Broadband Prices: what else needs to be achieved?

ToxicWazte said:
Nope, the most important one is LLU. Once other ISPs have access to the local loop, then they will drop analogue line rental, and probably reduce or drop ADSL line rental completely. We will then only pay for uncapped packages, or data-only packages - a simple, single price, an all-in-one service.

Telkom will then be forced to compete, by either matching or beating the ISPs on price and service. This will in turn force them into to dropping its voice line rental and reducing/dropping ADSL line rental.

Competition is what is needed. That will be the true catalyst. LLU is the way to bring about competition.
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What are the chances of this happening though? I was under the impression Telkom "owns" all the lines?
 
seted said:
Telkom doesn't really gain anything by scrapping the rental. It's possible that there might be a standard access charge in the future, regardless of line speed, but Telkom will need to recoup its investment in infrastructure in some way.
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What investment?
Didn't the taxpayer pay for all the infrastructure and they simply got it for free?
 
LLU and getting rid of the forced analogue line rental.

*shakes head in dismay*
Telkom: proudly anti-South African
 
Joe Average said:
Ironic that all 6 points required the co-operation of Telkom. This isn’t going to happen voluntarily unless the ISPs work together and take on Telkom on the issues that need to be resolved - might even require legal intervention. Rudi Jansen could be seen as one of the pioneers of the internet revolution in SA - come on, don't stop now!

Here's looking to the nominated 'Entrepreneur of the Year' to make the big next move :erm:
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I would think Gian is more of a pioneer.......
 
What's missing there is that ISPs need to actually start providing consumers with KPI, as required by law, and also publish their contention ratios.

The industry definitely needs more transparency in this regard, especially in the light of the recent performance issues. Cheap bandwidth is not of much worth if it is over-contended or of otherwise poor quality.
 
grapjas said:
What investment?
Didn't the taxpayer pay for all the infrastructure and they simply got it for free?
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Telkom is still a company. It records what it makes and what it invests, an investment needs to lead to a positive return on that investment otherwise there is no point in being in business.

As far as I am aware Telkom is not a parastatal in the way that Transnet or Eskom are. Though I think the state still has a stake in Telkom.
 
Polemus said:
now i ask the question... if all those points are resolved... what on earth are we going to complain about.... i'm against all of it...

what will we be doing with all the spare time not having to complain on forums like these?
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Lol so the undoing of MBB is getting what the forumites have been complaining bout all these years
 
All this hype about uncapped adsl and how cheap it is. Wow!! Sure it is reasonably priced (not cheap) if you take 384 but who wants to take all day to download a movie? When getting our hopes up with headlines announcing low prices PLEASE give the price of the fastest line-speed FIRST and we will cringe at the cost and not even bother to read the rest of the PR 'pulling the wool over consumers eyes' press releases which are blindly published.
 
Only had my Mweb ASDL 4Mbps for 24 hours with DSL fastest line from Telkom and it is working great. I can now sit here here and watch UK TV via UK Slingbox on a 46 inch LCD TV (quality not HD but very very good) as much as want. So I have the pleasure of depriving Telkom some money and have got rid of the frustration I have watching the c rap on Multichoice.
Easiest bit changing over to Mweb with their support line. Most difficult bit spending 4 phones calls and 3 hours talking to Telkom to cancel my monthly 5Gbs from them!!!!
 
Just points 1 & 2 would make my year!

Howardxxxx said:
Most difficult bit spending 4 phones calls and 3 hours talking to Telkom to cancel my monthly 5Gbs from them!!!!
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I'm in the same boat - dreading the long call to Telkom trying to explain to cancel my data portion and not the whole DO3 package. :eek:
 
DarkStreet said:
What are the chances of this happening though? I was under the impression Telkom "owns" all the lines?
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Telkom does currently own all the lines and infrastructure. Most of all the lines and infrastructure was installed when Telkom was still a completely government-owned and run enterprise. So most of it WAS funded by government, which in turn is funded by tax payers.

When Telkom was privatised, all the infrastructure and publicly-funded assets SHOULD have been seperated from Telkom, and put into a completely seperate entity. Telkom should then have been charged for utilising the infrastructure, and all proceeds would go to maintiaining the infrastructure.

This is what LLU aims to do. However, LLU is a very heated debate worldwide. There are different ways of implementing LLU. The way I see it, there are 3 options.

1st option is to take the infrastructure away from Telkom completely, either through a payment or some form of agreement, and putting it into a completely seperate entity, completely independent of Telkom, for e.g. a state-owned enterprise like Infraco, or perhaps a privately owned entity, where Telkom, Neotel, ISPs and other providers can buy shares in.

2nd option is to split up Telkom into distinct companies, like Telkom Retail, Telkom Business, Telkom Infrastructure - all 3 would still be under the umbrella of the Telkom Group. All companies, including Telkom Business and Telkom Retail, as well other competitors like ISPs and Neotel will then lease the facilities from Telkom Infrastructure at standard, open prices. Everyone pays the same, and gets the same service and access.

A 3rd way is to keep the infrastructure within Telkom, without forcing Telkom to split into seperate divisions, or giving up anything. However, they will be forced to lease their facilities to competitors in an open manner, using standard pricing.

I think the 3rd way is the most likely scenario for RSA, as it will be the quickest, and will see the least legal and regulatory challenges from Telkom. Telkom, like most Telcos worldwide, will be very reluctant to give up the local loop completely, as it is a huge asset worth multi-bilions. Also, Telkom's IPConnect and IPStream products are already heading in this direction.

Can anybody else think of any other possible scenarios, and which will be the most likely?

grapjas said:
What investment?
Didn't the taxpayer pay for all the infrastructure and they simply got it for free?
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razed said:
Think that's a Yes/No answer.
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Yes and no, as pointed out by others. This is a very debatable, heated topic. Parts of it were funded by tax, and part of it from Telkom's own revenues. In any case, Telkom already owns the infrastructure, and it is no longer a state owned enterprise. The mistakes of giving them the infrastructure (for free? almost?) have already been made...

Mamajyot said:
I would think Gian is more of a pioneer.......
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I vote for Gian as entrepenuer of the year. I believe Matthew Tag of WebAfrica was also nominated for Entrepenuer of the year - doubt he will get it though. You simply can't compare him to Gian. Rudi should be nominated as well, but it is too early to tell if he deserves it. Time will tell...
 
"The combination of ADSL access costs and analogue line rental for a DSL384 connection now exceeds the cost of an uncapped ADSL account."

So what He is saying is that it cost you more to get a 3-5km link from Telkom than to get the +30000Km Internet from MWEB for your ADSL product.

Way to go Telkom. No wonder people hate Telkom.
 
Raysmith said:
All this hype about uncapped adsl and how cheap it is. Wow!! Sure it is reasonably priced (not cheap) if you take 384 but who wants to take all day to download a movie? When getting our hopes up with headlines announcing low prices PLEASE give the price of the fastest line-speed FIRST and we will cringe at the cost and not even bother to read the rest of the PR 'pulling the wool over consumers eyes' press releases which are blindly published.
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Please climb in a hole you ungrateful negative nelly.

What part of FROM R219 did you not understand? The fact that you're too lazy to have to invistigate further is your own problem. Furthermore, how is giving the price of their starter service first, which is logical, "pulling the wool over our eyes?" Are you suggesting the service doesn't exist and they're lying?

All I can say is thank God you do not run a business as you'd probably run it straight into the ground with that mentality!
 
As far as I am concerned Multichoice is sorted ie I have cancelled it!. I deprived Telkom money as most importantly they have competition in ASDL supply and will have to fall in line (no pun intended!). Now only need to not have to have a telephone line for an ASDL line. What next? THE BANKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
As grateful as I am to MWEB and the ISPs that have taken up the challenge, the next step is to increase speeds without adding cost.

To me, the problem is that the majority of people are not tech savy enough to know about torrents and newsgroups, and even with an uncapped account wouldn't use more than about 10GB a month. The more of these kind of people that sign up for the new uncapped accounts the better, because they will off-set the heavier users. If there are enough of these low-end users the ISPs will be able to make uncapped profitable, to a point where they will be able to upgrade the line-speed without losing money.

The goal for us, therefore, is to spread the word, and get people that are using 3G at home to make the switch to ADSL. The sooner we can get the average users signed up, the sooner we'll be see the Mbps/Rand increased.
 
almost all their investment was done using taxpayers' money. consider the world cup infrastructure, it was funded by the govt.
 
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