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/ 21 October 2005
In the week South African cyberspace was given an area code (O87), the country’s first report on wireless broadband offerings was released and the cheapest asymmetric digital subscriber line connection was announced. The suffix 087 was allocated for Voice over Internet Protocol numbers by the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa.
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/ 14 October 2005
Although most industry players expected this week’s colloquium on telecommunications costs would be no more than a talk fest, some hard- hitting proposals were made by government officials and regulators. One key suggestion was for Telkom to unbundle the local loop, which is the connection from the telephone exchange to a home or office.
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/ 16 September 2005
A few years ago, Skype co-founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis were persona non grata in the United States, scared to enter the country in case they were arrested for unleashing file-swapping Kazaa on the internet. This week, they were glowing in the limelight as they sold their second venture to eBay for $3,2-billion to $4,1-billion.
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/ 12 September 2005
Ask most South Africans who our most successful internet entrepreneur and space adventurer is and they’ll tell you it’s Mark Shuttleworth. But Elon Musk might just go down in history for having a bigger impact than our first Afronaut. Musk is South Africa’s other Shuttleworth, and his success with internet start-ups has also propelled him into space.
Google has thrown its considerable weight into the burgeoning market for internet telephony, or voice messaging as it is now being called. Google has announced its own voice messaging service, Google Talk, which uses voice over internet protocol and can also be used for instant messaging.
The most high profile legal battle in three years is likely between Telkom and the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) over the cost of high-speed Internet access, after Icasa slammed the telecoms giant for charging "exorbitant" fees.
Cellphones moved a step closer to being fully-fledged Internet terminals when the .mobi domain was introduced this week. Until now, surfing the Web using a cellphone was hamstrung by two key issues: the speed of the connection and image-heavy websites designed for much larger computer screens.