The Competition Commission has sent a fresh shock through South Africa’s pay-TV sector, referring MultiChoice South Africa and Altech UEC to the Competition Tribunal for prosecution over an alleged market-division deal dating back to February 2014. The commission says the two companies may have agreed that Altech would not compete with MultiChoice in the pay-TV market, a move that could amount to a serious breach of the Competition Act.
At the centre of the case is a familiar relationship that long shaped the local decoder market. MultiChoice had been a major customer of Altech UEC, the Durban-based decoder manufacturer that was, at the time, part of Altron’s TMT division. According to the commission, its investigation found evidence that the companies reached an understanding that effectively kept Altech out of MultiChoice’s line of business.
That is the kind of allegation the commission takes very seriously. In South African competition law, companies cannot agree to divide up markets by choosing which suppliers, customers, goods or services each will target. The regulator is now asking the tribunal to impose administrative penalties of up to 10% of each company’s annual turnover if the case is proven.
The referral is likely to draw close attention in the local tech and broadcast industries, not least because of what happened next. Just seven months after the alleged agreement, Altech launched the Altech Node in September 2014 — a device that was marketed as something far more ambitious than a standard decoder.
The Node was pitched as a satellite-connected smart-home and video-on-demand product, combining push video-on-demand, internet telephony, home automation software and a built-in payments platform. But crucially, it did not carry linear pay-TV channels. That distinction matters, because it positioned the product outside the direct traditional pay-TV arena that MultiChoice dominated at the time.
At the launch, then-Altech chief executive Craig Venter went out of his way to stress that the Node was “not a direct challenge to MultiChoice”. He described MultiChoice as “an important customer of the group through Altech UEC”, which, in hindsight, will now be read very closely in light of the commission’s allegations.
Venter also said Altech had tried to bring MultiChoice into the project, offering the broadcaster the chance to partner on the Node’s launch. But those talks, he told TechCentral at the time, “didn’t lead anywhere”. That detail is now likely to be examined alongside the commission’s claim that the two firms had an understanding to avoid direct competition.
Competition Commission referral puts MultiChoice and Altech UEC under pressure
The alleged conduct goes to the heart of how competition law is meant to protect consumers. When businesses carve up markets instead of competing on price, features or innovation, the risk is that customers end up with fewer choices and weaker pressure on pricing. In this case, the commission appears to be arguing that Altech UEC may have held back from challenging its biggest client, MultiChoice, in order to protect a valuable commercial relationship.
That theory would make sense in a market where decoder manufacturing and subscription TV were tightly linked. For years, Altech UEC supplied set-top boxes to MultiChoice, meaning the two companies were already deeply intertwined operationally. If the commission’s case succeeds, it could suggest that the supplier relationship crossed a line into anti-competitive behaviour.
The timing of the referral is also striking. The alleged agreement dates back to 2014, yet the matter has only now been pushed to tribunal prosecution, some 12 years later. The commission has not explained what triggered the move at this stage, leaving room for speculation about whether new evidence, a concluding phase in a long-running probe, or a wider enforcement push may have prompted action.
The commercial fate of the Altech Node also forms part of the backdrop. The device launched at R3 499, with a R299 monthly subscription, but it struggled to win broad retail acceptance. By late 2015, Altron had wound down the product, and subscribers were refunded R1 999 per device sold. The Node’s short life now stands as a reminder of how difficult it was to break into a market dominated by entrenched players and fast-changing technology.
At the time, the Node was marketed as a new kind of connected-home product, but it never became the disruptive force some may have hoped for. Its failure may have had commercial causes, but the commission’s allegations raise a different question entirely: whether the product was allowed to compete fully in the first place, or whether broader business realities made that impossible.
In another important development, Altron sold Altech UEC in 2019 to Skyblu Technologies, a Chinese-owned company controlled by Shenzhen Skyworth Digital Technology. That means the current owner is different from the business involved in the alleged conduct, although the referral still lands squarely on the historical actions of the companies named by the commission.
For MultiChoice, the case lands at a sensitive time in South Africa’s fast-evolving media market, where the group has faced intense pressure from streaming rivals, changing viewing habits and regulatory scrutiny. Any finding against the company would add a new layer to an already complicated competitive environment.
As for the tribunal process, the commission’s referral does not itself determine guilt. It opens the door to a formal prosecution, where evidence will be tested and the companies will have the chance to defend their conduct. Still, the allegations are serious enough to reverberate well beyond the two firms named.
Our sources indicate that the matter is being watched closely by industry players who remember how influential MultiChoice and Altech were in the decoder ecosystem. If the tribunal sides with the commission, the case could become a landmark reminder that even long-standing supplier relationships can come under scrutiny when competition is at stake.
We have reached out to MultiChoice for comment, while Skyworth could not immediately be reached. For now, the referral has reopened a decade-old chapter in South Africa’s pay-TV history — and the tribunal will now decide whether it was just business, or something far more troubling.