Work together on broadband, Cell C urges

May 13, 2015

Cell C CEO has called on government and the rest of the industry to work together to plan and roll out a new 4G – and eventually 5G – network across the country. He says the ultimate goal at Cell C is to roll out 4G and then to 5G. 5G will enable new...

Cell C will buy out phone contracts

May 13, 2015

Cell C is tackling the post-paid contract market by buying out new customers’ contracts with their existing telecommunications supplier.The company has spent the past two years stabilising the business and gaining critical mass in the prepaid subscriber space, and is now planning to extend the gains it has made into the contract space. Cell C currently has about 4 485 sites on air nationally and is aiming to increase this by about 1 300 this year. With the Cell C now operating nationwide, Vodacom now carries only about 8% of Cell C’s roaming voice traffic and 4% of its roaming data traffic.

Altron to restructure to boost performance

May 13, 2015

Allied Electronics (Altron) will look to restructure and refocus its business as the group’s performance continues to lag. This could include selling off parts of the business and diversifying into new markets. The group reports that, for the year ended 28 February 2015, revenue decreased by 1% to R27,6-billion and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) by 23% to R1,4-billion. Headline earnings per share (HEPS) declined by 50% to 94 cents.

Professional hacktivists are more ambitious

May 13, 2015

New research from market analyst Juniper Research suggests that the rapid digitisation of consumers’ lives and enterprise records will increase the cost of data breaches to $2,1-trillion globally by 2019, increasing to almost four times the estimated cost of breaches...

Verizon to acquire AOL in $4,4bn deal

May 13, 2015

Verizon Communications has signed an agreement to purchase AOL for $50 per share – an estimated total value of about $4,4-billion. Verizon’s acquisition further drives its LTE wireless video and OTT (over-the-top video) strategy. The agreement will also...

How to keep the lights on

May 13, 2015

Kathy Gibson reports from the Oracle CIO Summit in Sandton – South African companies can expect to be plunged into darkness for several hours every week for the next few years, and companies have a responsibility to stay in business. CIOs need to find ways to...