A Mozambique-based company, Starsat Africa, has reportedly been supplying Starlink equipment into South Africa. These ‘grey market’ cross-border supplies and active in South Africa have now been disconnected. The reason, says SpaceX, is for unauthorised reselling but might have more to do with not upsetting South Africa’s licensing authorities. Mozambique has licensed Starlink. The official […]

South Africa’s public broadcaster, SABC, is taking the country’s transmission operator Sentech to the Competition Tribunal, alleging excessive pricing and anti-competitive actions. Doris Tshepe, head of the country’s Competition Commission, told MPs that a commission-led effort to mediate between the parties had failed. The MPs on the country’s Committee on Communications & Digital Technologies heard […]

SpaceX’s Starlink broadband services is officially not allowed in South Africa. However, various reports suggest that it already has around 14,000 users. One report says that StarSat Africa, the Mozambique-based Starlink importer, will be servicing South Africa with equipment, is set to cut prices for Starlink equipment by 13-20 per cent by the end of […]

Canal+, owned by French media group Vivendi, has made an offer to acquire all the shares it does not already own in South Africa’s MultiChoice Group. Any potential deal – which has been submitted to the MultiChoice board of directors – would be worth in the region of €1.6 billion and, according to Canal+, would […]

Reports from South Africa say that pirate streaming services like 123Movies and Fmovies not only steal revenue from local broadcasters such as MultiChoice but also significantly impact the creative industry as a whole. Moreover, the fines for pirates found guilty are miniscule. The pirate services depend on advertising for their income stream. This inevitably appeals […]

There are strong objections to South Africa’s proposed SABC Bill for the nation’s public broadcaster and it must be withdrawn, report local media organisations. Three influential organisations have criticised the new Bill. SOS Support Public Broadcasting Coalition, Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) and the South African National Editors’ Forum (Sanef) collectively made a submission to the […]

South Africa’s public broadcaster SABC is out of cash, and the government has presented a new SABC Bill which proposes examining the existing licence fee, which is widely ignored. The new Bill aims to “regulate the continued existence of the SABC to provide public broadcasting services that contribute to democracy, development of society, gender equality, […]

Eutelsat Group has announced that Paratus South Africa, a specialist connectivity provider, and Eutelsat OneWeb have partnered to enhance Paratus’ connectivity offering in South Africa. Paratus South Africa already provides Geostationary (GEO) satellite services through its partnership with Eutelsat Group and this new agreement further strengthens its satellite connectivity services through a combined GEO/LEO offering […]

eMedia Holdings and South Africa pay-TV giant MultiChoice are again at each other’s throats. The two are due to appeal at a Competition Tribunal in South Africa today [January 18th]. The battle is over TV sports rights with eMedia alleging that MultiChoice is abusing its dominant position and dictating the terms for access to premium […]

South Africa’s SABC public broadcaster is in dire financial straits, but a government initiative to see funding secured is far from certain. A new SABC Bill, which was open to public discussion until January 16th, is not likely to be resolved and converted into cash for some time. South Africa’s ‘Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse’ (Outa) […]