{pp}The cheap Telkom alternative for overseas calling has once again thrown down the gauntlet by announcing free calls to the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and USA landlines for the period 23 December 2006 to 2 January 2007. Existing and new Skaap subscribers will be able to call these countries from their contract cell phones for free using their free minute allocation.

{pp}Full page adverts in national papers by disgruntled Telkom customers will do little to quell the surge in costs of calls for South Africans. Skaap, however, South Africa’s ‘new’ premier discount call provider has once again thrown down the gauntlet to the National Operator.

{pp}Online fraud has been the bane of South African e-commerce websites and has led to the early demise of many of them. Africa as a whole has been a hotbed of fraudulent online activity to the detriment of what was perceived as a growing SA market, albeit somewhat behind first world innovation. Mastercard and Visa have both launched security features that in effect give their credit card customers a totally secure transactional interface which includes high tech PIN technology unlike any other previously available. This has opened the doors for many online businesses to provide fantastic products and services to South African consumers in a secure online environment.

{pp}It seems that SA’s cellphone consumers are voicing their anger at paying through the nose when it comes to pay-as-you-go cellphone charges. The vast majority of cellphone users in South Africa pay upfront for their calls using the various voucher systems available from the various networks. The minority of cellphone users who are on ‘contract’ are benefiting from reduced rates that are being subsidised by the inflated rates charged by the networks to their pay-as-you-go consumers.

[Pressportal.co.za] Tweaking call packages and reducing call rates has done little to quell the upsurge of interest in the new telecommunications player Skaap. Skaap’s cheap international call facility has people flocking to them. Innovatively introducing a new Java application that enables users to dial overseas directly from their cell phones without first inputting a code is just another service that Skaap is premiering.