At Home

Rob Davies, Department of Trade and Industry

Telkom will provide 5% additional IP connect capacity to all existing IP connect wholesale customers at no additional cost, with effect from 1 October 2013. The fixed-line giant notes the South African fixed broadband market is experiencing exponential growth in data usage, and says it expects this data demand will continue to climb in the coming years.

Citizen rights organisation AfriForum says it will have the controversial tender for the Web site of the Free State government investigated. “The exorbitant amounts are worrying, and as one goes through the documents, it becomes increasingly clear there are a number of questions surrounding this tender,” says CW Els, AfriForum organiser for the Free State.

Tourism Radio, a Cape Town-based travel technology company, is using American crowdfunding Web site Kickstarter to finance the launch of Google Glass interactive audio travel guides. The company has firmly set its sights on getting the audio guides onto Google Glass, says CEO Mark Allewell. “We believe that Glass will set the precedent for augmented reality platforms of the near future.

A collaboration between First National Bank (FNB) and the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) now allows entrepreneurs to almost instantaneously register a company while opening a bank account. The initiative aims to trim the red tape burden for companies and is claimed to be a world-first. It was launched in Sandton by trade and industry minister Rob Davies and incoming FNB CEO Jacques Celliers.

A configuration glitch at MWeb’s Johannesburg data centre left thousands of customers without certain services for a period of five hours on 14 August. According to the Internet service provider, the outage – between 4pm and 9pm – affected server hosting, virtual hosting and parts of MWeb’s mail platform. ADSL services were not affected.

Vodacom has introduced an add-on for prepaid customers, which offers an hour of talk time, unlimited SMSes and data allocation. Phil Patel, chief of Vodacom’s consumer business unit, says, the company built the model by taking an existing prepaid product, Power Hour, and adding SMS and data. My5 is part of Vodacom Free4Sho, and is a bolt-on to the operator’s Vodacom4Less and Daily Free Calls prepaid plans.

<a href=

Dina Pule" rel=tag>Dina Pule" src="http://www.iweek.co.za/images/stories/2010/Sep2013/dina_pule.jpg" />Ousted communications minister Dina Pule has apologised for mistakes she made during her tenure, which came to an end last month after Zuma gave her the boot during a Cabinet reshuffle. Pule apologised publicly after co-chair of Parliament’s Joint Committee on Ethics and Members Interests Professor Ben Turok presented his findings to the National Assembly.

ETV, a free-to-air broadcaster, sees migrating to digital terrestrial television as a big step moving forward. The broadcaster has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Sentech to carry the signal. CEO Marcel Golding said: “This MOU ensures we are able to move quickly to launch our new channels when the performance period for digital migration is announced.”

The City of Joburg (COJ) took down its online services system after reports surfaced mid-August of a security flaw that may have compromised ratepayer information. Director for applications at COJ, Richard Nene, has confirmed this is indeed the case: “It is actually a good thing that this was highlighted to show we have to bring in another security parameter to make people’s information secure,” he said.

Into Africa

Yahsat announced the launch of its service, YahClick, in Angola. The service will enable business and homeowners to have access to high-speed satellite broadband Internet. The Abu Dhabibased satellite operator has partnered with Angola’s satellite telecoms provider, Global Telesat, to unveil YahClick in the country. Shawkat Ahmed, CCO of Yahsat, said: “We are happy to strengthen our presence in Angola through our partnership with Global Telesat. – ITWeb Africa

Livingstone in Zambia has become the first city in that country to have Zamtel’s high-speed Internet services using optic fibre network technology. Zamtel completed a $4 million Internet investment in Livingstone ahead of the United Nations World Tourism (UNWTO) general assembly. The company has said it is also scheduled to handover free Internet hotspots to all official UNWTO venues and hotels ahead of the conference. – ITWeb Africa

President Uhuru Kenyatta has asked China to invest in Kenya’s power generation efforts and the planned Konza technology city near Nairobi, following $5 billion deals between the two nations. The cash is planned to be spent on energy projects, a standard gauge railway linking the port of Mombasa to its border town of Malaba, meant to provide faster access from Kenya’s port to markets in the region. – ITWeb Africa

Ethiopia signed an $800 million deal with China’s ZTE to expand mobile phone infrastructure and introduce a high-speed 4G broadband network in the capital, Addis Ababa, and a 3G service throughout the rest of the country. The agreement with ZTE is half of a $1.6 billion project split with Huawei Technologies. Huawei signed the agreement in July. – ITWeb Africa

Zimbabwe has become Africa’s seventh country to offer an LTE network, after mobile operator Econet Wireless unveiled the next-generation high-speed Internet service. The LTE service is planned to be available at all of Zimbabwe’s airports and the central business districts of Harare and Bulawayo. However, Econet’s LTE service is limited to accessibility via LTE-specific modems. – ITWeb Africa

Econet Wireless is to reverse its 60% cut in tariffs. The Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (Potraz) has argued that Econet cannot effect a tariff reduction that is greater than 50%.This move subsequently brought down the cost of placing calls to other networks from 25 cents to 10 cents a minute. Potraz has also instructed Econet to stop all adverts promoting this tariff reduction. – ITWeb Africa

South African-headquartered ICT distribution firm, Drive Control Corporation, plans to expand its African presence by setting up an office in the Mozambique capital city, Maputo. The company announced that along with the local office and warehouse in that country, it also plans to hire a sales team headed up by Mozambican local Marina Duarte. – ITWeb Africa

MTN Nigeria has launched a cloud service for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in that country. Speaking at the launch in Lagos, Babatunde Osho, MTN chief enterprise solutions officer, said SMEs in Nigeria can now use enterprise solutions without the usual attendant costs. “No matter what entrepreneurs need, MTN cloud services can help take their business to new heights,” he said. – ITWeb Africa

Abroad

Alibaba Group is planning a management structure that would allow its partners to nominate the board and retain control over decision-making after it goes public. The Chinese e-commerce firm is widely expected to launch an initial public offering worth more than $15 billion by the end of the year, with Hong Kong tipped as the likely venue.

<a href=

Meg Whitman, HP" src="http://www.iweek.co.za/images/stories/2010/Sep2013/meg_whitman.jpg" />Hewlett-Packard shuffled its top ranks, shifting a star executive to a role identifying acquisition targets, after a disappointing performance from the division he oversaw curtailed the PC maker’s 2014 outlook. CEO Meg Whitman replaced Dave Donatelli with Bill Veghte at the helm of the Enterprise Group, calling the unit’s performance “very disappointing”.

Hewlett-Packard is back in the market for acquisitions of up to $1.5 billion, said CEO Meg Whitman in a televised interview, aiming for smaller deals after a flurry of outsized purchases in past years. “Acquisitions will become part of our future, to further some of our strategic initiatives and shore up some of the product holes,” she said.

China Mobile has awarded initial 4G contracts worth around 20 billion yuan ($3.2 billion), with Chinese firms securing more than half of the biggest prize in the global telecoms industry this year, and foreign firms winning about a third. Shenzhen-based Huawei and cross-town rival ZTE have obtained about 25% each of the total 4G procurement in China Mobile’s tender this year.

Steven Sinofsky, the hard-charging former Microsoft executive, has joined the prominent Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz as a part-time “board partner”, representing the firm on certain boards of companies it invests in. “I’m especially excited to learn by spending more time with entrepreneurs and those creating new technologies and products,” said Sinofsky.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg" rel=tag>Mark Zuckerberg has enlisted Samsung Electronics, Qualcomm and other technology companies to help him in a project aimed at making Internet access affordable for the 5 billion people around the world who are not online. The group is called internet.org.