MyBroadband

The official ANC website (anc.org.za) was taken down on14 June 2013 through a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack by Anonymous Africa for being “one of the biggest enablers of the mass murdering Mugabe”.

The ANC website is hosted on a dedicated server on Afrihost’s network, managed by Unwembi Communications.

Afrihost CEO Gian Visser confirmed that the ANC website came under attack at 10:00, and was still under attack at the time of publication.

Orange Horizons CEO, Sébastien Crozier says that French based global operator Orange wants to be virtual mobile operator (MVNO) in South Africa. This is the clearest statement yet of the group’s ambitions as a serious player in the mobile space in South Africa.

South Africa already has a MVNO, in Virgin Mobile South Africa, which has only 500,000 customers and operates with limited success.

On Thursday (13 June) Orange announced a partnership with Nashua Mobile, to open its first retail outlets in SA outside of its current operator footprint.

MWEB Business has launched a new satellite Internet service aimed at rural communities, farmers and other areas where standard broadband access is not available.

MWEB Business GM Andre Joubert said that Internet access has always been problematic, if not impossible, for individuals and businesses located in regions where ADSL, 3G and even electricity is unavailable or unreliable.

Telkom says it will appeal the fine handed down to it by the Competition Tribunal in August for abusing its dominance in the telecommunications market between 1999 and 2004. Shares in Telkom declined 1.71% to R19.56 in afternoon trade on the JSE.

“Telkom wishes to advise shareholders that, Telkom has filed a notice of appeal against the said ruling. Telkom will now have forty business days to file the record of appeal before the matter can be set down for hearing by the Competition Appeal Court,” the group said in a statement on Thursday (30 August).

Internet Service Provider (ISP) Afrihost announced on Wednesday that their capped ADSL subscribers will get more value for money, with higher data allowances for the same price.

“A Bronze client who pays R29pm for 1GB will now receive 2GB for the same amount. A Platinum product user with a 100GB account for R950pm will now get 120GB of data without paying a single cent more – bringing prices down to below R8 per GB,” said Afrihost director, Greg Payne.

The Global Information Technology Report 2012 has been released by the World Economic Forum, examining the success of 142 countries in using information and communications technology to boost economic competitiveness.

The report, which features the latest results of the Networked Readiness Index (NRI), offering an overview of the current state of ICT readiness in the world, says the digital divide persists between developed and developing countries – and even in regions like Europe.

Neotel is currently trialing various broadband technologies with the aim of improving their broadband offerings, including LTE and fibre.

“We are trialing various technologies including LTE, both fibre and wireless, as part of the continual improvement of broadband services to our customers,” Neotel said in response to questions about their LTE plans.

“LTE is regarded globally as the successor technology to all current 3G technologies, including CDMA [which Neotel is currently using for their NeoFlex and NeoConnect services].”

Search giant Google revealed South African smartphone statistics from survey results that were recently published online. Google recently unveiled the results of a new global survey on smartphone usage and mobile marketing, available freely online at a website called Our Mobile Planet.

The survey, entitled “Global Mobile Research: The Smartphone User & The Mobile Marketer,” was conducted earlier this year.

Google highlighted the following findings of the South African portion of the survey.

“The explosion of broadband data usage in South Africa and internationally is creating an ever-growing set of coverage and capacity challenges that cannot be addressed effectively by any single technology,” Winston Smith, head of Alvarion in South Africa, is quoted in a press statement issued this week.

Smith added that the same is true for all types of wireless broadband networks from tier 1 mobile carriers to wireless internet service providers, enterprises, governments and municipalities, and private network operators.

The AfricaCom Awards winners were announced this week (9 November), with MTN, SEACOM, Main One, Orange, Helios Towers, Ericsson, Huawei, Gateway Communications, SkyVision and SafariCom winning awards. MTN South Africa scooped two awards – best network improvement for their LTE trial network and the best marketing campaign for its MTN Zone re-launch. It’s a shame that network improvement does not yet seem to have hit Ghana (see story on NCA fines below).