JOHANNESBURG (WiMAX Day). The incumbent South African telecommunications operator Telkom SA yesterday released its annual results for the year ended March 31, 2007. The statement announced that the company “has successfully trialled WiMAX, and 14 sites with base stations are currently operational in Pretoria, Cape Town and Durban.”

Telkom said that it plans to construct another 57 sites with base stations as WiMAX begins to complement the company’s ADSL roll-out throughout South Africa. Initial services planned for use with WiMAX include VoIP in early 2008.

While voice has generated the most revenue for Telkom, data is quickly becoming the principle focus of the business and the dominant revenue stream. With key investments in WiMAX, and strong growth from ADSL, Telkom is focussed on offering convergence services and “the evolution to an IP centric network is a business imperative.”

Data has become such a key focus at Telkom that recent reports indicate that the company might even consider selling its 50% share of GSM operator Vodacom to its partner Vodafone Group. The Financial Times reported two weeks ago that Telkom is reviewing its options and Telkom CEO Reuben September yesterday said “if presented with a bona fide offer from Vodafone, the board would be obliged to consider it.”

Some analysts also indicate that possible talks with Vodafone may lead to Telkom acquiring Vodafone’s stake in Vodacom, which is also focussed on data as a key growth area. In a press release today, Vodacom CEO Alan Knott-Craig said “by next year we can expect non-voice products to exceed 10% of the Group’s revenue for the first time.”

Growth for Vodacom is pinned on convergence, and the company has placed WiMAX at the centre of its convergence strategy. “We believe that this area of business has the potential to grow bigger than Vodacom is today,” Mr Knott-Craig said today.

Yet Vodacom has been unable to obtain a license for WiMAX spectrum, which lead the company to acquire 10% of WBS earlier this year. WBS is the parent company of iBurst, which has a license for 3.5 GHz spectrum.

On several occasions Mr Knott-Craig has stated that Vodacom must gain more access to WiMAX spectrum. In a conference today he indicated that Vodacom is planning to announce a major acquisition of a company the size of Internet Solutions, which also has a license for 3.5 GHz spectrum, but he stopped short of confirming if Internet Solutions is indeed the target. “There is a company that looks attractive right now, but it’s early days,” he told reporters.