Author: Staff Writer

Global cloud communications company Infobip has announced its full Communications Platform-as-a-Service offering is now available on Microsoft Azure, thereby extending the enterprise customer base globally for Infobip – particularly in the finance, eCommerce and retail sectors, and allow it to expand its core market footprint. The Azure deployment is the latest step in Infobip’s technology collaboration with Microsoft that sees Infobip adding its omnichannel capability to Microsoft’s platforms for the benefit of all enterprise and B2B customers seeking easy to scale customer engagement and customer service solutions that span contact centre, marketing, security and authentication services. As the company edges…

ICASA, the country’s communications watchdog, is extending the temporary radio frequency spectrum assignments for licensees. Last April, ICASA released the emergence high-demand spectrum to meet the spike in broadband services demand due to COVID-19. Today, ICASA said it has resolved to review the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) COVID-19 National Disaster Regulations (The Regulations) and extend the temporary radio frequency spectrum assignments issued to licensees for another two months (from 1 April 2021 to 31 May 2021). The temporary release of high demand spectrum (HDS) to licensees aimed to mitigate the impact of the national state of disaster following the…

In 2020, Vodacom became the first telco globally to zero-rate the lifesaving addressing technology, What3words, for its 43 million subscribers across South Africa. Fast forward 10 months and the system has been used by over 14,000 Vodacom subscribers. Today, Vodacom is highlighting some of the real-life callers from the Western Cape area who have used the technology in an emergency, and who were able to receive fast medical help thanks to the accurate address. Dr Shaheem de Vries Medical Director WCGH Emergency Medical Services Western Cape Government Health ‘A construction worker in Salt River fell on duty, knocked unconscious…

Liquid Intelligent Technologies (Liquid), a pan-African technology group, has appointed Sandile Ntsele as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for its South Africa operations, effective 15 April 2021. Sandile has extensive experience working in senior finance roles, most recently as the CFO for MTN South Africa. He will be instrumental in overseeing Liquid South Africa’s corporate and financial strategy as the organisation repositions itself and optimise its network and technological capabilities to deliver on its corporate vision of enabling a digitally connected future that leaves no African behind. “We are delighted to welcome Sandile to Liquid. His in-depth understanding of the industry…

The consultancy agreement between Explore AI, a Cape Town-based technology consulting company, and British water utility Thames Water has been extended. Explore-AI has been confirmed as a prefered Data Science partner. In 2019, Explore AI, the consulting division within the Explore Group (which also houses the Explore Data Science Academy), was tasked with delivering the analytics involved in monitoring the water flow within Thames Water’s vast distribution piping network. One initiative built an app to help Thames Water’s leakage technician identify which pipes are most likely to have leaks, enabling them to improve their productivity. The project has been an…

Discovery Bank today released a special report which shows South Africans take up to 29 years to change their bank accounts – that’s roughly 70% longer than the British and double the time of Americans. Titled “The application of shared value banking: A focus on interest rates and the potential benefits for South Africans,” the report showed that younger clients, and those who are digitally engaged, are 20% more likely to change their banks than the average banking client in South Africa. The bank’s research highlighted the impact of three major financial trends which are having a positive effect to…

Dimension Data has appointed Nompumelelo Mokou as the Managing Director for its Southern Africa business. Her appointment is effective 1 April 2021. Mokou joined Dimension Data in 2016 and has most recently headed up its Intelligent Customer Experience business for the Middle East and Africa, where she achieved significant market share, revenue and profitable growth. “The increasing focus on business transformation and digitisation among our clients, coupled with the unique assets combined during the One Dimension Data integration last year creates significant differentiation and opportunities for us in our biggest market. I am very excited about the future of this…

Oppo Reno5, the perfect gaming phone, is now available in South Africa, exclusively at Vodacom and MTN stores. Oppo said the Reno5 is geared to offer an alternative option to the growing number of South Africans that are quickly adapting to an online method of working, earning and living. The latest smartphone was officially launched today in South Africa. The starting price for Reno5 is R14 999.00. It promises to provide the fastest charging phone in the market. “With a built-in output charging pin, the device gets to 100% in just 36 minutes safely, to ensure better usage and functionality…

Asus is looking for South Africa’s top creative talent to kick start their careers with R100,000 in cash together with some epic prizes. They are calling all types of creatives and anything goes as long as it can fit into a ninety-second to three-minute video. “We don’t care if you are keen to do an Ariana cover, drop your own original track, do a standup routine or if you want to show us an interpretive dance take on ‘War and Peace’” says Asus Systems Country Marketing Manager, Juan Mouton. “As long as you are original, so we don’t want to…

Data from multinational research firm BrandsEye painted a bad picture of Rain as the worst mobile network in South Africa. BrandsEye today released its latest SA Telcos Sentiment Index, which analysed about two million social media posts about telco providers: Cell C, MTN, Rain, Telkom, and Vodacom throughout the year. The index found that some telcos received significantly more negativity on social media platforms than others. Each post received a sentiment rating – positive, neural, or negative – which was used to calculate a Net Sentiment ranking for each telco. BrandsEye said newcomer Rain ranked last, scoring over 20 percentage…