Fixed-line Fight-back

[LifelongGamer]

They have been busy for the last 2 months in my town with a 30M upgrade to the infrastructure. This is a fact. Its also a fact they are 2000 orders behind for ADSL, they did not expect the uptake to be so large for a relativly small town. Its a fact that they will not drop prices, because they cannot handle the workflow they have at current prices, let alone making adsl cheaper.

When i can afford adsl ill be happy, untill then ill just listen and do nothing, as all south africans do.

Which is yet another example of Telkom's inability to plan and actually do constructive work with any foresight. Telkom's weakness is that they've been a monopoly for so long that they cannot function like normal businesses do. The result is that us consumer suffer from slow / poor delivery, backward-thinking strategies and one empty excuse after the other.

I think this article was drafted months ago and only released now so that when the ICASA ADSL hearings take place at the end of the month, Telkom can stand back and say: "Hey, we've already begun work to improve services and provide faster access down the road". The fact that this will most likely only materialise in 5 to 10 years time doesn't need to be mentioned.

Oh and just for the record:

Telkom wants more than 1m broadband customers by 2010

Wasn't the deadline for 1 million clients first end of 2007/2008? Now it's been shifted back 2 years??

/Humour on
Don't meet your mandate / targets? No problem - just move the date back and nobody will notice. We are, afterall, on 'African Time'
/Humour off

 

[Peter7]

CHEAPER PRICING is all I WANT TO KNOW ABOUT. Too little too late for Telkom.

They can't even keep up with the current backlog of ADSL installations and they want to start offering ADSL2+ and VDSL. LOL!

Nice PR speech this, but like you already mentioned your history betrays you.

 

[kilo39]

They have been busy for the last 2 months in my town with a 30M upgrade to the infrastructure. This is a fact. Its also a fact they are 2000 orders behind for ADSL, they did not expect the uptake to be so large for a relativly small town. Its a fact that they will not drop prices, because they cannot handle the workflow they have at current prices, let alone making adsl cheaper.

When i can afford adsl ill be happy, untill then ill just listen and do nothing, as all south africans do.

Hire more techies instead of firing them all!! The fact they can't keep up has got nothing to do with their over pricing of dsl - and the line charge ripoff. An opportunity to grow massively - but telkom rather sticks it to us all - and whimpers - BooHoo - its so hard.

 

[Gatecrasher]

Semantics!

The technology will be made available only where there is demand. Areas that will be served first include business districts and up-market residential areas, such as Pretoria East and Sandton, where there will be demand for media rich content.

This is one of the most ludicrous comments ever uttered. When are they going to wake up and understand that THERE IS DEMAND EVERYWHERE for media rich content. THE COUNTRY IS SCREAMING FOR IT!

What they are really saying is this:

The technology will be so expensive that only a few people will be able to afford it. Areas that will be served first include business districts and up-market residential areas, such as Pretoria East and Sandton, where there will be an adequate supply of rich people.

 

[LifelongGamer]

This is one of the most ludicrous comments ever uttered. When are they going to wake up and understand that THERE IS DEMAND EVERYWHERE for media rich content. THE COUNTRY IS SCREAMING FOR IT!

What they are really saying is this:
The technology will be so expensive that only a few people will be able to afford it. Areas that will be served first include business districts and up-market residential areas, such as Pretoria East and Sandton, where there will be an adequate supply of rich people.

That is the truth and the only logical explanation is because Telkom wants to perpetuate it's strategy to rip off as much as possible, as quickly as possible without doing too much. Hence aim at the 'soft targets' first.

If they were serious about becoming a world-class company, they wouldn't discriminate according to affluency but rather to do proper market research and highlight all areas with the demand and rollout in all of them. This way the userbase grows faster and thus provides a quicker ROI whilest effectly competing against wireless / mobile market encroachment.

 

[JStrike]

Interesting to read that they are going with Mobile WiMax. Last I heard, the spec hadn't even been approved yet. That bit of news is not going to make the cellphone companies happy. With Mobile WiMax, you will be able to use a wireless Skype Phone anywhere in the city

 

[mancombseepgood]

Uh

“I call WiMax the revenge of the fixed-line operator,”

Wireless is revenge of the fixed line operator... duh

 

[Gooku]

Give the consumer a good reason to keep a Telkom line at home

This is my advise to Telkom - I think some day Telkom may thank me for this.


Person to person communication model supersedes place to place model ,

cellphone supersedes land-line phone.

Cellphone expense now has priority over fixed-line for individule and residential customers

If the fixed line telephony is not significantly cheaper than cellphone , there is no good reason to keep the Telkom phone at home anymore.

once customer ditches the fixed line , Telkom will lose the customer for good, consumer will take the wireless path for later high-speed data requirements ,there is no need to come back to Telkom ever.

Lower the price of fixed-line telephony to keep the customers within your embrace or lose them to wireless alternatives for voice and also future data businesses

When Wimax arrives eventually there might not be enough customers left to justify the enormous investment !


:^_)

 

[cdi]

R.I.P. Fixed lines
First they fired everyone
The rest they retrenched
Wonder why they need BCX
But sure they are "World Leader in Telecommunications”
LOL

 

[cdi]

When the ship sinks what do you do?
1 Abandon
2 Use R30B to fix it
3 Cheaper get a phone that you can use and carry around sit on the shore and watch the ship.