What the Government and ICASA need to do

[lewstherin]

To me, regulation of Telkom will not work because they can litigate such attempts into the ground. The solution is competion - competion between baby Telkoms

My take on what should be done with Telkom:

Split Telkom into 3 or 4 competing private companies with equal licences ala AT&T in the US in the 80s/90s.

Split them along provincial boundaries - eg Telkom North, Telkom East, Telkom South - and give them all national operator priveledge - this means they can compete with each other anywhere in SA, but they own their provincial area infrastructure.

Legislate that the companies (and the SNO) may NOT hold shares in each other or the SNO directly or indirectly for a period of 5 years.
Legislate interconnection agreements between the new companies, the SNO, the cell companies and VANS with low, capped interconnection rates.

Each company has full SAT3 access (since Telkom's shareholding of the cable is simply split 3/4 ways) and the local loop is regulated to ensure that any of the 4 companies + the SNO have wholesale access to the local loop of the provincial incumbent.

What would this do?

1.) We now have a competive market - 4 baby Telkoms + a SNO
2.) From a shareholder/ownership perspective, there are probably less legal issues since the companies all still own their piece of the infrastructure (ie. nothing needs to be nationalised).
3.) Shareholders could be given options in all the companies based on shareholding in Telkom. In this, BEE could be promoted further since the companies would be smaller, allowing cheaper, more accessable shares?
4.) No need to regulate these companies beyond ensuring they allow each other wholesale access to the local loops that they own, and that they generally are forced to "play nice".
5.) The SNO as a business case becomes much stronger - but not so strong that it becomes the next Telkom. The SNO would be better able to compete since it effectively would become the 5th player in the market.

[stoke]

Teklom are in violation of some anti-competitive laws.
But they are currently protected by governmint, cos they're all we have.
I recon that lewstherin is on track, but it requires that legislation that protects teklom must be scrapped, leaving splitting up as the only alternative to teklom.

But we're still stuck on the Submarine cables. Whichever piece of teklom gets that (if it's split) wins.

[lewstherin]

My idea is that each baby Telkom gets an equal share of the SAT3 cable - thus you now have 3/4 wholesalers instead of one