Convergence - MPs call for deregulation of local loop

[dominic]

http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=561&fArticleId=2477072

heartening that MPs in the portfolio committee on communications are criticising the Convergence Bill in that it does not do enough to deregulate telkom's control of the local loop

By Lynda Loxton

The failure of the Convergence Bill to deal with Telkom's monopoly over telephone lines to homes would defeat the bill's aim of increasing universal access to the internet, it emerged on Friday.

During a briefing by the department of communications, members of the national assembly's portfolio committee on communications had expressed concern that the bill was silent on the deregulation of the Telkom lines linking telephone exchanges to homes, apart from provisions that Telkom should make these available to the second network operator (SNO) for two years.

After that the SNO would have to install its own network of copper cables or wireless links to domestic and business clients.

The MPs said they would have thought that the liberalisation of telecommunications announced last year by communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri would have made the total liberalisation of the local loop a priority.

Information technology (IT) experts contacted afterwards confirmed that this would be "vital" if government "truly wants to bridge the digital divide" as soon as possible.

Countries such as the UK had done that by forcing Britain's formerly state-owned telecommunications group, BT, to make its lines available to competitors indefinitely, helping to bring down charges for internet links.

Communications department director-general Lyndall Shope-Mafole told the committee the issue was "quite complex" and would be examined more closely in the year ahead, especially as it involved major investments in infrastructure by Telkom.

The IT experts said this might have been the case in the past, but Telkom should surely have recouped most of the costs involved already and "it would be a pity" if access to the local loop was not unbundled totally.

"The digital divide would then be totally self-inflicted," said one of the experts.

Shope-Mafole told the committee that the bill was not aimed at controlling content on the internet or satellite broadcasting but there was a growing body of international opinion that this seemingly technically impossible task should be given greater attention

 

[bb_matt]

After that the SNO would have to install its own network of copper cables or wireless links to domestic and business clients.

Which is totally impossible. Imagine the disruption of trying to lay cable and building exchanges over a 2 year period ?
Not to mention the mess when Telkom refuses them the usage of existing Telkom telephone poles, requiring them to erect their own alongside the Telkom ones, not to mention installing local DB's (not sure what they are called) on street corners.

Countries such as the UK had done that by forcing Britain's formerly state-owned telecommunications group, BT, to make its lines available to competitors indefinitely, helping to bring down charges for internet links.

And this is the only way it can be done here.

To expect the SNO to lay cable even in greater johannesburg in 2 years is insane - imagine the whole country !

Damn it man, it's taken Telkom decades and they still haven't reached all rural areas.

Telkom HAVE to be forced like BT to play ball, it seems to be our only hope as wireless is just so problematical and still in it's infancy in terms of networking.

What needs to be fully determined is whether the Telkom infrastructure, or part thereof, can be determined a national asset - if so, then the SNO should have indefinate access to it.

 

[rsachoc]

I firmly beleive that local-loop unbundling is the only way we will ever see lower prices for ADSL and normal telephone calls.

A step in the right direction.

 

[BTTB]

Local Infastructure

And to think the local infrastructure was paid for by us.
What a mess this thing has turned out to be.
The people were so quick to put Telkom on the Stock Exchange they forgot the most important thing and that is the people of South Africa and their needs.
One wonders how much money changed hands over the last few years.

Can you imagine the mess if the Government wanted to privatise Eskom. It might make the Telkom debacle look like a walk in the park.

 

[hArTh]

It would be an incredible waste of money to run duplicate last mile wiring. SA has far more important problems deserving of that investment.

You cant run Telkom and the SNO on the same copper pair, the customer must choose one. So why run duplicate wiring? How idiotic!

Again the DoC silence on LLU proves their total lack of commitment to real telecoms competition. But we knew that already ...

 

[kaspaas]

There is (as far as I can see) no technical reason why Telkom can't offer Local Loop services as a paid for service.

Provided they balance the rates/service levels with the cost of laying copper, the SNO may find it profitable to pay Telkom for the service in most instances.

This is a form of competition: Make it financially not viable for the others to implement their own Last Mile solution.

But we know Telkom: They want 200%, nevermind 100% or even 50% of the share.

 

[ic]

Ok, I first want to determine if my interpretation of terminology is correct:

Last Mile == copper / fibre (as if ) / wireless, respectively from/to local exchange / local exchange / base-station or tower, and the consumer. I don't include fibre peering links in this - they typically wouldn't be ~1 mile long or whatever. Correct?

Local Loop == local exchange including the copper that extends out from the exchange to consumers. Correct?

Assuming that to be approximately correct, and concentrating just on Telkomonopoly and copper infrastructure - bcos of the waste & disruption aspect of laying copper in parallel to that of Telkomonopoly, then IMO there are a few alternative ways of dealing with the unbundling issue to promote competition:

• Purchase exchanges from Telkomonopoly (yes you would have to pay Telkomonopoly - no way around that), so the SNO decides to make an offer on an exchange in some area it wants to operate in, Telkomonopoly either agrees or rejects the offer.
  
  Now assuming Telkomonopoly accepted an offer from the SNO, and sold off an exchange to the SNO, where does that leave the consumer - considering the effect would be that that area would only have one service provider, i.e. no competition. So, IMO not a realistic solution.
  .
• Telkomonopoly agrees to sell groups of copper cabling in an area to the SNO, whilst still maintaining some or none of the copper in that area. Where does that leave the consumer? - the consumer still has no choice, and there is still no effective competition on a particular group of copper cables.
  .
• Assume that Telkomonopoly sells off ALL of the copper in an area to a 3rd party (i.e. not the SNO), and the SNO then makes a plan to build its own exchange for that area, and pays the 3rd party for using the copper cable to consumers, likewise Telkomonopoly would have to pay the 3rd party to use the copper to consumers that want to use Telkomonopoly instead of the SNO. Another issue here is how the SNO then linksup its exchanges.
  
  In this scenario, the 3rd party is then responsible for maintaining all the copper cables regardless of the local exchange (either Telkomonopoly or SNO) that the copper is connected to.
  
  This sort of gets closer to being more feasible, but there would still be problems, and the consumer would still be left experiencing the effects of such problems.
  .
• Another scenario is that exchanges get sold off to multiple 3rd parties, perhaps selling the copper extending out from those exchanges to other 3rd parties.
  
  The issue here becomes one of linking up 3rd party exchanges to whatever national switching network Telkomonopoly and the SNO have to route calls/data nationally & internationally. Again consumers in certain areas would be getting a raw deal if inter-exchange peering-type-links aren't in place to both Telkomonopoly and the SNO.

I suppose there are other combinations as well, but the best solution is one that provides the consumer with the choice of using either Telkomonopoly or the SNO, and allows the consumer to switch between Telkomonopoly and the SNO whilst keeping the same telephone number.

Debate...