DoC Colloquium off to a cautious start

Competition, as a solution to South Africa's overpriced telecoms costs, is the long-term answer. Unfortunately, the SNO will have its hands tied for far too long -- being required to use Telkom's infrastructure and deal with regulated pricing for its services. And, as many have stated, a duopoly is hardly better than a monopoly, and by all accounts will not drive change fast enough.

Something needs to be done NOW, and as far as I can see this can only happen if the DoC and ICASA enact directives and regulations to provide the quick-fix needed. As we've all seen, relying on (the effectively self-regulating) Telkom to initiate a change for the better has produced nothing short of a disaster.

We need decisive action and we need it now.
 
stoke said:
*me slides up to Darren and gives im a beeg kiss.* :p
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not sure that is quite the decisive action he had in mind

my expectations of the colloquium equate to the square root of negative fsckall
 
Umm.... last I heard the SNO had its own fiber backbone, so I didn't think they'd need much of Telkom's infrastructure.
 
There's still the teensy weensy little "last mile" problem - from the backbone to the user.
The SNO has also been granted some kind of wireless licence, which they can use to cover the last mile as well - with the usual problems that wireless presents.
 
What about the talk of unbundling the local loop? Wasn't that supposed to solve the teensy weensy little problem?
 
And then there is the other problem - the SNO apparently doesn't want to start a price war but rather focus on service levels.
 
Sure, we won't mind being charged exorbitant telecom costs if the SNO's service leves are acceptable.... ya right!!!
 
Well duh, can you blame them? The higher end services appeal to businesses more than residential customers. They pay more per line which means a higher ROI for their setup cost. They're going to need that to get off the ground. They can't afford to throw out 50,000 low cost lines at the start. Plus you can bet Telkom's pushing hard to get as many people on contracts as possible now so they won't switch to the SNO.
 
RATTEXX - Pay attention.

Now that there is a duopoly - i.e. Competition - the competition board cannot stop teklom from offering really good contracts to keep their large corporate clients. And teklom will do that.

Also - it is not in SNO's interests to start a price war, so they will avoid it at all costs.

We MUST either force a price war, or simply tell governmint to bugger off.

We simply cannot afford another 5 years of going backwards.

NOTE: Since the formation of this web site, not one step forwards has been taken. The supposed VOIP revolution is a complete hoax with no actual freedom provided, because all lines end at teklom. Until all lines DO NOT END AT TEKLOM, we are still buggered.

Leasing teklom lines will not do anything at all for this carp situation. The SNO must be able to provide Backbone + Last-Mile + proper International bandwidth, otherwise it does not exist. And it must be able to compete while doing this.
 
We all hate waiting, but going against each other for whatever the reason is not a good idea, even if it's only purpose is to kill time.

I agree that the SNO must hurry up, but what good will it do. It's not going to force a price war with Telkom at the moment. I bet that that there are other companies dying to have a crack at Telkom, if those gosh darn regulations would just be drafted to allow it.
 
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stoke said:
RATTEXX - Pay attention.

Now that there is a duopoly - i.e. Competition - the competition board cannot stop teklom from offering really good contracts to keep their large corporate clients. And teklom will do that.

Also - it is not in SNO's interests to start a price war, so they will avoid it at all costs.

We MUST either force a price war, or simply tell governmint to bugger off.

We simply cannot afford another 5 years of going backwards.

NOTE: Since the formation of this web site, not one step forwards has been taken. The supposed VOIP revolution is a complete hoax with no actual freedom provided, because all lines end at teklom. Until all lines DO NOT END AT TEKLOM, we are still buggered.

Leasing teklom lines will not do anything at all for this carp situation. The SNO must be able to provide Backbone + Last-Mile + proper International bandwidth, otherwise it does not exist. And it must be able to compete while doing this.
Click to expand...


So if the local loop is unbundled and Sat cable is declared a asset would this be ok or would they have to have their own stuff only?... I think they have a back bone already?
 
Nothing will change under the current government and what are the chances of that changing anytime soon?

You see, both telkom and our government have much too gain from keeping "thier people" uninformed and uneducated, hence there is no and will be no push for change.
 
But change must come, international trends are demanding it. South Africa just does not want to be bullied into following International Trends. We don't want to compete on a global scale and on the global market place.
 
If SNO is leasing teklom's lines, then they are contributing to teklom's bottom line and are dependant on teklom. This cannot work. They're supposed to be the competition.

So the question is really - what is unbundling really ? If it means taking the lines from teklom's posession, then it should be named "Theft of the Local Loop".

You really think that teklom's going to let governmint steal the local loop from them ? And then - even if this happens - who is going to maintain it ?

Logically - the only way that the SNO can actually compete is if it's using it's own stuff, or it's using stuff under the exact same rules/conditions and costs as teklom, otherwise teklom will still have the unfair advantage.
 
Well logically the people that want to use the local loop must pay a flat rate to maintain the lines... And since the unbundling has happened around the world i'm pretty sure the gov can just take it away. Same for the undersea cables. am i wrong?
 
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