Telecoms field changes before our eyes

Monday brought news of the State IT Agency`s (SITA`s) biggest project in its history - establishing an integrated financial management system for provincial and national government structures. Over the next seven years SITA expects to spend R10 billion on the project. The purpose is to integrate government finance, human resources, asset management, logistics and other line-of-business solutions, into a single distributed transversal system.

But, just as one begins to applaud government`s plans to become more organised and understandable, people are still wondering why Denel`s 23% stake in State-owned IT group arivia.kom was transferred to transport and electricity utilities Transnet and Eskom. It`s a move that makes little sense given the government`s policy of disinvestment by State-owned enterprises from non-core assets.

In the middle of this was a 'hush-hush` announcement that Telkom will spend up to R30 billion on a next-generation network over the next five years.

Dave Glazier, junior journalist, ITWeb

Fixed-line monopoly Telkom was once again big news over the past few days with Monday`s report that wage negotiations had resumed. Then on Thursday, Solidarity and Telkom confirmed the trade union had accepted the revised wage offer. A Telkom spokesperson said 60% of its workers had accepted the wage offer.

In the middle of this was a 'hush-hush` announcement (either the company didn`t want to provoke too much interest, or maybe it organised the announcement badly) that it will spend up to R30 billion on a next-generation network over the next five years.

We also heard from a financial analyst that it is unlikely competition authorities would have problems with Telkom`s proposed acquisition of Business Connexion (BCX). He adds that the effective R9.25 per share being offered is far above fair value for BCX.

This week saw Vodacom roll-out its third-generation high-speed downlink packet access (3G HSDPA), which promises download speeds of up to 1.8Mbps. The reliability has yet to be proven, but initial indications look good.

Finally, we reported that US outsourcing giant EDS is selling a 20% stake of its South African division to the black empowerment consortium Koketso Gravitas. Though the value of the deal has not been revealed, EDS South Africa was valued at just under R1 billion seven years ago when Dimension Data sold its 50% stake in the division back to its US principal.