Lloyd Gedye

Fancy a new quad bike, a laptop with printer, television, hi-fi, DVD player, camera, home theatre system, PlayStation, Xbox 360, skottel braai, pair of sunglasses or Game shopping vouchers? In the rush to capture new cellphone customers in the saturated South African market, operators and service providers are bundling expensive free gifts with contracts to entice new subscribers.

Mobile Number Portability is a non-event, with operators experiencing a number of system problems and consumers reluctant to make the switch. MNP, which was introduced on November 10 after numerous delays, allows consumers to switch operators while keeping their number.

The Pretoria suburb of Hatfield is leading the pack in the race to bring affordable internet access to broadband-starved South Africa. Residents and business owners in Hatfield can sign up for 1GB of wireless broadband for a mere R180 a month, or a 3GB service for R350, thanks to a network set up by internet service provider (ISP) Neology as a proof of concept.

Tito Mboweni has come up against a new enemy in his battle to curb the credit-spending splurge. The banks. Flying in the face of the Reserve Bank governor’s attempts to bring down consumer spending and debt, South Africa’s banks are going into overdrive by offering consumers new lines of credit in an attempt to grow their books.

Property owners in the close vicinity of the proposed Gautrain railway stations are sitting on hot assets, with prices rising by up to 25% in the past year. The <i>Mail & Guardian</i> surveyed a number of real estate agents who operate in the Rosebank, Sandton, Midrand and Rhodesfield areas this week, the majority of whom were overwhelmingly positive that property prices were set to boom.

Poorly written legislation has historically allowed telecoms operators to play the competition authorities off against the communications regulator, creating a regulation void that gives rise to a phenomenon known as forum shopping. The recently promulgated Electronic Communications Act has made the problem worse.

General Motors is set to reap a giant-sized return on its investment into a Hummer assembly plant in Port Elizabeth. GM announced last year that it was investing $100-million (R773-million) into its South African operations, primarily in the production of the Hummer H3, a mid-size version of the vehicle Arnie Schwarzenegger made famous, the Hummer.

The annual taxation cycle is one of my pet hates. I know that the deadline is drawing nearer, but I tend to put off sending in my forms until the last minute, when it becomes a dash for the nearest post office. Then you wait to find out if you owe money or you have paid too much over the past year.

With just over 1 300 days to the World Cup kick-off, there are no signs of development in Bertrams, the run-down suburb adjoining the Ellis Park Stadium that hosts the opening event for 2010. Dilapidated and broken buildings house unemployed South Africans, refugees and illegal immigrants who pay between R200 and R1 000 rent per month, while the street corners are teeming with drug dealers who have been chased from the CBD.

While the global music industry is haemorrhaging and shrinking at alarming rates, South Africa’s music industry is booming — thanks in no small part to the phenomenal performance of locally produced music. On the whole South Africa’s recorded music market grew by 22% last year in the number of units sold.

Regulator Icasa, Cell-C, second network operator Neotel and the country’s internet service providers are putting new energy into tackling the interconnect regime that rakes in R5-billion to R6-billion a year each for cellphone giants Vodacom and MTN. The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa and most of these smaller telecommunications players support a new regime where interconnection fees will be charged at cost.