Fibre Network Operators are "killing" Telkom

"For decades Telkom was the only fixed-line provider in South Africa, and over this period the company built an extensive copper and fibre network across the country."

Build exstensive fiber network...... Where?
They where milking the system and never rolled out fiber until after Vumatel rocked up
 
Actually Telkom is killing itself, they aren't fixing a lot of the issues and just telling customers too bad too sad.
 
Bradley Prior said:
Fibre Network Operators are "killing" Telkom

Telkom is rapidly losing ADSL and fixed-line subscribers across South Africa, despite its plan to be the premier fixed-broadband provider in the country.

Telkom currently has 2,267,000 fixed-line subscribers, which is the lowest this figure has been since the dawn of South Africa’s democracy.
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Telkom has reorganized it business and operates as an ISP in the retail space. Wholly owned subsidiary Openserve owns and maintains the copper and fibre network. Openserve will not keep replacing copper in areas of high theft and poor quality cable. The model is to migrate ADSL customers to a wireless broadband solution like LTE and WCDMA for geographic wireless voice only service. Telkom offers FTTH/B over Vumatels or Openserve networks currently. All this will pale into insignificance when 5G is rolled out. Telkom maybe losing customers on its aging copper infrastructure but it has gained customers on its mobile network
 
Eat my shorts said:
You meant blow out Party of the year!
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Louis72 said:
What has never made sense to me is the fact that so many areas with ADSL still have not been converted yet? if the density of ADSL users are high you have a way easier time migrating them over to fiber. You retain a customer with a better service and they are familiar with Telkom services and how things work. You should definitely not roll out fibre and run copper alongside with it as I have seen in so many areas such as my own complex. Switch off the copper network then.
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Cost of maintaining copper is far higher than fibre, so dont expect any replacement projects here. Openserve will only roll out fibre to complexes where the body corporates approve installation of the fibre ONT to each unit. Sadly most body corporates are approving smaller 3rd party network resellers in order to get a kickback from the subscription fees. So you might have Openserve or Vumatel fibre running past your complex but your provider ends up being "rocketman networks" in your complex
 
DreJ said:
Cost of maintaining copper is far higher than fibre, so dont expect any replacement projects here. Openserve will only roll out fibre to complexes where the body corporates approve installation of the fibre ONT to each unit. Sadly most body corporates are approving smaller 3rd party network resellers in order to get a kickback from the subscription fees. So you might have Openserve or Vumatel fibre running past your complex but your provider ends up being "rocketman networks" in your complex
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DreJ said:
The subscriber has to be within a 150 meter loop from the DSLAM in order to achieve the 900Mbps speeds. This is not a viable solution since only a handful of subscribers are within this copper loop
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that was in 2017 -by the look of it tech has progressed... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.fast Re : performance
Telkom laments, aging copper infrastructure that needs to be maintained, could have leveraged their legacy copper infrastructure to the max....could/might have offset the squeeze, that it now feeling from all the competition in the fibre'verse ...anyways, too late now.
 
Telkom is trying to keep you locked into 24 month contracts with their fiber deals, month to month is the only way to go. Prices and deals from New Kids on the block will be relentless.
 
lowriderza said:
This is an opinion piece. - @Bradley Prior

They also had a monopoly on broadband infrastructure for the longest time until they were forced to let go, now they are playing nice. Geez man open a Google search window and research the subject a bit... :rolleyes:
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Some people may choose to deny this but many people simply hate Telkom. They exploited us with their monopoly because they were protected by government. I believe that the reason they couldn't take advantage of their market share is because they didn't have the competitive ethos which the other players had. It had nothing to do with playing nice.

In my experience, Telkom's services are usually a little slower. more restricted and more expensive. The only reason I ever used them was a lack of choice.
 
Telkoms odd tactic is to switch off copper and force customers into LTE contracts.
 
I recently spoke to some Telkom / Openserve techs that were working on Copper cables close to our complex
( After a copper cable theft in the area )
We have full Telkom ( fixed land line ) infrastructure in the complex as well as Telkom ( buried ) road access infrastructure
ie. All Telkom / Openserve have to do is run the fibre in the already existing works.\
Apparently according to the Techs Telkom are NOT interested.
We would have to get a full complex buy in and then go begging to Telkom to do the install

Clearly Telkom have killed themselves
One wonders if there is not the normal MO of bribery and corruption affecting competition in this industry ?
( Apart from the "normal" construction mafia and other assorted crime and violence factors )
 
DreJ said:
Telkom has reorganized it business and operates as an ISP in the retail space. Wholly owned subsidiary Openserve owns and maintains the copper and fibre network. Openserve will not keep replacing copper in areas of high theft and poor quality cable. The model is to migrate ADSL customers to a wireless broadband solution like LTE and WCDMA for geographic wireless voice only service. Telkom offers FTTH/B over Vumatels or Openserve networks currently. All this will pale into insignificance when 5G is rolled out. Telkom maybe losing customers on its aging copper infrastructure but it has gained customers on its mobile network
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Openserve should have deployed DSLAM's to more suburbs.
The 20Mbps or 40Mbps VDSL is a good solution and VDSL2 does 100Mbps.
LTE/4G or 5G has the speed for many customers, but customers need uncapped when using streaming services - the fake uncapped 150GB throttled of Telkom or the uncapped (except during peak) RAIN - just does not work.
I currently use ~500GB per month - Netflix, Gaming, Youtube, Showmax, etc.
 
Telkom is killing itself, has been for a while now. I have a friend that works for them and he has been told that the guys working on the copper will not have a job by 2020....
 
lowriderza said:
This is an opinion piece. - @Bradley Prior

Should have had it at the top... I'm not disputing the fact that Telkom is losing customers, but I'm definitely shocked at your lack of insight into the telecoms industry and its history.
Telkom isn't losing customers to fibre, they are letting adsl/ copper lines die like most technologies eventually do. It would be stupid for them not to.
They also had a monopoly on broadband infrastructure for the longest time until they were forced to let go, now they are playing nice.
Geez man open a Google search window and research the subject a bit... :rolleyes:
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HAHA couldn't have said it better myself, the writer can go back to something they actually know about.
I.E. Telkom as people know it is the retail portion, there is no mention at all about the wholesale side Openserve.
 
I am not surprised. We do a bulk mail through Everlytic every momth and who blocks it. Telkom. IT is not rocket science - I satrte on an IBM 360 and the basic concepts are the same. Competence - not quotas ' ' ' ' .
 
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