Naked DSL......but never is SA

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?guid={3705B34E-D7A3-444E-B621-E387EC5719AF}&siteid=google

After much wrangling, the commissioners agreed to demand that SBC (SBC:
SBC Communications Inc. and Verizon offer high-speed Internet access on a standalone basis -- a service known as "naked DSL."

Most customers would not have to sign up for local phone service, as they do now, to get DSL. Verizon recently started offering naked DSL to some customers and has said it plans to expand the service nationwide.

SBC and Verizon also agreed to temporarily freeze certain wholesale rates and adhere to a "network neutrality" principle under which they would not discrimate against any company that uses their networks.

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While the rest of the world continues to progress...we fall behind even further!

Indeed. We need to see more rapid developments in South Africa but even though we are slowly seeing faster speeds (mostly for the provisioning of IPtv rather than open choice Internet download speeds) the affordability is decreasing. This means that we are moving backwards even though uptake is still positive. It is not fast enough!

SBC Communications - USA have 30% stake in Big T (Telkom SA)

Not any more I don't think? Didn't they sell it off a while ago?

kilos said:

SBC Communications - USA have 30% stake in Big T (Telkom SA)

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they may have a 30% stake in profits, but they're not the ones making the decisions - it's the morons higher up telkoms management screwing it up. now if it were an open market on the other hand, we might find SBC getting more involved in order to maximise their profits

I'm pretty sure SBC dumped i.e. "cashed in" on their Telkom shares a while back, I think during one of the previous rounds of government pretending it was about to issue the SNO license, or something like that.

Highflyer_GP said:

they may have a 30% stake in profits, but they're not the ones making the decisions - it's the morons higher up telkoms management screwing it up.

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You don't get higher up than the shareholders. The shareholders own the company. They don't just share in profits - they (voting stock) actually have final say over how the company is run. The CEO is merely appointed by the shareholders (actually, the shareholders elect a board of directors which then appoints a CEO), and the CEO reports back to the board. Basically everyone else in Telkom is lower down than the CEO, while the board of directors are just above the CEO. If the board doesn't like the decisions made by the CEO they can actually kick him/her out and appoint a new one. You can be 100% sure that SBC were every bit involved in the decision-making to use Telkom to milk this country for every cent they could get out of it. SBC made off with billions of our country's hard-earned wealth. It was under SBC that Telkom's profits quadrupled (while their network shrank!), their R&D expenditure was slashed, and they announced 7000 retrenchments. This is essentially the opposite of "investment" ... it's called 'harvesting' and probably almost bordered on 'divesting'. AKA 'make a quick buck at the expense of the company's long-term position'.

SBC no longer hold shares in Telkom. They sold these to PIC, which has held on to a portion and sold the rest to 2 BEE companies. These BEE companies are still trying to get the finance to buy these shares.

SBC (along with their Malaysian partners) sold out for a very handsome profit. They (SBC) are now concentrating on consolidation in USA.

I am very concerned about the lack of development in the broadband arena, especially the ADSL market. Telkom have become a very large and heavy drag on our economy. They are preventing the adoption of new technologies, and slowing down the roll-out of proper broadband - which we have yet to see in this country.

The conflict of interest that the SA government has, has caused this apathy, in that they really don't believe there is a problem, because they are none the wiser. They are making money from Telkom, but I don't believe they truly understand how far we are retreating into the broadband abyss.