On my way home I've been thinking about Telkom and their pricing scheme (scam?). I know Telkom now uses outside contractors to install ADSL (I've dealt with them myself last year), and according to rumours I've heard they have a backlog of 30,000 lines, with an average wait time of 6-8 weeks. I can't recall ever waiting less than 15 minutes on the ADSL helpline for someone to answer my call.
Given all that, combined with Telkom's pricing, limiting it to a small segment of the total market, could the real reason for the high prices be as simple as resources? They don't have the capacity to get the current flood of applications serviced, if ADSL prices fall to more acceptable levels, would that leave them completely unable to cope, manpower-wise?
And then there's the issue of backhaul. If ADSL becomes more mainstream, will Telkom's local backhaul infrastructure be able to cope with the increased demand?
Of course, a reasonable company, facing such a dilemma, will use at least some of the R10bn+ of profit they make and address these issues, to increase future profitability, so it definably is no excuse for their service levels or pricing.
Maybe the real issue is a corporate mindset, I don't know. Telkom used to be a parastatal. People in such an environment frequently look out for just themselves. How big an "empire" you have (people working for you) defines how successful and important you are. There will always be customers, after all, why care about giving good service? Where else would they go?
A mindset like this in middle management could easily lead to what we see today with Telkom, especially if upper management doesn't care / is incompetent. And the ground-level staff doesn't care, they just need to get their own empires together so they can rise in the ranks too.
Given all that, combined with Telkom's pricing, limiting it to a small segment of the total market, could the real reason for the high prices be as simple as resources? They don't have the capacity to get the current flood of applications serviced, if ADSL prices fall to more acceptable levels, would that leave them completely unable to cope, manpower-wise?
And then there's the issue of backhaul. If ADSL becomes more mainstream, will Telkom's local backhaul infrastructure be able to cope with the increased demand?
Of course, a reasonable company, facing such a dilemma, will use at least some of the R10bn+ of profit they make and address these issues, to increase future profitability, so it definably is no excuse for their service levels or pricing.
Maybe the real issue is a corporate mindset, I don't know. Telkom used to be a parastatal. People in such an environment frequently look out for just themselves. How big an "empire" you have (people working for you) defines how successful and important you are. There will always be customers, after all, why care about giving good service? Where else would they go?
A mindset like this in middle management could easily lead to what we see today with Telkom, especially if upper management doesn't care / is incompetent. And the ground-level staff doesn't care, they just need to get their own empires together so they can rise in the ranks too.
