Sentech: Weighing Up Its Options

[rpm]

http://mybroadband.co.za/nephp/?m=show&id=707

[desraid]

many users are choosing NO for the poll. why not YES?
if government does not finance Sentech, then who gets the benefit?
i think if Sentech is financed by gov, it will improve Sentech's infra and thus bring more competition to this country.

[Goobie]

I agree! The government is finally coming around and taking a stance on increased connectivity for the people, let them fund Sentech and bring the internet to the people.

[mbs]

I voted NO for the simple reason that Government is not a business nor financier - its revenues should be used for service delivery, nothing else. If it chooses to rollout services through agencies that are expected to conduct themselves as businesses with a view to ultimately becoming self-sustaining, then those agencies must firstly pursue loan alternatives as all businesses do, only reverting to shareholders as a last resort for capital financing. Seen in this light, the direct funding from Government is not an option, imho...

[Billy]

As any money would come from TELKOM profits what is the problem. Let the Goverment support any competition for Telkom.

Surely you can all see the irony of Telkom supporting a competitor?

[TheRoDent]

The thing is, would you like to see MyWireless Pty Ltd, rather? If the Sentech multimedia license, technology and the rest gets ceded to a "private" company, then why did government bother giving these licenses to Sentech in the first place? Who controls and owns the licenses? What do the shareholders control?

Government will never go for the first option (spin-off privatisation), as it's to difficult too implement, and too politically landmined. The second option is too expensive, and a public-private-partnership will take another 5 years to mature keeping in mind the fast pace of government reaction.

Instead, government should just give out as many licenses as required to saturate the market, and ensure in that way that competition gets driven out of the metropolitan areas to more rural areas where competition is less stiff.

More competition, more players. That's what works. It's been proven the world over. Rather than privatize, or PPP, or funding MyWireless, government should rather just dish out more comms licenses. The task of dishing out licenses is essentially a no-cost operation. We have a regulator already that's supposed to police operators. Get more operators, beef up the regulator, and free up the competition...

Hallo government!