ICASA: Your Feedback Needed

RPM
Firstly thanks to you and all the myadsl members for the commitment to this topic, although I sat on the sidelines up till now, as I can imagine have a number of others, you have our support...

How can there be any true competition in SA when?

Telkom monopoly position allows:
  • Full control over the provision of foundation services and the determination of all associated costs.
  • The freedom to manipulate prices for access to services in order to protect it’s other revenue streams or to cross subsidise any operational or business inefficiencies.
  • The tools to stifle any “true competition” again through a freedom to manipulate foundation service costs without circumspection.
Fast facts:
  • Is it really possible that everyone else is always wrong? Is it really possible that all ±440 complainants are wrong, and that everyone has a vendetta with Telkom?
  • Can a system that allows 1 player full control over all aspects of an environment ever be considered fair?
  • Telkom’s monopoly position is swiftly killing South Africa’s economic future. Remember SA's future is online, mineral wealth will not last for ever...
  • Absolute power corrupts absolutely!
  • The slow pace of government action with regard to telecommunication policies and the SNO is tantamount to government sanctioned corruption by Telkom: Telkom has carte blance with it's monopoly position to dictate the terms for ransacking Joe Public’s pockets.

How can ICASA fix this problem?
Immediate action:
  • ICASA and the government in order to show their commitment to this process, reward the public for it’s constructive part in this action by:
    • Providing schools with free or 100% government subsidized Internet access (ideally ADSL). Subsidized through the revenues generated by the current shares in Telkom.
    • Abolishing the ADSL rental until the short-term objectives have been met.
What is needed in the short-term?
  • Revision and direct control of the Telkom pricing models for all monopoly services (e.g. local loop, fixed lines, ADSL) through an independent regulator reporting directly to ICASA:
    • The revision should base line margins for these pricing models on international markets, specifically 1st world countries, because that's sector in which we compete e.g. call centres...
    • This regulator could be an independent party formed through the amalgamation of qualified resources provided and funded by the 1st tier telecommunication providers, including the representation by a national council established by SME companies in this sector with the express purpose of protecting their interests. (e.g. something like SAPIA in the petroleum sector, www.sapia.co.za)
What is required in the long term?
  • Require that the government sell all interests in Telkom in order to be able to represent a position of fairness:
    • Statements in the media of expected increase in revenues for Telkom shares do not reflect favourably on government’s position of impartiality.
  • Revise laws regarding telecommunications, removal of all monopolistic laws favouring a particular service provider:
    • Allow unbiased input from all the telecommunication’s sectors in South Africa in defining these laws.
  • The setting in place of a “true” independent telecommunication’s ombudsman with the authority to litigate in the SA telecommunications sector. (i.e. a dog that can bite)

I hope this helps...
I look forward to some improvement is this area, thanks again.
 
Hello [)roi(]

Welcome to MyADSL.

I can see you have been moved by our cause. Thanks for the support.

I have seen quite a few people join these forums, but my instinct tells me you are no ordinary individual.
 
Old Tech

Ye great post [)roi(]....

1) I think it is important to let it be known that ADSL is a huge threat to telkom profits. Reducing the cost would cause cleints using old technology like isdn, diginet, dial-up (from which telkom are currently making obscene profits) to migrate to ADSL which is a tried and tested cheap solution - so cheap that telkom cant justify charging the fees they have been charging for the old technology.

It's all about protecting profits at a tremendous cost to the country - economically, socially, technologically....

2) Another quik point is telkom's monopoly over infrastructure and the fact that all international connectivity goes through telkom is unacceptable and just asking to be abused by a private company. A company in telkom's position should not be private. It's a recipe for disaster that we can already see playing itself out.

g'luck
cheers
 
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Broadband Conversion rate

Hi

Surely the fact that we have such a small take-up of broadband facilities is a symptom of the problem?

i.e.

South Africa
1.7 percent

3,520,000 total net users ( World Wide Worx forecasts for 2004)
60,000 current Telkom broadband users


UK
14.2 percent

35,179,141 total net users
http://www.internetworldstats.com/europa.htm
5,000,000 current broadband users
http://smh.com.au/news/Breaking/UK-...m/2005/04/05/1112489456484.html?oneclick=true


Europe
12.9 percent


259,653,144 total net users
http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats4.htm
33,500,000 current broadband users
http://www.itfacts.biz/index.php?id=P1122


Someone may know the other (Sentech, G3(?), ISDN :-) broadband user statistics. Or know better international stats?

This exercise has almost certainly been done before, but just in case...


And, oh, surely Telkom and Sentech (etc) are not so much competitors as departments in the same organisation?
 
some very good points there so i thought i would add my 2 cents

after living overseas and never being off the internet since i was 16 i moved back to sa and after a year of no net i could not take it any more and decided to return to the outside world the costs be dammed, ( 3gb i can stay under that i guess...) i have been using what telkom joking call's adsl for a month now, i will say that the install was from my dealings with the banks and other "public" institutions relatively painless. though once the service came into place it went down hill, i made it though the cap in the before the 4th of the month, just getting my computers uptodate, as well as uploading some pics and getting files that i need to work with. My flatmate was not impressed and felling bad on this i though i would see about extending my cap, how much can it cost any way. After 20 min on hold with that sole destroying music i found out that i could not just extend my cap in reasonably priced increments ( see rest of world) no i had to get a hole new account, this is suspect is a money making scam to get the most out of "processing" fee's i was also informed it would take no less them 24 hours, to this i informed them was unacceptable and had it in 20 minuets of sole destroying music, then got my new account. i then received my bill a few days later to find out that they had double charged me for every thing including line install !!! i have yet to bring this up with telkom due to illness.

Well i guess that is a bit more then 2 cents but to summarise what i want telkom to do apart from drop of the face of the earth and be replaced by a nice south Korean company is.
° get rid of or make a justifiable cap say 6 to 10 gb with reasonably priced easily accessible extensions, i.e. not a hole new account.
° make there help desk better organised ( no bouncing between departments), have greater power, simplified and stream lined procedures, and also a bit more training could be inorder, if only to know to pass the caller along to the right person ( i.e. calling up about ip problems and getting sent to line provision)
° dont tell me that the que is longer then usual 40 times every time i call.
° quit resetting my modem.
° provide a reasonably priced fixed ip option
° stop selling the fararri and delivering the tricycle.

some suggestions i have to make adsl a more customer friendly thing.
° dont f**k up the line provision.
° provide me with something that gives me server names, user-names and basic policies
° simplify there router/modem things. for me i liked it but in the end is more configuration then is needed.
° be nicer to people they are the ones that pay for that new house your buying.

it may also be of some basis to know what it was like to do the same in the UK
salesman knocked on the door a week or so after moving in ( lots of students had just moved in as-well), signed contract and gave deposit right then and there, next week ( 3 working days) a tech came round installed the line, and gave me a bit of paper with all i needed to know. never worried bout a thing for the next year.
total cost 30 GBP (1.50 line rental, rest isp) for 756k and would of been 60 if i wanted 1.5 mb, and all of the extra would of gone to the isp ( the real workers imo)

sorry for rambling i have nothing else to do as i have gone though the other cap.

i look forward to hearing the out come and even more the the results.
 
I think something that has been left out in the hearings so far is the fact that the internet stops completely after you are capped. Ask for at-least a 64k international garuntee after one gets capped.

Thanks for the hard work!
 
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.

Oh well there will be plenty of second hand modem for us from the countries that dump them. *shivers*

Using Dial-up for me at home puts me to sleep.
 
Telkom keeps on about their pricing structure being different than international standards, and thats its fair and that they wanna charge us more, etc...

Cant we get some big shot from BT or one of the other Broadband providers in UK to come explain to ICASA EXACTLY what the costs involved are? If you get the truth from the source then how can you deny it?

Ons benodig die waarheid uit die perd se bek uit...
 
Just because Bt has cheap broadband it doesn't mean they are fine upstanding citizens who are going to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. BT used to get beaten with a ****stcik all too often when i lived there. They were forced to lower prices. Hopefully the forcing could be used as a model for ICASA. Can't remeber BT's regulator but they had/have some serious clout.
 
Comment on their statement :
“We don’t believe we are getting a fair hearing because of a lack of neutrality on behalf of the chairwoman,” said Telkom spokesman Xolisa Vapi. “It would appear that the hearings have a pre-determined outcome…. The chairwoman is taking an aggressive line towards Telkom. We welcome robust discussion, but it must be fair.”

Is it fair that only the rich can afford internet or even basic communications such as a normal phoneline? Is it fair that only the educated (people in decent jobs) may recieve a source of higher education (internet)? Is it fair that Telkom is the only real internet provider in South Africa? Is is fair that the rich are getting richer while the poor getting poorer?

If they wanted a robust discussion why did they not bring tech savvy engineers?

ICASA is the publics only line of defense...
 
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Without full understanding of ICASA's regulatory mechanism,one really doesnt know where ICASA's intervention would be most required in the industry ,ISPs would know better on this one.

From consumer side ,

ADSL connectivity is an international standard technology ,its is so common that it can be deemed as a commodity,therefor its pricing struture should conform to international norms ,eg. no company should be allowed to charge R2 for 100cc of petrol ,worked it out it is R20 a litre !

Billing invoice is an legal document ,ambiguity should be avoided to reflect good business faith ,We the consumer have every right to demand explainations of what we are paying for.

Line rental must be expalined ,justified or abolished
 
I would add the inability of Telkom to deliver service.

the at least 3 weeks waiting period between ordering an ADSL line and installation (SLA issue)
The extreme congestion of the help and other lines (SLA issue)

Telkom boasted about installing 5000 new ADSL lines per month the past 2 months.
If a technician can manage only 2 installations per day, it is 44 per month (22 working days per month). This means that Telkom has only 114 technicians qualified to install ADSL all over the country. This after more than 2 years of capacity building!

The inability of Telkom to deliver ADSL services in obvious market areas

From this it is obvious that Telkom does not have the will or ability to service SA with ADSL. I believe that the UK model where ISP are guarenteed access and space within BT's exchanges (LL unbundling) will solve this problem. It will allow te IS's and M-Webs to deliver the services Telkom can't.
 
The Techies are contracted to perform a certain amount of jobs per day. I think it was 3 if i remember correctly. That's what they get paid for and there is no incentive for them to do more than three so why would they ? I had a nice chat with one of the techies that did my line installation ......

Needles to say, if telkomopoly provided some incentives for installations the techies might roll out a couple more jobs per day.....
 
Some thoughts on network management and the 3G cap.

Due to the telkom implementation of the 3G cap, users have devised several strategies to get the best possible value out of the system.

One method is to purchase two accounts (one shared), cap one account ASAP and use it for local access for the rest of the month, the second account being used only for international access. This results in a large traffic spike at the beginning of the month.

The second method, for those who can only afford one account, is to be very conservative during the month, accumulating links to required files, and then going crazy, downloading everything in the last 48 hours. This results in a large traffic spike at the end of the month.

The cap also fuels the feeling that you must download as much as you can, whenever you can, just in case you need the files later. As a result of the above, some users are regularly getting >10GB out of a 3Gb cap, and network stability is negativly impacted at the beginnng and the end of each month.

I propose that Telkom allows the cap to accumulate, from month to month, in the same way that unused airtime is accumulated on GSM accounts. That way, the average user will be able to down load whatever files are need, as they are needed, secure in the knowledge that non abusive usage this month will provide the bandwidth need to download XP service pack 3 next month.

This is a potential win/win situation that will not reduce Telkom revenue, whilst making the service more efficient for the user. It will also reduce the month end spike and possibly the one at the beginning of the month as well (this one can be eliminated entirely by not counting local traffic towards the cap), and will better achieve the Telkom stated objective of the cap, namely to prevent abusive behavior.

Cheers
Chris
 
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biltonguy said:
Ye great post [)roi(]....

1) I think it is important to let it be known that ADSL is a huge threat to telkom profits. Reducing the cost would cause cleints using old technology like isdn, diginet, dial-up (from which telkom are currently making obscene profits) to migrate to ADSL which is a tried and tested cheap solution - so cheap that telkom cant justify charging the fees they have been charging for the old technology.

It's all about protecting profits at a tremendous cost to the country - economically, socially, technologically....

2) Another quik point is telkom's monopoly over infrastructure and the fact that all international connectivity goes through telkom is unacceptable and just asking to be abused by a private company. A company in telkom's position should not be private. It's a recipe for disaster that we can already see playing itself out.

g'luck
cheers
Click to expand...

Without a doubt, mistakes were made by the government in the privatisation process. Ideally privatisation should never occur without a significant change to associated laws. What has happened reflects poorly on those in the position of authority on this matter, this was a process where consultation could have played a important role. e.g. Find a country that also underwent privitisation, and learn from their mistakes.

But I guess it's now is a case of "spilt milk"; Let's hope that ICASA will be open to entertain an idea to facilitate discussions with "MyADSL and the other major players" to determine the best recourse of action to this quandary.
 
Request ICASA to rule that in view of Telkom's testimony that few users actually need more than 3GB, the cap be upped to 10GB as, according to what Telkom has said, it won't have any impact on ADSL usage. Of course, this is to be done without any cost increase.

I bet that the average usage per "3G account" will grow slowly and exceed 3 GB within 6 months!
 
Tell ICASA that as an ISDN user, I can download close to 20Gb a month on a 128 connection. This costs me R650 a month (ISP + infinitcall + phonecalls), roughly R33 per Gb. Why then does an ADSL account cost R250 for 3Gb (R83 per Gb)?
 
Firstly, congratulations to all involved in the ICASA hearings and especially RPM for encouraging and organising this movement.

I think areasonable way to calculate cap is to allow a user to experience the speed of the service for about 8 to 10 hours a day at atleast an average of half (256) the max speed for all the working days in a month (may be 22).

The reason for marketing ADSL has been that one can experience broadband speeds without significant changes to the "last mile" connection. So what use is this "speedy" service if you can only use for a fraction of the time that you pay the rental for ?

Good Luck RPM !
 
If the India can do it then why not SA?

RPM,
I hope this its not too late, re 12h00:

In a posting by morebroadband on Monday 18th, mention was made to India accomplishing what we are faced with:
http://www.mybroadband.co.za/vb/showpost.php?p=191734&postcount=16

TRAI(Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) ICASA's equivalent, has been successful in dealing with a similar monopolistic problem in India. Suggest that ICASA look into this, maybe there are some similarities and we could benefit from their insight.

In short they have achieved some significant reductions (between 35% to 70%) by establishing ceilings tarrifs...

http://www.trai.gov.in/pr11mar05.pdf
http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:...+telecom+forced+to+lower+prices&hl=en&start=7
http://sifybroadband.techwhack.com/170/25032005-affordable-telecom-in-india/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_in_India
 
Wow excellent find there! I'm sure this can give ICASA some ammunition to fight the government. If they can do it, so can we!
 
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