Keyword: cell phones

Cellphone Pricing Wars: Regulation Matters, but Ownership Matters More

Picture: Greg Laden Jane Duncan - Most South Africans are aware of the public spat between South Africa’s largest cellphone operators, MTN and Vodacom, on the one hand, and the smaller cellphone operators and the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) on the other. The spat relates to Icasa’s attempt to bring down the cost of communications by gradually reducing the Mobile Termination Rates, or interconnection rates, through regulations. These are the rates that one network operator...

New Campaign Demands Free Basic Cellphone Airtime and Text Services in South Africa

Picture: Right to Know Campaign Video A new communications campaign launched by the "Right to Know Campaign" (R2K) is putting on its list of demands, free basic cellphone airtime and short message services (SMS or text services). Fazila Farouk of SACSIS spoke Dr. Dale McKinley, a representative of the R2K campaign, about this new campaign and the rationale underpinning it. He told her that South Africans are being exploited. South Africa has the sixth highest cellphone charge rates in the world. Cellphone companies...

What the Cellphone Industry Doesn't Want You to Know About Radiation Concerns

Picture: pixabay Brad Jacobson - In her 2011 book Disconnect, National Book Award finalist, former senior White House health advisor and internationally regarded epidemiologist Devra Davis revealed that the cellphone industry is knowingly exposing us to dangerous levels of electromagnetic radiation. No small problem when you consider that of the roughly 7 billion people on this planet, about 6 billion of us now use mobile phones. In a recent analysis for the Huffington Post, Davis examined the cellphone industry's...

The Great South African Cell Phone Rip-off

Picture: fd/Flickr Jane Duncan - As South Africa enters the festive season, the country is awash with special offers. Yet, beyond the corporate hype that usually accompanies this time of year, many are left with the deep-seated feeling that - in the ordinary course of events - they are being ripped off left, right and centre. People are becoming angrier and angrier with the cost and quality of many services. From the banks to the bread cartels, from Eskom to the airlines and the pending e-tolling system, indications of...

Anti-Social Cell Phone Behaviour

Picture: TED Talks Video Social strategist Renny Gleeson talks about the rise of a culture of availability with the proliferation of mobile devices such as cell phones -- and an obligation to that availability. In this funny and poignant 3-minute talk, Gleeson breaks down our always-on social world where the experiences of the moment are less interesting than our documentation of these moments, which we tweet about or find other ways to record and share. © TED Talks

The Rise of South African Neo-Conservatism

Picture: Nude Art Jane Duncan - In May, the Deputy Minister of Home Affairs, Malusi Gigaba, announced that he was pursuing the possibility of a complete ban on pornography distributed over the Internet and on cell phones.  This emerged after Gigaba met with the Cape Town-based Justice Alliance of South Africa (JASA) to discuss a Bill they had drafted in support of such a ban, as well as a legal opinion on the constitutionality of the Bill. The head of another Cape Town-based organisation, Errol Naidoo, of the Family...