Excellent Announcement by the DoC!

A reality check:

Do I understand that this is a policy announcement with all the legalative and regulative issues still needing to be finalised?

In the end it might be one may use VoIP as long as you use these systems not compatible with anybody else in the world.

And others may construct their only cable backbones provided....

I'm getting slightly exited, BUT too many times in the past things go very different from announcement to implementation.

Take the rool-out of the anti-aids drugs as an example.



South Africa needs World Class Broadband at World Competitive Prices.
 
I have a feeling the DoC already knows that the SNO isn't going to work out, so this is here to provide an environment in which Esitel and Transtel can trade independently instead of being locked into an ever-losing battle within the SNO.
 
I agree Thraxis - to me Transtel and Esitel are BIG winners in this. They have a national fibre infrastructure due to the fact that they have laid lines over power and rail links. The announcements mean they can resell access to this to anyone.

A thought I've had: I have a VANS licence. I take a neighbourhood, and offer to pay everyone R100 for fibre line installation on their property. I install the lines on each property for the owners, and pay them R100 each. Then I interconnect the individual lines to each other at my cost. I offer them interconnectivity in exchange for use of their private networks.
I then offer IP services on the network for a charge.

Surely this is now legal - because I am using private network capacity to link to, just on a large node basis?

<font color="blue">Telkom needs a leash, ICASA needs some guts, and the </font id="blue"><font color="red">SA consumer</font id="red"><font color="blue"> needs to make it happen</font id="blue">
 
I see on the DoC website, the changes Ivy presented yesterday have been gazetted.

http://www.doc.gov.za/images/Policy_deter_030904.pdf

Does this mean it is approved by cabinet, or still has to go through a process to be approved? Can Telscum challenge this in court if it hasn't been approved by cabinet yet?
 
Barring any misunderstanding of the wording of the announcement, this would indeed cease to be an illegal practice lewstherin.
 
Well it would seem that if my understanding is correct, then VANS can pretty much lay cable or fibre networks within their own private capacity...sweeeet [:)]

There is still the BIG problem of getting traffic out of the country...lets hope that international landing rights are revoked from Telkom's exclusive control...

<font color="blue">Telkom needs a leash, ICASA needs some guts, and the </font id="blue"><font color="red">SA consumer</font id="red"><font color="blue"> needs to make it happen</font id="blue">
 
if i read it in a more abstract way the requirement for the SNO licence might be meaningless to a great extent as the proposed SNO can offer a wide range of services even if the SNO is delayed further this could be of great benifit as VOIP/Data are very profitable and more profitable than residential voice ...

think of it this way SNO-To-Be can start pluging companies into there network with a data line they have spare ... and run the PABX over it as well as VPN/Internet .... even if useing a telkom Martis link they will only be paying telkom line rental all other services go to the data operator ...
 
My personal theory is that the Minister doesn't give a damn about the provision of cheaper services. She's just got tired of the the SNO parties bitching at her and one another and has decided to get even.

She's been holding out against deregulation for so long, and I'm sure it's at Telkom's bidding. The "we weren't consulted" cry is just a smokescreen for the fact that they have been doing whatever they can to delay things for as long as possible. I guess as of today the Minister is going to have to pay her own home phone bills again.

Essentially the SNO is only going to make money out of data connectivity anyway, so this announcement basically says to them "get your act together before 1 Feb or compete among yourselves".

I think Maria Ramos may have something to do with this too. Transnet is in debt to the tune of billions, yet it is sitting with a highly lucrative network that would make lots of money on VoIP. Similarly for Escom.

Evil thought: do you think Telkom would try to take Transtel to court if it reconnected those lines that it "agreed" to disconnect? If I were Transtel I would reconnect them now and see what happens.

http://www.telkom.co.za/portal/page?_pageid=554,72063&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL&paramURL=/pls/portal/docs/page/news/article_687.jsp


<hr noshade size="1">
Donn Edwards

Why is ADSL like a Cheeseburger? Find out at http://privacy.4mg.com

“Free-market advocates often warn that the only thing worse than a state-controlled monopoly is a privatised one.”
 
What is the status of the law with this announcement with regards to Wifi? Nothing was mentioned, but surely there must of been an impact on WiFi somewhere? For example, is it still illegal to link two networks with Wifi over a public road?
 
its legal for people with licenses to carry data (VANS/Telekoms/Eskom/transtel...sentech/WBS too) to use those existing pipes to now carry voice traffic as well, there was no mention in that article about new network creators, although I havent seen the full DOC yet, so yeah, users setting up ad-hoc wi-fi/can&string configs should still be doing it silently
 
Yeah, this sounds like great news. It actually sounds too good to be true. The government has made promises before, which it did not keep.

I hope this means that they will leave Aerosat in Port Elizabeth and other Wisps throughout the country alone.

I guess we will just have to wait and see
 
Two thumbs up for Ivy!

<font color="navy"><font size="1"><b>Where others have progress, we have Telkom.</b>
Hellkom website - www.hellkom.co.za</font id="size1"></font id="navy">
 
I have two outstanding issues that I hope are addressed in the October announcements promised by Ivy:
1.) The international landing rights of Telkom need to be changed. They already have the SAT3, so why not allow VANS to terminate their networks beyond our borders?
Also the access to SAT3 needs to be opened up, otherwise VOIP etc will only cause benefits on local connectivity, since obviously international bandwidth is needed to call beyond our borders.
2.) The local loop needs to be be unbundled - either create local loop operator licences or legalise WiFi so ISPs can look at offering "to door" connectivity instead of having to rely on Telkom to get connectwith their clients. That way we have a choice of connectivity from us to our ISP.
At the moment its still Telkom or Sentech basically.

One thing I'm VERY worried about is how Telkom will react.
Personally I will not be surprised if line rentals, call out fees, international circuits and all other forms of connectivity/services increase substantially in price - Telkom will subsidise their expected losses in voice with increased profiteering on connectivity.
Hence the need to ensure the govt opens up competition at all links in the telecomms chain...

<font color="blue">Telkom needs a leash, ICASA needs some guts, and the </font id="blue"><font color="red">SA consumer</font id="red"><font color="blue"> needs to make it happen</font id="blue">
 
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by lewstherin</i>
<br />I have two outstanding issues that I hope are addressed in the October announcements promised by Ivy:
1.) The international landing rights of Telkom need to be changed. They already have the SAT3, so why not allow VANS to terminate their networks beyond our borders?
Also the access to SAT3 needs to be opened up, otherwise VOIP etc will only cause benefits on local connectivity, since obviously international bandwidth is needed to call beyond our borders.
2.) The local loop needs to be be unbundled - either create local loop operator licences or legalise WiFi so ISPs can look at offering "to door" connectivity instead of having to rely on Telkom to get connectwith their clients. That way we have a choice of connectivity from us to our ISP.
At the moment its still Telkom or Sentech basically.

One thing I'm VERY worried about is how Telkom will react.
Personally I will not be surprised if line rentals, call out fees, international circuits and all other forms of connectivity/services increase substantially in price - Telkom will subsidise their expected losses in voice with increased profiteering on connectivity.
Hence the need to ensure the govt opens up competition at all links in the telecomms chain...

<font color="blue">Telkom needs a leash, ICASA needs some guts, and the </font id="blue"><font color="red">SA consumer</font id="red"><font color="blue"> needs to make it happen</font id="blue">
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
Well said lewstherin, these are vital points and TELKOM will maintainn it's stranglehold if these issues are not explored. As someone has already said, it's best not to take these announcements at face value, the devil is almost always in the detail.
That said, I remain cautiously optimistic.
 
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