Expert slams communication costs

[Kelerei]

The cost of communication is still too high in South Africa and is mainly due to a lack of competition in the market, says Steve Song of the Shuttleworth Foundation.

While he acknowledged at the Tech4Africa conference that the cost of internet connectivity has declined significantly in the last year, he lamented that cost of voice communication, even suggesting that it’s gone up.

Rest of article here. Very interesting reading, especially the hint about LLU and the end statement on market dynamics, both areas which will find Telkom wanting if they're slow to adapt to the changing times.

 

[oronte]

I firmly agree I wanted to get uncapped internet but it's R300 just for a Telkom adsl line + rental not even considering the isp cost. So you've paid R300 and you haven't got any data - that barrier is too high for most people (although the isp's have made their service fairly affordable now). Is telkom mandated to make the internet affordable for all South Africans?

 

[grok]

Telkom this, Telkom that. We all know Telkom is the barrier to most of our cheap telecom dreams. What can anyone do about it? Hint here, blog about it there, scream on a forum everywhere. Will it change Telkom? NO!
The ANC has it's head too far up Telkom's arse for anything to change.

 

[Budza]

Everyone except the govt and telkom knows this.

What can we do?

I like the sound of that Village Telco...

 

[bleh69]

We can all whip out our generators, wire them up to those little Telkom boxes you see everywhere, and pretty much launch a social media synchronized meltdown of their entire core network. But then what? 3G? LoL.