The week in review

Lars Reichelt

AT HOME

THE BANKING Association SA is liaising with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) over the new Companies Act, as the sector cannot comply with some requirements that necessitate IT system overhauls. The legislation will allow businesses to register names that contain symbols such as +, &, #, @ and %, as well as longer entity names. It was initially meant to come into force this month, but has now been delayed until next April.

Nicky Lala Mohan, the association`s GM for legal and regulatory affairs, says the banking sector in SA has had some difficulty with the name changes, which the association has brought to the DTI`s attention. - ITWeb

AFTER APOLOGISING for poor service earlier this year, Cell C has again published full-page advertorials in leading Sunday newspapers to apologise to its customers. This time the apologies relate to confusion surrounding the terminology of its new "4Gs" network, as well as its decision to deploy a city-by-city network roll out, instead of a once-off countrywide rollout. CEO Lars Reichelt explained that he used the term "4G" in a marketing sense. - ITWeb

THE POPULARITY of mobile Internet is the biggest cause of SA scoring poorly in a broadband quality survey, and has resulted in the country`s perceived inability to meet the threshold of quality requirements for modern applications. This is according to the third world broadband quality survey, conducted by Oxford University and networking company Cisco, which ranks SA 42nd globally out of 72 countries surveyed. The ranking is not much of an improvement from last year`s study, which ranked SA 60th out of 66 countries. - ITWeb

THE telecommunications industry is set for another big shake-up as ICASA commits to publishing the final version of call termination regulations on 5 November. The highly contested regulations have been in the pipeline for some time now, as the authority sought to cover all procedural bases. However, regardless of the interconnect rate levels contained in the new regulations, consumers should not get too excited, as it was earlier revealed that a reduced termination rate has no direct impact on retail pricing. -  ITWeb

VODACOM`S earnings will be higher for the first half of the year, because of accounting charges in the 2009 numbers, says SA`s largest cellular company. The operator released the trading update yesterday, and its shares closed marginally higher at R67.90, a 25c or 0.37% gain. Vodacom says its earnings and headline earnings per share for the six months to September should be between 285c and 307c. Last year, headline earnings per share were 219c, and earnings per share were 4c a share. - ITWeb

MICROSOFT SA MD Mteto Nyati" rel=tag>Mteto Nyati will replace Pete Mansour as non-executive director on Blue Label Telecoms` board of directors. The announcement follows Mansour`s resignation from the board, with immediate effect. Mansour served on the Blue Label board for the past three years. Mansour currently runs mobile engineering for Microsoft`s emerging market division. Nyati`s appointment is believed to be linked to Microsoft`s 2007 deal with Blue Label Telecoms. The agreement involved Microsoft acquiring a 12% stake of the issued share capital of Blue Label Telecoms, and "a collaborative agreement on a preferred partnership basis". - ITWeb

INTO AFRICA

THE RACE to gain a foothold in Africa is starting, and Japanese-based Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp could use its recent acquisition of Dimension Data to fend off Chinese competition. According to Gartner research, economic growth in Africa will outpace developed economies. ZTE, a China-based global provider of telecommunications equipment and network solutions, says Africa offers good growth opportunities, but the landscape is going to increasingly become more competitive. Fellow Chinese telecoms company Huawei has spent over $500 million since 1998 to establish a regional presence in more than 40 countries in the sub-Saharan region. - ITWeb

AFRICA should learn from the low-cost South Asian ICT model, a report released by the UN Conference on Trade and Development, in Johannesburg, said. "ICT needs to be affordable and in the case of mobile telephony, lessons can be learned from the South Asian model, which offers the lowest costs," the Information Economy Report 2010 reads. India had one of the lowest prepaid prices for mobile telephony, while wholesale termination costs in that country, as well as in other South Asian nations, were the lowest in the world. - News24

ABROAD

INDIAN OPERATOR Bharti Airtel has joined hands with Internet technology specialist IBM to manage the computing technology and services for its recently acquired mobile networks, in 16 different African countries. The agreement is expected to be finalised in the fourth quarter. Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman and MD of Bharti Airtel, said: "There are huge opportunities in Africa to transform the way in which people communicate. The company`s focus is to deliver on that by offering affordable mobile services for all." -  African Business Review

APPLE CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the thinnest, lightest Mac laptop yet, fusing features from its popular iPhone and iPad with its traditional line of personal computers. Apple, whose computers have taken market share from PCs based on Microsoft`s Windows, will bring a version of its mobile applications store to the Mac, aiming to replicate its success and spur development of new programs. Loading up Macs with iPad features may help Apple stave off investors` fears that sales will begin bleeding over to the tablet, which has stirred up astonishing demand. - Reuters