This week: International connection freed-up, MTN boss quits, negligible MNP effect, and arivia speaks out about sale.

It is easy for me, as a journalist, to criticise government on issues that make for good scandals, but are at times, irrelevant.

This Saturday I simply could not resist having a peek at what various vendors have done about mobile number portability.

Trusting SMSes can be hazardous, Joburg struggles to act on rogue police officers, Symantec supports Vista, and is screening people at airports with government security clearance is a waste of time?

ICASA is finally getting comment on frequency allocation. But is there really any point?

This week saw ICASA announce its councillors would get a pay hike, and news that IT CEOs earn less than their counterparts in other sectors.

No doubt Novell thinks that this new era of co-operation will give it a much-needed boost.

I am convinced the financial services industry is out to get me.

All is quiet on the ICT front, with Datatec's interim results dominating locally.

This week: Speculation about how much arivia.kom could sell for, and ICASA is confident of meeting the 10 November MNP deadline.

Botnets, spyware and malicious code on Windows PCs have little to do with bored crackers and everything to do with money these days.

Most of the money paid locally for software licences gets repatriated abroad, widening the country's current account deficit, and not necessarily boosting the local economy.