The most ludicrous statement of the week was MTN claiming that if the regulator "interferes" with wholesale call termination pricing structures, mobile market penetration and even the government's Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative will be negatively affected.
Well-known market commentator Arthur Goldstuck mentioned to me that the regulator should stand up to such ridiculous claims. Few would argue.
It is well-known that the network operators have managed to artificially inflate the price of calls by charging each other high interconnect rates. For MTN to say that intervention to bring these interconnect rates to fairer levels will take away revenues used to connect the poor is transparent. I doubt anybody believes them.
235 reasons to sue
On the international front, Microsoft caused a stir this week by claiming that open source software users must pay royalties on 235 alleged patent violations. Without even debating the validity of these wild claims, there are some good, practical reasons why this is a bad move by the software giant - something brought out excellently in a column by journalist Paul Furber.
DA opposes Msimang's appointment
The Democratic Alliance was vocal this week in response to the recent appointment of former SITA CEO Mavuso Msimang (who has sexual harassment charges hanging over his head) as the director-general of the Home Affairs Department.
Sometimes allegations are proven to be false - as the Zuma saga showed us.
Dave Glazier, journalist, ITWeb
The opposition also questioned whether or not Msimang will be able to devote enough time to turning around the much-criticized department - since he already serves on the boards of over 20 companies.
I think the second point may be a more reasonable argument than the first. Msimang hasn't been found guilty of any wrongdoing, so why penalize him? Sometimes allegations are proven to be false - as the Zuma saga showed us.
Infraco a go
Government`s new broadband infrastructure company, Infraco, went operational this week. The quietly-spoken Dave Smith will be in charge of operations, according to public enterprises minister, Alec Erwin.
Infraco will partner with various groups (like the SA Research Network and the Square Kilometer Array Radio Telescope consortium) to provide a series of new platforms for bandwidth expansion and affordability.
SARS's plan comes together
The SA Revenue Service awarded its long-awaited network refurbishment and customs scanner tenders this week. The big winners were Nuctech Company, American Science and Engineering, L3 Communications Security and Detection, GijimaAST, Dimension Data and Bytes.
Some of the sections for the networks tender have not actually been awarded - in these cases two preferred bidders have been named and asked to fight it out for the relevant portion of the contract. Therefore - while it is not quite all over - in most areas of both contracts, work can finally begin.
eNatis fiasco continues
The eNatis fiasco (as one senior government official described it as this week) is still making the headlines. The Department of Transport is blaming Telkom for a recent operational problem in the R400 million project. Metro Police Chief Superintendent Wayne Minnaar even reported that disgruntled people were threatening to damage property, and the Metro police had to deploy officers to monitor the situation, which almost turned ugly.
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