This just in. MTN is about to rollout their new high speed LTE network. This is great news in SA’s current very competitive broadband space – but LTE is a newer wireless internet standard which has not been rolled out at this scale in SA yet.

However the final speeds are still a big improvement over existing wireless broadband solutions, but the biggest improvement is in latency, with around 20ms times. Compare this to current high speed HSPA+ connections, which typically do not get faster than 60ms. This will of course be beneficial for people who like their online gaming, but also for things like VoIP.

These new fibre backed network clusters only have around 600 meters coverage per antenna, which means that a significant effort is required to roll out this service, and it will not be available everywhere at first (in other words, typically city areas).

But here is the full scoop:

Today MTN announced the launch of a Long Term Evolution (LTE) pilot in five clusters around Gauteng that will revolutionise the provisioning of broadband services in South Africa.

The LTE rollout and pilot test, which MTN is undertaking in partnership with Huawei and Ericsson, will see selected MTN customers with provisioned dongles reaping the benefits of navigating on an ultra-high speed network that boasts speeds of up to 70Mbps across over 100 sites (more…)

Born out of an existing family business in 2008, GetSmarter has grown from strength to strength since its inception. The company is positioned as a high-touch online education company that works together with top universities and industry experts to deliver online short courses throughout South Africa. These short courses run for 10 weeks and include about 70 hours of comprehensive learning for their students. Having trained over 7,000 students in just a few short years, the future of online education is looking extremely bright. The company’s second year saw it grow by a massive 300%, and subsequent annual growth has been steady at 170% year on year.

It now boasts 50 employees and works with a network of 20 teachers throughout the country to teach people online. Rob Paddock, who has recently taken over from his brother Sam as Managing Director, explains, “We’ve moved offices three times in the past few years, and our latest move to 1,000-square-metre premises allows us to continue our expansion and find innovative ways of designing a vibrant company culture.” He’s adamant that the company won’t move again for at least another three years.

The space has also allowed the team to launch new projects through the newly formed GetWings incubator. “GetSmarter has allowed us to learn a lot about how people teach and learn online. Our new projects out of GetWings are all in the online education space and we’re looking forward to launching two exciting projects in the next few months,” says Sam Paddock, head of GetWings.

Both Rob and Sam believe that their businesses are built and supported by great people. It is in line with this philosophy that their new offices include a personal training studio run by a Biokineticist, who also looks after the team’s health and wellness, and a full-time chef who serves breakfast, lunch and afternoon snacks. The company has designed themed break-away rooms to stimulate focused team work. Did we mention the 150-square-metre balcony and 270-degree views of Cape Town?

Here’s the new office in pictures:

Priscilla, the Director of First Impressions, directs calls and visitors from her desk, which is where the subway-like map begins. Each colour directs visitors to a different department.

While the team rarely sees students, as all study is conducted online, there is a need to have comfortable waiting space for GetSmarter's visitors.

ChalkStar is another one of the company's new projects. Its team gets to look down this road in southern Namibia when they need a little inspiration.

Pictured here is the space for the company's new Kwiksta project. Also pictured is the 12-seater boardroom and a few guitars... just for fun.

Take a look at some of the other pics of this great office environment. My favourite – the blue sky room, with astroturf floors…

Recently I had the privilege of meeting with Donna Stephens, Head of Marketing & Customer Service at eRetailer TAKEALOT.com (previously knows as Take2). We met to discuss :

1) A name change,

2) The public disclosure of the ambitious goals at TAKEALOT.com

Based on this discussion I thought it a good idea to present a perspective related to how well TAKEALOT.com is positioned to achieve these goals.

Some context:

In October 2010 Cape Town based e-retailer Take2 was co-acquired by Kim Reid (former Naspers senior executive) together with New York based hedge fund, Tiger Global Management.  The tripartite partnership seems to have the internal equilibrium needed to change the landscape of e-retailing not just in SA but in Africa. The acquisitions fit neatly into the [assumed] strategy of Tiger Global Management who have more than US $ 9.5billion under their control and who have been steadily investing in emerging market internet-related businesses.  Kim Reid seems the ideal candidate to man-ship given his considerable depth of experience with the Naspers owned MIH Group, no stranger themselves to investing in emerging internet-related businesses.  Then there is Take2, a company started by seven investors in Cape Town in 2002. Take2 quickly moved to the position of SA’s second  biggest online retailer, selling books, DVD’s, games, CD’s electronics, toys and much more … with what I am told is a very loyal consumer base.

On announcement of, without doubt, very ambitious goals the media responded with what could be best describe as ‘stoking the fire,’ perhaps to determine just how much of a threat TAKEALOT.com represents to established and market leading e-retailer Kalahari.net.  After-all there is an old saying that goes: ” If you try to steal the giants lunch, the giant is likely to eat you for lunch.” In this case I assume that by announcing the following goals…. (more…)

Afrihost was started in mid-August 2000 by Gian Visser, Brendan Armstrong and Peter Meintjes while Greg Payne joined the company in 2005 as a director.

In its first year Afrihost signed up around 300 customers and generated R450,000 in revenue. Since then the company has grown to over 50,000 clients and raking in over R100 million per annum. Wow.

Afrihost CEO Gian Visser says that the foundation of their success is the passion of their team. “It’s all about giving back – to both our clients and our staff. We are passionate about delighting our clients and the only way we can effectively do this is through our people”. You might know Gian from Twitter, where Afrihost regularly holds competitions, which are very popular.

We all know and use Google, probably every day (well, the readers of this blog anyway). Sure its search product is the defacto standard, but over time we have started integrating more and more of their service in our online lives. Think about it – Google Talk, Buzz, Gmail. Some of their “projects” are more successful than others – for example, Gmail is extremely popular, whereas services like Google Lattitude seems downright creepy to me. They have also had some failures – Google Wave being one of them, despite being a very cool idea. Buzz is in danger of also falling into irrelevance.

But now Google is gunning for the other big place where you have an online presence – Facebook. Dont think they have not tried before – they still have Orkut, which is popular in certain countries. But this time they are baking the social features right into its core business of search, and also improving and integrating more of its existing services. It is called the Google+ project, and the initial videos seem to be very impressive out of a social viewpoint.

Some of the key features of Google+ include:

Google Circles:

This the one place where they can differentiate themselves – Google+ allow you to create groups of friends, called Circles. Its pretty easy to do with a drag and drop interface. You simply create the circles you want – for example, “Epic Bros” (seriously Google?), Family, Work Friends etc. Using these groups you only share what you want with whom you want. While Facebook does have some elements of this, they do not allow the same simple way of setting it up. Seriously – how many of use Facebook Groups? Who wants to take a bet Facebook shows off its new “Spheres” feature in the next few weeks? (more…)

8.ta, South Africa’s fourth and newest mobile network operator, is going to market with a big, fast and low cost mobile broadband promotion that will get South Africans using the Internet more. With the lowest mobile broadband rates supported by its new network; 8.ta is living up to its promise to change the mobile communications market.

The new post-paid Internet 5 Promotion offers subscribers a 10GB data bundle at R199 per month with the option of an additional 10GB Midnight Surfer data bundle at R100 per month for use between 12am and 5am. Subscribers in essence, will be getting 20GB’s of data at R299 and will therefore be paying as little as 1.5 cents per MB – the lowest mobile broadband rate available in South Africa, says Amith Maharaj, Managing Executive of Telkom Mobile.

“To mark the launch of our new high speed network 8.ta is “Going Big” with an amazing promotional data offer for a limited time period. Mobile broadband users will agree that the value provided in this offer cannot easily be found anywhere in the world”, Maharaj said.

Maharaj further added that “while the sale of the offer will be for a limited time, it is important to note that customers who sign up will be eligible for the Internet 5 promotional price as well as the Midnight Surfer price for the full 24 months”.

The offer will be available from Sunday, 26 June at 8.ta flagship stores, selected Telkom Direct stores, via the Call Center on 081125, online at www.8ta.com and Nashua Mobile.

With 8.ta’s new data promotion, high monthly subscription is removed as the barrier to entry for first time subscribers while seasoned mobile broadband subscribers will find the price per MB to be extremely attractive. (more…)

Group buying is all the rage, all over the world. In South Africa, numerous industry players have come to the fore since early 2010, and as predicted, some of them are dying off.

In the US, it started two years ago, but its hype has stayed wildly alive with Groupon’s IPO taking the centre stage. Unfortunately many argue that it isn’t the right time, and the rest argue that there will never be a right time. Even so, LivingSocial.com, the second largest group buying site in the US, is now rumoured to be doing an IPO of their own.

Now the blogs and news websites are going wild with speculations of an IT bubble, not simply due to this group buying industry IPO frenzy, but more so because LinkedIn, Twitter, RenRen and even Facebook have made or are looking at IPOs. Now, while investors are hungry for tech stocks, it is quite clear that you need to have made profits and have a sturdy business to list, and to list well.

The website Pandora, an online music service, listed recently, and its shares rose and fell in two days, now at 20% less than their IPO price. Investors have therefore already lost money there. LinkedIn has also lost major share price since listing, as have others. However, LinkedIn still trades above its initial price, which is perhaps proof that things are watertight, for now.

The problem is this, and was aptly described in a post overseas: “Pandora showed that if you’re still trying to figure out your business model and you go public, then the market is going to call you out on it.”

Yet there are those saying that there is no bubble at all. (more…)

We have all seen how popularity of Facebook has increased over time – it is no longer only the internet-savvy only site it was long ago. There are plenty of stats out there about its popularity, but OnlineSchools.org did this great infographic showing off some surprising, and other not so surprising facts. Like that almost half of 18-34 year olds check Facebook just as they wake up… “obsessed” might just be the right word, yes.

Part that I find most shocking is that almost half of Americans find out their news through Facebook… I am sure some publishers are trying their best to integrate with Facebook, but still I did not expect that figure… Luckily in SA this seems to be well under way with the major news presences online all offering decent Facebook integration.

But here you go (full infographic after the break): (more…)