At Home

Another of SA’s Internet service providers (ISP), Web Africa, has joined the fight for ADSL consumers by reducing its home-uncapped ADSL prices by up to 32%. Web Africa says the new prices were introduced due, in part, to a shift of the company’s ADSL traffic from its own network to Internet Solutions, and due to the recent price cuts by Telkom. – ITWeb

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Robert Sussman, Integr8 IT" src="http://www.iweek.co.za/images/stories/2010/FEB_2013/rob_sussman.jpg" />JSE-listed Business Connexion says the Competition Commission has given the go-ahead for its R126 million buyout of Integr8 IT, through its UCS Solutions subsidiary. “This deal makes real sense to Business Connexion and Integr8 IT, as well as our respective personnel and clients,” says Robert Sussman, joint founder and joint CEO of Integr8 IT. The deal will also broaden UCS Solutions’ historic retail-focused infrastructure services.

Cell C is urging consumers to question their respective operators about how much they are paying to have their telecommunications needs met, in an attempt to enlighten and win them over to its 99c offering. Cell C COO Jose dos Santos says the campaign is focused on educating consumers to choose their network based on the running costs of communicating, rather than the device.

Silverbridge Holdings’ earnings and headline earnings for the first half of the year will be lower year-on-year, but an improvement on year-end. The company issued a trading statement, which said earnings per share and headline earnings per share are expected to be between 1.1c and 1.3c in the six months to December. – ITWeb

Conduct Telecommunications, a local open-access fibre infrastructure provider, will – at no cost to landlords – connect business premises to fibre infrastructure. Johan Pretorius, Conduct Telecommunications CEO, notes that landlords who take the opportunity to have their premises connected with fibre, will gain a competitive advantage. Pretorius says there is no installation cost or any obligation for the occupant to use the fibre. – ITWeb

Pretoria-based House4Hack is paying it forward by teaming up with non-profit organisation, African Schools for Excellence, to bring technology into the lives of grade seven students in Tsakane, in Johannesburg’s East Rand. The African Schools for Excellence is based on the internationally regarded Khan Academy model, where scholars use tablets and laptops to view online educational videos. – ITWeb Africa

Into Africa

Kenyan mobile operator Safaricom plans to hike charges of mobile money transactions of more than Sh100 by 10%, following the implementation of a government tax. Government intends to charge a 10% duty for all money transfer services, such as M-Pesa, provided by cellular phone providers, banks, money transfer agencies and other financial service providers. – ITWeb Africa

Telecoms and wide area network services provider, K-NET, has announced plans to target Africans with broadband Internet service packages for businesses and consumers. The company – which is headquartered in Accra, Ghana – said the service packages are to be available throughout 16 West and Central African countries, from the most densely populated urban areas to the most sparsely populated rural locations. – ITWeb Africa

South African online merchant solutions provider, PayGate, has developed technology enabling Kenyan mobile money users to buy products and services via e-commerce Web sites. “Hundreds of merchants in Kenya are now ‘Powered by PayGate’ for e-commerce acceptance of credit cards,” said Robin Philip, PayGate marketing director. PayGate says the technology, called M-Pesa Online, is planned to boost e-commerce in the East African region. – ITWeb Africa

Specialist microwave networking solutions firm Aviat Networks has announced it is to provide spares management services in addition to its other offerings to MTN Ghana. The company said it provides support services to MTN Ghana, including technical support and corrective maintenance of the operator’s installed base of microwave backhaul equipment. – ITWeb Africa

Kenya is edging closer to launching an online business directory and information pool that profiles all businesses operating in various sectors of the economy. The move comes at a time when the country has performed dismally in the global and regional cost of doing business indices, which have blamed bureaucratic and time-consuming procedures of starting a company as responsible for discouraging prospective investors. – ITWeb Africa

Abroad

ICG Group, which buys and builds Internet software and services firms, said Google would acquire its partly-owned marketing services unit, Channel Intelligence, for $125 million in cash. Channel Intelligence helps retailers, manufacturers and other advertisers make their products and services easier for consumers to find and buy online and in local stores. ICG said it will get $60.5 million for its stake in Channel Intelligence. – Reuters

A Spanish mobile application that pays users up to 25 euros ($34) a month to send messages to friends if they accept advertising may erode telephone operators’ revenue, as customers switch to free messaging services. Chad2Win has attracted close to 100 000 users, who receive one cent for every advertisement they see, and three cents for every ad they click on, since its launch last month, director Fernando Troyano said. – Reuters

Zynga, the one-time Silicon Valley darling that has been wrestling with a months-long exodus of online gamers, reported an unexpected fourth-quarter profit after embracing steep cost cuts and shifting forward deferred revenue. The results assuaged investors, who had feared the company might be in freefall, and boosted Zynga’s shares by 7% to $2.93 in afterhours trade. – Reuters

Online scrapbook Pinterest is trying to raise a new round of funding that would give it a valuation of $2 billion to $2.5 billion. Pinterest, which allows users to create online bulletin boards based on various themes, such as travel, decorating, or sports, is part of a group of Internet companies that offers twists on Internet networking among various groups. – Reuters

Software makers Microsoft and Symantec said they disrupted a global cyber crime operation by shutting down servers that controlled hundreds of thousands of PCs without the knowledge of their users. The move made it temporarily impossible for infected PCs around the world to search the Web, though the companies offered free tools to clean machines through messages that were automatically pushed out to infected computers. – Reuters