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27 August 2009

SATNAC 2009 attendees to converge in Swaziland

Hailed as one of Africa's most eminent telecommunications conferences, the Southern Africa Telecommunication Networks and Applications Conference (SATNAC), now in its twelfth year, will once again see industry leaders, operators, government representatives and academia converging under one roof from 31 August to 2 September 2009.

Relevantly themed as "Convergence - a 21st Century Lifestyle Enabler", this year,s conference will take place at Swaziland,s Royal Swazi Spa.

"With telecoms operators the world over increasingly moving towards converged offerings, the focus of this year,s conference will definitely prove to be pertinent and appropriate, especially as current and future trends in the converged space are likely to come under intense discussion," said Marius Mostert, Telkom's Managing Executive for Network Infrastructure Provisioning and the chairman of SATNAC.

Added Mostert: "SATNAC is a Telkom-hosted industry event that has grown to the point where it now commands international attention, resulting in senior executives from global ICT companies attending the conference either as delegates or speakers.

Key figures at SATNAC this year include the Minister of Information, Communication and Technology of Swaziland, Nelisiwe Shongwe and the South African Minister of Communications, General (Ret) Siphiwe Nyanda. Other senior representatives of government and the regulatory environment from both South Africa and Swaziland also feature prominently at the three-day conference.

In addition, keynote addresses will be delivered by Anton Musgrave (FutureWorld International), Judith O'Neill (Greenberg Traurig, New York) as well as Justin Jonas of SA's Square Kilometre Array (SKA).

"Panel discussions focussing on convergence as a 21st century lifestyle enabler from a service provider, customer and regulatory perspective, are bound to generate intense interest. Ultimately, with more than 400 high-profile business, academic and government representatives attending SATNAC, presentations and discussions about trends and strategic direction in the ICT sector always prove valuable and insightful," emphasised Mostert.

With SATNAC being born out of Telkom's Centre of Excellence (CoE) programme, post-graduate students also play a leading role at the conference. "SATNAC provides an ideal platform for post-graduate CoE students to showcase their applied research," stated Mostert.

The COE programme was conceptualised by Telkom in 1996 and was launched at the University of Cape Town a year later. Currently, 16 CoEs which are jointly funded by Telkom, 27 industry partners and the Department of Trade and Industry through its THRIP (Technology and Human Resource for Industry Programme) initiative, operate across the country at all leading tertiary institutions.

"The CoE programme has become the largest co-ordinated research effort in ICT in South Africa. It is a Telkom initiative to leverage more investment for research and development in the telecommunications industry and to increase the pool of skills within South Africa," said Mostert, adding that 38% of current CoE students are non-South Africans.

"This is indicative of the fact that we have a large contingent of students from countries such as Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Nigeria, Lesotho, Tanzania, Mozambique, Libya and Tunisia who are part of our CoE programme in South Africa. Our ultimate objective is to serve as a catalyst for bolstering specialised skills levels across the entire continent," explained Mostert.

SATNAC has become the showpiece of the CoE programme. Student research papers that pass the stringent review of a technical programme committee are presented at SATNAC.

"With recent SATNAC focal areas such as Next Generation Services providing thought-provoking discussions on progress and challenges, this year's spotlight on the issue of convergence should be no different. The meeting of minds among such a diverse spectrum of experts can only enrich and advance the telecommunications industry at large," concluded Mostert.

For more information about SATNAC 2009, kindly visit www.satnac.org.za

For further enquiries, please contact:

Pynee Chetty

Senior Specialist: Media Relations

Group Communication

Tel:+27 12 642 1716

Mobile: +27 81 389 7874

Email: chettpr2@telkom.co.za

 OR

Leigh-Ann Francis

Specialist: Media Relations

Group Communication

Tel: +27 12 642 1728

Mobile: +27 81 391 4780

Email: francilm@telkom.co.za

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Telkom is a leading communications services provider in South Africa. We had consolidated operating revenue of R16.8 billion and normalised profit after tax of R1, 683 million for the period ended 30 September 2015. Total assets amounted to R41.9 billion and equity attributable to the owners of Telkom to R23.5 billion as of 30 September 2015. The group generated normalised free cash flow of R1.4 billion for the period ended 30 September 2015.

As of 30 September 2015, we had approximately 3.3 million telephone access lines in service and 1,030,441 ports connected via MSAN access. We offer business, residential and payphone customers a wide range of services and products, including:

  • fixed-line retail voice services using PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) lines, including ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) lines, and the sale of subscription based value-added voice services and calling plans;
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  • other services including directory services, through Trudon (Pty) Ltd, wireless data services, through Swiftnet (Pty) Ltd.

Convergence is one of our key strategic initiatives in building a sustainable future for Telkom.  We will lead the provision of converged services in South Africa in support of our mission statement: Seamlessly connecting people to a better life.