Feb 2005 - will it happen?

What do you think? Total market deregulation as everyone (except Telkom and Sentech) is hoping for or are we interpreting the minister's announcments incorrectly as has been suggested?

I think VOIP is a given but what about the rest? Will VAN's be able to lay down their own infrastructure? Will WISP's be allowed to operate without fear of prosecution? Will Telkom retain exclusive control over international connectivity? etc...

I want to believe. [?]

I still have my pitchfork at my side, not ready to put it down just yet. [}]

VoIP is a start, not too sure about the WISP's though. Atleast they have not come down on those of us with community networks.

International Bandwidth on the other hand is a whole different story, Telkom paid for their share of the cable so it will be very difficult to free some of it up.

I share your sentiments alchamy, I just hope we are proven wrong in our pessimism.

"My cable"

The thing with international bandwidth is that i even know of a company who is will to sell it to SA in quite large amounts. I now only need to find someone who wants to buy.

Lets just say that we are guaranteed a change to some extent.. whether it be in speed/reliability or cost or even just the cap... there most certainly has to be a change of some sort - or my name is RUMPLESTILTSKIN....

It can only get better for simple economical reasons - altho how long it will take, is debatable.

There is a stage that will be reached where the market of people that can afford broadband type services will be saturated and the inflow of new customers will start to wind down.

That should help drive competition and start companies creating new cheaper packages to try to capture new segments of the market.

Of course, I could be talking total BS here, but it has a ring of logic to it.
Certainly, the telecoms industry is looking at africa in a big way - there's money to be made, but if the products on offer are above the affordability of say the average lower-to-middle income earner, or the soho businesses, then the market will remain elite.