ICASA: Your Feedback Needed

[The_Unbeliever]

My 2 cents' worth :

In my business environment the contract (contracts between us and our clients) stipulates that should certain conditions not be met, we will be penalized.

This keeps us on our toes as we don't want to have the Boss roaring at us as to why we allowed a penalization to happen to us. At least our clients are happy and satisfied with our service.

Now I was thinking, why not institute a penalization option into any Telkom contract? Regarding the instance where one guy had to retrench 80 staff members due to telkom's piddly don't care attitude, a penalizing clause might have ensured that at least somebody would have done something, and if not, then the victim (not Telkom) would get some monetary relief for his stress, troubles and so forth. (Read story on Hellkom.co.za as on 19-04-2005)

A fee of R1000 for every day services are disrupted or down should go down nicely. This should ensure that telkom will do ensure that work is done properly - but then again, this may be peanuts for them as they fleece the public anyway.

 

[kronoSX]

The Deed Has Been Done

This time we fight hard,but next time even harder.Life cannot always go our way.The thing about what you mentioned(line rental) still is the best arguement by far.Cheaper rental.

 

[Karnaugh]

Now I was thinking, why not institute a penalization option into any Telkom contract?

Because you pay R1000/m not R1,000,000 per month for the service?

SLA level contracts like that usualy involve large sums of money being lost on your part or their part - if you're relying on ADSL if you require guranteed business connectivity then you're probably on drugs (or arn't realy making that much money)

Take for example, Eskom and the refineries. If shell were to lose power for some reason, they would loose a couple million rand per hour and Eskom would repay those losses. Except, you arn't making a couple million rand an hour, or paying a few billion rand a month for the service either.

Hope that makes sense...

 

[Kalvaer]

Well we must win this, cause some day the Dial-up 56k is going go the way of the Dodo.
Infact I believe some modem makers are no longer making 56k modems,I could be wrong on that but scary if true.

Not only 56k modems. I tried to find a replacement ISDN router for my company the other day and none of the "Major suppliers" I contacted had in stock. Finally tracked down a planet ISDN router, but well yeah

 

[quik]

Because you pay R1000/m not R1,000,000 per month for the service?

I believe he is talking about a business instance and did not make specific reference to ADSL.

SLA level contracts like that usualy involve large sums of money being lost on your part or their part - if you're relying on ADSL if you require guranteed business connectivity then you're probably on drugs (or arn't realy making that much money)

That is sad... why not rely on ADSL, many companies worldwide do this. Only reason it is not done here is because only Diginet has any SLAs

 

[musan]

SLA's in the uk and stats on adsl is often about 98%, you cant alwys gurantee it but it wont go down with out a good reson.

one company ofering this is http://www.lumison.net/ in scotland.

 

[Celemasiko]

I just want to have the missing answers from the Telkom technicians publizised. I want to see, if the tekkies are as stubborn as the management and sales people.

 

[morebroadband]

I believe the whole culture at Telkom needs changing. We as the public get our impressions from the techies as this is who we interact with the most, and Call Center operators (although I have given up calling them). This impression has not been a good one in my experience. I believe it all starts at the top and flows downhill all the way to the techies. The attitudes are rotten all the way through and this was displayed by the spokespeople at the ICASA hearings.

Don't get me wrong I believe there are a lot of decent and very capable people working at Telkom, and I hope they join our fight, as there is nothing more effective than inside info to dispel Telkom's propoganda!

On the topic of SLA and QoS, this was discussed at length at the hearings, as I am sure a large proportion of the 400+ complaints received by Telkom mentioned the poor quality of service. It was made clear by the ISP's that they agreed SLA could not be provided for ADSL due to the inherent nature of the service being a shared one, but they did want some mechanisms put in place so they could offer QoS to their clients. At present because Telkom control everything up to the customers PC (except mail servers if from a different ISP) the ISP's have now way to offer any guarantees, and the want to.

 

[kaspaas]

The need for a SLA is high - not only for business ADSL, but also for business telephone, residential ADSL as well as residential telephone (and other services).

As it is at the moment, there is no pressure on Telkom to deliver. 3 Weeks to install ADSL is not service. Days to repair a broken line is not service.

I know of people where Telkom fixed a residential phone after a mere 3 months.

To prevent this, an SLA is required - with automatic penalties if Telkom fails.

 

[RoosTa]

They really need to get their asses into gear. 2010 is just around the corner and South Africa has to impress the world!

 

[Celemasiko]

hihi, thats so true...the worldpress comes and gets capped after three days...*hohohohoho*

 

[Karnaugh]

That is sad... why not rely on ADSL, many companies worldwide do this. Only reason it is not done here is because only Diginet has any SLAs

Name one which banks a high net proffit?

I know of no properly run business that relies on ADSL for connectivity - neither here or anywhere in the world. Its not designed for that.

 

[mancombseepgood]

If Telkom offer such a good service at an affordable price

Then competition won't be a threat will it? So why resist even the idea of REAL competition?

 

[Karnaugh]

Telkom have the ability to compete very strongly, given the chance.

I'm not sure why people are spending so much time with ICASA and not lobying for deregulation witht he government.

To prevent this, an SLA is required - with automatic penalties if Telkom fails.

NO... Competition is required, where the automatic penalty is losing business.

 

[RoosTa]

Telkom have the ability to compete very strongly, given the chance.

I'm not sure why people are spending so much time with ICASA and not lobying for deregulation witht he government.



NO... Competition is required, where the automatic penalty is losing business.

I agree with you, but any real competition against Telkomonopoly (with their anti-competitiveness) will take years. It took 7 years for greece to get where they are today (and its still not good enough accoding to the public). Everyone has waited long enough for something to happen and quite frankly, I'm sick of waiting. Goverment are more worried about other issues this country has and I'm sure Telecoms is last on their list.

 

[Karnaugh]

will take years

Well done!

Good time to get started no? It's going to take "7 years" + <insert burocrasy time>

Personaly I don't think that it would take that long in SA's case - there is a huge potential and I think that it would grow incredibly rapidly - it takes 4 seconds to say "Ok, fixed lines are no longer regulated"

 

[RoosTa]

The aim is to decrease price tomorrow, after that we could concentrate on a deregulating the market. Small steps. Lets first show the goverment that the current situation is clearly not working.

 

[Karnaugh]

The aim is to decrease price tomorrow, after that we could concentrate on a deregulating the market. Small steps. Lets first show the goverment that the current situation is clearly not working.

The problem is this sets a bad vibe for potential competition - why bother if your profits are going to be capped and questioned by ICASA all the time?

Small, price decrease tomorrow - crap service for the rest of your life. I think this is the most obvious trend coming from Telkom, and we already prevented them from doing the most natural thing (retrenching people) - What choices do they have to prevent their growth form slipping? You may cry that they are earning lots of money, but their is some truth behind when they talk about their overall growth.

Competition - bigger market, supply that meets demand etc, everything falls into place.

High prices - more staff, "better" service.
Low prices - less staff, even worse serivce.

Sorry, but I wont support this move... In all fairness, Telkom might not be the most holy of organisations - but what options are you (MyADSL, MaD, RPM, etc) giving them?

 

[reech]

The problem is this sets a bad vibe for potential competition - why bother if your profits are going to be capped and questioned by ICASA all the time?

Dunno if I agree with this - I don't think that this is a disincentive to competition - rather a warning that we won't tolerate being ripped off - if they behave as a good business should then there shouldn't be any problems - so I just see it as a disincentive to bad pratcices.

 

[stoke]

Karnaugh - I am finding myself leaning towards agreeing with you, but somehow I cannot shake the feeling that we are being misled by teklom in a really big way.

I am faced with a couple of hard hitting apparent facts:
Telkom's financial results (2004):
Operating Profit Margin 22.3%
Return on Assets: 17.8%

Speaking generically, forcing teklom to drop all prices everywhere by 15% is possible, but will completely wipe-out any chances of company growth, and 15% is simply not going to bring this country any closer to being more competitive.

But this is pure speculation. Teklom may be hiding profit like crazy, using the convinient BEE umbrella to do it. And their confession that they could drop prices if competition existed rings one of those big london-tower bells in my ears.

A quick test would be for Governmint to allow ISP's to peer between themselves, and then see if a price difference actually shows it's head. Maybee the ISP's will be taught a lesson or two, maybee teklom will be exposed.

Damn - It's a mess.