Bits

* Troubled signal distribution company SENTECH was hoofed out of a meeting with the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communication last week. The public utility submitted its documents for the meeting on the same morning and was reprimanded for being late. The ANC’s Eric Kholwane said Sentech had displayed “disrespect of the highest order” and refused to allow the meeting to continue.

* CELL C launched its new network in the first of six cities that will be switched to the new technology. The new Cell C network makes use of HSDPA+ technology for faster 3G Internet connectivity it’s marketing as “4Gs”. Cell C wouldn’t say in which one of the six cities it was launching, “for competitive reasons”.

* Shares in MTN’s new Zakhele black empowerment structure went on sale last week following an approval by shareholders to implement the group’s new empowerment plan that will see 4% of its ordinary shares being sold to black investors.

* An annual competition organised by LG is under way to find the fastest text messenger in South Africa. The competition is part of an international tournament that will pit cellphone users against each other to see who can type the fastest on their mobile devices. The winners of national competitions worldwide then compete in a final in South Korea.

* VODACOM launched its M-Pesa mobile payment platform last week with partner Nedbank. The system was developed in Kenya – “pesa” is Swahili for “money” – where local operator Safaricom launched it in 2007. More than 2m transactions are now made in Kenya every day using M-Pesa and it’s also been launched in Tanzania and Afghanistan. In South Africa, Vodacom plans to attract 10m subscribers to the service within two years.