Icasa signals end to MultiChoice monopoly

http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/topstories.aspx?ID=BD4A147035

I quote from the article
"In its findings from the position paper on subscription broadcasting released in June last year, Icasa said it would like to encourage interoperability of decoders.

It also encouraged the industry to work together to develop standards that allow different conditional access systems, used to ensure payment is received for consumption of programming.

African Harvest Fund portfolio manager Rajay Ambekar said MultiChoice had some exclusive rights to the channels it broadcasts.

New entrants would probably want to broadcast some of those.

MultiChoice said any attempt to undermine the principle of exclusivity would lead to less investment, lower quality, less content and a decrease in SA’s role in African broadcasting."

What a lot of hogwash.

Haven't we heard this blurbed out before by another monopoly. Is there a phrase book that these guys are reaching into to get this garbage!!
The point is more competition in the digital satelite market, the more choice the consumer will have, which means more content definitely not less!!

I use to have respect for Multichoice but they have since proven that they are the same breed of animal as Telkom. Greedy Greedy Greedy! In my mind the test of a really good company is when you can face up to competition and still grow.

When you buy a DSTV decoder, do you own it ? yes ?.... Think again! as DSTV change the firmware whether you like it or not!

With Icasa making the decisions, we should expect competition any where in the next 10 years.

The deadline looks like this

a) Year 1- set up procedures for hearings.
b) Year 2 - finalise hearing date
c) Year 3 - hearings
d) year 4 - draughting a flawed policy document(3 pages full of holes)
e) year 5 - set up objection hearings ( over Xmas)
f) year 6 - objection hearings
g) year 7 - draughting final recommendations
h) Year 8- publish final recommendations
i) Minister vetoes decision and the whole process starts again.

The process could even take longer because of the changing of management because of fraud etc.

So now we know why Multichoice's share price rose when the ICASA announcement was made.