Author: Chris Anu

The V60 Lite 5G is Vivo’s latest new device in the South African market. Chinese original equipment manufacturer (OEM) Vivo is aiming to clinch a top three spot in SA’s postpaid smartphone market, as it looks for bigger market share locally. This is according to Tony Shi, general manager of Vivo SA, speaking at the unveiling of the brand’s latest device – the V60 Lite 5G – to media this morning.“This year, our target was to get around 10% market share on postpaid,” Shi stated. “Next year, we hope we can get the top three spot on the Android system…

Government is looking to develop a register for all drones that are operated, distributed or sold in South Africa. The transport department has published a draft document for public comment proposing that all drones – or remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPAS), as it calls them – must be registered. Currently, the South African Civil Aviation Authority regulates drones within the national airspace. But according to the draft strategy, the regulator is “under-capacitated and under-resourced”, resulting in licensing delays. The authority also takes a “fairly traditional” approach to drone regulation, the department found. Matters related to drones are somewhat disorderly, with…

MTN SA has upgraded its core network. MTN South Africa, in partnership with Ericsson, has completed the modernisation of its core network.According to the telecommunications company, the modernisation brings benefits to SA’s mobile infrastructure, including reduced latency, enhanced data throughput and strengthened overall user experience, providing more reliable and seamless connectivity.As part of the modernisation, MTN SA deployed cloud-native Packet Core and user management functions from the dual-mode 5G Core solution on Ericsson’s Cloud Native Infrastructure Solution in an expedited timeframe in the first half of this year, says the telco.In addition to the rollout of the new cloud-native functions,…

Headlines are filled with companies torn apart by cyberattacks. A single breach can expose thousands of records, ransomware can freeze operations instantly and millions can vanish in hours. Customers walk away, trust collapses and brands that took decades to build can be destroyed overnight. For business owners, these are not distant stories. They are urgent warnings. Cybercrime does not respect borders, industries or company size. Whether you run a multinational enterprise or a small local business, the moment you connect to the internet, you are already a target. The dangerous gamble Despite this reality, countless companies still gamble with their…

The Milky Way above the SKA-Mid telescope. (Photograph by SKAO) The first five Square Kilometre Array (SKA)-Mid telescope dishes have been assembled and brought into operation on site in South Africa.This emerged at last week’s G20 research and innovation ministerial meeting in Pretoria, where the SKA Observatory (SKAO) briefed representatives on the construction progress of the world’s largest and most sensitive radio telescope arrays.Over 10 years in the making, the SKA project is an international effort to build the world’s largest radio telescope. South Africa and Australia are joint project hosts.In total, there will be 197 SKA-Mid dishes, stretching across…

ACT CEO Nomvuyiso Batyi The Electronic Communications Act must be amended to accelerate connectivity in South Africa through better infrastructure investment, an industry lobby group has said. Nomvuyiso Batyi, a former director-general in the department of communications and now CEO of the Association of Comms and Technology (ACT), has said that despite progress, there are still communities who are not connected to broadband internet even though it is a critical enabler of the digital economy. Reasons for this vary from a lack of infrastructure sharing and policy ambiguity to no direct public funding or targeted incentives. Effective infrastructure sharing regulation…

Three provincial departments have issued advertisements that will be of interest to the ICT industry. Last week’s celebration of Heritage Day saw activity on National Treasury’s eTenders Portal slowing and turning to less substantial requirements. However, three of the country’s provincial departments came to the party with advertisements that will pique the ICT industry’s interest.First up is the Eastern Cape Department of Economic Development and Environmental Affairs, which is extending an invitation for proposals from qualified service providers to develop a comprehensive asset finance solution for movable IT assets.The department notes its current lease agreement for IT equipment has expired,…

Artificial intelligence has long lurked in the shadows of cybersecurity. It has filtered abnormal logons, flagged odd traffic and traced malware signatures. Recently though, with OpenAI, Google and others pushing out large language models, its claws have sharpened. Now AI fights on two fronts. It defends us and attacks through us. In South Africa, we’re feeling both sides. On one hand, defenders can lean on AI to sift noise, to spot threats early. On the other, attackers mine the same tools. They scan for weak spots, conjure phishing that reads like human speech and spin up deepfakes that fool both…

Lungile Mginqi, digital transformation strategist. IT cost has become the boardroom’s polite fiction. Everyone nods when the numbers are presented − very few believe those numbers explain whether the spend is truly worth it.Boards ask: Why are we pouring so much into IT without proof of value? CEOs ask: Is this budget fuelling growth − or quietly subsidising inefficiency? CIOs ask themselves how to justify spend when technology is treated as both a cost centre and a value driver.The uncomfortable truth: costs keep climbing while conviction collapses. We’ve mistaken cost management for strategy. Until cost is reframed as an allocation…

This is being called the year of the “Windows 11 refresh”, and the opportunity to stay ahead of the pack is quickly narrowing. The shift to Windows 11 is happening now: the new generation of Windows 11 PCs is often referred to as the most secure, the fastest and the most intelligent PCs yet – arriving with AI-powered features, built-in security protections and state-of-the-art creativity, it’s the Windows you know, and more. Whether your company has already rolled out the operating system or is still finalising procurement, the critical question is no longer when you will move, but this: how…