Author: Gugu Lourie

African startups win a $10,000  prize each and a chance to share their insights about innovation in Africa with FinTech experts from around the world. By Staff Writer The Innotribe Startup Challenge attendees selected the three most promising FinTech companies during its second annual showcase for Africa. The event was held in Mauritius on Wednesday 18 May, in partnership with SWIFT’s African Regional Conference (ARC). The three winners of the African Startup Challenge are: Based in South Africa, Hello Paisa is a low cost international money transfer solution for remittances. “My experience at Innotribe has been invaluable. The quality of…

Vodacom announced today that it has achieved mobile speeds in excess of 1Gbps by aggregating both licensed and unlicensed bands for indoor coverage in its laboratory on 16 and 17 May 2016. “Breaking 1Gbps represents an important milestone for LTE network speeds in South Africa as it shows what can be achieved by combining adequate spectrum with the latest technology. Lack of spectrum has become one of the biggest hurdles in deploying high-speed broadband services to consumers,” Andries Delport, Vodacom’s Chief Technology Officer, said. “Vodacom believes that the trial demonstrates it is at the forefront of introducing cutting edge small…

The NBN has become an election issue in Australia with claims being made that the Australian public doesn’t want to pay for the the higher speed options of the National Broadband Network (NBN). By David Glance The Australian claims that only 15% of consumers have so far opted for speeds of 100 Mbps (Mega bits per second), with the bulk (47%) using the 25 Mbps service and the remaining 33% on the slowest speed of 12 Mbps. This purchase profile is being used as an argument against the need to change the Fiber To The Node approach of the current government,…

Cell C, in conjunction with Huawei, achieved speeds of over 600Mbps download on its LTE-U test site. Using a pre-commercial device, Cell C used 15MHz of its licensed spectrum in 2100MHz and 2 x 20MHz of spectrum in the 5GHz Wi-Fi band to conduct the test. Using this configuration with high modulation scheme technologies (256QAM) and carrier aggregation of the three frequency bands, Cell C achieved a top download speed of 630.13Mbps download and 46.27Mbps upload. Technically the company managed to complete a test of 900Mbps, however, this was through direct connection and is not a real world scenario. Cell…

MTN SA, on Wedneday announced that it has achieved the fastest indoor mobile data service in South Africa using LTE-Advanced technology. The service is able to provide customers with data speeds up to an incredible 1 Gbps, which is the first Gigabit per second speed ever recorded in South Africa using a mobile broadband connection. MTN’s LTE-Advanced solution uses Huawei’s latest small cell Lampsite product, which aggregates two unlicensed LTE 5GHz carriers (40MHz) with one licensed LTE 2100MHz carrier (15MHz), and combines this with next generation MIMO and modulation schemes. LTE-Unlicensed technology operates in the 5GHz unlicensed band, and is…

Local business telecoms provider BitCo will be introducing Fibre to the Cloud (FTTC) for the first time at the 2016 Cloud & Hosting Conference. The conference will be held at Gallagher Estate on 25 May and will be attended by South Africa’s top cloud and hosting executives and IT professionals. Offering convenient business connectivity, BitCo will be driving its fibre connectivity with special promotions for delegates. Speakers will share information about hosting services, data centres, cloud computing, virtualisation, hosting infrastructure and connectivity. BitCo’s managing director Jarryd Chatz points to the convenience that BitCo can offer. “Businesses that rely on cloud…

Payments platform provider Nomanini has achieved 1 500% growth in transactions over 20 months as the company successfully scales its mobile point-of-sale (PoS) platform for informal markets. Founded in 2010, Nomanini has designed a payments platform, which provides merchant aggregators with sophisticated business insights via a cloud-based platform, and merchants and micro-entrepreneurs in informal markets with the means to sell different types of services electronically and create a sustainable income. Having hit one million transactions in August 2014, the company has seen growth of 1 500 percent since then, and recently saw the 16 millionth transaction take place on its platform. Much of…

Unlike typically available cloud products, which are offered on an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) or Platform as a Service (PaaS) model, Vox Telecom is offering a turnkey solution that includes the network layer, virtual hosting, security, operating system and database, and applications. Vox Telecom’s new Microsoft Private Cloud Services portfolio combines the best of Microsoft’s applications with the power of cloud to offer medium-to-large companies a single supplier for all their communication, collaboration, CRM, and business intelligence needs – all as part of a fully managed service. “While Microsoft’s applications form a core part of how many companies operate,…

The Wi-Fi Forum SA has re-elected ICT industry veteran Andile Ngcaba as chairman and assigned portfolios to the other management committee members who will lead the body this year and into 2017. By Staff Writer With two-thirds of South Africans out in the cold when it comes to Internet access, the Wi-Fi Forum SA (WFFSA) will redouble its advocacy for public access Wi-Fi across South Africa. This commitment to universal service was made by the WFFSA’s “top three” who were again installed at the helm of the collaborative, self-regulating body this week. The WFFSA’s recently-elected Management Committee for 2016/2017 met…

South Africa’s telephone group Telkom is collaborating with Avaya, a global leader in business communications, software, systems and services, to offer Communications-as-a-Service to businesses across the country. Telkom will host Avaya’s innovative communications solutions and make them available to businesses in a cloud services model for the countries it operates in across Africa. Telkom will focus on Contact Centre-as-a-Service (CCaaS) solutions, enabling organisations to purchase the capacity and services they require as needed, without large upfront costs. Telkom will also provide Unified Communications-as-a-Service (UCaaS) offerings. “As Africa looks to play a greater role in the global economy, African businesses are…

The unemployment rate in South Africa is at an 11-year high, with 5.7 million people finding themselves without a job. The technological boom in the financial sector is not only making waves in innovation, but it’s also creating jobs and redefining employment roles within existing, traditional businesses. By Glen Jordan, director of startup fintech firm, IMB, based in Cape Town. Technology can create employment opportunities Confidence in South Africa from a financial and investor point of view, is the lowest it has been in 5 years, according to Rand Merchant Bank’s Bureau for Economic Research. Because of the somber outlook…

MTN is raising the levels of customer experience to the retail shop experience at your nearest mall. By Gugu Lourie Larry Annetts, Chief Consumer Officer at MTN South Africa, on Monday afternoon “let the cat out of the bag” when he said the country’s second biggest mobile phone operator had opened its first digital store. The high-tech retail store, which is designed to offer a seamless in-store customer experience, is situated at the newly opened Mall of Africa. The newly opened mall is Africa’s largest single-phase shopping centre, situated at the heart of Waterfall in Midrand, between Johannesburg and Pretoria.…

Staying relevant in a disruptive environment is top of mind for businesses today. To succeed, businesses must start evaluating innovative new cloud approaches, says Interactive Intelligence. By Andre le Roux, Africa region MD for Interactive Intelligence The advent of the ‘Uber era’ has traditional businesses running scared. While business disruption isn’t new, the world is now seeing a perfect storm of accelerated technology innovation and rapidly changing consumer expectations that’s bringing unprecedented disruption and threatening established players across all markets. Very often one finds that the fear of the unknown or a reliance on ‘the way it has always been done’…

The agriculture and Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sectors are heading for a union that is being brought about by natural calamity, economic developments and changes in the ICT space. By Mariana Kruger, General Manager for Private Sector at MTN Business South Africa Natural disasters such as drought, coupled with farmers’ security and the rising operational costs in the agricultural space are driving the quest to help improve safety, efficiency and stimulate growth. ICT advancements such as the Internet of Things (IoT), improved connectivity, monitoring and control applications as well as M2M technology present an opportunity for farmers to help improve…

Figures released ahead of SWIFT’s 23rd African Regional Conference shows South Africa has outperformed the total growth of SWIFT globally with significant traffic increase across treasury markets SWIFT, is a global member-owned cooperative and is the secure messaging system banks use to exchange payment details. In the year to date, message volumes grew by 13.7%, driven by a big increase in treasury traffic of 72.2%. Securities traffic is also up 16.4%. This illustrates that even through turbulent economic times, South African volume growth remains robust. The rest of the continent has also seen major growth. Total message traffic volumes have…

Uber driver partners to be licensed as transport operators. The Gauteng Department of Roads and Transport has taken an official decision to license Uber driver partners as public transport operators. “The aim is to ensure the continuation of a public transport service for the people of Gauteng, who have come to rely on Uber as a mode of transport,” Gauteng Roads and Transport MEC Ismail Vadi said on Monday. He was speaking during the launch of the process of regulating Uber partner drivers as public transport operators. According to the Provincial Regulatory Entity (PRE) regulations, any public operator should be…

If recent moves are anything to go by, Naspers is ready to compete with the best on the global stage. Bob van Dijk is making his boldest move yet by betting on global start-ups such as LetGo and Twiggle in an apparent effort to compete against established giants including Amazon, Craiglist and eBay on their home turf. By Gugu Lourie Van Dijk is also aggressively expanding Naspers’ internet TV services ShowMax across the African continent to defend its market against Netflix and other local players such as iROKOtv. The Dutch-born CEO of Naspers has the financial muscle to do so.…

Despite the many benefits of moving to the cloud, South African businesses are still hesitant to make the transition. There is still much uncertainty about the move and how it will affect business. By Steven Cohen According to Vodacom Business, 32% of South African businesses are not confident that data is secure when using a cloud service. There are several reasons why wariness of transitioning to the cloud exists such as: Loss of control. Handing the performance of your business over to a 3rd What if the system fails? What position will the business be in if it isn’t able to…

Fintech is disrupting the way ordinary Africans manage and use money. And these fintech players are standing up to traditional institutions as a force to be reckoned with. By Dominique Collett Accenture estimates that over one-third of mainstream financial services’ revenue is at risk due to disruption in the industry from fintech. Many reports show how the rapid development of African fintech, which exploded in the years following the 2008 global meltdown, is threatening established players in the mainstream financial services sector. Africa is fertile ground for new fintech services which are leveraging the power of communities and social media to…

MTN today unveiled its first digital store at the newly opened Mall of Africa – Africa’s largest single-phase shopping centre, situated at the heart of Waterfall in Midrand, north of Johannesburg. The high-tech retail store is designed to offer a seamless in-store customer experience. The flagship store is the first of many to be rolled-out in South Africa, and caters to convenience and simplicity. Showcasing the latest devices as well as state-of-the-art technology, the store is geared towards self-service, one-on-one engagements and a digitally enhanced experience. The Mall of Africa store offers key functionalities such as interactive digital screens, electronic…

Vodacom on Monday posted a slight rise in earnings for the year to end-March 2016, boosted by mobile data usage but the mobile phone operator’s performance is not demonstrating consistent growth. By Gugu Lourie The mobile phone operator, owned by British cellular giant Vodafone, reported a fairly muted 2.7% rise in headline earnings per share (EPS) to 883 cents for the year to end March 2016, negatively impacted by remeasurement of foreign currency denominated intergroup loans and one-off BEE charges. Headline EPS is the main profit gauge in South Africa. At home in South Africa, Vodacom EBITDA growth was…

Vodacom on Monday disclosed how much it paid to buy Altech Autopage Cellular customers from JSE-listed firm Altron Group. By Gugu Lourie South Africa’s biggest mobile phone operator informed investors on the JSE on Monday that it paid R717 million to acquire Autopage subscribers. Effective 16 March 2016, Vodacom bought its Altech Autopage mobile customer base from Autopage for a consideration of R717 million. “Of this total consideration, R144 million represents deferred consideration which was outstanding as at 31 March 2016. The fair value of the net identifiable assets acquired amounted to R349 million. The goodwill of R368 million represents…

Vodacom, South Africa’s biggest mobile phone operator, on Monday posted a 5.2% rise in revenue to R62 billion for the year to end-March 2016 and also added 2.1 million new customers on its network. By Gugu Lourie The company’s total customers rose to 34.2 million, reflecting a 6.4% rise compared to the same period in 2014. Vodacom, which is majority owned by British giant Vodafone, said prepaid customers rose 7.6% to 29.3 million while contract subscribers were flat at 4.9 million users. The telco added that its data revenue was up 27.7% to R17.3 billion, driven by improved access to more…

There are plenty of smartphone apps that can help map your movements as you are driving, cycling, running or just out for a good walk. Many of these apps encourage you to share your route publicly on websites or with friends on social media. By Farhad Farokhi Some people even go to extreme lengths to pre-plan their routes to produce maps with entertaining shapes. What many people don’t realise is that by using such apps, you could be giving away information that could be abused by others. For example, in the UK last year, police in Hull revealed how a spate…

The Deputy Minister of Telecommunications and Postal Services Hlengiwe Mkhize and the Vice Minister of Cyber Space Administration of the People’s Republic of China Wang Xiujun concluded a successful South Africa – China Internet Roundtable in Durban, eThekwini. Delegates included representatives of government departments, State-Owned Companies, the private sector, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Small, Micro and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMMEs), industry associations, advisory bodies and other government agencies. The roundtable took the form of a series of public meetings between the delegations wherein they explored possible areas of cooperation and partnerships. Opportunities to incubate ICT SMMEs were also explored. The…