buffalobill
Senior Member
I had to smile (wryly) at these comments in BD today. What's always struck me is that Sentech's MyWireless pricing is based on Telkom's ADSL pricing ie what the market will bear. 128k MyWireless is R649 pm, 128k ADSL about R680 and, on top of that, add in extra ISP costs of R250 (something which is very hard to find in Telkom marketing literature). Clearly, Sentech has no real handle on what its real costs are. It's rich to hear the COO complain about Telkom pricing as being too expensive when it's own offering is not much cheaper. There can't be a better argument for more competition:
Sentech lambasts Telkom's pricing policies
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State-owned telecoms group wants to compete on Telkom's turf, and blames monopoly for SA's high international call costs
Political Correspondent
CAPE TOWN State-owned telecoms operator Sentech has lashed out at rival Telkom's monopoly on international telecommunications services , blaming it for SA's excessively high international call costs.
Sentech's attack yesterday signalled the start of tough battles over the proposed Convergence Bill, which aims to remove the restriction of operators to a particular type of technology.
Sentech, which has licences to operate as a carrier of carriers and offer broadband multimedia services, said that it would push for the widest possible convergence because it wanted to compete headon with Telkom in the international telecommunications market.
The operator called for the playing fields in the industry to be levelled and for the bill to allow operators to also be service providers
Sentech is now only able to facilitate the international calls of cellphone operators and not those of end-users.
Its multimedia service licence also prohibits it from offering voice over internet protocol.
Sentech is calling for the lifting of restrictions to lower prices and the abolition of Telkom's monopoly on infrastructure and voice services .
"The cost of telecommunications in SA is high," Sentech chief operating officer Gladwin Marumo said when he addressed the National Council of Provinces' select committee on labour and public enterprises yesterday.
"We believe it can be cheaper."
Call-centre rates in SA were more expensive than in outsourcing rival India, he said.
Marumo said Sentech was also hobbled by Telkom's refusal to allow it to use its submarine fibreoptic cable for international calls at an affordable rate.
Telkom charged retail rates for its facilities and was harming the country with its high prices, he said.
The cable issue was a major source of conflict between the two companies as Telkom's pricing forced Sentech to rely on the costly US and European satellite services .
Marumo said Sentech's business case was "very depressed" as it had to pay for its satellite usage in dollars while charging in rands for its satellite services.
The issue would be raised with the Independent Communications Authority of SA, which is empowered to regulate the relationship between operators and the prices charged for the use of their infrastructure and services, he said.
Marumo also said that revisions to the Telecommunications Amendment Act in April this year had addressed the issue of prices by declaring Sentech a public operator, so obliging Telkom to charge it wholesale prices.
But Telkom had failed to comply with this requirement, he said.
Marumo emphasised the urgent need for SA to digitise its television and radio network, saying this was being held back because of the communications department's failure to formulate a national digitisation policy which would include provisions on how analogue viewers could migrate to a digital system.
"Everybody agrees about digitisation, but there is a policy vacuum," Marumo said.
Digit isation would create room for other television channels and rad io stations to lower transmission costs considerably.
Marumo outlined the success of Sentech's video conferencing and telemedicine services, saying it planned to extend its internet laboratories at Gauteng schools to other provinces.
Jun 24 2004 06:52:31:000AM Linda Ensor Business Day 1st Edition
I have an inferiority complex. But it's only a little one.
Sentech lambasts Telkom's pricing policies
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
State-owned telecoms group wants to compete on Telkom's turf, and blames monopoly for SA's high international call costs
Political Correspondent
CAPE TOWN State-owned telecoms operator Sentech has lashed out at rival Telkom's monopoly on international telecommunications services , blaming it for SA's excessively high international call costs.
Sentech's attack yesterday signalled the start of tough battles over the proposed Convergence Bill, which aims to remove the restriction of operators to a particular type of technology.
Sentech, which has licences to operate as a carrier of carriers and offer broadband multimedia services, said that it would push for the widest possible convergence because it wanted to compete headon with Telkom in the international telecommunications market.
The operator called for the playing fields in the industry to be levelled and for the bill to allow operators to also be service providers
Sentech is now only able to facilitate the international calls of cellphone operators and not those of end-users.
Its multimedia service licence also prohibits it from offering voice over internet protocol.
Sentech is calling for the lifting of restrictions to lower prices and the abolition of Telkom's monopoly on infrastructure and voice services .
"The cost of telecommunications in SA is high," Sentech chief operating officer Gladwin Marumo said when he addressed the National Council of Provinces' select committee on labour and public enterprises yesterday.
"We believe it can be cheaper."
Call-centre rates in SA were more expensive than in outsourcing rival India, he said.
Marumo said Sentech was also hobbled by Telkom's refusal to allow it to use its submarine fibreoptic cable for international calls at an affordable rate.
Telkom charged retail rates for its facilities and was harming the country with its high prices, he said.
The cable issue was a major source of conflict between the two companies as Telkom's pricing forced Sentech to rely on the costly US and European satellite services .
Marumo said Sentech's business case was "very depressed" as it had to pay for its satellite usage in dollars while charging in rands for its satellite services.
The issue would be raised with the Independent Communications Authority of SA, which is empowered to regulate the relationship between operators and the prices charged for the use of their infrastructure and services, he said.
Marumo also said that revisions to the Telecommunications Amendment Act in April this year had addressed the issue of prices by declaring Sentech a public operator, so obliging Telkom to charge it wholesale prices.
But Telkom had failed to comply with this requirement, he said.
Marumo emphasised the urgent need for SA to digitise its television and radio network, saying this was being held back because of the communications department's failure to formulate a national digitisation policy which would include provisions on how analogue viewers could migrate to a digital system.
"Everybody agrees about digitisation, but there is a policy vacuum," Marumo said.
Digit isation would create room for other television channels and rad io stations to lower transmission costs considerably.
Marumo outlined the success of Sentech's video conferencing and telemedicine services, saying it planned to extend its internet laboratories at Gauteng schools to other provinces.
Jun 24 2004 06:52:31:000AM Linda Ensor Business Day 1st Edition
I have an inferiority complex. But it's only a little one.
