Broadband Infraco hearings

[rpm]

Broadband Infraco hearings

The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) has announced that it will hold public hearings in relation to the applications for Individual Electronic Communications Network Services (I-ECNS) and Individual Electronic Communications Services (I-ECS) licences by Broadband Infraco (Pty) Ltd.

 

[Nod]

Infraco is just another government (tax) funded operation. We don't need more of those, IMO. SABC, SAA and Eskom is proof that government don't know how to run companies.

 

[pmbellis]

Give them the license

Infraco is just another government (tax) funded operation. We don't need more of those, IMO. SABC, SAA and Eskom is proof that government don't know how to run companies.

I agree with that, but as long as giving them a license doesn't stop other potential providers from getting one, then I say: Go ahead, give it to them.

The principle should be that the more entities get licenses, the more likely those who have them will actually have to do something efficient with theirs.

Infraco's infrastructure is potentially a huge plus to telecoms in this country, the question is: will it be utilised?

 

[LazyLion]

I think they should get licensed, this is the government trying to drive down the costs of interconnect cables and bandwidth provisioning. That is a good thing.

For all those of you who keep saying that the government is always in the side of Telkom and keeping costs inflated.. .well this is the government trying to undercut Telkom's prices... so let us let them do their thing. Broadband will go private after a few years and we will have a nice strong competitor. This is also a nice competitor for the likes of Dark Fibre Africa and the Neotel/Vodacom/MTN cable laying consortium.

BUT, I do think that the government should financially compensate Neotel for a portion of the R100 million that they had to pay in License fees up front. Since the IECNS market opened up and since the Government gave some of the cabling they promised Neotel to Infraco, it is only fair that they be compensated.

Here's the recent article on Broadband Infraco's Strategy... and if they can pull it off... it will be a good thing!

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/Telecoms/8209.html

 

[ambo]

Infraco don't need a licence... that will allow them to compete with ISPs using infrastucture that was paid for by tax payers. It may bring down prices in the short term but it will kill competition and eventually the entire industry.

Let them compete in the infrastructure market like DFA is doing. But don't let them get an IECNS.

 

[Shake&Bake]

Not sure on this one, just really afraid of what goverment has done and is doing with current enterprises they own.

I reckon let them go ahead and get licensed.
As long as their is more infrastructure to be utlilised, the better I suppose.
A cautionary yes...

 

[kaaskop]

Hopefully nobody will prevent them to get a license and set it back another 5 years.

 

[apogeeza]

Agreed that it's "gov", and Telkom is "gov" too. But the two "gov's" have different people backing them. The people controlling the Telkom cash cow don't want other's eating their cake, so the other's create their own cake called Infraco.

This can only be good for consumers.

There is only so many of us and with more us us moving to Infraco and Neotel etc. the more aggressively these will HAVE to price themselves in order to attract more us us in order to grow the size of their respective cakes.

Ag, but vrok, this is SA where Economics 101 does not apply, excuse me while I go puke ...

 

[Sting]

No.

This infrastructure should have been handed over/sold to Neotel when they received their licence.

I am not pro-Neotel, but I feel that they were short-changed by the DoC/SA Government in this regard.

If they had decent links early on, it would have accelerated the whole LLU issue as well, as they could have focused on local loop instead of inter-city and corporate fibre links.

 

[Roman4604]

Let them compete in the infrastructure market like DFA is doing. But don't let them get an IECNS.

Agreed, I fear should they succeed in getting licensed to provide managed services, we could see the emergence of Sentech mark II.

 

[Fantastic1]

I say give them license but to supply facilities to other licensed operators,
And goverment should not provide our tax monies to them.

What is more beneficial, is the tax monies they intend allocating to
Infraco, goverment should allocate funds to the already licensed operators.

If infraco get the license they would also get all the funding from doc,
Which is our tax money and this will really boost their advantage over
Other licensed operators.

This could become Telkom version 2,

Rather give the monies to companies like DFA / Neotel / unbundle the
Local loop / and provide incentives to licensed operators who are
Doing a good job trying to make communication costs come down.

It must not be another cash cow hungry gravy train goverment entity, with kroonies
Getting the benefits

 

[LazyLion]

This could become Telkom version 2

That's impossible. Telkom was a monopoly cos nobody was able to take them on. Now we are trying to pull more players into the market to avoid that. This is the whole idea. Get as many players as possible. None of them will be able to dominate anymore.

 

[kingmonty]

I don't think they should be licensed. Their integrity is questionable but even worse is their past behaviour. They basically got formed by hijacking infrsatructure that was earmarked for Neotel. Arguably Infraco's very existence is the reason Neotel's impact both competitively and monetarily has been little more than a wet fish tail slap. Furthermore, the government has never shown any competence in the telecoms sector (Sentech and obviously Telkom a case in point), and creating yet another entity in which they have their stubby fingers stuffed to the knuckles just doesn't bode well for us...

 

[Fantastic1]

Agreed kingmonty

 

[Gaz{M}]

Give them a licence - another 1 out of 500 odd is not something that needs debate.

 

[Avenue]

the industry is milking us-
if mtn can give their CEO a 13 million rand bonus, they are making a fortune-
competition didnt alter the prices of cellular communication, and already the broadband service providers are telling us not to expect a drop in prices any time soon-to position someone in the market with the intention of creating more realistically priced broadband offerings is a good thing- im fully behind infraco

 

[porchrat]

That's impossible. Telkom was a monopoly cos nobody was able to take them on. Now we are trying to pull more players into the market to avoid that. This is the whole idea. Get as many players as possible. None of them will be able to dominate anymore.

Hah, yes I agree that there is plenty of competition in the ISP market, but most ISPs won't end up selling below cost and running at a loss because they know that at the end of the financial year they will be bailed out by government (look to SAA's behaviour to get an idea of what I'm talking about). This sort of behaviour kills competition.

The fewer the responsibilities of infraco the better, don't give them a license, they should provide infrastructure and NOTHING else. The government already has a stake in Telkom as an ISP and infrastructure provider, is that not enough for them?

Here's the recent article on Broadband Infraco's Strategy... and if they can pull it off... it will be a good thing!

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/Telecoms/8209.html

They don't need a license to do any of those things actually.

Let them provide infrastructure, but stay out of the ISPs arena please.

 

[Avenue]

Hah, yes I agree that there is plenty of competition in the ISP market, but most ISPs won't end up selling below cost and running at a loss because they know that at the end of the financial year they will be bailed out by government (look to SAA's behaviour to get an idea of what I'm talking about). This sort of behaviour kills competition.

the difference is that most airlines are running on very low margins as it is and have extremely high costs, which is not the case with the telecommunications industry
at the moment if seacom charges the prices they originally released, broadband prices could drop by 90% and the service providers will still make exactly the same amount of profit, there is no way that unless the government intervenes that prices will ever drop by even a fraction of that

 

[Sting]

the difference is that most airlines are running on very low margins as it is and have extremely high costs, which is not the case with the telecommunications industry
at the moment if seacom charges the prices they originally released, broadband prices could drop by 90% and the service providers will still make exactly the same amount of profit, there is no way that unless the government intervenes that prices will ever drop by even a fraction of that

How do you get to 90% ??

 

[Avenue]

Seacom has already outlined what sort of pricing it will offer, and the savings to South African users are expected to be between 70% and 80%. Seacom will be offering a 9.6 Gigabit per second (Gbps) wholesale connection at R267 per Mbps (megabit per second) per month. The SAT-3 cable currently costs between R3 500 and R11 000 per Mbps per month.

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/Telecoms/5002.html