove the speed at which a country with the right investment and focus can become a global broadband leader and exploit the many benefits that come with broadband leadership. By delivering better access to education, healthcare and in-home services through high-quality broadband, Europe is fast becoming a leader in connected communities, using the network as the platform to provide a better quality of life for citizens and economic development.”

http://www.gadget.co.za/pebble.asp?relid=2196

MWEB wins ISP of the year
Oct 20 2010

Cape Town - MWEB has won ISP of the year at the MyBroadband Conference in Joburg.

"The results give a good overview of the performance of the various broadband services and ISP accounts on offer, and further indicates how satisfied consumers are with their service providers," MyBroadband said on its website.

Mobile provider Cell C won Mobile Broadband Service of the Year and Telkom won Fixed Broadband Service of the Year, while Vodacom won Broadband Provider of the Year.

Broadband has been growing exponentially in SA, but many South Africans still have no access to services and experts believe that mobile access will be the gateway for the majority of the population.

Earlier this year, MWEB announced uncapped broadband packages for local users and several ISPs followed with a range of uncapped products.

Mampara

MWEB CEO Rudi Jansen said the market still had potential to grow.

"This is not the end. There is still probably three or four big things that have to change in this market and for us, this is the first step. The other things that have to change is we have to get the mobile operators to offer wholesale data. The more competition there is, the better it is for the market.

"Telkom has to allow users of ADSL to split the line rental for the telephone line and the line rental for ADSL. That absolutely has to happen; then this market will grow," he told News24 at the time.

The awards are based on surveys conducted by MyBroadband and the company said that the results indicate how "satisfied" consumers are with their service.

The individual or organisation that held back progress in the local market was also identified as the Mampara of the Year.

"Consumers voted overwhelmingly that the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) is the biggest ‘loser’ in the local broadband market," said the website.

Google Voice Search launched in SA
2010-11-08 13:22
Duncan Alfreds

Cape Town - Google has launched Google Voice Search in SA. The service enables internet users to do Google searches by speaking into cellphones.

"You speak into your phone and it sends your voice over the network where it's analysed and you get your search results," Google senior staff engineer Johan Schalkwyk told News24 on the sidelines of the G-South Africa conference in Cape Town.

He said that the internet search giant would continue to develop search based for computers connected to the web, but that mobile in Africa was the largest single access point for web users.

"We'd like to encompass both, but speech is natural - it's a more natural modality and I find it useful."

Google said that the Voice Search service represented the company's continued push into Africa, and that monetisation was not the first consideration.

Strategy

"We don't focus on monetisation, but we know that as more people access the internet and make use of services, Google will benefit directly or indirectly. Not everybody knows how to type and voice is natural," said Nelson Mattos, Google's vice president of engineering.

"A study has shown that if you increase internet users by 1%, you increase exports by 4.3%. We have dozens of languages in Africa and if you want to be successful, you have to do a heck of a good job localising your product," he added.

Mattos said that Google had a strategy for dealing with the digital divide facing SA.

"In South Africa you see the digital divide quite severely. It's between two worlds; that's why companies like us should have a dual strategy to increase the number of internet users.

"That dual strategy has to do with population. You have about 10% who are online and internet savvy and the question is 'How do I bring in the 90%'. At some point South Africa will be like any other country in the world."

Google Voice works primarily on smart phones as opposed to feature phones, and Google is betting that the Android market will soon overtake competitors Apple and BlackBerry to become the industry standard.

"Mobile search has increased by 170% and 200 000 Android devices are activated per day. Mobile is already here and it's already big," said Goolge's product manager, Robert Hamilton.

Teething problems

The company admits there will be teething problems, and vows that it will get better as more development takes place. This caused some amusement at the conference directed mainly to developers and entrepreneurs.

"I speak into my Android phone. Normally it's pretty snappy," said Schalkwyk during the demonstration of the service as the connection took some time. "I'm now switching to my iPhone mostly because our products are available on iPhone as well," he quickly added, to much applause and laughter.

Google Voice was developed in collaboration with the Meraka Institute and Schalkwyk said the reduction in prices of smart phones made the purchase decision easier.

"Why buy a feature phone? Google's emphasis is on future development and it takes very little computational power of the phone."

On average, one voice search is about 100Kb and uses an acoustic, pronunciation and language model to produce accurate results based on search queries.

FibreCo versus Telkom, Broadband Infraco and Neotel

FibreCo Telecommunications set to do battle with Telkom, Broadband Infraco, Neotel, MTN and Vodacom with a new national fibre network

A new telecoms player, FibreCo Telecommunications, is set to roll out a 12,000 km national fibre network which is likely to cost in the region of R5-billion.

The new company is a joint project funded by Cell C, Internet Solutions and Convergence Partners – a BEE investment management and advisory firm focused on the telecommunications, media and technology sector.

ITWeb reported that Cell C CEO Lars P. Reichelt says “it was his company that first mooted the idea and then got Internet Solutions and Convergence Partners involved”.

Cell C's network will also provide the platform for the co-location of optical transmission equipment at their base stations and wireless access solutions for FibreCo's customers.

This announcement came only days before the official launch of Broadband Infraco which is planning to compete aggressively in the national long haul fibre market.

Broadband Infraco is however not the only company which is set to compete against Telkom and Neotel to provide national connectivity. Neotel, MTN and Vodacom have partnered in building a national network, which will make the national connectivity market more competitive.

FibreCo Telecommunications will therefore have a few companies to contend with in the national fibre market, but according to the company they feel the investment is necessary.

Source: My Broadband (http://mybroadband.co.za/news/telecoms/16455-FibreCo-versus-Telkom-Broadband-Infraco-and-Neotel.html)

TechCentral's live blog from today's Cell C HSPA Gauteng launch.

Cell C broadband launch: live blog

http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/0e4d6e2102f52a5537c16d7f8cc6882d?s=26&d=http%3A%2F%2F0.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D26&r=G This article was posted by Editor (http://www.techcentral.co.za/author/editor/) on Nov 17th, 2010 and filed under Live (http://www.techcentral.co.za/category/live/), Top (http://www.techcentral.co.za/category/top/). You can follow any responses to this entry using RSS 2.0 (http://www.techcentral.co.za/cell-c-broadband-launch-live-blog/19090/feed/). You can also leave a comment below this article

http://www.techcentral.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Cell-C-hoarding.jpg (http://www.techcentral.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Cell-C-hoarding.jpg)
TechCentral live-blogged events as they unfold at the launch of Cell C’s mobile broadband network in Gauteng on 17 November 2010. Below is the full transcript of the event as it unfolded.
While you’re here, why not take a moment to subscribe to our daily e-newsletter (http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=co/UqJF) or follow us on Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/techcentral)?
11.41
Thanks for watching our live coverage of this event today. We hope you enjoyed it.


11.31
In the open air, outside the launch venue, we are getting 9,67Mbit/s downloads and 2,62Mbit/s uploads on Speedtest.net using the 21Mbit/s USB modem.


11.17
http://www.techcentral.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/IMG2617-150x150.jpg (http://www.techcentral.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/IMG2617.jpg)
Outside the Cell C launch event venue. This tower of wine glasses looks rather precariously balanced.


11.17
The Q&A session and presentation are over. We’re going to upload a few more photos in about 10 minutes.


11.16
What sort of market share are you aiming for? “I’d rather not give any predictions right now. I have my board sitting here and they will hold me to it.”


11.16
Do you have plans to offer larger bundles, say 10GB or 15GB. “The 2GB and 5GB seems to work well for now. If enough people tell us we need 10GB packages, then we will launch 10GB coverage. We can react a lot quicker than we could before.”


11.13
“When that return will come will depend on how quick the take-up happens, and whether tablets and handsets become more affordable. Already some of the Chinese vendors are talking about US0 tablets.”


11.12
How much have you spent on this high-speed network? Over what period will that pay for itself? “We are spending R5bn this year, and a few more billion next year. In terms of payback, we expect payback will be good and our shareholders and board members expect that, too, otherwise they would not have said yes to the plan.”


11.08
Someone’s just asked when the launch offer will expire. Reichelt says he won’t answer that.


11.08
Members of the Cell C board are helping Lars Reichelt cut the company’s birthday cake.


11.07
http://www.techcentral.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/IMG2642-150x150.jpg (http://www.techcentral.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/IMG2642.jpg)
http://www.techcentral.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/IMG2648-150x150.jpg (http://www.techcentral.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/IMG2648.jpg)
Two key slides from Reichelt’s presentation.


11.05
And the network is live! Not that it wasn’t live 10 minutes ago, of course…


11.04
Okay, Reichelt is about to press the button. And it’s pressed. Some red and white flashing lights and a video montage showing the coverage in Gauteng.


11.03
Reichelt just made a joke about dealing with competitors as he handed a knobkerrie gift to the Nokia Siemens CEO.


11.01
http://www.techcentral.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/DSC0190-150x150.jpg (http://www.techcentral.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/DSC0190.jpg)
We have a feeling Lars Reichelt is going to be pressing this big button shortly…


10.59
The CEO of Nokia Siemens Networks is on the stage.


10.59
“Nokia Siemens are our partners in Gauteng and the northern side of the country. Network is performing well. Now we need to expand it more and ensure it keeps the speeds we are comfortable with.”


10.55
What do you think of those top-up data rates? Please use the comments section at the bottom of this live blog.


10.54
“We strongly believe that people that are not that well off but want to do data need affordable tariffs as well.”


10.53
“As of Friday, we will sell data bundles in the stores. For R50, you get 100MB, for R100 you get 250MB, for R150 you get 500MB, for R250 you get 1GB and for R400 you get 2GB. These are top-up rates on postpaid contracts.” :banana:


10.52
“All customers can use data and voice on this network. Dropped call rate on the new HSPA network is below 1% and offers significantly better battery life.”


10.51
“R149 for 2GB a month compared to R389 on MTN and R385 on Vodacom and R280 on 8ta.”


10.50
“Our launch offer is 74% better than our next competitor. Why so low? It’s a launch offer. Also, we looked at pricing in general, compared this to GDP per capita. To pay R6 000 for 2GB/month is a lot of money. Pricing is 76% than MTN and 52% better than Telkom at just 384kbit/s.”


10.49
“We are now launching postpaid option. R299/month for 5GB and R149/month for 2GB.”


10.48
Right, Reichelt is getting onto pricing. Hoping to see some new options now.


10.47
“We really are engaging in a way we never have before with customers. Over 65 000 posts on TellTrevor website with 94% of all cases closed.”


10.45
“In Johannesburg and Pretoria we have average download speeds of 4-7Mbit/s on 21Mbit/s speed sticks and 2-3Mbit/s upload. Many sites are running at over 10Mbit/s in real-use cases.”


10.45
Reichelt is making hay of the fact that the Ookla stats show Cell C’s network is fastest — more than twice as fast as Telkom DSL.


10.43
Reichelt is making Ookla comparisons between network speeds of different networks. At 1 September, Telkom was tops with ADSL. On 15 November, after network was switched on, Cell C was the fastest at an average 5,2Mbit/s. “I don’t think there is a third operator in the world that has, in 10 or 11 weeks, leaped to the front of the leagues in a very big country.”


10.41
“Not many countries in the world with this kind of population coverage at that kind of speed. South Africa becomes a world leader. There are not many European countries, or the US, where you get the kind of speeds you are getting here.”


10.40
“By the end of 2011, we aim for 97% population coverage with HSPA+.”


10.40
“By mid-2011 we want to cover 67% of the population of this country.”


10.40
“We offer 32% of South Africa’s population today. We expect to beat our 34% target by the end of the year.”


10.39
Reichelt has just thrown up a map showing areas where people can expect at least 3Mbit/s coverage. Runs from Pretoria to Johannesburg. Roodepoort, Benoni are not included. “This is due in large part to the World Cup freeze. We are addressing this and by mid-January 2011 we will cover 89% of the population in Johannesburg and Pretoria.”


10.38
“In about 30 minutes we will launch ‘speedcover’ in Jo’burg and Pretoria. We will have 62% population coverage.”


10.37
“Population coverage in Cape Town in 94%. We’re expanding to the north and east. Pop coverage in Durban is 98%. Nelspruit has 82% coverage. Polokwane has 67% pop coverage. Richards Bay has 98% pop coverage. We’ve also launched in Witbank, with 98% of the population covered.”


10.36
“We have just over 2 000 transmitters live. We have over 1 600km of dedicated fibre with partners like Dark Fibre Africa and Neotel. If you don’t put as much fibre in your network as possible for backhaul you will have a subpar network. We started this process 14-15 months ago. If you compare this to the competition, we are a little bit ahead of them.”


10.35
“We are looking at how we can switch on 42Mbit/s by the end of next year.”


10.33
http://www.techcentral.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/IMG2635-150x150.jpg (http://www.techcentral.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/IMG2635.jpg)
Lars Reichelt (right) and Ron Reddick (middle) helping TechCentral Duncan McLeod (left) with his connectivity issues.


10.32
“Release 7 software: It’s not the new Audi. It’s the software that governs our network, much like Windows governs your PC. This is the latest possible release you can run on this network. R7 gives you more data speed and capacity, more capacity over HSPA in terms of data capacity. Our competitors are running HSPA and not HSPA+. And it doubles the voice capacity, so we can carry more data and voice on our network. It also offers lower latency, faster call setup time and longer talk time.”


10.31
“We are using 900MHz as the coverage band. As some of my esteemed competitors have noticed, we’ll soon have capacity problems. But we have more capacity because we have more frequency. Also, we can just pop in 2 100MHz when we need it. We are covered by both 900MHz and 2 100MHz, and we don’t need to redesign our radio network.”


10.29
“We have 10-20dB more gain than UMTS 2100, so much better indoor coverage.”


10.28
Reichelt is talking about the benefits of indoor broadband coverage at 900MHz, versus 2,1GHz.


10.28
Ironically, we’re struggling with both Cell C and Vodacom coverage here. We’ll update as we can.


10.27
“There is too little fibre inside the country. It’s very difficult to create Internet access for people if the backhaul and the backbone of your network is extremely expensive is not reliable.
One of the things Cell C has done, with Internet Solutions and Convergence Partners, is to create FibreCo.
We are giving one strand of fibre to connect the universities.
Building networks is not so easy. What’s the solution Cell C has to offer? Our network is based on software-defined radio, so whatever new technology comes along, we can do upgrades via software.
Cell C’s new network is based on all IP. It’s fast and smooth. Offers 21Mbit/s from day one, if you have the right modem.
The network is HSPA+ all the way and release 7 software.
We are running our base layer on 900MHz. This is the original GSM band and we’ve been able to refarm this band to use it for HSPA. It gives us wider and deeper coverage.
A single HSPA+ transmitter can cover 3-5x more area than a UMTS 2100 site.”


10.16
And it’s starting. Reichelt says Cell C is nine years old today.


10.11
Presentation hall is filling up fast. Things should be kicking off in the next few minutes…


10.10
http://www.techcentral.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/IMG2626-150x150.jpg (http://www.techcentral.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/IMG2626.jpg)
Lars Reichelt making some final checks to his presentation.


10.06
Looks like things are going to start a bit late.


10.02
http://www.techcentral.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/CTO-150x150.jpg (http://www.techcentral.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/CTO.jpg)
Cell C chief technical officer Ron Reddick spotted at the launch.


09.55
Lars Reichelt has just walked onto the stage, MacBook Pro under his arm and a look of determination on his face.


09.51
http://www.techcentral.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/IMG2597-150x150.jpg (http://www.techcentral.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/IMG2597.jpg)
Another view on the entrance hall. Cell C has spent a lot of money on this launch event.


09.49
The presentation room is slowly filling up. About 15 minutes until kick-off.


09.47
We’re using a Cell C 21,6Mbit/s dongle to cover this event, but it is occasionally dropping down to GPRS speeds. Perhaps the local tower is overloaded with all the demos that are on the go here.


09.46
Apologies, we had some problems with the thumbnails there. Problem now fixed.


09.37
http://www.techcentral.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/DSC0192-150x150.jpg (http://www.techcentral.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/DSC0192.jpeg)
The main presentation hall, where we’re live-blogging this from.


09.36
Cell C Lars Reichelt is in the house. Candice has gone to take some pictures of him. Up soon.


09.36
People have begun filing in. For some reason, there’s nothing savioury on offer for breakfast … just rows and rows of donuts and sweets. Everyone here is going to get a major sugar rush.


09.34
http://www.techcentral.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/DSC0194-150x150.jpg (http://www.techcentral.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/DSC0194.jpeg)
Cell C has set up a bunch of demo computers showing high-definition video being streamed over its network, among other things.


09.32
http://www.techcentral.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/DSC0184-150x150.jpg (http://www.techcentral.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/DSC0184.jpeg)
The entrance to the Cell C Gauteng launch event in Kramerville, Sandton. All images we’re uploading today are thumbnails. Click on them for larger versions.


09.27
We’re here. Duncan McLeod is producing the text this morning and Candice Jones is taking the photos. Cell C has put on quite a spread. No expense spared. Looks like they’re expecting well over 200 people here. First photos up soon.


08.20
We’re going live in a little over an hour.


http://www.techcentral.co.za/cell-c-broadband-launch-live-blog/19090/

Now that I've seen him smile,sceptical about my theory of Lars being a cyborg.

SA to adopt DVB-T2 digital TV standard

17 January 2011

South Africa will adopt the DVB-T2 digital television standard, and the country's migration from analogue to digital TV broadcasting should be complete by December 2013, Communications Minister Radhakrishna Padayachie said in Pretoria last week.

According to online encyclopaedia Wikipedia, DVB-T2 stands for Digital Video Broadcasting-Terrestrial Second Generation, an extension of the television standard DVB-T.

It further adds that DVB-T2 has a higher bit-rate than its predecessor, making it a more suitable system for carrying high definition (HD) signals on a terrestrial television channel. DVB standards are maintained by the DVB Project, an international industry consortium with around 250 members.

While the deadline for South Africa's analogue switch-off had been extended from its original date of November 2011, Padayachie said the new deadline was still within the decision by the International Telecommunication Union to switch off analogue signals worldwide by 2015.

Set-top-boxes needed
After the December 2013 deadline, South Africans with analogue TVs will need special set-top boxes in order to receive images. "This little box ... will receive the digital signal, convert it to analogue and then take it back to the analogue TV so that the images can be broadcast," Padayachie explained.

The government would subsidise set-top boxes, but only for the "poorest of the poor", while those who fell above a certain income band would be expected to buy them at full cost.

Padayachie would not speculate on how much the set-top box would cost, saying it would depend on the capabilities the box could deliver.

Manufacturing, export opportunities
The digital migration process could serve as a catalyst for revitalising South Africa's electronics manufacturing industry, Padayachie said, adding that the there could be opportunities for exporting the set-top boxes to other African countries also busy with digital migration.

According to the DVB Project, 14 Southern African Development Community countries had accepted DVB-T, the main digital standard in Africa, Europe and the Middle East. Mauritius has already completed the switch-over to DVB-T.

"Perhaps the biggest dividend out of the whole thing is that it will start liberating spectrum currently being used in the broadcasting of signal ... This opens up the opportunity to have more channels," Padayachie said.

DVB-T2 had the capability to give viewers access to 14 channels using the same amount of spectrum. Not only would the increase in the channels give viewers a wider range to choose from, but it would also stimulate the production and creative industries, Padayachie said.

SAinfo reporter and BuaNews

http://www.southafrica.info/about/media/dvbt-140111.htm

Which is unfortunately followed by this pearler :

The National Association of Manufacturers in Electronics Components (Namec) will hold an urgent meeting this week to decide how best to contest cabinet’s decision that SA will use the European standard for digital terrestrial television.

On Friday, communications minister Roy Padayachie announced that cabinet ratified an upgraded version of the European standard, choosing it over a Japanese system used in Brazil, and ending a year of uncertainty.

Namec, supported by several mining unions, is an advocate of the Japanese-Brazilian standard. It has hit back at cabinet’s decision, saying the choice will “perpetuate white domination and stifle government’s economic development plans”.

Association chairman Keith Thabo says its members are “especially hurt that this decision portrays us as a nation trapped in perpetual colonialisation”.

Namec members hoped to benefit from the development and manufacturing of decoders — or set-top boxes — that will be needed to view digital TV. Almost 10m decoders will be built for the local market, with further demand to come from other African nations.

Namec’s concern is that the European standard will only serve to entrench existing manufacturers.

“The electronic manufacturing industry is traditionally dominated by whites and foreign-owned companies, which do not have the development interests of the country at heart,” says Thabo.

“Therefore, the manufacturing strategy must allow the government to level the playing field and allow the development of indigenous technologies that will free the country from neo-colonialism,” says Thabo.

The association’s concerns come despite reassurances from the department of communications that locally developed manufacturers will be included in the digital migration process.

Padayachie affirmed this stance on Friday, saying: “Having noted some concerns raised by certain organisations within the electronics manufacturing sector, we will strive to ensure that we work with everyone involved in this process.”

The department also has a manufacturing strategy in the pipeline, which aims to boost research and development, as well as the growth of local black-owned manufacturers.

The department of communications has promised to have a revised version of the strategy out by March this year. – Staff reporter, TechCentral

http://www.techcentral.co.za/digital-tv-choice-will-perpetuate-white-domination

It just boggles my mind that people can be so willfully stupid, and prepared to absolutely SCREW this country for a few bucks in their back pockets...

Lmao..."white domination." Wtf?

In-flight Internet to take off in South Africa


South Africans could look forward to Internet access through Fli G-Connect on flights between Johannesburg and Cape Town, as soon as April.

The current programme is structured to “get everything in place in the next four months or so”, with installation in the first Mango plane set to start in April, said WirelessG CEO Carel van der Merwe.

WirelessG also has the sole rights to provide the service in Africa, from May 1.

WirelessG’s international technology partner, Row44, has submitted documentation to, and would hold a meeting with, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) in South Africa in February.

Approval for the required equipment making Wi-Fi access possible in-flight, has been granted in the US by the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA). Thus the meeting with the CAA would be largely administrative, transferring the certification to the CAA.

“The CAA has said that it would take no longer than a month to endorse it,” Van der Merwe noted, adding that the company’s partners in South Africa, namely Vodacom Business, and Mango airlines have also given their commitment and stated their readiness to deploy the technology.

Van der Merwe explained that the safety of the technology has already been approved by the FAA, and internationally the CAA accepts certification from the US.

The technology has been installed on some 800 planes in America already.

Connecting to the Internet on-board a flight was said to be exactly the same as connecting to a Wi-Fi hotspot in the airport.

“You will sit down, open your laptop, smartphone or tablet, and when you enable your Wi-Fi, you will pick up the signal. Then click on your browser, and then the gateway that regulates the traffic will stream a landing page to your screen. You then put in your G-Connect account credentials, or you purchase a voucher, and Bob's your uncle, you are on the Internet!” enthused Van der Merwe.

The service would be cheaper for G-Connect customers, and a part of the company’s converged account offering, so customers would not lose what they did not use on the plane.

“We have experienced a lot of challenges, but we are there, and it will definitely happen,” continued Van der Merwe.

He indicated that the very high standards of safety in the US presented a challenge, because authorities must be sure that the equipment does not interfere with the aircraft systems. The delays in implementation originated in the US, between the manufacturers and Row44, and the FAA.

Mango would be first airline to offer the service, but Van der Merwe said that WirelessG was in discussions with other airlines.

The Row44 technology uses a low-profile antenna, four compact line replaceable units, a server management unit, a high power amplifier, an antenna control unit and a modem data unit on each equipped aircraft. To deliver a Wi-Fi signal, one or more wireless access units will also need to be placed in the aircraft.

Speeds would vary in accordance with each specific application, but would be consistent with the WirelessG Wi-Fi hotspot experience.

WirelessG said that on-board connectivity was a regular request from airline passengers, thus the Fli G-Connect offering was a benefit to any airline with regard to customer satisfaction. It would also enhance operational data services for the flight crew.

http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/in-flight-internet-to-take-off-in-south-africa-2011-01-19

How strange!

Red Bull broadband and cellular coming to South Africa
Staff Writer | 20 January, 2011 | Comments

Cell C officially announces partnership with Red Bull to bring another player to the South African cellular market

Cell C has been aggressively rolling out its 21Mbps HSPA+ network, offering subscribers the fastest mobile broadband services at the best pricing in the country.

Cell C has also embarked on an extensive rebranding and renewal exercise to create a more customer centric company with a new image and logo.

In the latest development Cell C has partnered with well known energy drink brand Red Bull to form the country’s second mobile virtual network operator, following in the footsteps of Virgin Mobile.

Techcentral yesterday broke the news that Red Bull will use Cell C’s network to offer both voice and broadband services with plans to launch as soon as next month.

Cell C today confirmed the news in a press statement announcing that “together with Cell C, Red Bull is giving mobile wiiings and adding an exhilarating new energy to the South African mobile environment. Being connected will never be this sexy.”

The company did not provide any details about the Cell C/Red Bull plans, merely saying ‘watch this space.’

Red Bull broadband and cellular coming to South Africa << Comments and views

Source: My Broadband (http://mybroadband.co.za/news/cellular/17873-Red-Bull-broadband-and-cellular-coming-South-Africa.html)

Who would have thought that the WHO would turn to MXit???

--------------

WHO uses Mxit and JamiiX in disaster management
JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA
Jan 25 2011 12:53

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has turned to South Africa-based mobile instant messaging and social networks MXit and JamiiX to prepare communities in southeast Asia for disaster management.

With more than 500 000 deaths caused by natural disasters in southeast Asia over the past decade, the WHO's South-East Asia Regional Office (SEARO) has teamed up with MXit and JamiiX to provide emergency preparedness information, including what to do in the case of natural disasters such as floods, tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and cyclones, as well as how to prepare emergency kits and how to plan for evacuations.

Information on safe hospitals in disaster zones, along with ways to support the WHO's drive for safe health facilities, is also provided.

The WHO said that using such mobile and social media platforms was novel for the group.

"We are leveraging new communication technology in order to ease the availability, accessibility, and effectiveness of health information and services," said Dr Roderico Ofrin, the regional adviser for the WHO's emergency and humanitarian action.

"Through this campaign we will continue to explore innovative means of bringing critical information in times of emergencies," he said.

Herman Heunis, the CEO and founder of Mxit, said: "The WHO campaign illustrates the value and power of social networking in assisting communities, especially those in disaster prone areas. As climate change and severe weather variations take hold of many locations around the world, it makes sense to develop ways for communities and countries to receive life-saving information and assistance in a reliable and affordable way."

MXit is a web-based instant messaging service. JamiiX is a web-based tool allowing one to manage multiple conversations from different social networks and instant messaging platforms. -- I-Net Bridge


http://www.mg.co.za/article/2011-01-25-who-uses-mxit-and-jamiix-in-disaster-management/

MWEB fibre in Durban: Cheaper and better
James E-Smith | 31 January, 2011 |

MWEB has been using the Durban/eThekwini metropolitan fibre network to serve clients’ connectivity issues

In September 2009 MWEB Business announced that it was using the eThekwini metropolitan Metro Ethernet fibre network since early 2009 to provide businesses in the region with ‘faster, more reliable Internet access’.

Andre Joubert, GM of MWEB Business, said at the time that the largely fibre-based eThekwini MetroConnect network offers several bandwidth options at rates up to 60% lower than the copper-based diginet offerings.

“In most instances, our clients have migrated from the standard copper-based diginet or ADSL lines to the EThekwini Metro Fibre network, which offers improved service levels, higher capacity and reduced costs. Our own MWEB Durban offices have changed over from an ADSL service to a MetroConnect line, and we have seen a significant improvement in the quality and speed of our service,” said Joubert.

In a recent interview with MyBroadband, Joubert said that this project is working very well for both MWEB Business and their clients, with virtually no network problems and aggressive pricing.

Joubert explains that the Durban/eThekwini municipality is set on growing its fibre network, and is even throwing in free (or at least heavily subsidized) installations to remove any barrier of entry.

According to Joubert the eThekwini MetroConnect fibre network, which is currently managed and operated by Dimension Data, has proven to provide a very suitable Diginet leased line replacement to both MWEB Business and its clients.

Joubert said that their clients, which have typical connection speeds of between 512Kbps and 10Mbps, are benefitting from scalable fibre solutions and are paying less than half of what they can expect to pay to use copper based leased lines from Telkom.

MWEB is providing a full suite of services - including VPN, voice and data offerings – using their fibre solution based on the eThekwini MetroConnect fibre network.

According to Joubert, the business model behind the eThekwini MetroConnect fibre network can also serve as an example to other municipalities such as Johannesburg, Pretoria/Tshwane and Cape Town who have done a lot of talking but are lagging behind Durban in terms of implementation.

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/telecoms/18139-MWEB-fibre-Durban-Cheaper-and-better.html

Have to really give credit to Durban on this one...

Just wish the fibre network would start to be extended to the point of offering residential services, then I would jump on that bandwagon in like 2 seconds.

WACS on its way to South Africa

The West African Cable System (WACS) has recently landed in Namibia, with a South African landing not far away

The construction of the 5.12 Tbps West Africa Cable System (WACS), which will link South Africa to London, is progressing well.

Deployment of WACS, done by Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks, began in 2009. In November 2010 the submarine portion of the cable was two thirds complete. WACS is set to launch commercial services in the second half of 2011.

The latest news from the company is that WACS recently arrived at the Namibian landing station located at Swakopmund. Telecom Namibia has already build infrastructure to this landing station to carry bandwidth to its national network.

Telecom Namibia said that it is ready to connect the country to WACS which promises to reduce bandwidth costs and increase bandwidth capacity in the country. Commercial services using this bandwidth are expected later this year.

While WACS is not divulging any details about when the cable system will land in South Africa, it is understood that the cable lay continues as planned and is now on its way to South Africa.

The new WACS landing station, which is being built at Yzerfontein, still needs backhaul capacity provided by Telkom.

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/telecoms/18317-WACS-its-way-South-Africa.html

http://www.news24.com/SciTech/News/Zumas-speech-on-iPad-20110210

Zuma's speech on iPad
2011-02-10 13:33





A photo of Jacob Zuma reviewing his speech on his iPad has been posted by Aki Anastasiou on Twitter. (News24)

Galleries · User Galleries · News in Pictures
Send us your pictures · Send us your stories



Related LinksUnreleased Apple iPad spotted
SA resellers stick to iPad prices
Dell tablet targets iPad

kalahari.netbuy books, music, dvds, appliances and much more
Electronic products delivered to your doorstop! Find every electronic product from cameras,...



Duncan Alfreds
Cape Town - As President Jacob Zuma prepared to give his State of the Nation address in Cape Town on Thursday, few may be aware that his speech was prepared on an iPad.

A picture emerged on Twitter of the president going over his speech on the tablet touch screen device.

The office of the presidency confirmed that Zuma owned the tablet computer which has just been officially launched in SA.

"Yes, it is his, but I'm not sure for how long he's had it," Zanele Mngadi of the presidency told News24 in the build-up to the evening speech.

The picture on Twitter shows Zuma sitting in his office going over his speech, but it is unclear what apps the president prefers.

Launch

"I don't know what he uses it for," admitted Mngadi.

The Core Group recently launched the Apple iPad in SA, nearly a year after it was launched in the US where it has become a hot selling device with sales of about 14 million worldwide.

Retailers have announced that they will stick to the recommended retail price, but the iPad may soon face stiff competition as several companies have announced challengers, including Hewlett-Packard, Dell, and BlackBerry maker Research in Motion.

There is also fervent speculation that Apple will release a second generation iPad soon.

^^ Loved the speech, so now it's time for delivery.

Vodacom launches ‘Webbox’ to access Internet from TV
11th February 2011


http://us-cdn.creamermedia.co.za/assets/articles/images/resized/0000131910_resized_vodafonewebbox1.jpg
Telecommunications (telecoms) giant Vodacom has launched the ‘Webbox’ in South Africa, a device that brings the Internet to a television (TV) set by plugging in a keyboard.


The Webbox was developed by Vodacom’s parent company Vodafone specifically for customers in emerging markets, where technology and cost barriers often excluded many people from accessing the Internet at home or in the workplace.

The keyboard is 14 x 25cm ‘QWERTY’ keyboard, and uses standard RCA connectors (rounded audio and video connectors) to plug into the television. Thus no set-up was required, and the plug and play keyboard converted any standard TV into an Internet portal.

“The Webbox is a simple yet very innovative product. It has the potential to make a powerful difference in the lives of people in emerging markets who have limited access to the Internet, but where TV penetration is typically very high. The simplicity of the product is striking – it brings the Internet to the TV, be that at home for the family, in schools for education or in small businesses to assist local economic growth,” Vodafone terminals director Patrick Chomet said on Friday.

“The value that this product will add to schools, homes and small businesses is potentially dramatic. The wealth of knowledge that is available on the Internet can now be accessed by millions of South Africans which will add greater value to the South African economy,” said Vodacom South Africa commercial director Romeo Kumalo.

The Webbox home screen allows a customer to access the Internet through Opera Mini 5.1 - an Internet browser designed for mobile phones and smart phones, as well as send SMSs, use email messaging, and conduct Internet searches and consume media services including FM radio and a photo gallery tool, as well as a music player.

The Webbox Opera Mini browser runs over the 2,5G and EDGE mobile networks, compressing data by around 90% and thus serving fast-loading Internet pages.

Vodafone said that the browser homepage came with bookmarks such as news, sport and social networking sites as well as locally relevant apps such as a job search and application service. It also included some games, a dictionary and a basic text editor.

Vodacom would retail the Webbox at a one-off unit cost of R749, which included a 2GB SD card, and prepaid SIM card with 100MB of data valid for 3 months. It would also be available on a 24-month contract in future.

The Webbox won a Universal Design Award Consumer Favourite 2011, and was credited for its usability, learning curve, flexibility, security and affordability.

The SA ICT, mobile, TV sectors are really cooking right now, so much competition and innovation...

Pathetic.

Virgin Mobile SA launches 3G HSPA+ broadband services
Staff Writer | 16 February, 2011

Virgin Mobile today announced that its customers now have full access to 3G HSPA+ broadband data services with download speeds of up to 21Mbps

“Virgin Mobile subscribers with 3G capable cell-phones or modems will find that they can now benefit from higher data speeds following the upgrade of Virgin Mobile’s underlying cellular network to state-of-the-art 3G HSPA+ technology which is in the process of being rolled out nationally,” the company said in a press statement today.

Here Virgin Mobile is referring to its roaming partner Cell C’s HSPA+ network rollout which started last year.

Virgin Mobile pointed out that HSPA+ services are already present in most major metropolitan areas and is expected to reach 67% of the SA population by mid 2011.

“Customers should be advised that reduced data speeds may be experienced occasionally while the network rollout is in progress,” said Virgin Mobile.

Virgin Mobile decided not to launch data bundles, and said that they allow post-paid and prepaid customers to use their airtime for calls, SMSs, MMSs or GPRS/EDGE data without having to purchase separate data bundles.

Virgin Mobile added that they are not changing their “very competitive data pricing” of 60c per MB.

“At 60c per MB, Virgin Mobile always had the lowest out-of-bundle data price in SA for GPRS/EDGE data. Now with the migration to 3G HSPA+, Virgin Mobile customers can benefit from the fastest 3G HSPA+ network in SA at the same great out-of-bundle rate across all Virgin Mobile’s packages – just 60c per MB.”

“I am delighted that we can immediately offer current and future Virgin Mobile customers such a substantial increase in data performance at no additional cost. We look forward to being a significant player in the South African mobile broadband market“, said Steve Bailey, CEO, Virgin Mobile.

Virgin Mobile said that consumers can expect “low priced prepaid and post-paid modem deals” in the next few months.

Source: MyBroadband (http://mybroadband.co.za/news/broadband/18501-Virgin-Mobile-launches-HSPA-broadband-services.html)

Even that "globe" sculpture at their Midrand HQ is gone.

26 March, 2011 19:47
0 Comments (http://www.businesslive.co.za/Feeds/businesstimes/2011/03/26/vodacom-to-paint-the-country-red?mode=all)
JANA MARAIS
Business Times



Vodacom to paint the country red

SA's biggest cellphone company, Vodacom, will paint the country red this week as it unveils its new branding, with the official unveiling likely to take place at a party at Orlando Stadium in Soweto on Friday night.

Vodacom is mum about its plans, but the new corporate colours are expected to be similar to the red, white and grey of parent company Vodafone, which bought a controlling stake in Vodacom in 2009.
Vodacom, which also has operations in Mozambique, Tanzania, Lesotho and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), has been co-branding its products and advertisements with the Vodafone logo for several years.
Vodacom is expected to retain its name, despite Vodafone's global strategy to rebrand operations in which it has a controlling stake.
Vodacom is thought to have budgeted R200-million for the rebranding exercise, with the Vodacom billboard at the top of the Ponte building in Hillbrow already covered in white and red.

"I think South Africans have gotten used to Vodacom's blue, but I don't think the change will be a massive train smash for them, even if they rebrand to Vodafone SA," said Khulekani Dlamini, head of research at Afena Capital.
"As long as there is a Voda in there somewhere, people will be able to make the association, and I don't think their brand strength will be eroded. It's the same thing when Cell C rebranded last year, or when M-Cell changed to MTN a few years back. People didn't even blink."

April is also expected to herald changes to Vodacom's executive management structure, according to a presentation made by Vodacom CEO Pieter Uys on a road show to employees earlier this month. Operational changes are also expected, and Uys will also give up his office and move into an open-plan space.
To bring Vodacom into line with the Vodafone group, the "top heavy" management structure will be addressed, according to employees who attended one of the road shows.

However, there will be no retrenchments, said Vodacom spokesman Richard Boorman. "No one will involuntarily be out of job; that is absolutely not the intention. If somebody chooses to leave a job, we will facilitate it. We want people to retain jobs."
Boorman said Vodacom may discuss the changes when a new managing director for SA is announced.
Reporting lines are likely to change, with more executives reporting directly to Uys in future. One executive whose position has been elevated is Romeo Kumalo, previously an executive at Vodacom SA, whose new title will be chief commercial officer. He will report directly to Uys in future, and not to the MD of Vodacom SA.

Vodacom still needs to find a candidate to head Vodacom SA, as current MD Shameel Joosub is heading to Vodafone Spain at the end of the month. The recruitment process is one of the best-kept secrets in the industry, with no clear idea who the short-listed candidates may be. However, Nombelelo (Pinky) Moholi, the newly appointed CEO of Telkom, and Kumalo were seen as candidates.
According to Irnest Kaplan, managing director of Kaplan Equity Analysts, the new MD will have to be a strong leader with "a lot of experience" in a mature telecommunications market.

"The person will need a whole bunch of skills now that maybe was not the case 10 years ago, when the market was still growing. The market is a lot more sophisticated now. This is a complicated space and things are changing very quickly," said Kaplan.
Some of the main challenges to be met include maintaining and building Vodacom's market share despite increasing competition, and growing the non-voice activity on the network, said Kaplan.
He added that the relationship with Vodafone would help in dealing with the challenges of a mature market.

Dobek Pater, partner at Africa Analysis, said the new MD faced a number of regulatory challenges. Further cuts in mobile termination rates, with a big impact on revenues and bottom line, are expected, while regulatory issues like local loop unbundling (giving operators access to Telkom's local networks) and spectrum allocation will have an effect on network investment decisions.


Source:http://www.businesslive.co.za/Feeds/businesstimes/2011/03/26/vodacom-to-paint-the-country-red

Idiotic decision as far as I'm concerned. They've spent years drilling their brand colour and image into us, and now they're most likely changing to red, which has been used by Cell C in the past and is currently used by Virgin. Blue was synonymous with Vodacom, not to mention a nice calming colour, and now they're changing to an overused colour that isn't very easy on the eyes.

Eish.

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/files.php?file=vodacom_red_619601246.jpg

I saw that on mybroadband,thought it was more speculation than anything else?

But it does make sense though,vodacom in all the glory of its parent's regalia.

My main gripe with the whole thing isn't so much the disappearance of the iconic blue but rather the loss of a proudly SAn company,even though I knew vodafone held the puppet strings in the background.

aaah that's why they took the sign of Ponte. Bet we can expect the new sign up shortly

As much as I prefer the 'old look', I'm not at all surprised with their new look. This will benefit them especially when tourists come into the country and they see the brand.

http://www.techcentral.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Vodacom-shop.jpg
By TechCentral (http://www.techcentral.co.za/new-vodacom-branding-revealed/22138/)

Lol but their posters remain Blue, White and Green? eish where is Dysan to lecture about their brand

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/files.php?file=vodacom_ponte_270658126.jpg

^^ Awesome
I actually like their new look.

* New website

Vodacom goes red, restructures its business
“This is not an April fool’s joke. This is for real.” With those words, Vodacom Group CEO Pieter Uys took the wraps off Vodacom’s new red and white branding on Friday evening, bringing it in line with the corporate colours of its UK parent, Vodafone.

In announcing the group’s conversion from its traditional blue and green to Vodafone’s red, Uys said the new corporate image was underpinned by a restructuring at the organisation, which included a flattening of its management structure. Uys said he had moved out of his plush office at the group’s head office in Midrand and into an open-plan environment.

“Because we operated across different markets, we started duplicating many things,” he said. “We now have many services at the centre, so you’ll now find only one human resources team, one network group [and] one group looking after legal.”

Uys said no decision had yet been made about who would replace Vodacom SA MD Shameel Joosub, who began his duties as the CEO of Vodafone in Spain on Friday.

He said Vuyani Jarana, Vodacom SA’s chief operating officer, would assume Joosub’s responsibilities as MD until a permanent replacement could be found. “Hopefully, we will make an announcement soon.”

Uys said the restructuring was aimed at ensuring Vodacom, which was licensed more than 17 years ago, became “a young company again”. This would entail a focus on customer service and improving its network — Uys emphasised the aggressive roll-out by Vodacom SA of third-generation mobile base stations. “It’s purely to become a simpler and faster organisation.”

Vodacom offers speediest broadband

After introducing its double-speed HSPA+ technology, Vodacom can now boast having the fastest mobile broadband network in South Africa.

The mobile operator has become the first to upgrade its network speed to 43.2 Mbps. This is currently the fastest on the market dominated by 21.2 Mbps networks.

Cell C laid claim to the fastest connectivity when it started rolling out its HSPA+ 900 network across the country late in 2010, but Vodacom’s new offering has trumped that.

The improved network has been branded SuperMobile, and was announced to the public on 16 April 2011. Its new modems also went on sale on that date.

"If something half the speed was already fast, we should call this new technology super-fast. The SuperMobile experience isn't about theoretical peak speeds only achievable in laboratories,” said Vodacom CEO Pieter Uys.

“We're much more interested in how this technology increases network capacity and supports our goal of giving a decent connection speed to everyone in South Africa,” he added.

The average downloading speed on Vodacom was 4.75 Mbps as of 17 April, according to the latest Ookla Net Index. This is vastly faster than the 2.38 Mbps recorded on 13 December last year.

It has surpassed Cell C’s download speed, which currently stands at 3.91 Mbps, but did reach 4.62 Mbps in December. MTN’s Network Solutions seem to have some catching up to do, as the Ookla index puts its average download speed at 2.42 Mbps.

The local broadband sector has been highly active recently, upgrading its infrastructure to offer improved internet performance.

Vodacom’s improved speed is a result of infrastructure overhaul at 1 000 base stations in major South African cities.

The group said it had to improve at least 1000 base stations before it could launch its double-speed technology. “We wanted to make sure that we had the service available in more than just one city," Uys said.

Vodacom said 1 000 more stations will be able to support the improved network in the next six weeks.

Uys also said that their network covers more areas in the country compared to any other operator.

"We've already got the widest data coverage in South Africa by some margin, but with this technology available through so many sites, I think we can also stake our claim to have the fastest network as well.”

The new technology clears the way for a future upgrade to 86.4 Mbps, which would greatly advance internet connectivity in the country.

Cell C and MTN double-speeds are next

Cell C and MTN are also preparing to introduce their 43.2 Mbps double-speed networks. The My Broadband website recently reported that Cell C will launch its first 43.2 Mbps HSPA+ network in Port Elizabeth on 19 April.

MTN is also busy rolling out its 43.2Mbps network.
The network enhancements come at a time when the number of internet users across South Africa is rising rapidly, with an additional 1-million users expected to emerge during the course of this year.

Technology research firm World Wide Worx predicts that up to 7.8-million people in the country will be using the internet by the end of 2011. That would be a substantial increase from the 6.8-million users recorded in 2010.


Read more: http://www.mediaclubsouthafrica.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2315:vodacom170411&catid=45:economynews&Itemid=114#ixzz1JtBZrq00

Durban leads SA’s fibre revolution
Staff Writer
19 April, 2011

Broad range of communication infrastructure developments in Durban is attracting new interest in city as a business hub for all sizes of business

Durban is becoming South Africa’s new business-friendly leader, as the city’s progressive broadband strategy and significant infrastructure investment is fulfilling its goal of being Africa’s first “smart city”.

While extravagant promises are the order of the day for cities wanting to attract investment, Durban is leading the way in laying fibre to lower the cost of doing business. The city also has ambitious plans to take fibre the last mile into homes.

According to Teraco a large part of Durban’s success has been local government’s partnering with private sector companies to maximize the benefits of sharing its infrastructure and access to public rights of way for laying cables - and enticing large technology facilities providers to set up shop in the city.

“Since 2008, Durban’s eThekwini municipality has been propelling the city’s fibre-optic project into the future with the launch of its MetroConnect service. By selling spare capacity on this self-provisioned municipal fibre network, the municipality has given companies access to bandwidth at hugely competitive rates and vastly improved access speeds,” Teraco said.

Apart from all the World Cup investment, eThekwini municipality has committed more than R2-billion to services infrastructure repair and maintenance this year.

“There’s a lot of exciting infrastructure development happening in Durban. With the new airport accommodating international flights, more corporate are now looking to set up shop here,” says Jacquie Subban, head of geographic information and policy at eThekwini municipality.

“Durban is also on a main telecoms artery. Both SEACOM and EASSy’s South African landing sites are on Durban’s north coast at Mtunzini, giving the region access to significant bandwidth capacity.”

To capitalise on this growth, Teraco Data Environments is fitting out a new data centre in Umhlanga.

Lex van Wyk, managing director of Teraco, says the company decided to establish a presence in Durban after being approached by several big players.

Teraco Durban (DB1) is part of the company’s current national and African expansion strategy, complementing its two other data centres in Isando, Johannesburg (JB1) and in Rondebosch, Cape Town (CT1).

“Durban has historically often been forgotten in the local IT landscape, but that’s changing fast as it becomes the next rapidly-growing high-tech African metropolis,” says van Wyk.

“Teraco Durban’s location puts us on the fibre rings of several major fibre network providers. A central node to networks being rolled out in the region, Teraco Durban will create significant opportunities for business to expand and place their infrastructure in a world class data centre facility.”


http://mybroadband.co.za/news/teleco...evolution.html
romanSA está en línea ahora Report Post Edit/Delete Message

Telkom have begun upgrading all their 512Kbps customers to 1Mbps for free. That means that regardless of your ISP, your 512Kbps line will now be capable of 1Mbps, but you'll need to purchase a 1Mbps package from your ISP, or receive a free upgrade from them, in order to take advantage of the speed increase. If you're with Telkom you'll notice the speed difference as they're both the provider and the ISP.

MWeb's say on the matter:

MWEB ready for uncapped 1Mbps ADSL
Rudolph Muller | 03 May, 2011

Telkom looks set to bump up DSL512 speeds to 1Mbps, and MWEB customers will be ready to benefit from the higher speeds

Telkom looks set to upgrade their 512Kbps ADSL subscribers to 1Mbps in the coming weeks. Telkom would only confirm that the upgrades are indeed on the table, but industry players have confirmed that they expect this upgrade soon.

It is also predicted that Telkom will keep the price of their planned 1Mbps ADSL service the same as their DSL512 pricing of R326 per month.

While ADSL access prices will most likely stay the same, current 512Kbps ADSL subscribers using uncapped accounts will have to fork out extra money if they plan to bump up their ISP account speeds as well.

Afrihost and others are currently only offering uncapped 512Kbps ADSL accounts, and will have to develop new 1Mbps accounts when the Telkom upgrades kick in.

MWEB is however better positioned as they already have a 1Mbps uncapped ISP account. MWEB’s 1Mbps uncapped ADSL product is priced at R369 per month, slightly more expensive than their 512Kbps service which costs R299 per month.

The final pricing of the bundled 1Mbps uncapped account and ADSL access will only be released once there is certainty about Telkom’s plans.

MWEB ISP CEO Derek Hershaw explained that they will offer subscribers the option of keeping their 512Kbps uncapped account or upgrade to their 1Mbps offering.

“If the customer’s price does not change then we will automatically migrate them to the most favourable option. If there is a pricing decision to be made by the customer we will present them with the options and let them choose,” explains Hershaw.

Source: MyBroadband (http://mybroadband.co.za/news/adsl/19922-MWEB-ready-for-uncapped-1Mbps-ADSL.html)

MWEB upgrades SA users

2011-05-25 12:21

Cape Town - MWEB has announced that all its customers on 512kbps will be upgraded to a 1Mbps at no additional cost.

"For us it's really been predominantly about trying to get the end consumer a better overall internet experience, and we've seen based on our customer base and the market that a lot of customers are still stuck on 384 and 512[kbps]," Rihana Hoosain the Head of Products at MWEB, told News24.

Users will pay not for the upgrade and MWEB said that this would be another step to facilitate better consumption of rich media on the internet in SA.

"With Telkom upgrading the lines, we thought it was a good opportunity for us to also upgrade our customers at no extra cost so that their overall internet experience when they're doing rich media, you know VoIP [voice over IP] calls, using YouTube would definitely be much better because they're getting double the speed at no additional cost," said Hoosain.

Telkom has been criticised in the past for not responding to the needs of the internet market in SA because of the "last mile" monopoly it has, but Hoosain said that this was a good "gesture", if not direction by the state telecom.

'Gesture'

"Look it's debatable, I mean we were anticipating this move from 512 to one meg, so it's definitely a good gesture from Telkom's part to say: 'Look we are looking at the overall perspective and we are trying to get real broadband speed to the end consumers.'

"But other than the upgrades to the 10Mbps, the bulk of the ADSL subscriber base out there is not really that much better off."

IN SA though, wireless devices are mainly used to access the internet because of the lack of infrastructure and cost. MWEB conceded that this would remain an obstacle.

"With the current set-up for the infrastructure for the fixed line service, there definitely is an obstacle in our way and obviously the wireless operators are encroaching on that," Hoosain said.

She added that MWEB's focus would be the quality of its service over wireless.

"For the most part, they are speaking to the market share that aren't able to access fixed services, so we do see the wireless services playing quite a critical role in the broadband market, but to sort of compensate for that it's really important that the quality of our fixed line services that we do deliver to customers is improving consistently."

In particularly rural areas, the lack of cable broadband limits the provision of internet, but Hoosain hinted that there are plans to change the situation.

Costs

"The reach of the fixed line infrastructure in outer lying areas, there just isn't copper there, so can't actually provide ASDL service.

"But I do foresee more innovative technologies coming out of the ISP space to try and combat that. Obviously, the wireless market is really advancing in that area because they are able to provide internet services there," she said.

MWEB is prepared to absorb all costs associated with the upgrade as it is expected that users will double their internet consumption.

"If there are any additional costs that's borne by MWEB it's something that we're willing to do because we really are committed to improving the overall broadband experience for our consumers," Hoosain said.

Still, until Telkom provides a universal cable broadband service, many South Africans who would like to access the full web experience will have to wait or use wireless in the meantime.

"Until we see massive advances on that side, we're basically playing to Telkom's tune," said Hoosain.

- Uncapped Data-only 1Mbps ADSL will retail for R299 per month, and
- Uncapped All-inclusive 1Mbps ADSL (with ADSL line rental) will retail for R599 per month.

When Telkom upgraded our line to 1Mbps we called MWeb and asked them to do the same, which costs R369/pm. Hope they plan on charging us R299/month from now on.

For the second time within a year Microsoft founder Bill Gates is quietly in Durban - talking to the academics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

I personally wouldn't call this ICT news since his presence in the city has nothing to do with ICT but more to do with the Gates Foundation and its role in funding AIDS research.

Or human waste research. See Durban green thread.

Interesting stats on Internet usage in SA has been published. I would post here but would lose the tabular format stats. See:

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/internet/28866-sa%E2%80%99s-best-connected-groups-revealed.html

Or human waste research. See Durban green thread.
Yup

I think my previous statement needs to be altered....

It should just be :

I personally wouldn't call this ICT news since his presence in the city has nothing to do with ICT but everything to do with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Bill Gates is not an ICT person anymore in his day to day work.

2 August 2011

Undersea cable company Seacom and US-based digital optical networking equipment supplier Infinera have achieved a global first by successfully trialling a 500 Gigabits per second transmission over Seacom's newly built network between KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.

"This event is a landmark achievement and a global first," Seacom CEO Brian Herlihy said in a statement on Monday. "It also signals the international science research and development community that global projects such as the Square Kilometre Array are well within Africa's reach."

Live demonstration
The trial made use of five 100 Gigabit per second (100 Gb/s) channels of coherent optical transmission over a distance of 1 732 kilometres on Monday.

The trial was run over and looped back across Seacom's newly built 930-kilometre Dark Fibre Africa fibre route, which links the Seacom Mtunzini cable landing station on the coast of South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal province to the Teraco data centre in Johannesburg.

The live demonstration, news of which has generated huge excitement in the industry, was witnessed by members of the scientific, research and development community at Teraco's data centre in Johannesburg.

"The trial demonstrates Seacom's commitment to increase the pace at which African networks are deploying cutting-edge telecommunications infrastructure technology to support Africa's rise as a primary scientific and business destination," said Herlihy.

Photonic Integrated Circuits
The trial used Infinera's 500 Gb/s Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs), each of which integrates five 100 Gb/s coherent channels onto a single chip. The PICs were used for both transmitting and receiving the five 100 Gb/s signals during the trial.

At the consumer level, the 500Gb/s PIC technology enables the download of 2 400 high-definition Blu-Ray movie files in 60 seconds, or supports the streaming of 320 000 simultaneous high definition video channels over a single fibre pair.

Demand for large-capacity transmission
Fibre optic transmission technologies have been developing considerably to satisfy demand for large-capacity digital transmission in public telecommunication networks worldwide.

"With internet traffic growing at exponential rates, driven by video, cloud computing, and mobility, the 500G PIC technology is designed to support the required growth in network capacity, while reducing the per-bit cost, space, and power consumption," said Infinera CEO Tom Fallon.

"These attributes are in-line with Seacom's vision to providing world-class infrastructure as African traffic continues to increase at record speeds."

SAinfo reporter

source: http://www.southafrica.info/business/success/seacomtrial-010811.htm




Nice

BRICs push for bigger say in internet
October 4 2011 at 10:10pm
By Georgina Prodhan

Comment on this story


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


REUTERS

A man walks past a signage decoration for the BRICS summit.

Nairobi - Campaigners for a loosely regulated Internet are alarmed at the risk to Web freedom from fast-growing BRIC and other emerging economies seeking more say in how the online realm is policed.

They fear tighter government control by authoritarian countries will strangle the liberal culture which has allowed the still-young Internet to thrive as an engine of economic growth and innovation.

China, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan last month proposed to the United Nations a global code of conduct embodying among others the principle that “policy authority for Internet-related public issues is the sovereign right of states.”

China exercises comprehensive censorship and surveillance over its Internet population of half a billion, the world's biggest, while Uzbekistan is considered an “enemy of the Internet” by press-freedom group Reporters without Borders.

“Some of those countries have a more authoritarian character, and so they're accustomed to interfering with what would otherwise be thought to be freedom of expression,” Internet pioneer Vint Cerf told Reuters in an interview at last week's Internet Governance Forum in Nairobi.

India, Brazil and South Africa have also proposed setting up a new UN body to form global Internet policies - frustrated that their growing economic power is not reflected in the multiple bodies that together keep the Internet running.

The BRICs are not alone in favouring more control.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has championed a law to deal with online copyright piracy by cutting offenders off the Internet, this year convened an Internet summit in Paris, the e-g8, where he made the case for more regulation.

The issues at stake are complex. The same relative absence of regulation that has spurred enormous innovation and empowered the revolutionaries of the Arab Spring has also allowed the spread of child pornography and global online fraud.

The Internet now accounts for 21 percent of GDP growth in mature economies, according to a recent McKinsey study, while its power to mobilise political opposition through sites like Twitter has alarmed governments from China to Iran to Egypt.

Many governments are no longer content to share power in this crucial arena with companies, non-profit organisations, engineers and ordinary citizens through organisations they see as ineffectual.

Currently, the Internet is run by a loose consensus of overlapping interest groups and institutions that have grown up as it has evolved from an academic network under the control of the US government to a global, commercial powerhouse.

Some of these come together once a year at the Internet Governance Forum, which was set up by the United Nations in 2005 in response to a general bewilderment that no one was in charge of something so big and important.

But the IGF's lack of decision-making powers are increasingly frustrating many governments, whose attempts to stop cybercrime, copyright piracy or block content they consider undesirable are largely futile on the borderless Internet.

“We are trying to go into a discussion that makes the participation - and also the government participation - of developing countries more effective,” Romulo Neves of Brazil's Ministry of External Relations told Reuters in Nairobi.

Neves was emphatic that the India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) proposal was a draft and a compromise between three countries, and that Brazil supported the so-called multi-stakeholder model embodied by the IGF.

But many delegates were not convinced, said Lesley Cowley, chief executive of British Internet registry Nominet which manages .uk domains.

“The IBSA proposal for a new UN body that would provide oversight of the existing bodies in this field met with strong criticism from many of those present, who believe this would be an inter-governmental mechanism,” she told Reuters.

Cowley said she saw a “long and difficult debate” ahead - a feeling echoed by Cerf, who said some means would need to be found to deal at least with issues like child porn and fraud.

“If you don't have reciprocity, I don't know how on earth you ever get to the point where you can deal with some of the abuses on the Net,” he said.

“So I think there's a big debate that needs to happen, and the IGF may be the best place to start. It won't end there, but it is a place to start.” - Reuters

O3b targets rural areas in internet project

source: Business Day - article (http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=155186)

CAPE TOWN — Network service provider O3b Networks would enable service providers to sell internet everywhere in SA, Arianespace CEO Jean-Yves Le Gall said this week.

In many parts of SA, communities are unable to access the internet because of a lack of network coverage. This has been cited as an impediment to rural development and social upliftment.

The O3b project — the acronym stands for the "other 3-billion" people in the world without internet access — involves launching eight satellites into middle earth orbit and aims to "make the internet accessible and affordable to those who remain cut off from the information highway". Mr le Gall, who was speaking on the sidelines of the International Astronautical Congress in Cape Town, said that the eight satellites would be launched next year.

Arianespace was also responsible for the launch of SA’s first commercial satellite, New Dawn, this year.

"O3b Networks is building a new fibre-quality, satellite-based, global internet backbone for telecommunications operators and internet service providers in emerging markets," O3B Networks CEO Steve Collar said this week. "The O3b Networks system will combine global reach and the speed of a fibre-optic network.

"This will allow billions of consumers and businesses in more than 150 countries to benefit from high- speed internet connectivity for educational, medical and commercial applications."

He said the project’s investors included, among others, Google, HSBC and the Development Bank of SA, and that last year $1,2bn was raised for the project, which was "fully funded" to deploy the satellites and develop the ground network to support services .

The company already has its first South African customer, Mavoni Technologies. Mr Collar said Mavoni would service areas such as Limpopo, Mpumalanga and the Northern Cape.

"In partnership with the government of Limpopo, they will connect more than 500 schools in rural areas and are working with the department of education in the Northern Cape to provide connectivity to over 1500 schools," he said. It would be in operation in 2013.

Arianespace vice-president of business development, Luce Fabreguettes, said the satellites would be built by European company Thales Alenia Space and would be launched from French Guiana next year. "The eight satellites rotating at medium altitude above the equator will be able to cover the whole circumference of the earth for the regions around the equator," she said.

According to the O3b website, these equatorial satellites would enable internet connectivity 45° of latitude above and below the equator. The ground stations would be built in Greece, Hawaii, Australia, the US, Spain or Portugal, Latin America and Asia, Mr Collar said.

wilds@bdfm.co.za

Yahoo sets its sights on South Africa


http://memeburn.com/wp-content/uploads/yahoo1.gif
American multinational internet publisher Yahoo has been quietly approaching South African publishers and advertisers over the past four months in preparation for re-entering the country.
The site had a visible presence in South Africa in the late 90s but pulled out of the country for unknown reasons. Now the company wishes to make another play for South African audiences.

Yahoo has a presence in key emerging market BRIC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRICS) countries, including Brazil, Russia, India and China. It does not have a dedicated presence in any other African country, besides North Africa.

Already a Twitter account with the name @YahooNewsSA (http://www.twitter.com/YahooNewsSA) has been setup with a modest following. The account’s bio reads: “Yahoo! South Africa brings you in-depth coverage of news from South Africa and around the world including finance, sport, entertainment and breaking news”.

The account has yet to tweet anything relating to the impending launch.
Yahoo claims to have two-million South African readers hitting its international site, and a dedicated local presence will boost that. This will easily rank the internet giant in the top five South African websites. Recently another large internet player, the BBC, listed a local presence, assisted by internet sales house Habari.

The online advertising pie these local and international sites are competing for is estimated to be around R600-million at rate-card rates, or less than two percent of overall advertising spend (Nielsen Media Research). This advertising figure excludes Google advertising numbers, estimated to be at around R400-million annually.

It is thought Yahoo South Africa will launch on the domain za.yahoo.com, which currently redirects to uk.yahoo.com.

South Africa will join 44 other countries the company currently has a presence in. The official directory for the entire Yahoo! International sites is world.yahoo.com.
Currently Yahoo! has a multi-lingual interface and the site is available in more than 20 languages, including English.

Each of the international sites are wholly owned by Yahoo!, with the exception of Yahoo! Japan, in which it holds a 34.75% minority SoftBank holds 35.45%.
A move to South Africa means direct competition with Google, who currently holds dominant position in the South African search market, and through various local ventures has established a strong foothold in the local online advertising space.

Source: Memeburn (http://memeburn.com/2011/11/yahoo-sets-its-sights-on-south-africa/)

CHPC PLACES SOUTH AFRICA BACK IN TOP500 SUPERCOMPUTER LIST

17 November 2011

The CSIR Meraka Institute and the Department of Science and Technology (DST) have announced that the Centre for High Performance Computing`s (CHPC) Tsessebe Sun Constellation System has been ranked as one of the world¿s fastest supercomputers, taking 329th place in the international Top 500 list. The ranking was confirmed on Tuesday, 15 November 2011, at the Super Computing Conference in Seattle, USA, where the world¿s high performance computing industry is congregated.
This follows shortly after the upgrade of the machine in October 2011, which saw the performance of the CHPC machine, as measured by the LINPACK Benchmark, improve from 25 Teraflops to 61 Teraflops.

The CHPC's Tsessebe system is made up of Oracle’s Sunblade X6275 blades with Intel Nehalem 8 core processors and Westmere 12 core processors as well as Dell’s Poweredge C6100 servers with Intel Westmere 12 core processors. The system has a theoretical peak performance of 74 Teraflops.

The upgrade to this complex machine was performed by a CHPC team in collaboration with Cambridge High Performance Computing Centre, DELL and Eclipse Holdings. “The configuration and implementation of the system by this team in which South African engineers took the lead, paves the way for South Africa’s capability in producing local HPC solutions,” comments Laurens Cloete, Executive Director: CSIR Meraka Institute, The decision to upgrade the CHPC system was taken to cater for an increased demand as usage by various universities and science council teams had brought utilisation to nearly 100%. “Getting back on the TOP500 is therefore a bonus resulting from an upgrade that was done to satisfy local demand for high performance computing,” Cloete states.

The CHPC high performance computing platforms are being used for computationally intensive problems in fields such as materials science, climatology, chemistry and the biomedical domain.

The CHPC systems are available to researchers across the country through the 10 gigabit-per-second South African National Research Network. “African researchers from academia and industry now have a facility that is able to process over 60 trillion cycles of instruction per second, enabling collaborative research that addresses scientific grand challenges, addressing societal issues and enhancing industry competitiveness,” Cloete points out. “This infrastructure is also developing computational research into a viable mode alongside experimental and theoretical modes of enquiry across all academic disciplines.”

“This rating of CHPC’s supercomputer comes as South Africa bolsters its commitment to host the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project, a goal for which the centre has been working tirelessly to ensure that it is fully equipped to process the enormous data rates that will be produced by the radio telescopes,” said Cloete,. The Top500 listing is evidence of CHPC’s and the DST’s commitment to help ensure that South Africa wins the right to host the 1.5 billion Euro SKA telescope.

Shortly after its launch by the Minister of Science and Technology, Mrs Naledi Pandor, in September 2009, the Tsessebe Cluster was ranked at number 311 on the TOP500 list. As a consequence of the fast developments in the supercomputing arena, machines generally do not stay on the TOP500 for very long and by May 2010 the CHPC machine was ranked 461th.

The CHPC system has been Africa’s fastest supercomputer since its launch. It is an important component of South Africa's National Cyberinfrastructure that is being built in a partnership by DST and the CSIR.

The CHPC is an initiative of the Department of Science and Technology implemented by the CSIR Meraka Institute.

KT about to buy Telkom?Article By: Thabiso Mochiko
Tue, 13 Dec 2011 - from iAfrica/ Business Day

Telkom announced yesterday that it had signed a memorandum of understanding with South Korea’s KT Corporation, which has been eyeing a 20% stake in the company.

KT Corporation has a market capitalisation of about $10bn and is a market leader in South Korea’s fixed and broadband communications segment. Telkom last month announced a 36% drop in profit in the six months to September 30. The agreement to exchange information will enable the companies to confirm areas of "mutual strategic and business co-operation and envisaged benefits of the potential strategic venture", Telkom said yesterday.


The "diagnostic review" would start immediately and Telkom would update shareholders after six weeks.

It said the "potential strategic venture" would be proposed to all Telkom shareholders only once certain conditions, such as an endorsement by major shareholders, had been met.

Telkom reiterated that the proposed venture with KT Corporation, if implemented, would not result in a change to its corporate strategy or job losses.

The company said last month if the deal went through it would, among other things, "de-risk the execution" of its current business plan; accelerate key strategic projects; enable growth in broadband penetration; enable the transfer of skills, and reduce operating costs and capital expenditure spend.

For KT, an alliance with Telkom will diversify its business outside Korea and give it a footprint in Africa.

Vodacom's customer service really has become utterly pathetic :ohno:

It's a sad reflection of the direction the service industry has gone in this country.

Vodacom's customer service really has become utterly pathetic :ohno:

It's a sad reflection of the direction the service industry has gone in this country.

I must be really lucky. I'm always somewhat bemused about people's complaints with Vodacom. The coverage is good, the speed is good, the prices are only as high as the other networks' prices, I can get a real person on the phone in about 30 seconds, 24 hours a day, without any voice prompts (although, while I'm far from certain, I may have an advantage in that area that skews that result), and I had to make my first insurance claim from them about two months ago, and had a new phone the same day I submitted my claim. I could ask for lower prices. Otherwise I couldn't ask for much. While I'm sure the gripes everyone else has are legit, as I said, I must be really lucky. (Telkom, though. My God. My God.)

What happened to you, Lydon?

I must be really lucky. I'm always somewhat bemused about people's complaints with Vodacom. The coverage is good, the speed is good, the prices are only as high as the other networks' prices, I can get a real person on the phone in about 30 seconds, 24 hours a day, without any voice prompts (although, while I'm far from certain, I may have an advantage in that area that skews that result), and I had to make my first insurance claim from them about two months ago, and had a new phone the same day I submitted my claim. I could ask for lower prices. Otherwise I couldn't ask for much. While I'm sure the gripes everyone else has are legit, as I said, I must be really lucky. (Telkom, though. My God. My God.)

What happened to you, Lydon?

I wish that that were the case with me!

I called Vodacom's Sales department on Friday to order a new phone. The voice prompts were very logically laid out, and I got through to a consultant immediately, so I thought that it would be smooth sailing from there. But alas it was not meant to be...

The consultant himself wasn't the friendliest of people, but that didn't concern me much. Upon submitting my application, he gave me a reference number and told me that I needed to call them back in half an hour to see whether I was approved. I thought this extremely strange and a bit of a hassle for me as the customer, but I waited and called back in 40 minutes away.

That's when everything went wrong. I got through to the Vetting department, who then told me that my application wasn't completed correctly, that they were going to put me back through to the Sales department and once I was there, I needed to ask for the consultant who had helped me. Upon getting through to Sales, they said that the consultant who helped me was busy, but my application was completed correctly and that it was merely still in vetting. I was told to call back in a little while.

When I did so, the voice prompt menu hit some error, telling me that I had to answer a survey, or hang up :banana: While attempting to press the relevant button to answer the survey, the system just disconnected me. I called back again, got through to the Vetting department, and the consultant who helped me told me to "hold on" once I explained my issue, then transferred me back to the menu, which didn't respond, forcing me to hang up and call back again.

Upon calling yet again, I was again told that my application wasn't completed correctly and I was transferred back through to Sales. They then told me that the consultant who helped me was the only one who could fix it and that he would give me a call shortly. After waiting a while...nada...so I called back again. This time I was transferred back to Sales, who in turn told me that it will in fact take until Wednesday before they could tell me whether I'm approved.

It may not sound bad on paper, but good grief...how hard is it to fill in a customer's details, submit an application and tell them that it will take 48 hours until they can tell you whether you're approved or not? Where the half an hour thing came from is beyond me. And I'm still waiting for said consultant to call me back. They turned what should have been an exciting experience into an extremely frustrating one.

They're supposed to call me by tomorrow. We'll see...

TBH I rarely use the phone system for things like that....

Since I'm an existing customer, I just go into one of the shops and sort it out that way.. its easier 99% of the time... Last upgrade I did took about 20 minutes, last contract I got took about 30 minutes and I walked out with the phone

TBH I rarely use the phone system for things like that....

Since I'm an existing customer, I just go into one of the shops and sort it out that way.. its easier 99% of the time... Last upgrade I did took about 20 minutes, last contract I got took about 30 minutes and I walked out with the phone

The reason I did it over the phone was because online deals aren't always available in-store, so I thought I may as well give them a call as opposed to driving through to the store, only to find out the deal isn't available.

Though in retrospect I wish I had!

The reason I did it over the phone was because online deals aren't always available in-store, so I thought I may as well give them a call as opposed to driving through to the store, only to find out the deal isn't available.

Though in retrospect I wish I had!

I bought my new iPhone through them 2 days before xmas (though online and not via callcenter). It was delivered within 24 hours. I was so shocked at how smoothly it went that I even wrote a positive review of them on hellopeter!

Sorry to tell you Lydon. It must be you.

I bought my new iPhone through them 2 days before xmas (though online and not via callcenter). It was delivered within 24 hours. I was so shocked at how smoothly it went that I even wrote a positive review of them on hellopeter!

Sorry to tell you Lydon. It must be you.

:lol:

They finally approved me today and asked me give them a call. I did so 4 times...the first time I was transferred to another department, who told me to call another number. The second and third time the consultants transferred me back to the menu because they didn't know what to do. The fourth time the consultant told me the person who originally filled in my application would need to call me back. Eventually they did.

Now I've got to wait 1-2 weeks for the phone to arrive, but they can't give any guarantees because iPhone 4S stock is severely limited in SA at the moment :hilarious