31 Telecoms Companies Threaten To Pull Out Of EASSY Project

In other words: "we're against competition and don't feel we will be able to charge rip-off prices, therefore we're pulling out"

Then again this is Africa, did we ever really believe that a project which would benefit consumers would actually get off the ground anyway?
 
What else would You expect from Africa. Wonder how much Telkom and "our" GVT have to do with it? (The non agreements) as it refers to
The protocol according to Sihra's statement proposes a regional government structure that will own, implement, control and operate the EASSy system that was rejected as being inappropriate, unworkable and in direct conflict with the deregulated telecom environment and national regulations. The promoters say the protocol does not have the buy-in of all the stakeholders, most notably, the region's telecommunications operators and certain governments.
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I still don't understand why South Africa has to share a cable. We can do this alone! We can spare a dime for shared connections at a later date, the time for charity is not now. Charity starts at home anyway and having to field this amount of red tape is insane.

I am sure there are enough business here who would be interested in getting the SOUTH AFRICAN HIGHSPEED GATEWAY TO THE WORLD going...

Where is our sense of innovation? We should be in space already FFS!
 
Talk about putting the fox in charge of the hen house :eek: Why are telco's, especially the private ones, even involved in this venture? Has nothing been learned by the SAT3 debacle?
 
antowan said:
I still don't understand why South Africa has to share a cable. We can do this alone! We can spare a dime for shared connections at a later date, the time for charity is not now. Charity starts at home anyway and having to field this amount of red tape is insane.

I am sure there are enough business here who would be interested in getting the SOUTH AFRICAN HIGHSPEED GATEWAY TO THE WORLD going...

Where is our sense of innovation? We should be in space already FFS!
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Exactly! Surely South Africa's projected growth of telecommunications (given a fair price) would far exceed Eassy proposed bandwidth. Goverment here's something to invest in. Screw Telkom and the other Telcos. Let them stick with what they have if a fair price is not acceptable.
 
I say SA build it, then charge the other countries as they need bandwidth, and charge them more to make up the cost. Too bad for them too slow.
 
Good to see other folks also seeing the problem. This country has more resources and more creative people than anywhere else in Africa purely because our education etc are/used to be better. We must be a leader, not a follower nation! Government should allow private companies to endeavour into getting global links up...
 
Any rational person will realise that it is prudent that we invest in our own cable to primarily service our own country, first and foremost.

The government's winkie might be able to reach its own ass but they are not about to screw themselves out of all the profits that they, and their well connected individual friends currently enjoy with the inflated bandwidth and telecoms costs.

As with Zim and us now 'quietly' (as possible) managing the thousands of illegal immigrants and scurge of organised crime that is plaguing this country, so to we will continue to suffer from the governments relentless policy of managed liberalisation of the telecommunications sector all in the interest of protecting a few fat cats.

With the amount of money that we as a country are able to throw at World Cup stadia, military hardware and the like the cost of a cable is rather insignificant in real terms when one looks at the potential benefits it could have on health, education, SMME's, global competitiveness, etc.
Its a no brainer.

Sadly though our government is comfortable being reactionary rather than proactive and their forward planning capability seems to be very limited.
We see evidence of this all the time in all infrastructure, electricity demand, water demands, basic service delivery, home affairs, roads. Strewth, they are now proposing taxing individuals that drive alone to free up the traffic. Not a bad idea for inner cities but main routes it is ridiculous. Perhaps get the rail sector going and get the trucks of the highways first. Another debate entirely.

Bottom line is that by hook or by crook they have their own plan and vision (flawed as it may be) and they will stick to it and to hell with anyone else. They are immune to criticism and while all the big business ventures get special rates on telecoms, the public (the tiny percentage that have phones and internet) pay through their teeth for a piss poor service.
I'm still waiting for Roy's fireworks.
 
Pls - the government isnt going to lay its own cable - not when they're priorities are on spending over $1 billion on a few soccer games.
 
antowan said:
Good to see other folks also seeing the problem. This country has more resources and more creative people than anywhere else in Africa purely because our education etc are/used to be better. We must be a leader, not a follower nation! Government should allow private companies to endeavour into getting global links up...
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Reality check: AFAIK Tunisia has been rated better at ICT than SA for the last couple|few years - SA has slipped into mediocrity and no longer leads the way forward, and for that we can solidly blame Telkodemonopolies & guavamint for broadband price fixing [includes SAT3 as an international broadband access medium]...

If EASSy ever did get implemented, it would be a short-term victory of sorts for NEPAD, but the fact that it's being continually delayed by disagreements, is a sign that post-implementation of EASSy would also not be a smooth ride - echoes of SNOT in SA that still isn't willing or able to provide a service to consumers & businesses - how long will it be before EASSy actually offers up the capacity it has to everyone that needs it?
 
antowan said:
I still don't understand why South Africa has to share a cable. We can do this alone!
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Kenya's lone fibre optic cable is expected to cost $110m and would run from Mombasa to Fujairah in the Gulf of Oman
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That's not a lot of money in the general scheme of things! One would expect a telco to be able to finance something like that itself.
 
bekdik said:
That's not a lot of money in the general scheme of things! One would expect a telco to be able to finance something like that itself.
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Please no! That sort of thing cannot be allowed ever again. Think of the mess we're in now with telkom and their landing rights to SAT3.

We'd need a lot more than the 2 national operators we currently have if we want to avoid being extorted.
 
bwana v.19 said:
bekdik said:
That's not a lot of money in the general scheme of things! One would expect a telco to be able to finance something like that itself.
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Please no! That sort of thing cannot be allowed ever again. Think of the mess we're in now with telkom and their landing rights to SAT3.

We'd need a lot more than the 2 national operators we currently have if we want to avoid being extorted.
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True, Telkodemonopolies does not have any effective competition, so allowing Telkodemonopolies, or for that matter NeOTel, to build & pay for & monopolise yet another submarine cable, would land us back where we are now - price fixing.

IMO the sensible thing for SA to do, is to build at least one submarine cable link [not necessarily for the whole of East Africa], and allow bandwidth consumers [ISPs] to buy capacity at wholesale rates - where Telkodemonopolies and NeOTel and IS and Verizon Business and Vodacom and MTN and CellC and Sentech and iBurst and every other ISP, are simply bandwidth consumers buying capacity at wholesale rates and reselling that capacity to their own customers who are in turn also consumers of the bandwidth at retail rates.
 
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