Mweb also launched an aggressive marketing campaign, including several memorable television ads<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n The campaign worked, helping catapult The Hitchhikers Guide to the Internet<\/em> beyond best-seller status. Goldstuck told MyBroadband they printed 50,000 copies of the book\u2019s special edition that went in The Big Black Box.<\/p>\n Before becoming Mweb\u2019s first CEO, Roux had helped launch M-Net, giving rise to MultiChoice and DStv.<\/p>\n Mweb fell under Naspers\u2019 pay-TV and Internet subsidiary MIH Holdings, of which Roux became CEO.<\/p>\n Besides Roux, Mweb had a series of pioneering CEOs who steered the company through different Internet eras.<\/p>\n One of these was Kim Reid, who served as Mweb CEO from 2003 to 2006. Reid would go on to launch South African e-commerce giant Takealot.<\/p>\n During his tenure, Mweb bought Internet service provider Tiscali, which had consolidated the subscribers of several other ISPs through acquisitions, including Icon (Internet Solutions), Yebo!Net (Vodacom), and World Online.<\/p>\n Still from old Mweb Big Black Box commercial<\/p><\/div>\n After Reid, Rudi Jansen took over as Mweb CEO. In 2010, he upended South Africa\u2019s broadband landscape by launching affordable uncapped ADSL.<\/p>\n Jansen left Mweb in 2012 with the South African broadband landscape forever changed, despite fierce industry criticism and sceptics saying uncapped ADSL was unsustainable. In his own immortal words:<\/p>\n Anyone who thinks you can go back to a capped world is completely misguided. You can never go back. You can never offer an inferior service.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Jansen also championed free and open peering \u2014 the free exchange of traffic between networks at Internet exchange points.<\/p>\n Besides being critical to making the uncapped business model work, free peering ultimately helped slash the price of bandwidth in South Africa.<\/p>\n Where a 100Mbps uncapped fibre connection cost R6,599 per month in 2014, such fast connections are barely a step above entry-level today and available for less than R900.<\/p>\n We recognised Jansen with the MyBroadband Maverick of the Year Award in 2010, and the MyBroadband Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012.<\/p>\n Around 2013, rumours began circulating in the industry that Naspers wanted to sell Mweb, and a merger with Dimension Data\u2019s Internet Solutions was on the cards.<\/p>\n While Mweb initially denied the rumours<\/strong><\/a>, Naspers sold Mweb Business to Dimension Data in 2014 for around R368 million.<\/p>\n Mweb\u2019s consumer ISP was sold to Internet Solutions (a former division of Dimension Data) in 2017 for roughly R130 million.<\/p>\n Internet Solutions appointed Sean Nourse as Mweb CEO in 2017, where he served until mid-2020. Nourse left Mweb for rival Webafrica.<\/p>\n Sean Nourse, Webafrica CEO, Mweb CEO 2017\u20132020 and 2023\u2013<\/p><\/div>\n By 2021, the industry was buzzing again with talk that Dimension Data wanted to offload Mweb<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n On 26 September 2023, it was confirmed that Webafrica was the buyer \u2014 where Nourse was CEO.<\/p>\n Nourse told Smart Money with Alishia Seckam<\/em> that serving as CEO for both organisations was a major advantage.<\/p>\n He said deals between two organisations that have been fierce competitors for 25 years typically don\u2019t work because of the uncertainty among the workforce.<\/p>\n \u201cHopefully, I will be able to put that uncertainty to rest. Both organisations know me, and we work well together,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Mweb-Big-Black-Box-TV-commercial.jpg\")
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