{"id":31613,"date":"2013-02-12T10:07:29","date_gmt":"2013-02-12T08:07:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=31613"},"modified":"2013-02-12T10:17:38","modified_gmt":"2013-02-12T08:17:38","slug":"wirelessg-lashes-out-at-incompetent-vodacom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/31613\/wirelessg-lashes-out-at-incompetent-vodacom\/","title":{"rendered":"WirelessG lashes out at &#8216;incompetent&#8217; Vodacom"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>WiFi specialist\u00a0<a title=\"WirelessG\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/2205-WirelessG\">WirelessG<\/a> has accused <a title=\"Vodacom\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/1639-Vodacom\">Vodacom<\/a> of\u00a0\u201ctotal incompetence\u201d for failing\u00a0to meet the requirements laid down by Deputy Judge President Willem van der Merwe in a legal battle between the two companies.<\/p>\n<p>WirelessG and six other applicants filed an urgent court application against Vodacom in January, arguing that Vodacom is not in compliance with its shareholding agreement with WirelessG.<\/p>\n<p>The court application\u00a0focused\u00a0on three main issues, which WirelessG argues is costing the company millions in lost revenue and damages.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Vodacom is not permitted to provide WiFi independently from WirelessG \u2013 WirelessG said that Vodacom is offering WiFi services, and is using other companies to offer WiFi without giving them first right of refusal as agreed upon;<\/li>\n<li>Vodacom is obliged to offer WirelessG\u2019s WiFi as an integral part of its data bundles \u2013 Vodacom is not doing it, which WirelessG said has cost them R174 million, to date, and R7 million per month; and<\/li>\n<li>Vodacom has to provide WirelessG with a data price equal to Vodacom\u2019s best wholesale data price \u2013 WirelessG said that this is not happening, which has caused damages of R20.5 million and counting.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Vodacom was required to submit a response on 11 February. According to WirelessG the response fell far short of the requirements \u2013 hence the specific directives issued by the Deputy Judge President Willem van der Merwe.<\/p>\n<p>WirelessG highlighted in a legal letter that:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The affidavit of <a title=\"Mr Shameel Joosub\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/4537-Shameel-Joosub\">Mr Shameel Joosub<\/a> CEO of Vodacom has not been signed. This means that \u201cThe content thereof could at this stage either be amended by him or parts thereof deleted or aspects inserted.\u201d;<\/li>\n<li>The answering affidavit was not served on our office as per the directive of the Deputy Judge President and the telephone conversation between our Mr Jacobs and your Mr Conradie in which it was agreed that service will be affected by hand on or before 17h00 on 11 February 2013; and<\/li>\n<li>We only received extracts from your answering affidavit via e-mail on 11 February 2013. We record that we have up to now neither received your answering affidavit nor did you comply with the directive of the Deputy Judge President.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>According to WirelessG \u201ccondonation for the late filing of your affidavit will need to be asked for\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>And the group believes this is merely another ploy by Vodacom to delay the proceedings.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey have reached a state of total incompetence. They renege on agreements and now even think they can operate above law,\u201d said WirelessG CEO <a title=\"Carel van der Merwe\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/6306-Carel-van-der-Merwe\">Carel van der Merwe<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey cannot execute their CEO\u2019s instructions to execute a shareholder\u2019s agreement, neither can they execute the directives provided by court to deliver their response in time and according to good practice.\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_30282\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a  data-lightbox=\"post-image\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Carel-van-der-Merwe.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-30282\" class=\"size-full wp-image-30282\" title=\"Carel van der Merwe\" src=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Carel-van-der-Merwe.jpg\" alt=\"Carel van der Merwe\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Carel-van-der-Merwe.jpg 600w, https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Carel-van-der-Merwe-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-30282\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Carel van der Merwe<\/p><\/div>\n<p>MyBroadband tried to obtain feedback from Vodacom about its legal reply late on Monday (11 February), but the company sidestepped questions about its submission.<\/p>\n<p>Vodacom was also asked about the alleged poor response and that it did not follow the directives issued by the judge, but the company did not respond by the time of publication.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">More on Vodacom and WirelessG<\/h3>\n<p><a title=\"Vodacom killing companies: WirelessG\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/30279\/vodacom-killing-companies-wirelessg\/\"><strong>Vodacom killing companies: WirelessG<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong><a title=\"Vodacom vs WirelessG: billion rand blunder or storm in a teacup?\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/30118\/vodacom-vs-wirelessg-billion-rand-blunder-or-storm-in-a-teacup\/\">Vodacom vs WirelessG: billion rand blunder or storm in a teacup?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Vodacom in the dock over Wi-Fi contract\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/30051\/vodacom-in-the-dock-over-wi-fi-contract\/\"><strong>Vodacom in the dock over Wi-Fi contract<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Vodacom investments under the spotlight\" href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/business\/65936-vodacom-investments-under-the-spotlight.html\"><strong>Vodacom investments under the spotlight<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"\u201cVodacom killed my business\u201d\" href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/business\/64096-vodacom-killed-my-business.html\"><strong>\u201cVodacom killed my business\u201d<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Vodacom\u2019s The Grid shut down date\" href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/64118-vodacom-the-grid-shut-down-date.html\"><strong>Vodacom\u2019s The Grid shut down date<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WirelessG has accused Vodacom of \u201ctotal incompetence\u201d for failing to meet the requirements laid down by Deputy Judge President Willem van der Merwe in a legal battle between the two companies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18442,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[4717,26,3403,27,1477,2477],"class_list":["post-31613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","tag-carel-van-der-merwe","tag-headline","tag-shameel-joosub","tag-vodacom","tag-wifi","tag-wirelessg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31613"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31619,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31613\/revisions\/31619"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}