How Telkom let Vumatel (and everyone else) eat its lunch

[Jan]

Fighting fibre with fibre

Telkom released its mid-year financial results on Wednesday — and it wasn’t pretty.

Revenue was down 0.7% to R21 billion, mobile service revenue was down 0.7% to R8.78 billion, fixed service revenue was down 9.8% to R6.28 billion, and headline earnings per share was down 52%.

 

[CommonSense]

Shem. Play stupid games win stupid prizes.

The institution I work for used to rely on Telkom links everywhere (Diginet / ADSL).
It was a significant portion of our communication budget in the millions per year.
But then they came with their "brilliant" plan that they are phasing copper out (even though they backtracked later, the point is we realized that they can pull the rug at any point so we needed to find alternatives).
So what die we do? We moved over to other service providers (via Fibre, Radio, etc).

We are well along to having ZERO "Telkom" services in the organization left.

Similarly on the home front - where my copper infrastructure in the suburb was stable with low chance of theft.
Got Vuma Fibre and moved phone line over to VoIP. Telkom lost about R1000 per month there from myself. Multiply that by thousands of other people in similar situations and you get the financial results we are seeing.

Good going Telkom. You were once very much hated, then improved a lot at one point, but then again came up with another stupid plan and lost. Alienated a lot of your business and home owners. Well played.

 

[PaulMurkin]

Who cares about ole Hellskam... honestly. They've been history for a long time.

 

[Vorastra]

Obligatory @TelkomUseless

 

[konfab]

You can take the Openserve out of Telkom, but you cannot take the Telkom out of Openserve. The same cr@ppy attitude towards customers is still very apparent in their business.

 

[yebocan]

Obligatory @TelkomUseless

surely you mean obituary..

 

[system32]

Shem. Play stupid games win stupid prizes.
<SNIP>
Similarly on the home front - where my copper infrastructure in the suburb was stable with low chance of theft.
Got Vuma Fibre and moved phone line over to VoIP. Telkom lost about R1000 per month there from myself. Multiply that by thousands of other people in similar situations and you get the financial results we are seeing.
<SNIP>

+1
Same, same.
Used to get ripped off by Telkom ~R2500/pm for POTS with two lines + calls and 3 extensions (no internet).
Switched to 100Mbps Fibre + VoIP.
Costs dropped to R1200/pm all in and includes 100Mbps internet access.

 

[rvZA]

Telkom's decline started 20 years ago when they decided to close down their fixed line network, started preventing people from getting fixed line phones in their houses and no new ADSL connections. Also decided not to invest more and expand their fiber access. That was the first signs of a dying company. It was always just a matter of time as we all watched all these private companies coming into neighbourhoods and offering services where Telkom did not even move a finger.

 

[system32]

Telkom's decline started 20 years ago when they decided to close down their fixed line network, started preventing people from getting fixed line phones in their houses and no new ADSL connections. Also decided not to invest more and expand their fiber access. That was the first signs of a dying company. It was always just a matter of time as we all watched all these private companies coming into neighbourhoods and offering services where Telkom did not even move a finger.

Telom's decline started when they ripped off South African consumers:

• Telkom insisted you pay for a telephone when you only needed ADSL...
• Telkom wanted to charge for IP peering and MWEB used international links to bypass....
• Telkom IPC-Link was 3x more expensive than international links...
• Telkom invested (lost) money in Multi-Links Nigeria instead of investing in Fibre in South Africa
• Telkom fought and delayed the introduction of SNO (Neotel)
• Telkom inflated prices on SAT3/SAFE until Seakom kicked their ass
• Telkom blocked access to to the landing station at Melkbosstrand and we had to build at Yzerfontein
• Telkom consulted SBC Communications (now AT&T) to advise on legislation on how to prolong the Telkom monopoly delaying SNO
• etc

I haven't forgotten - and won't deal with them.

EDIT:
Also forgot to mention how Telkom make it impossible to cancel lines so that you end up paying for an extra month while you try to resolve despite having reference numbers and given enough notice.
Happened to me twice - was just so happy to eventually get rid of them that I forfeited the additional payments.

I have a special place in my memory for them.

 

[AfricanTech]

Poor company all round.

- Broken website
- Broken backend
- Broken call centre
- Broken Chat interface
- Broken procurement - order a router, receive two, can't return the extra one to anyone
- Have store presence - reduce what the store can actually help you with to mobile portions only and even then it's not a full service - have to go via useless call centre for some things
- Wasted don't know how much on 8ta instead of capitalising on what was a decent brand at the time.

Just a complete mess

 

[AfricanTech]

Telom's decline started when they ripped off South African consumers:

• Telkom insisted you pay for a telephone when you only needed ADSL...
• Telkom wanted to charge for IP peering and MWEB used international links to bypass....
• Telkom IPC-Link was 3x more expensive than international links...
• Telkom invested (lost) money in Multi-Links Nigeria instead of investing in Fibre in South Africa
• Telkom fought and delayed the introduction of SNO (Neotel)
• Telkom inflated prices on SAT3/SAFE until Seakom kicked their ass
• Telkom blocked access to to the landing station at Melkbosstrand and we had to build at Yzerfontein
• Telkom consulted SBC Communications (now AT&T) to advise on legislation on how to prolong the Telkom monopoly delaying SNO
• etc

I haven't forgotten - and won't deal with them.

Prolonging their monopoly became a focus and prevented innovative thinking and strategy.

 

[TelkomUseless]

Obligatory @TelkomUseless

haha. Telkom will never see any money from me or Family !

Telkom was the devil for decades (sabotaging SA internet with their monopoly). They can get bend for all I care.

 

[CommonSense]

Telom's decline started when they ripped off South African consumers:

• Telkom insisted you pay for a telephone when you only needed ADSL...
• Telkom wanted to charge for IP peering and MWEB used international links to bypass....
• Telkom IPC-Link was 3x more expensive than international links...
• Telkom invested (lost) money in Multi-Links Nigeria instead of investing in Fibre in South Africa
• Telkom fought and delayed the introduction of SNO (Neotel)
• Telkom inflated prices on SAT3/SAFE until Seakom kicked their ass
• Telkom blocked access to to the landing station at Melkbosstrand and we had to build at Yzerfontein
• Telkom consulted SBC Communications (now AT&T) to advise on legislation on how to prolong the Telkom monopoly delaying SNO
• etc

I haven't forgotten - and won't deal with them.

EDIT:
Also forgot to mention how Telkom make it impossible to cancel lines so that you end up paying for an extra month while you try to resolve despite having reference numbers and given enough notice.
Happened to me twice - was just so happy to eventually get rid of them that I forfeited the additional payments.

I have a special place in my memory for them.

Yeah. I learned that lesson too, so when I had to cancell my home ADSL/Telkom line I did it clever in two steps.
Cancelled the ADSL which was done quickly.
Then I "cancelled" my voice line by porting to a VoIP provider which automatically cancelled the voice line with them. LOL. They couldn't do much to delay that once the VoIP provider asked for the number.

Yeah. They will alway be HELLCOM to me. Wil NEVER NEVER NEVER EVER go onto a contract with them again. Not even if they are cheaper. The aggravation of dealing with their call centre on the other cancellations will probably contribute to my eventual earlier death down the line. F-ers.

 

[TelkomUseless]

Yeah. I learned that lesson too, so when I had to cancell my home ADSL/Telkom line I did it clever in two steps.
Cancelled the ADSL which was done quickly.
Then I "cancelled" my voice line by porting to a VoIP provider which automatically cancelled the voice line with them. LOL. They couldn't do much to delay that once the VoIP provider asked for the number.

Yeah. They will alway be HELLCOM to me. Wil NEVER NEVER NEVER EVER go onto a contract with them again. Not even if they are cheaper. The aggravation of dealing with their call centre on the other cancellations will probably contribute to my eventual earlier death down the line. F-ers.

Agreed. They can have "amazing" deals. Will.not.touch.

 

[SubtleBeast]

You can take the Openserve out of Telkom, but you cannot take the Telkom out of Openserve. The same cr@ppy attitude towards customers is still very apparent in their business.

Of course. The same cr@ppy Telkom management just moved sideways to Openserve. The same structures remained, but now the organisation became "top-heavy" as it increased executive and management levels across the five divisions, while at the same time getting rid of thousands of indians.
Some people regard Maseko as Telkom's saviour, but he's ultimately to blame for where Telkom is at today as well as where it's headed.

 

[TheChamp]

The ditching copper was a good move due to rampant theft. Our area alone in Umkomaas back in the day was being ripped to pieces. Maybe it was poor implementation of LTE. All I know is I lots two clients due to downtime and then pulled the plug. This maybe 5 years ago.

Nothing wrong with phasing out copper, everything wrong with the manner in which they went about doing that. Instead of moving with their customers over to fibre they lost a lot of customers simply because they cut copper without a viable option for the customers. They approached that with a bullying attitude instead of wanting to make sure their customers are not impacted.

 

[supersunbird]

Telkom's decline started 20 years ago when they decided to close down their fixed line network, started preventing people from getting fixed line phones in their houses and no new ADSL connections. Also decided not to invest more and expand their fiber access. That was the first signs of a dying company. It was always just a matter of time as we all watched all these private companies coming into neighbourhoods and offering services where Telkom did not even move a finger.

They did those things in 2002? Ummmm, yeah right liar.

 

[rvZA]

They did those things in 2002? Ummmm, yeah right liar.

Yeah, 2002 is perhaps an overreaction.

But, just after Telkom Mobile's launch, if I remember correctly around 2012, they did have quite a few staff members who walked our neighbourhoods' streets, knocking on doors and informing people that they will no longer be installing fixed lines, neither repairing any fixed lines and that everyone will be moving towards those cordless phones. In the same time they killed off ADSL and thousands of people in our area were left without Internet connection for some years. By 2019 Evotel became the only services provider in our area and they have probably all households signed up with them. Telkom did nothing up to today to offer any type of service or competition.

They killed themselves off.

 

[Yskasmetnstoof]

Why did this happen? Laboratorium type experiment can be done: sign up to for example an Afrihost service and to a Telkom service. Then ask support from both. The difference is expressed in spreadsheet terms in this article.
Another thought: how many SA's just want a talkie phone in the home that is not expensive and is reliable? I.E. a Telkom line connected phone that WORKS DURING LOADSHEDDING.

 

[Yskasmetnstoof]

Poor company all round.

- Broken website
- Broken backend
- Broken call centre
- Broken Chat interface
- Broken procurement - order a router, receive two, can't return the extra one to anyone
- Have store presence - reduce what the store can actually help you with to mobile portions only and even then it's not a full service - have to go via useless call centre for some things
- Wasted don't know how much on 8ta instead of capitalising on what was a decent brand at the time.

Just a complete mess

And try to use a store. You wait a looong time while watching a score of workers in the garb talking crap to each other. They seem to tell workers to only serve one sort of problem while the queue for a certain problem grows bigger. Like a pub with 10 bartenders each serving only one specific drink.