Monday is Telkom day

One wonders whether CEO Phuthuma Nhleko has been under pressure from the PIC and government to look at a deal - with the aim of creating an African champion fixed-mobile telco giant - that it would ordinary not have considered.
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This is personally what I suspect, seems to be government's standard modus operandi, they seem to like big, overarching companies. That and of course uplifting the rest of Africa with our money. :rolleyes:

Should be interesting to see the results anyway, I'm not convinced Vox is that much of a threat at the moment though.
 
Fin 24 links just dont open for me anymore, but whatever it is, screw TELKOM. :D
 
Syndyre said:
This is personally what I suspect, seems to be government's standard modus operandi, they seem to like big, overarching companies. That and of course uplifting the rest of Africa with our money. :rolleyes:

Should be interesting to see the results anyway, I'm not convinced Vox is that much of a threat at the moment though.
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Actually, last I heard, the rampaging South African companies in the rest of Africa were making a killing in profits.

SA likes to complain about how the West is screwing us over, but the fact of the matter is that we do it to the rest of Africa too.
 
Xarog said:
Actually, last I heard, the rampaging South African companies in the rest of Africa were making a killing in profits.

SA likes to complain about how the West is screwing us over, but the fact of the matter is that we do it to the rest of Africa too.
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I know they are, but in this case if governmental pressure is being applied it obviously doesn't make sense commercially or MTN would do it on their own. I wasn't referring to SA companies so much as government policy as a whole.
 
Syndyre said:
I know they are, but in this case if governmental pressure is being applied it obviously doesn't make sense commercially or MTN would do it on their own. I wasn't referring to SA companies so much as government policy as a whole.
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Right, but I'm taking issue with your claim that they're doing it to uplift Africa. Maybe that's what they say, but personally I think they're a bunch of self-centred greedy little pigs who should be put out of everyone else's misery.

It seems we're agreed on the idea that the govt. should just butt-out and stop leaning on private companies to do their bidding.
 
Xarog said:
Right, but I'm taking issue with your claim that they're doing it to uplift Africa. Maybe that's what they say, but personally I think they're a bunch of self-centred greedy little pigs who should be put out of everyone else's misery.
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Who, the government or the private companies?

Xarog said:
It seems we're agreed on the idea that the govt. should just butt-out and stop leaning on private companies to do their bidding.
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Definitely.
 
Syndyre said:
Who, the government or the private companies?
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Govt mainly. Though these days it's getting harder to make the distinction with all the BEE deals floating around.
 
Xarog said:
Govt mainly. Though these days it's getting harder to make the distinction with all the BEE deals floating around.
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Its hard to see the true motivation, they do mostly seem to be interested in themselves. Either way I still think they should worry about SA before the rest of Africa.
 
It just happens that there are 365 "I Hate Telkom" days in a normal year
 
One way to get around the competition issue, as one senior executive in the ICT industry (who shall remain nameless) recently guessed, would be to unbundle Telkom into a host of regional, infrastructure-providing telcos and let MTN take up the bits that it wants.
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While I would love to see Telkodemonopolies torn asunder - into autonomous wholesale and retails pieces, I am strongly opposed to the notion of doing this along regional lines - IMO that would simply result in numerous regional monopolies, and consumers will suffer the consequences - again.

To add to my reasoning, consider that the corporate culture within Telkodemonopolies, is that of a monopoly that is rotten to the core and believes it is above any laws of the land, this would continue within lots of smaller regional telcos - even if Telkodemonopolies' legal department is unbundled into a separate entity.

We have also seen Telkodemonopolies throw its toys out the cot - remember when Telkodemonopolies threatened to cancel ADSL in SA if !CASA's draft ADSL Regs were gazetted? - now imagine that attitude ingrained in several regional telcos.

Besides, there are advantages in having a single entity responsible for a particular national backbone - rather than lots of smaller regional telcos arguing about whose responsibility it is to fix an interconnect problem - whilst no data is flowing between say Jhb & CT - just imagine the chaos and blame shifting.
 
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Well well Fin24 decided to finally open for me.

Reading the report from Belinda brings a smile and a little tear of happiness. It is perhaps unhealthy to experience so much joy at TELKOM's expense but what they heck, we have all paid for it an then-some.

Reminds me of a report on Deutsche Telecom not to long ago and how they bled after the market was liberalised.
A refresher
Deutsche Telekom profits plunge 58%
Considering the fact that TELKOM has at this point not yet been exposed to ANY major competition and that they are already warning of 15-20% downturn in profits, and the fact that their own staff were only expecting to loose around 10% initially when the competition arrived, how much will they (TELKOM) really loose when the playing fields are finally levelled?
I would wager one heck of a lot.
Perhaps something to consider if you are an investor with all your eggs in the blue ,white and green basket.

That other telecoms company finally has direct access to SAT3 and it is only a matter of time before the big corporates realise how much they have been pomped by TELKOM over the years. As in a report last week some are insisting on TELKOM 'free' circuits as a condition of supply. giggle, cant help myself.

I am sure the other telecoms company has been hard at work trying to woo the big money-spinners to come there way while at the same time TELKOM has been locking the 'foolish' into long term contracts. Shame poor sods.

Time to drink a beer and celebrate.
 
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