How Telkom squeezed its competitors

everybody has been calling for it for so long... how come they only wake up to it now?
 
"Telkom has denied the charges but if it is found guilty in the hearing it could face a penalty of as much as 10% of its 2003 turnover, which could be as much as R3.5-billion."

If Telkom has to pay a penalty their customers will ultimately pay. Why not force them to pass on a cost saving of the equivalent amount.
 
cyberdave said:
"Telkom has denied the charges but if it is found guilty in the hearing it could face a penalty of as much as 10% of its 2003 turnover, which could be as much as R3.5-billion."

If Telkom has to pay a penalty their customers will ultimately pay. Why not force them to pass on a cost saving of the equivalent amount.
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Unfortunately in order for such a scheme would require co-operation and honesty from Telkom and that is exactly the problem here. Telkom absolutely believes that it can do as it pleases and this is the problem so other than actually punishing the company and seeing the knock on in the form of a change

I am pretty damn sure that if Telkom comes to the party a settlement agreement to the benefit of the industry would be on the cards. Look at AT&T and the eventual modified final judgment. If Telkom had vision it would seek to sort out LLU and these competition commission issues in a combined settlement agreement - after all LLU is all about enabling competition ...

Ironically if Telkom is to be believed the liability it inherited from the government in 1991 was about half of what the fine will be 20 years later for uncompetitive bahaviour which basically means Telkom incurred a greater liability because government wanted it to be a monopoly (as they are alleging indirectly) than because of " government mis-management" before corporatization. Of course R 3.5 billion being pumped into sensible internet development in SA would be amazing but finding suitable management for it is the trouble.
 
Telkom squeezes everyone not just it's customers and there is absolutely nothing alleged about that.
 
"The carnival isn't over until the fat lady sings,"
Telkom has got plenty lawyers , this will still be going on in 5 years.
 
If I was KT Corporation or an investor, I would run or wait until this is settled.
No one wants to be part of a R3.5-billion settlement and also all the bad press.
 
cyberdave said:
"If Telkom has to pay a penalty their customers will ultimately pay. Why not force them to pass on a cost saving of the equivalent amount.
Click to expand...

No thanks. There are so many areas that I have stopped using Telkom. I would only agree to this if Telkom was forced to equally pay for it's competitors to 'give back' cost savings to their customers, otherwise Telkom gains unfair advantage.
 
I am not complaining. I have a 8ta contract and love the fact that I get 20GB for less than R300
 
Why should Telkom's shareholders and customers pay R3.5bn because of mistakes made by government?

If there's any anti-competition case to be answered it should be answered by ICASA and the DoC, who sustained Telkom's monopoly position by giving it legal license to be the only operator in town for many years.

You can't cure a disease by treating the symptoms. So you make shareholders and Telkom customers pay this fine (and to whom?) and then what? They magically increase productivity and efficiency? I doubt it.

It's like feeding candy to a fat kid and then crying that he gets diabetes... and then ordering him to regurgitate the candy. It's madness.
 
Necksy said:
I hope Taxpayer's money is not used for this.
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It's worse than that. You are paying three times: once as a taxpayer for the commission and other judicial paraphernalia, again as a customer (the lawyers for these companies aren't doing this pro bono) and again as a shareholder (if you have any growth investments at all, you almost certainly hold Telkom stock, which means you will pay a share of whatever fine materializes.)

The money being spent on this is going to lawyers, bureaucracy and possibly government coffers. i.e. it's going to waste, rather than benefiting us by improving productivity and services.
 
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