{"id":52007,"date":"2014-01-22T10:17:52","date_gmt":"2014-01-22T08:17:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=52007"},"modified":"2014-01-22T10:54:32","modified_gmt":"2014-01-22T08:54:32","slug":"orange-in-talks-with-telkom-over-mobile-arm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/52007\/orange-in-talks-with-telkom-over-mobile-arm\/","title":{"rendered":"Orange in talks with Telkom over mobile arm?"},"content":{"rendered":"

French-based mobile operator\u00a0Orange SA<\/a>\u00a0says it wants to\u00a0have the technical ability that comes from owning part of a mobile network in South Africa, to\u00a0offer services to its customers.<\/p>\n

This follows rumours that the company has approached Telkom over its mobile business, after the latter noted in November that it was\u00a0in discussions with\u00a0parties over future operations.<\/p>\n

The french firm already has a presence in South Africa, having launched\u00a0Orange Horizons as a subsidiary dedicated to seeking out new business opportunities, in January 2013.<\/p>\n

The group already sells products in South Africa through its website, and has a business unit\u00a0serving high\u00a0profile\u00a0companies\u00a0in the mining, and\u00a0petroleum\u00a0industry.<\/p>\n

In a recent interview with BusinessTech, Orange Horizons CEO,\u00a0S\u00e9bastien Crozier<\/a>\u00a0said that, given the spectrum, \u201cwe could enter the market as a real player,\u201d but only through an agreement with an existing player to be on its network.<\/p>\n

“Orange has made no secret that, should the regulatory framework be in place, being a player in the South African mobile market is of high interest. Orange is delighted [by] the current talks of a decrease around termination rates,” the group said in a statement to BusinessTech on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

“As Orange has stated before, the company hasn\u2019t ruled out becoming a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) in South Africa, but this would depend on the regulatory environment and licensing requirements.”<\/p>\n

“If becoming an MVNO requires [us] to purchase frequencies, this is something we would consider.”<\/p>\n

“Orange doesn\u2019t want to just be a brand MVNO, Orange wants to offer services to customers and have [the] technical ability that comes from owning part of the network and be able to offer easy access to content, VoIP, video and so on,” Orange said.<\/p>\n

The group said it is “very happy” with the ventures launched in South Africa since January 2013.<\/p>\n

“The Orange Online Store is performing above objectives and confirms our assessment that the market was ready for a reliable, broad-range, premium\u00a0high-tech products e-merchant.”<\/p>\n

Additional firms linked to a deal with Telkom include a Malaysian investment firm, MTN, and Cell C.<\/p>\n

More on Orange and Telkom<\/h3>\n

Wide interest in Telkom Mobile deal<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Orange interested in Vodacom?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Orange a fifth mobile operator in SA?<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

We want to be a virtual operator in SA: Orange<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Orange SA says it wants to have a technical ability that comes from owning part of a mobile network in South Africa to offer services to its customers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":52008,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[42,26,28,551,6406,5014,65],"class_list":["post-52007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","tag-cell-c","tag-headline","tag-mtn","tag-nashua-mobile","tag-orange-sa","tag-sebastien-crozier","tag-telkom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52007","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\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52007"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52012,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52007\/revisions\/52012"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}