ICASA report has huge technical flaws !!!

Have finally woken up and found the activity on thread very hot indeed. To the angry people , please ease up and debate professionally.To Byrd's last 3 questions.

3. The router is CPE and is deregulated. If you don't like the one Telkom offers , buy your own.

4. Telkom ADSL access charges are higher that the norm and need to be driven down. I am more hopeful than most ,that the licensing of the SNO , the Colloquim pressure from DOC and their fat order pipeline (volume of users) for ADSLwill see us seeing a another price drop before Xmas.

5. Whether we like it or not, Telkom is a listed entity , owned to a large part by private institutional investors ( who probably manage all our pensions). The intervention from Government can only be limited to price regulation formulae and obligations linked to access to frequency allocation as is the case with the GSM operators for the 1800 MHz spectrum.
 
ayanda said:
4. Telkom ADSL access charges are higher that the norm and need to be driven down. I am more hopeful than most ,that the licensing of the SNO , the Colloquim pressure from DOC and their fat order pipeline (volume of users) for ADSLwill see us seeing a another price drop before Xmas.
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This is just the point tho'. The fact is that there is NO competition and even after launch of SNO, it is unlikely that there will be any real competition since the SNO will be dependant on Telkom's SAT3 bandwidth. Unless the local loop is unbundled, it is unlikely that the limited competition from the SNO will change anything. ICASA should be allowed to hold Telkom answerable for profiteering and misuse of their monopoly.
 
Hi Ayanda

Glad you woke up. :) You're going to have to forgive the others who only post to make stupid allegations.

As for the last three questions: Q4 and Q5 are fine, but I don't think you read Q3 completely.

Byrd said:
3. Considering that Telkom charges over R2000 for a router that is not nearly as feature full as those that retail in the free market for around R500 - Do you expect forum members to believe that Telkom is not ripping them off in other areas as well?
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And don't forget my question either:

Toxin said:
Oh, and one more thing from me: How is it possible that other ISPs can sell bandwidth ,THAT THEY BUY FROM TELKOM, for less than what Telkom charges themselves?
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Thanks for your willingness to reply. A decent discussion is always welcome here. :)
 
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Toxin
I dont know. Maybe they are preparedto take a loss first to win market share and might raise prices later or they have found a loophole in Telkom/IS/UUNET offering and are able to oversell what they buy. The question I believe should be answered by the ISPs themselves.
 
Ayanda, are you able to clarify if you are on this board as part of Telkom, and whether you represent them or not (i.e. these are your own views or they are largely Telkom's views).

It would be good to know how to direct questioning (and subsequently what to make of the answer ;) )
 
ayanda said:
Have finally woken up and found the activity on thread very hot indeed. To the angry people , please ease up and debate professionally.To Byrd's last 3 questions.

3. The router is CPE and is deregulated. If you don't like the one Telkom offers , buy your own.

4. Telkom ADSL access charges are higher that the norm and need to be driven down. I am more hopeful than most ,that the licensing of the SNO , the Colloquim pressure from DOC and their fat order pipeline (volume of users) for ADSLwill see us seeing a another price drop before Xmas.

5. Whether we like it or not, Telkom is a listed entity , owned to a large part by private institutional investors ( who probably manage all our pensions). The intervention from Government can only be limited to price regulation formulae and obligations linked to access to frequency allocation as is the case with the GSM operators for the 1800 MHz spectrum.
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3. Telkom do not make users aware of this fact, however the point is not weather other devices are available - but the rather the fact that Telkom must have a HUGE markup on them.

5. I would say that your argument is flawed here. The fact that my pension fund may or may not invest in Telkom is neither has nothing to do with this debate. Telkom have been given a historical advantage and now - just as with affirmative action - this situation needs to be corrected by the government. You say only price can be regulated - and that is fine. I suggest that Telkom be forced to charge us R0.00, not nothing, but R0.00.
 
ayanda said:
Toxin
I dont know. Maybe they are preparedto take a loss first to win market share and might raise prices later or they have found a loophole in Telkom/IS/UUNET offering and are able to oversell what they buy. The question I believe should be answered by the ISPs themselves.
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ayanda's writing style has changed morning to afternoon. Sorry to be cynical, but I smell a rat.
 
Byrd said:
The fact you have a Telkom Account is input how?
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Trying to get a feel for the ripping of ... what would be a reasonable amount of money in your books for a DSL service ???.
 
#$%@!!! fly will not die.....check doom can.......hmmm not affective agains telkom bud fly.
 
Hey Byrd! 100th post!! Well done. :)

@ayanda: Yes it might be a loophole, but at the end of the day this (maybe) loophole allows them to sell bandwidth to us for a price that is less than what Telkom sells to us. Now, do you honestly think that Telkom sells the bandwidth to the ISPs at a loss?

If not than Telkom are ripping us off plain and simple.
 
tibby.dude said:
Trying to get a feel for the ripping of ... what would be a reasonable amount of money in your books for a DSL service ???.
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Personally, I would be willing to pay R600 per month for a 512Kb ADSL line, with no cap, no shaping and a decent customer care service. That would fit me really well.

I might even ignore the fact that other countries get the same for half that price.

But hey! If a person is happy with what he\she has, that ok too.
 
ayanda said:
...or they have found a loophole in Telkom/IS/UUNET offering and are able to oversell what they buy.
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C'mon do you seriously believe that?
NOBODY ripps Telkom off, in the rippoff hierarchy Telkom isn't king, Telkom is god.
 
Toxin said:
I would be willing to pay R600 per month for a 512Kb ADSL line, with no cap, no shaping and a decent customer care service.
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I would be willing to pay R500 for 1Mbps service with a 30GB cap but unshaped DSL only service ... they can add R90 for an optional voice service.
 
Hehe - THX Toxin

I didnt notice.

Tibby

I would be happy to pay whatever is reasonable. I think investigation into Telkom's profit margins, expenses and structures is going to be very revealing, and would like to see these profits on ADSL measured against what companies like BT.

Gut feel I would say what you and taxin have said sounds reasonable.
 
tibby.dude said:
I would be willing to pay R500 for 1Mbps service with a 30GB cap but unshaped DSL only service ... they can add R90 for an optional voice service.
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Exactly. I don't think anyone here would complain about ADSL half as much if we were paying that. We all have a price that we're willing to pay. I'm not expecting Telkom to drop their prices to that of the rest of the world just to make us happy. What I myself and i think the rest of the MYADSL members want\expect is to pay a reasonable price for broadband. And untill Telkom are willing to tell us how much it costs them for maintenance and installation of new and old DSLAMS, lines, cables etc. That will never happen, and we'll just keep getting ripped off.

It's called a cashcow. It has it's advantages...... if your names $izwe. :(
 
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I for one welcome Ayanda's input.
Balance is always a good thing.

Its this mentality of how these big corporates in our country do business..
Customers having to beg for descent affordable service/products, its just plain backward and cannot be healthy on an economic front.

Here we have a situation with a group of folks (+-5000 and growing daily) that are not happy with the monopolistic way in which a company is doing business, and until proven otherwise, is also grossly overcharging for the services. I would love to be able to turn round to a mass of my customers and tell them they are talking crap, man it must be nice to be in that position. Or better yet, do what Telkom does and just plain ignore them.
One would assume that in most 'normal' markets with 'capable' competition and non restrictive legislation, this situation would not be able to exist, let alone thrive and continue unopposed.
The mere fact that Telkom have ingored the people at myadsl, not had any formal meetings to discuss the groups concerns, just highlights the attitude that they have towards their customers. They couldnt give a damn.

Telkom is nothing more than a cash cow for its shareholders and the government. Everything else comes in a very distant second.
If rpm hadnt started this whole thing, I would still be paying R700 a month for nothing (that pesky rental charge), probably more if Telkom were left to their own devices.
I love reading this forum everyday, to hear the Telkom whines and moans, dammit, this whole thing must be a lekker big boil on their butt, all because of MyAdsl.
As hulle nie will hoor nie moet hulle voel. (sp)
Ag shame

edit: and I want to know what I am getting, min speeds, contention ratio's.
 
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Erm, the high cost is mostly blamed on cable theft/maintenance, right? Those two go hand in hand. If there is no cable theft, do you need maintenance? How much cable theft (telkom phone line theft) takes place? Surely the cable thief bastids mostly go for the big fat cables of Eskom and the railways.
 
It occurs to me that while international practice is to lower the price to reach economies of scale, Telkom on the other hand sets the price high, waits for a magic number of subscribers then drop the price.

What this strategy achieves can only be speculation on my part.

[speculation]

They do not have enough staff, they retreched a big lot for a glossy bottom line so they would not cope with the backlog if the volumes were that high ?

They want recover capex very quickly to compete much easier when SNO starts ?

[/speculation]
 
hi, I am back. now on a new note. Icasa's report is written as if they've never noticed this whole of this year that there has been so many ISPs with offerings other than 3Gig. They even propose in the report to to raise it from 3Gig
!!!
or everything they wrote is based on the status of 18months ago , when the complaint was lodged ?
Is it not our expecattion that an "Authority" should keep itself informed ?
 
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