2009: The way we were

2009 has been an eventful year in the ICT sector and there are some occurrences that stand out more than others. ITWeb's news team recaps some of these events to give us the highlights of the year.

Paul Vecchiatto
Cape Town correspondent

No doubt the year was full of highlights, which actually started towards the end of 2008 when Altech won its court battle that allowed value added network services to gain fully fledged telecommunications licenses. The importance of this case was that it exposed the former policy of “managed liberalisation” for being what it truly was - a farce with no real basis in terms of either meeting real needs or being good for the country. Hopefully that should all be behind us.

Then the May general elections ushered in a “new administration”, especially in the Department of Communications, with former chief of the defence force Siphiwe Nyanda assuming the mantle of communications minister and a grass roots activist Dina Pule as his deputy.

The appointment of Mamopuphi Mohlala as director general came as a surprise due to her being a former, if somewhat controversial Icasa councilor and yet a person known for her outspoken views and a reputation for a single minded pursuit of an issue irrespective of whose toes she has stood on or whose shoulders she has climbed on.

Parliament's communications committee reconvened after the general elections and was almost a totally new committee. It had to deal with the governance and financial mess at the SA Broadcasting Corporation, which turned out to be a tedious affair for the most part, although it was punctuated by some amusing turns. This included the “I suck as a leader” comment from its former chairperson Khanyi Mkohonza.

Of course the big interest by Parliament was when the committee, at the prompting of Patricia de Lille, decided to examine the cellular network operators interconnection fee charges. This was said to be the main reason why the country's cell phone costs were so high.

The real benefit of the October/November hearings was that they generated much wider public interest in telecommunications as a whole and the realisation that prices need to come down. It also caused some interesting competition of its own between the legislative and the executive arms of government on who could deliver.

For a full roundup of this year's parliamentary highlights click here.

Candice Jones
Telecoms Editor

For me, the new Minister of Communications has proved to be the highlight of the year. While there is still a lot that he needs to do - or more importantly, to prove - there has been more movement in the Department of Communications in the last six months than there has been over the last ten years.

Watching the undersea cables race to our shoreline over the last few years has been fun. I have been a little disappointed by the response from industry - Seacom has been left scrambling for increased customer base - but I am sure it will pick up in the new year.

Coupled with the undersea cables is the prospect of getting a mass of fibre infrastructure across the country. Everyone is laying cable and soon there will be so much local capacity, we won't know what to do with it. Of course that may mean you could get cheaper local Internet surfing, possibly even free local surfing.

Nicola Mawson
Business / financial news journalist

The Huge Group's dabbling in future stocks got the company into hot water with the JSE this year. Huge bought 12.3 million shares between July and October last year, at an average price of 360c each. Since then, the shares have slid dramatically. The company lost R9.4 million and, if the share continues to slide, it could face a future loss of R10.2 million.

MTN and Bharti Airtel's proposed marriage collapsed at the last minute in September, when MTN said legal and regulatory issues had stopped the $24 billion deal from going ahead. The negotiations between MTN and Bharti, which began in May, could have resulted in the world's third-largest mobile operator, with more than 200 million subscribers.

Vodacom successfully listed on the JSE on 18 May, despite a last ditch attempt by the Congress of SA Trade Unions to stop the listing. Vodacom became one of the JSE's top 40 companies, with Telkom retaining its position on the list.

Audra Mahlong
Journalist

One of the biggest stories of the year, and still there'll be more to come in 2010. The city hid away from probing questions. Adapt IT only dragged itself out to clear its name. And the city manager justified it all when he called the website “really state-of-the-art stuff”.

Debates around amendments to the Labour Relations Act were particularly entertaining. The minister didn't fail to deliver with his cavalier statements inviting court challenges, while Cosatu threatened the country with mass action. All this before anyone knows what actual changes government is proposing.

The drama of the Gauteng Online schools project unfolded for most of this year. The GSSC claimed success while school governing bodies grew tired of the many problems of the project. Now that most schools are connected, 2010 is the year to demonstrate success.