With the launch of the new search engine <a href="http://www.funnel.co.za" target="_blank" class="standardtext">Funnel</a>, South African internet users will be able to get faster, more accurate and more relevant results, as the engine only indexes South African sites, the Funnel team announced this week.
Representatives of civil society on Monday during a public debate said the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) is a state apparatus whose job it is to serve the government as a ”mouthpiece”. This is in contrast to how the SABC describes itself — as a public broadcaster.
Shares in Telkom soared almost 4% in early trade on Tuesday after the telecommunications group said in a trading statement before the opening that it expects a rise of 35% in basic earnings per share and a 55% surge in headline earnings per share for the year ended March 2005.
South Africa’s MTN Group is committed to realising its growth road map in Africa despite hurdles associated with investing in the mobile telecommunications sector on the continent. MTN’s Ugandan operation, which currently boasts a 66% market share, will potentially face fierce competition when markets open up from July.
Johannesburg-listed mobile operator MTN Group said on Thursday that while aiming to cautiously expand across the developing markets, its plans to enter Iran remained suspended until after the general elections in that country. MTN — currently seeking to gain a 100% holding in Dutch-based Celtel International — said it was prepared to acquire a 49% stake in Iran’s new mobile operator.
Shares in mobile service provider MTN Group collected 4,19% in Friday’s early session on the JSE Securities Exchange (JSE), where it was among the most active shares by value and number of shares traded. Traders attributed the surge to a renewed interest by foreigners.
As the public hearings on Telkom’s ADSL broadband service neared an end on Monday, Naspers subsidiary M-Web argued that despite numerous calls for the dual-listed group to reduce its charges, Telkom will oppose a decrease in ADSL tariffs. Telkom will on Monday afternoon receive an opportunity to express its response.
Almost two years have gone by without any results since Minister of Communications Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri announced in Parliament that disadvantaged South Africans stood in line to get SIM cards and cellphone handsets, which would be supplied free of charge.
The information and communications technology (ICT) charter’s working group chairperson, advocate Dali Mpofu, on Wednesday dismissed rumours that the camp is in crisis, instead arguing that nothing has changed. "There is no crisis. We are not restarting the whole process of drawing up the charter again; that is ridiculous," he said.
As part of its agenda towards enterprise development, community rehabilitation and public works, the Business Trust has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Department of Public Works and pumped R100-million into the Expanded Public Works Programme, the trust’s chief operating officer, Brian Whittaker, said on Thursday.