Author: Gugu Lourie
Privately owned pan-African telecoms group Liquid Telecom and investment firm Royal Bafokeng Holdings (RBH) have agreed to buy Neotel from India’s Tata Communications for R6.55 billion, to create the largest pan-African broadband network. By Staff Writer Liquid Telecom is a privately owned pan-African telecoms group, majority owned by Econet Global. The deal, which is subject to regulatory approvals, is transformative and will create the largest pan-African broadband network. Through a single access point, businesses across Africa will be able to access 40 000kms of cross-border, metro and access fibre networks. These currently span 12 countries from South Africa to Kenya, with further…
With the amount of personal data stored on hard drives, one would expect companies to wipe these crucial devices clean before donating or selling them. Hard drives are especially targeted by syndicates because they are easy to resell. Xperien CEO Wale Arewa urges organisations to fully erase all personal data from all hard drives. “And that means more than simply hitting delete. Many people will presume that pressing the delete button on a computer file means that it is gone forever. However, this information can be easily recovered.” “We live in a world where personal and company information is a…
As the world continues to become increasingly connected, organisations are faced with large quantities of data they need to protect and make sense of. International Data Corporation (IDC) predicts that 66 percent of CEOs will have digital transformation at the centre of their corporate strategy and 65 percent of large enterprises will become information-based companies, significantly increasing the value of their data assets by 2020. Organisations must, therefore, stop talking about security and rather focus on the risk to high-value data assets. This is the view of Jon Tullett, research manager at IDC Sub-Saharan Africa. “It is about time the…
We all know the nutritional “evils” of sugar as a potential cause of obesity, chronic disease and death, through to being a potentially brain damaging substance. By Duane Mellor and Nenad Naumovski However, sugar has been part of the human diet for millennia, and it has some fascinating and highly practical uses. Preserving and drying We all know that jam contains sugar, but it’s not just there to make it sweeter. Food has a short shelf life if it is not properly stored or preserved. So preserving including curing was vital to ensure food continues to be available year round in the days…
The rise of so-called fintech companies will make it easier, and cheaper, to undertake monthly mundane transactions. By Andries Kok, CFO of Payaccsys In just the same way as Uber disrupted the per-kilometre taxi sector, PayPal disrupted the money transfer business and WhatsApp disrupted the mobile industry, technology is set to disrupt the banking sector. Yet, the changes that are coming, to the way small businesses, entrepreneurs and people bank, should not be seen as a threat, but an opportunity for small companies to save money, and for banks to outsource some of their functions and achieve economies of scale. In…
More than 20 years after the first web server started bringing the internet into our lives, a recent conference in San Francisco brought together some of its creators to discuss its future. By Sam Hinton The general tone of the conference is probably best summed up by the Electronic Frontiers Foundation’s Cory Doctorow: In the last twenty years, we’ve managed to nearly ruin one of the most functional distributed systems ever created: today’s Web. This might seem like a surprising statement. To many of us, the web has become an indispensable part of modern life. It’s the portal through which we…
MTN, Africa and Middle East largest mobile phone group, has hit back at criticism by Black Management Forum (BMF) and the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) over its appointment of a white CEO – Rob Shuter. By Staff Writer MTN defended a decision to appoint Shuter, outgoing Vodafone’s CEO of the European cluster and ex-CEO of Vodafone Netherlands and Vodacom chief financial officer. This week BMF said in a statement that this appointment by MTN contributes to the steady decline in the number of black South Africans at the leadership helm in companies. Shuter replaces Sifiso Dabengwa, who left the mobile…
The banking group has issued a warning and is urging its customers to be more vigilant due to increasing banking scams in the country. “In an attempt to steal personal details, fraudsters often send emails with attachments purporting to be a payment notification or bank statements,” FNB said in a note on its website. FNB added that fraudsters are notorious for sending emails, often with links or attachments purporting to be a payment notification or bank statement (see example below). In this case the email requests you to redeem an epayment from SARS. …
Back in 2014, MTN – South Africa’s second biggest mobile phone operator – shelled out R408 million to buy 50% (plus one share) of the internet service provider Afrihost. Everyone literally swept this deal under the carpet. By Gugu Lourie Now, MTN is planning to dispose of its 50.02% shareholding in Afrihost. The company says this is in line with its strategy of focusing on core business and pursuing opportunities in relevant adjacent businesses. MTN claims that evolving market circumstances have resulted in it reviewing its ownership in Afrihost. As a result, MTN has agreed to dispose of its shareholding to…
The world’s largest single-dish radio telescope, FAST (the Five hundred metre Aperture Spherical Telescope), is rapidly taking shape in China. By Douglas Bock At 500 metres in diameter, it would only just fit under the arch of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. To put this into astronomical perspective, the Parkes Radio Telescope has a diameter of 64 metres, with a collecting area – the amount of surface that the radio waves can bounce off – of 3,216 m2. FAST, on the other hand, has a collecting area of 196,000 m2, which is 61 times greater. Radio waves raining down from the cosmos…