Joe Soap and the SNO

[kaspaas]

I noticed a lot of excitement about the SNO coming to town.

The reality is that it will take years for the SNO to make any impact on the telecoms cost of Joe Soap - me and you.

I expect that they will start off by offering the big corporates excellent deals for moving all or part of there telecoms accounts to the SNO.

Thereafter they will start to expand into office parks & blocks where the smaller companies will be able to move to them.

Then only will they start to target the SMME & household sectors.

I guess that Joe Average will have to wait for at least another 5 years before he will get the call from the SNO sales office.

They will most probably make some token efforts in moving into the residential areas, but I expect this as close to nill as to claim they are doing it without lying.

A big question is how much the inter-network charges are going to be (Telkom to SNO and SNO to Telkom). If one as a look at what Vodacom charges Weekender clients to call MTN/CellC clients, it won't be good news for the consumer. We might end with two phones at home: One for Telkom calls, the other for SNO calls.

To be honest, I can't wait to reduce my office dependency on Telkom and their rediculous service. As long as there are no faults, the service is Ok. But the moment you have to deal with a person in Telkom, it becomes a disaster. TATA & company will have a hard time to be worse!

 

[alchamy]

To be honest, I can't wait to reduce my office dependency on Telkom and their rediculous service. As long as there are no faults, the service is Ok. But the moment you have to deal with a person in Telkom, it becomes a disaster. TATA & company will have a hard time to be worse!

WBS & Sentech found new ways to be worse than Telkom.

 

[antowan]

Hi

The fact of the matter is that the SNO will not be enough because there is no threat of a TNO or a FNO. True competition lies in the threat of a new player entering the market at will in a short period of time. It is a given that without proper legislative protection the SNO will simply work with Telkom in assuring high prices and profit margins for their shareholders.

I, for the life of me, cannot understand how the government can be so blatantly ignorant or simply stupid to think that the SNO will solve the problem? Why did the stake that went to TATA not go to local shareholders? Yes, we are a country supposedly working in a global marketplace, but open the telecoms market to the smaller guys as well. That is where Telkom’s main competition will come from. It is the little guy who wants to have a go at beating a largely inefficient Telkom (and friends) at their own game.

The legislative environment in South Africa is ridiculous and too few people in power are either unwilling to say it or do something about it because of vested interest.

We do not need Telkom to network us with our neighbors. The tech is out there to self provide in an orderly fashion, just let us do it legally!

We do not need Telkom for overseas bandwidth! Just let us buy our own legally and let other people distribute it here in an open market. If a hundred companies want to have a go, let them. Only a few will survive, but they will compete like hell to do so! The free market is a blessing to those who can use it properly!

We are falling further and further behind the rest of the world. Will Thabo Mbeki’s words be too late?

This year alone will be proof of that… Not 5 years or a decade!

THIS YEAR!

Cheers
Antowan

 

[ic]

On the issue of awarding part of the SNO to TATA over & above OM locally - I haven't made up my mind on that one yet, so I will continue to sit on a fence of pragmatism on that issue.

I agree with everything else, kaspaas - very good analysis/prediction - unless government attaches some specifics to the SNO's licence that's likely to be the way it plays out.

The duopoly will be a problem, but the wiser consumers will have some power to play the one against the other - I can see MyADSL playing it's educational role there again.

Self Provisioning, it is a dream, and until government sells off it's shareholding in Telkomonopoly (or exchanges it for exclusive control over SAT3/SAFE) we will be stuck in the doldrums of inaction on the part of government.

I am concerned about Telkomonopoly implementing WiMax - I would prefer the WiMax licence(s) to go to community consorti(a)um, instead of Telkomonopoly. I would even prefer WiMax to be licensed to the SNO instead of Telkomonopoly.

 

[Johand]

The SNO might have a short term effect... the ability for other parties to buy international bandwidth cheaper (that is if Tata uses their part of SAT-3 for South African operations). This will allow sentech, iburst and the like to buy bandwidth cheaper, which might not lower prices, but can improve service and maybe caps that are a bit higher. Uncapped ADSL, or ADSL with higher caps would also be a possiblity. Finally, the SNO might partner with Tshwane Metro for their implementation of powerline communications -- http://www.cities-lyon.org/en/initiatives/40.html. The fact of the matter is that Telkom cannot have different prices for different areas - so competition in small areas in Pretoria, Cape Town and Joburg, can force Telkom to drop their prices.

Furthermore, service providers like UUnet, MTN and CellC would be able to use cross-country fiber links by Esitel and Transtel, which would hopefully lead to a pricewar in local longhaul networks as well.

But it will only work if the SNO wants to start a price war, and ICASA is serious about kicking Telkom in the $%#.

 

[Gaz{M}]

I would like to take a more positive view of the situation. With TATA in the equation, the SNO can operate exclusively of Telkom's network (except for interconnection of course). Local traffic on Eskom's power line fibre network, international on SAT3/SAFE and local loop can be a flavour of wireless (3G,UMTS,WiMax,Wifi or iBurst) Although these wireless offerings are not the best at the moment, the entire Telecomms market is focused on developing broadband wireless technologies. DSL and Cable are old news. I also remember hearing the our dear Gov. will regulate (cough) the costs Telkom charge for interconnection and piggy-backing onto the local loop. It is easy to say "oh but what about MTN/Vodacom 5 years ago" but remember, they were both milked for interconnetion by Telkom and it was easy to overcharge for cellular (then thought to be a luxury service) and collaborate on pricing. It looks like the SNO is the first truly independent Telecomm's company in SA or am i wrong?

 

[arf9999]

Self Provisioning, it is a dream, and until government sells off it's shareholding in Telkomonopoly (or exchanges it for exclusive control over SAT3/SAFE) we will be stuck in the doldrums of inaction on the part of government.

I agree, What government needs to do is force the unbundling of Telkom. Telkom should give up control of SAT3/SAFE, be prohibited from offering VANS services, and prohibited from operating as an ISP as long as they are protected by legislation as a monopoly or part of a duopoly.

I am concerned about Telkomonopoly implementing WiMax - I would prefer the WiMax licence(s) to go to community consorti(a)um, instead of Telkomonopoly. I would even prefer WiMax to be licensed to the SNO instead of Telkomonopoly.

I disagree. WiMAX should not be licenced at all. WiMAX provision (and WiFi WISPs) for that matter should be deregulated completely.