How Telkom tried to hijack the Internet

[noswal]

“One instance where Telkom did not get its way is in its attempt to ‘hijack the Internet’ by asking the regulator to amend its license to recognize the Internet as part of its PSTS monopoly.”

and so they threw their toys out of the cot and gave us the 3gig cap

 

[Debbie]

4. The distrust of independent government institutions: joint jurisdiction, weak regulator
All democracies possess various institutions—at some remove from the elected government—that exercise oversight of certain economic, social, and governmental activities. Regulatory agencies are among these institutions. The independent regulation of telecommunications, moreover, is required in a number of international and regional agreements. In any instance of oversight of this type, there is a balance to be struck between policy-making and regulation, even though there is an element of arbitrariness to the distinction. South Africa's balance between policy-making and regulation of the communications sector was bound up in the politics of the ANC's consolidation of power and the need to confront the faltering economy in the mid-1990s. Two consequential matters shaped the ANC's outlook in 1995–96: The National Party went into opposition, and it became clear that hitherto efforts to manage the economy under the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) were not working. With the departure of the National Party from the Government of National Unity, the ANC was now in the position to assume genuine political power—and was now fully responsible for policy failures. The RDP, understood generally as a Keynesian inspired plan of growth through redistribution, represented a blend of approaches and mix of compromises rather than a coherent set of economic policies (Republic of South Africa, 1994). By the mid-1990s, the South African economy was hit by the fallout of the previous several years of apartheid budget deficits and political instability. Capital flowed out of the country, the national debt was up considerably, the Rand fell sharply against foreign currencies, and business investment had not materialized. A shift from the RDP's Keynesian orientation to fiscal stabilization and a focus on growth underlay the adoption of the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) macroeconomic strategy, which had features of a locally imposed IMF-style structural adjustment policy (Gelb, 1998; Hirsch, 2005; Republic of South Africa, 1996g).

GEAR may well have been a shrewd macroeconomic plan to deal with the vagaries of South Africa's difficult post-apartheid economic situation as the country faced the realities of globalization. Alan Hirsch, among others, makes a robust case for GEAR's success, as well as consideration of the circumstances where the implementation of fiscal discipline was too stringent. For our purposes in this paper it was the way GEAR was adopted that is of note. Notwithstanding the strong culture of consultation and transparency in the politics of the Tripartite Alliance, the ANC leadership presented GEAR to its Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and South African Communist Party (SACP) partners and civil society structures as a “non-negotiable” fait accompli. Accompanying, even part and parcel of the ANC's consolidation of political power, the imposition of GEAR was an important moment in the transformation of the broader political and ideological environment. That environment was one where the ANC leadership, aggravated by the time and effort required for consultation, and intent on understanding itself as the Government entrusted with a mission from the electorate, dovetailed with the old ANC exile culture of democratic centralism. It marked the beginning of the centralization of power in the presidency and of governing largely from above (Gumede, 2005). The new ideological atmosphere manifested itself with regard to the Chapter 9 institutions as deep suspicion of their putative independence.

In the case of the telecommunications Regulator, it meant establishing a kind of joint jurisdiction, or, in the terminology of scholars of the sector, “regulatory dualism” (Gillwald, 2003) and the “capture” of the Regulator from the beginning by the Government (Cohen, 2003). As seen above, the Telecommunications Act gave the Minister the responsibility for issuing Telkom licenses and determining whether and when various parts of the sector would be open to competition. The Act also gave the Minister power over interconnection policy and Telkom tariffs for an initial 3-year period. The Minister retained the power to invite and endorse applications for major licenses and to approve certain regulations drafted by the Regulator. The Act empowered the Regulator to assess license bids and make recommendations to the Minister, but it could not award a license—the Regulator merely “issued” a license on approval by the Minister. Only in the case of non-restricted licenses, such as VANS and PTNs, could the Regulator take a decision on its own. The Minister may issue policy directions. The Minister does not have the power to issue regulations, but she retains the power to approve certain regulations, without which the regulations cannot be promulgated. Because of this structure, real power, in the estimation of Nkateko Nyoka, former CEO of ICASA, lies in the interpretation of policy, a prerogative that rests with the Minister. And the Ministry is open—if only by virtue of its shareholding in Telkom—to industry (especially Telkom) lobbying (Nkateko Nyoka, interview by author. Johannesburg, September 14, 2006).19

When it could not control the Regulator structurally, the Ministry and political establishment endeavored to control it by two other means: through the ICASA Council appointment process and the budget. Although statutorily the appointment to Council was made by the President on the recommendation of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications, in reality it was primarily the Ministry and Department of Communication that put forward nominees. The Portfolio Committee would publish a public call for nominations and then hold public interviews with a shortlist. The Ministry and Department of Communications would get surrogates to nominate preferred candidates and would follow-up with lobbying of the ANC parliamentary committee caucus, known as the Parliamentary Study Group. (And even then the Ministry—twice—tried to get Parliament to give it direct appointment power.) It is widely understood that some Council members have been, in former SATRA Council Chair Nape Maepa's term, “political animals,” that is, the Ministry or DG's minions, who typically consult with their government sponsors before votes (Nape Maepa, interview by author. Johannesburg, September 4, 2006).20 The dynamic was explained in a more subtle manner by Mandla Langa, Chair of the ICASA Council from 2000 to 2005. Langa indicated that what matters in South African politics is who sends the policy, not necessarily the policy itself, reflecting in complicated fashion the ongoing metric of political capital in internal ANC relations (Mandla Langa, interview by author. Johannesburg, September 5, 2006).21 Exiles and former Robben Island prisoners have more political capital than other ANC leaders, even those who carried on the anti-apartheid struggle inside the country in the 1980s—and trust flows through these ANC networks of political capital. The political establishment, hitherto organized around President Mbeki, cultivates these networks of trust through the appointment process at all levels of government (Mbeki not only appoints Cabinet Ministers; he appoints all Director-Generals of Departments as well) and extends to the award of state contracts, tenders, and privatizations (Gumede 2005, pp. 40–41).22 With regard to the Regulator's budget, ICASA is classified as a Schedule 3 institution by the Treasury, which requires that the Regulator's budget come through the budget of the Department of Communications. As Nkateko Nyoka avers, the Department typically required the Regulator to make the case about its budgetary needs, would not listen, and would cut its budget request. In Nyoka's view, the Regulator's budget was a little more than half of what was necessary to do the job properly. An inadequate budget also adds to the Regulator's political losses, as without money it cannot properly litigate court challenges, especially challenges made by companies with deep pockets, such as Telkom (Nkateko Nyoka, interview by author. Johannesburg, September 14, 2006).

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[Debbie]

The consequences of dual jurisdiction and the subjugation of the Regulator are perhaps best seen in the struggle over Telkom's tariffs. Those tariffs were administered under a price-cap regime, the now standard international model for regulating the prices of dominant network operators. According to the model, the operator's tariffs may be increased to cover the expected effects of inflation on the company's costs of providing a designated basket of services, but must be decreased to cover expected improvements in its productivity. The Minister set the initial price cap productivity figure in May 1997 at a very conservative 1.5 percent.23 This ministerial determination also stated that future reviews of the rate regime should not have a material adverse impact on Telkom or its ability to meet universal and access obligations set out in its license (Minister of Communications, 1997b). ICASA commenced an inquiry on the rate regime in December 2000. Its inquiry found that the initial productivity factor was set too low and that residential customers were highly vulnerable to Telkom's rate rebalancing. ICASA concluded that rate rebalancing had already been taken too far and that residential customers were subsidizing Telkom's competitive VANS and other business services (Thornton & Hodge, 2006, p. 205). Moreover, the Regulator was convinced that Telkom had abused the use of inflation forecasts. On the key matter of the productivity factor, ICASA recommended setting the figure at 5 percent. This figure itself represented just an informed guess because Telkom had failed to produce regulatory accounts as required by law. Once again, Telkom did not (or could not, because of the bundled nature of its services) make costing information available. Fearful that Telkom would litigate yet again, ICASA reduced the productivity number to 3 percent (Thornton & Hodge, 2006, p. 206). Even so, Minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri did not approve the regulations. She sent them back to ICASA with a recommendation to return to the productivity factor of 1.5 percent—to which the Regulator complied (Stones, 2001).

Even after winning in the price cap struggle, Telkom refused to abide by ICASA's rate regime regulations. Using a gap in the law and the timing of the new regulations, Telkom published tariff increases before the new regime fell into place. Using a productivity factor of zero percent, Telkom's published tariffs effectively increased rates 5.5 percent. Telkom also removed the 50–100 km band from the call structure, making all such calls long distance. Facing continuing court challenges, ICASA reached an out-of-court settlement with Telkom, allowing the company to implement its tariff increases in exchange for a promise to keep its subsequent increases below the maximum permissible by the rate regime regulations. Telkom also agreed to a special lifeline service for emergency calls. The Minister approved and published the amended rate regime regulations in 2002 (Department of Communications, 2002).24

The result of Telkom's ability to cajole the Minister and defy the Regulator was that, for example, prices for a local 3-minute call at peak times between 1997 and 2002 increased 26 percent per year. These increases were in part responsible for so many customers dropping off the wire-line network. Telkom's triumph on the rate regime issue was yet another instance where privatization trumped liberalization and independent regulation, and thus inhibited the rational growth of the sector.25 The immediate reason for ministerial interference and the Regulator's acquiescence on rates was the perceived need to maintain the value of the Government's shares in the upcoming Telkom IPO (Mandla Langa, interview by author. Johannesburg, September 5, 2006). The public offering of Government-held Telkom shares (initially planned for 2001 but put off until 2003) would bring a higher share price and more revenue to the treasury.

The subjugation of the Regulator's independence had other, unforeseen consequences. When approval for an second network operator was finally secured after years of delay, Government officials, including ICASA Councillors, went abroad hoping to entice foreign communication operators to bid. Cable & Wireless, in ICASA Chair Mandla Langa's bemused recollection, almost ran him out of its corporate office, saying it would never come in on the SNO due to South Africa's protectionist and non-independent regulatory structure.An article in the Mail & Guardian, quoting unnamed former ICASA Councillor, claimed that British Telecom also declined to make a bid for the SNO for similar reasons (Dawes, 2004). In general, South Africa had a great deal of trouble attracting viable bidders for its third mobile operator and its SNO, adding considerably to the delay of these services.

5. Privatization in societies in transition: “rent-seeking” and Black Economic Empowerment
What joint jurisdiction and limitation on the Regulator's independence and efficacy did secure was the financial health of Telkom and guarantee of lucrative profits for its Thintana partner. Telkom's operating revenues rose consistently every year. Its net profits and earnings per share dropped in 2000, then rose steadily and soared in 2004 and in the 2 years thereafter. It is difficult to settle on hard and fast numbers, because in each annual report Telkom “restates” or adjusts the numbers from previous years. Nonetheless, the following provide a pretty accurate picture of trends:

Year 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006
Operating revenue (in billions of rands) 15.8 19.2 22.7 27.1 31.4 34.2 37.3 41.1 43.7 48.3
Net profit (in billions) 1.79 2.4 2.35 1.5 1.6 1.2 1.7 4.7 6.8 9.3
Earnings per share (in cents) 458 448.5 421.2 290.2 294.6 343.8 292.3 823.9 1246.7 1744.7​

Source: Telkom Annual Reports, various years; US Securities and Exchange Commission (2006).


Listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange in March 2003, Telkom's share price reflected its monopoly position and its rising profit levels. In the words of the company's own Corporate Profile (Telkom, 2005), the share price “has more than trebled in value over the past two years, has led local and international communications markets. This performance reflects Telkom's financial stability, track record in growing market share, and ability to balance the pursuit of growth opportunities with the interests of employees, customers and communities.” In fact, this is corporate-speak for the fact that monopolistic power empowered Telkom to thwart competition and realize high profits.

As for Thintana Communications, its 30 percent stake of Telkom purchased in 1997 for R5.45 billion (US$1.26 billion) was sold in two tranches in 2004: a 14.9 percent stake in June for R6.1 billion (US$1.02 billion) and the remaining 15.1 percent stake in November 2004 for R6.6 billion (about US$1.1 billion). It is difficult to track the final value of Thintana's investment beyond the figures stated above. Simpiwe Piliso (2006a) writes in theSunday Times that Thintana realized R15 billion between management fees and share sales at the time it sold 14.9 percent of Telkom (just under half of its stake) in June 2004.

The South African treasury may have benefited in the short run from the initial privatization and the March 2003 sale of Government-held (share price sheltered) Telkom stock, and the latter sale represented South Africa's biggest attempt to spread share ownership to the black majority through what was known as the Khulisa share scheme.26 But in the view of most analysts, and consonant with the analysis of this paper, the exchange of liberalization and competition for privatization was damaging to the larger economy.27 Who else gained from a set of arrangements that, in any reasonable reckoning, did not much benefit residential telephone users or would-be users, Internet surfers, businesses requiring sophisticated data services, or the potential electronic services and ICT companies enamored of the Department of Trade and Industry? Here the brief history of South African telecommunications after 1996 intersects with some of the patterns of BEE.

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[Debbie]

The conversion of South Africa from its apartheid legacy of course had to extend not just to politics and government but to the economy and the internal workings of business. Nearly all business and other organizations have initiated processes that bring the previously disadvantaged into leadership, ownership, and management positions. This is what is understood by the widely used term, “transformation.” But the initial pattern of transformation functioned largely to produce a small group of extremely wealthy black businessmen: enrichment rather than empowerment. Because most of this group consisted of highly politically connected ANC comrades, there is reason to understand the phenomenon as a conscious political project to seed ANC members into the commanding heights of the economy in a kind of political machine or political clientelism project. A few ANC discussion documents speak openly of establishing a national black bourgeoisie.28 But this may be too conspiratorial. Suffice it to say that in the wake of the ascendance of the national bourgeoisie wing of the ANC, where the Government has no clear grand social transformation project (notwithstanding the ANC's paper on such), rent-seeking and clientelism—which is legitimated in terms of post-apartheid restitution, deracialization, and BEE—can thrive. The topic of the “gravy train” or quick, politically derived enrichment is a constant feature of contemporary South African everyday conversation and news reports. Rent-seeking behavior prompted Parliament to pass the Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment Act in 2004 in order to establish controls over the transformation process and help spread out its benefits (Republic of South Africa, 2004).Still, insider rent-seeking has impacted and continues to affect the telecommunications sector. A couple of examples will suffice.

The 1996 Telecommunications White Paper did not address the strategic equity partner issue. That matter was left to the Minister of Posts, Telecommunications & Broadcasting, as the Tripartite Alliance was deeply divided on the issue of the privatization of state-owned enterprises, and it fell to the Minister to work out a modus vivendi with the trade unions. President Mandela replaced Minister Pallo Jordan with former COSATU General Secretary Jay Naidoo because, in the judgment of many observers, Jordan had not been able to get the unions on board with the SEP.29 Recall that SBC, in the words of Jim Myers, “romanced” the unions. One particular amorous interlude involved Communications Workers Union chief Tlhalefang Sekano. Sekano was elected president at the union's founding in 1996, when the Posts and Telecommunications Workers Association (POTWA) merged with other smaller unions to create the CWU. Sekano's slate defeated that of POTWA's incumbent president, Lefty Monyokolo, who was known to be firmly opposed to the privatization of Telkom. Sekano was one of those union leaders whom SBC brought to San Antonio and Mexico City in 1996–97, and who presumably helped convince the CWU rank-and-file to go along with the SEP. Sekano was not just president of the CWU; he also became Executive Chairman of the Communication Workers Investment Company, and a member of the board of directors of Ucingo Investments, which held 3 percent of the ordinary shares of Telkom until September 17, 2003, when it was sold. Sekano was brought onto the Telkom Board of Directors in 2001, a period when Telkom was retrenching tens of thousands of unionized workers. He left the board in 2004 (making approximately R96,000 in fees per annum for his service to the board). Telkom's 2005 Annual Report (Telkom, 2006) states that Sekano was also the chairperson of Letlapa Security and a director of Telesafe Security. Letlapa Security owned an interest in Telesafe Security, a security company that provides physical security to Telkom. Telkom paid R16 million and R39.3 million to Telesafe Security in the years ended March 31, 2005 and 2004 for these services, respectively. There is no smoking gun of corruption here, but it goes toward the overall impression that some union officials, approving the privatization of Telkom and acquiescing to if not collaborating with Telkom management's outsourcing/downscaling processes, benefited from them personally under the aegis of BEE.

Department of Communications DG Andile Ngcaba, with a long history in the sector, clearly carried out a sectoral version of black economic empowerment. As Postmaster General in 1996, he awarded a data switch license to Vula Communications, days before the passage of the 1996 Telecommunications Act. The original owners of Vula were drawn from a BEE group that participated in the White Paper process; the license presumably was their reward for loyalty to Ngcaba. Vula became Wireless Business Solutions (WBS) following the sale of a portion of the company to an SEP to save it from collapse, following two years of interconnection negotiations that failed to result in commercial agreement. WBS got involved with Uthingo, which was awarded the lucrative contract to operate the national lottery. Interestingly, Tlhalefang Sekano was a director, since 1999, of Wireless Business Solutions.

Ngcaba was at the center of most of the policy in the telecommunications sector for more than a dozen years. He clearly favored Telkom as the agent of bringing telecommunication services to the previously disadvantaged, and acted to protect Telkom so as to defend the universal service obligation. Ngcaba was also described by one insider as “always scheming about the sector to support his comrades.” But he also served his own interests in a spectacular way at the end of his government tenure. While still Director-General of the Department of Communications, Ngcaba devised a strategy to bid for Thintana's shares if and when they came available. He even showed Jim Myers a CD of the plan and asked him to arrange a meeting with SBC. Myers refused. SBC also refused to meet with Ngcaba while he was still in the Government (Jim Myers, interview by author. Johannesburg, September 13, 2006). Ngcaba left the Department in December 2003 to take a position as chairperson of Dimension Data, an information and communication technology (ICT) supplier. His ascent to Dimension Data gave that company an entry point into Government and private ICT procurement, inasmuch as a transformation charter of ICT companies put in place a BEE procurement policy such that signatories promised to procure 70 percent of eligible procurement from excellent, good and satisfactory BEE contributors (ICT Empowerment Charter Working Group, 2005).

Thintana sold 14.9 percent of its stake of Telkom in June 2004 to South African and certain international institutional investors. Soon thereafter, Thintana announced its intention to sell the remaining 15.1 percent. In November a consortium led by Ngcaba that included the Women Investment Portfolio Holdings’ Gloria Serobe and ANC national spokesman Smuts Ngonyama concluded an agreement to acquire Thintana's remaining interest in Telkom for several billion rand. Originally making separate bids, both Ngcaba and Ngonyama asked for Government backing for their respective offers, and, according to a solid press account, President Mbeki urged the two consortia to cooperate.30 When the merged consortium could not get its structure in place before Thintana's deadline, the shares were bought and “warehoused” by the Public Investment Corporation (PIC), which manages R600 billion of public servants’ pension funds (Piliso, 2006a). When the story broke, public outcry was such that the Government then asked the PIC to ensure a “proper” empowerment process, which led to the merged consortium's stake being reduced to 10.1 percent, of which the Elephant Consortium agreed to allocate another 3.37 percent for further broad based economic empowerment (Public Investment Corporation, 2005).

The hue and cry was raised not just by the usual critics, who saw Andile Ngcaba as the architect of a series of sweetheart policies that had protected Telkom's monopoly and placed Ngcaba himself in pole position to benefit from the deal by playing off the government's conflicting interests. The deal was denounced by COSATU and some ANC leaders, as well (Dawes, 2004; Rose, 2005). Not surprisingly, non-ANC members of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications were scathing about Ngcaba, the sector generally, and how it has suffered under ANC control.31

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[Debbie]

6. Toward a conclusion
Despite the intricacies of this account of the reform of South African telecommunications since 1996, there are a few important lessons that can be drawn. The choice of privatization over liberalization and competition led to the entrenchment of the incumbent network operator. The Shareholders’ Agreement and related contracts gave Thintana Communications, and more specifically, SBC, the power to obstruct competition and realize monopoly rents. The case of South Africa is mostly in keeping with the conclusion drawn from surveys of telecommunications reform in developing countries—that privatization without regulation does not improve service and even may decrease mainline penetration and connection capacity (see Walsten, 1999; Wellenius et al., 1993). In South Africa, privatization, though only partial, essentially created a private monopoly in place of the previous state monopoly. Because the institutional arrangement undermined independent regulation, it operated in a fashion ironically not unlike the old apartheid link between the Government and the licensee (the Post Office), albeit now with power having shifted from Government to the licensee (Telkom), and, more accurately, to the SEP (SBC). SBC did bring management smarts to Telkom, elevating its profitability and share price considerably. But this was accomplished largely through monopoly power. Indeed, Telkom and Thintana's profitability meant the transfer of huge resources from the broader economy to shareholders. High telecommunications prices and limited service offerings created a drag on general economic growth. And contrary to its central mandate, Telkom failed to increase teledensity.

Monopoly in and of itself does not necessarily produce such results, of course. But monopoly without effective oversight or regulation almost invariably does. The nearly congenital distrust the ANC-led Government displayed toward independent agencies weakened regulation and hence intensified the incumbent's power. An additional factor in an incumbent's power arises where the Ministry responsible for safeguarding the government's residual financial interest in the incumbent is also the Ministry making policy for the sector. The South African experience shows that the incumbent will tend to have the Ministry's ear, and—perhaps because—the Ministry is keenly attentive to the company's share price in the event of future public offerings. It may also be the case here—and this is speculative given the secret nature of the contract—that the Shareholders’ Agreement forbade any governmental body from pursuing policies whose effect would liberalize the sector and hence “harm” Telkom. Finally, the retention of Government control through joint jurisdiction and the sabotage of effective regulation created opportunities for rent-seeking ANC comrades through subsequent privatizations—legitimated by the goal of Black Economic Empowerment. The newly passed Electronic Communications Act addresses some of the problems presented in this article, but it will likely take a long time to fix them (Republic of South Africa, 2006).32

There is a related issue that goes beyond South Africa. South Africa is the most powerful country in Africa. It is seen as a model, both economically and politically. The South African telecommunications reform formula became dominant in southern Africa and elsewhere in Africa during the latter part of the 1990s. Hence, the privatization trumps liberalization model for all intents and purposes became accepted as “best practice” in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Protocol on Transport, Communication and Meteorology of 1996. And the model's general guidelines likewise in essence were adopted by the Telecommunications Regulators’ Association of Southern Africa (TRASA), an organization inaugurated in September 1997 (SADC, 1996; TRASA, n.d.). It remains to be investigated whether and to what extent the problems that plague the South African telecommunications sector have effectively been exported to the rest of Africa.

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[Juice]

Anyone tried to solicit comment from LoooLooo yet on this report?
From the government on how they allowed this to happen?
Time for a Carte Blanche follow up, this time with some ammo.

Telkom has changed, don't you know? they're a good corporate citizen now that welcomes competition...

Oh, and:

Die Telkom, die.

 

[NameOfBeast]

Thanks Debbie!

 

[kilo39]

Little has changed with Telkom: they are a prime example of the net-neutrality debate. Their 'proposed' IPTV is reserving bandwidth that should be used by 'everybody' for the benefit of the country: instead their grubby monopoly is reserving this for their sole profit and damn the country: give it, it's all ours!

 

[TheLoot]

If anyone has access to sciencedirect.com (I have access through Varsity Library Proxy), you can get the PDF from there:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/03085961

more specifically

http://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...fec2ecd81ddd573245048f3162d&ie=/sdarticle.pdf

 

[BobbyMac]

Just a little incorrect excerpt from the article:

Telkom however soon woke up to the potential of the Net and launched SAIX, its own Internet Access Provider, in June 1996. Later that year Telkom also launched Intekom, its own dial-up ISP.

Telkom actually bought Intekom.

 

[Debbie]

Thanks BobbyMac, I am writing a crit to the authors, will include that Telkom bought Intekom.

 

[andres101]

The paper by Horwitz and Currie says that the controversy over Internet access provides a window into how Telkom “exploited its exclusivity claims to engage in anti-competitive practices and, beyond that, to use litigation to impose costs and delay.”

Telkom did what any profit making company would do, which is making as much profit as possible for shareholders. They had no obligation to look out for the consumers.

“Telkom failed utterly to understand what the Internet could do for their business,” said Mike Lawrie, one of South Africa’s Internet pioneers.

Bad boys, bad boys, what you gonna do, what you gonna do when they come for you...

 

[Debbie]

Telkom did what any profit making company would do, which is making as much profit as possible for shareholders. They had no obligation to look out for the consumers.

Actually, they did, in terms of the white paper (policy paper) as well as the Act.

 

[Lycanthrope]

Brilliant article. Ahh, Telkom, Telkom, Telkom... Whatever will we do with you disgusting low life pigs?

 

[ShaunSA]

Brilliant article. Ahh, Telkom, Telkom, Telkom... Whatever will we do with you disgusting low life pigs?

Pig on a spit?

 

[Lycanthrope]

Pig on a spit?

Sounds good!

 

[emmanuel]

Laager mentality!

 

[rwenzori]

Thank you for posting the paper, Debbie2. It is enough to make one weep.

I remember those times in the late 90s when they were trying to take over all net access, and how they woke up so late to the net. Then suddenly there was SAIX, and every Telkom employee ( and those non-Telkom-people who found out about the offer ) got a free SAIX dialup for a trial period. Then one had to pay, then it converted to Intekom.

 

[krycor]

Ah, i remember this.

 

[chiskop]

Thanks debbie. Do you have the paper in a pdf or similar?

Don't mean to be too picky - but my eyes glaze over reading things in excerpt form here.

tx