Looking overseas

The story generating the most heated reader response this week was Mondays' article concerning the continually worrying trend of SA firms looking overseas for skilled ICT labour. Numerous large firms have said there is a serious lack of skills in SA.

The Cape IT Initiative's Viola Manuel's suggestion that government should provide tax incentives to encourage companies to develop skills (as evidenced in Ireland) seems to be a good point.

It was interesting to hear, at a recent conference, chairman of the Government IT Organisation, Mmamathe Makhekhe-Mokhuane, actually say: "Government is not able to retain skilled people, let alone attract them."

If this is the message coming from inside government, the outlook looks bleak.

The State IT Agency (SITA) this week denied that CEO Mavuso Msimang's departure was related to tensions between himself and the organisation's board, stemming from his business-like style and their academic bureaucracy.

Reports of such tensions are completely untrue, says a spokesperson.

In my experience, Msimang is a patient man - and I doubt he would have left without really trying to make others at SITA see his way of thinking. There is still no clarity on who the incoming CEO is to be.

If this is the message coming from inside government, the outlook looks bleak.

Dave Glazier, journalist, ITWeb

Telkom spoke a little more about its R30 billion NGN network upgrade project this week. The fixed-line operator believes that, by 2011, over a third of its infrastructure will be of the "next-generation" kind.

The ability to run high-speed Internet (and all the associated benefits), and voice traffic, through the same pipes is an exciting prospect. It will take some time to migrate, that seems clear, but Telkom's offering, by the end of this long process, promises to be excellent.

The investigation into documents seized at Verizon's Johannesburg offices last year is still ongoing, following search-and-seizure legal action by Internet Solutions, says a lawyer acting on behalf of the company.

Cliffe Dekker attorney Eugene Bester confirms the investigation is ongoing. He was unable to provide a timeline as to when it will be concluded. It has emerged that one of the other key lawyers in the process, Sue Hayes, has left Cliffe Dekker in recent months.

Our cellular operators are fighting again. This time it is MTN and Cell C, with the larger operator denying it owes Cell C millions in an interconnection feud. Last year saw Vodacom and Cell C engage in a massive argument about who was at fault for a network failure.

Cell C has reportedly complained to the competition authorities, claiming that MTN owes it R200 million in interconnection fees. MTN says it is "surprised" at this claim. My question: how can there be any ambiguity over R200 million in interconnection fees. Surely there are financial reporting measures in place to ensure no confusion can occur?

Wireless broadband operator iBurst's growth objectives are being constrained by the unavailability of suitable base station property, according to the company's MD, Alan Knott-Craig Junior.

The demand for base station landing sites, he says, has pushed rental prices up unrealistically - hindering the company's ability to roll out new base stations in accordance with its ambitious expansion plans. As iBurst seeks to double its subscriber base this year, it looks unlikely it will achieve these objectives without being able to build new stations.

Under pressure from municipal wireless rollouts springing up in test phases all over the country, from Wimax trials from the likes of Telkom and Altech, and Neotel's impending rollouts, iBurst needs to generate a greater footprint as quickly as possible.

In other wireless broadband news, some industry observers have noted that recent price reductions be the beginning of a price war. Sentech, MTN and iBurst recently announced some positive price adjustments and package restructuring for their respective offerings.

However, some market commentators have also pointed out that the long-term impact may not be that great. MyADSL's Rudolph Muller, the ever-critical consumer activist, is unusually upbeat about the new prices, saying they "compare with international standards and are globally competitive".

While it could be said that the "back-and-forths" of the ICT Charter have left many disillusioned, it seems that the charter could be gazetted as a code of good practice before the end of the month, according to a member of the industry steering committee.

It is understood that the final code will bear little relation to industry's final draft, due to extensive changes in the Department of Trade and Industry's BEE Codes of Good Practice.