Telkom’s DSL base begins to shrink
The number of Telkom digital subscriber line subscribers has declined for the first time ever. Between 1 April 2016 and 30 September 2016, the operator lost 19 714 DSL customers. This went largely...
View ArticleData to overtake voice revenues at Vodacom
In the current quarter, data revenue should overtake that which Vodacom’s South African operation derives from voice services. In the company’s third quarter, data service revenue in South Africa...
View ArticleVodacom hikes contract prices by stealth
While Vodacom’s "overhaul" of its Smart and Red integrated contract plans has meant an increase in the number of bundled minutes, SMSes and data practically across the board, it has also managed to...
View ArticleHere’s why IS wants to buy DFA
Internet Solutions (IS) is, according to Bloomberg, in talks to buy Dark Fibre Africa (DFA) from Remgro, majority owner (51%) of DFA-parent Community Investment Ventures. The report last week suggested...
View ArticleHow Vodacom’s new contracts stack up
Vodacom’s revamped Smart+ and Red+ integrated packages have seen increases in data, voice and SMS allocations across the board. And, in the case of its Smart packages - ranging from the R199 (200MB) to...
View ArticleMobile voice prices have halved since 2013
The effective price per minute of mobile voice calls on South Africa’s largest mobile network has more than halved since 2013. While not explicitly disclosed by the operator, the current blended price...
View ArticleAre global investors in SA rushing to the exit?
Friday’s speculation reported by Bloomberg that NTT Group was looking to offload African operations it acquired when it bought Dimension Data in 2010 left me a little uneasy. It isn’t clear if the...
View ArticleR2/MB is all but dead
It’s surprising that the country’s major mobile operators haven’t trumpeted the death of R2/MB charges for out-of-bundle data. That pricing - a staple of the industry since Vodacom’s launch of 3G...
View ArticleSouth Africa’s economy is in real trouble
It has been clear for some time that all is not well with the South African consumer. Or, indeed, the economy. Government spending has all but frozen and consumer spending is not going to paper
View ArticleGive Sipho Maseko more money!
People forget that Telkom CEO Sipho Maseko left Vodacom in 2012 under rather strange circumstances. I won’t bore you with the details. But what he has achieved at Telkom since his appointment in April...
View ArticleExpiring data bundles: bring on the regulations!
Icasa’s move to regulate what it terms “out-of-bundle billing practices” and “expiry of data practices” is years overdue. The regulator wants to get rid of the typical 30-day expiry period for mobile...
View ArticleHow Vodacom is changing the way you use the Internet
Vodacom’s Meg Your Day promotion, which offers subscribers up to 1GB of free data to use on specific services/apps, is changing the way we use the mobile Internet. Of course, Vodacom is not giving away...
View ArticleTelkom and government: a complicated separation
It's ironic that the two keynote addresses (from both government and Telkom) on the first day of the operator’s Southern Africa Telecommunication Networks and Applications Conference
View ArticleTelkom: the good, the bad and the ugly
First, the really bad... Telkom is staring at a cliff: in the past 18 months, its lost nearly 100 000 ADSL subscribers. In that time, it’s only added 73 710 fibre connections to homes. The trend has been
View ArticleTwo worrying signs in EOH’s results
It’s not just that IT services group EOH reported a 23% slump in headline earnings in the first six months of its 2018 financial year (this despite a 19% jump in revenue). It’s not that free cash flow...
View ArticleFNB tightens the eBucks rewards taps
While several significant changes to First National Bank’s popular eBucks rewards programme kick in this month, the tightening up of earn rules across all accounts means that rewards are now capped at...
View ArticleWhy the Eskom crisis is even worse than we think
Even at a generous 20GW, the electricity available from Eskom’s coal fleet is barely 52% of the about 38.6GW nominal capacity. These numbers are horrifying.
View ArticleStandard Bank branch cuts are long overdue
The decision by Standard Bank to close 91 branches and cut 1 200 jobs is not at all surprising - the only surprises were that the bank announced it publicly and that it did so before elections in May.
View ArticleWithout mobile, Telkom would be in big trouble
Analysts have long criticised Telkom since its entry into the mobile market in October 2010, which hasn’t come cheap. But it's become the company's saving grace.
View ArticleWould load shedding be worse without Covid?
There is a perception that load shedding would be far worse were it not for the disruption wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown. It's a myth. By Hilton Tarrant.
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