MTN CEO hits back in termination rate fight

More an advertisement than anything else.

Must have taken an entire department to put this together. Well written and informative but NO CIGAR.

In any country, it is regulated and a licence agreement that an operator must cater for development in rural areas. Why was the licencing agreement stipulations not mentioned. Its mandatory and not an option as indicated by Zunaid. Misleading...

I agree, MTN has done good for this country and developed many industries through its telecommunication innovations but I must also say on the same breathe, had we an ORANGE operator or an American Operator we could have seen much more.

MTN must consider selling up and giving a more cost effective, better managed less politically affiliated cellular network its licence and move to Nigeria or Iran where its more profitable.

The People of South Africa are GATVOL... Let ICASA do its job.
 
any chance MyBB can get a branded shovel to send him. The evidence that MTN is underperforming in South Africa is easy to show what is difficult to show is that beyond the holdup on spectrum the regulator is responsible. What is even more difficult to argue is how a well known process of CTR landscape changing that they failed to plan and adapt.
Get your section of the company on board the changes to deliver sustainable returns or get the hell out.
 
So MTN claims that because it does good it should still continue to charge us inflated rates so that it can carry on doing good?
Im more adamant now than I was before that I will be leaving MTN when my contract is up in 2 months time.
 
... the take-over of once mighty Nokia by Microsoft ... remind us all that well-meant regulatory activism can quickly turn regional mobile leaders into broadband laggards ...
Click to expand...

Prey tell how a company that acted like a dinosaur by not adapting to climate change can blame "regulatory activism" for its demise? :wtf:
I'm amazed apartheid wasn't thrown in somewhere!
 
except that Nokia has not find itself constrained by "regulatory activism" of the same nature as Microsoft
If anything it should be Microsoft facing acquisition if the attempt at logic were not absolute bull****
 
Level the shifting goalposts

I don't much care for an unlevel playing field. All that ICASA needs to do is to stop people from cheating and being patently unfair (different rules for you and for me, because you're smaller). Instead of that, they are tilting the playing field in odd ways. Much as I'm not a fan of the man's unfashionable beard, or his adventures with Indian spam provider Bharti, or his newshelf, oldshelf and beeshelf, he is talking sense. If you want to compete in an established industry, get yourself a few billion rands in investment, and do a decent job. Don't be like Neotel.

Ps. I believe the phrase Allin was searching for is "Pray tell":
Allin said:
Prey tell how a company that acted like a dinosaur by not adapting to climate change can blame "regulatory activism" for its demise? :wtf:
Click to expand...
Traditionally those that believe in climate change wiping out dinosaurs are not inclined to pray, so perhaps you were making a nuanced pun here?
 
Last edited:
so level mobile and fixed termination rates
lets go with 10c from 1 March for calls regardless of termination medium or operator
 
So why dont ICASA just drop the termination rates all together( no one pays no one ) ?? then no one needs to throw their toys out the cot .
Then just force the providers to charge R1 per minute on or off net .
 
cfilorux said:
I don't much care for an unlevel playing field. All that ICASA needs to do is to stop people from cheating and being patently unfair (different rules for you and for me, because you're smaller). Instead of that, they are tilting the playing field in odd ways. Much as I'm not a fan of the man's unfashionable beard, or his adventures with Indian spam provider Bharti, or his newshelf, oldshelf and beeshelf, he is talking sense. If you want to compete in an established industry, get yourself a few billion rands in investment, and do a decent job. Don't be like Neotel.
Click to expand...
Using the same argument, are you willing to forego LLU and let Telkom remain the only player in the wired access network as well?
 
MickeyD said:
Using the same argument, are you willing to forego LLU and let Telkom remain the only player in the wired access network as well?
Click to expand...

NO!!!!!! Because Telkom is an evil monopoly built with taxpayers money

[I didn't use comic sans because its not the right sort of sarcasm]
 
Any essential service that has enough money over at the end of the day to make huge sponsorships is stealing from us.

Let SAB sponsor sport. The banks and cell companies should be giving us relief!
 
Allin said:
Prey tell how a company that acted like a dinosaur by not adapting to climate change can blame "regulatory activism" for its demise? :wtf:
I'm amazed apartheid wasn't thrown in somewhere!
Click to expand...

Lol
 
phaktza said:
Any essential service that has enough money over at the end of the day to make huge sponsorships is stealing from us.

Let SAB sponsor sport. The banks and cell companies should be giving us relief!
Click to expand...

This is true. So do you guys favor Cell C now?
 
Blahdie blahdie blah blah

I'm paying MTN nearly 2x the going rate for my voice phone calls.

Is MTN actually admitting that this super-profit is being syphoned across to entrench its dominance in the data business? Eish!

Rather sell only data and simply have voice run as an application - then we will see the true (low) cost of a voice minute.

And if MTN is so concerned with its empowerment partners, why is Phuthuma Nhleko a billionaire many times over - because he made himself empowerment recipient #1, and I'm sure he wasn't the only one drinking at that trough.

The global internet business was largely built on zero termination rates (ie peering, but the sending party keeps profit) so it is proven that model has its merits as well.
 
FNfal said:
So why dont ICASA just drop the termination rates all together( no one pays no one ) ?? then no one needs to throw their toys out the cot .
Then just force the providers to charge R1 per minute on or off net .
Click to expand...

R1 a minute is regarded as ridiculously high
more like 50c per Minute as being Fair play.
 
"The MTN 2G network covers an area of more than 800,000km2 and our 3G network covers more than 75% of the population and that footprint is increasing on a daily basis"

Given the history of the cellular licencing and spectrum you have one would expect 100% 3G coverage as you had NO competition to offer lower prices.

This means that vast tracts of geographic areas that were previously underserved and citizens that were marginalised have been given the opportunity to become part of the digital age.



If 4 operators were licenced at the same time every operator would have 100% coverage.
Sadly the poor blacks pay the most and this is a fact prepaid at R3-60 per minute and R2-50 Per minute.

MTN has invested more than R26 billion, representing 84% of its profits in network and other infrastructure in the last 5 financial years, and at a time when infrastructure investment was lagging in a wide variety of capital intensive industries.



MTN returned profits in excess of R50 Billion over the last 5 Years so 26 Billion is a small price to pay to make more profits.

Every government understands this and all are proposing targets and policies to deliver these benefits to their citizens. South Africa is no exception, and our Government has set very ambitious targets in terms of Broadband for All.

Such ambitious targets will require significant further investment.

This is the very reason MTN must never be given any spectrum at all rather licence the heavyweights like Telenor and Orange.
They will drive competition hard on LTE. the government created this problem for the few black elite who own major shares in MTN.
Real competition was never introduced.

If investors are required to divert scarce investment dollars away from South Africa’s Broadband future to subsidise failing voice business plans, then we have to ask what competition is for.
Nobody is forcing operators to invest. The worst network will pay the price heavily.
They will be out of business eventually.

Should smaller players or later entrants get an even larger subsidy, so they can “catch-up” with everyone even if the smaller operator has been operating for more than a decade?
MTN & VODACOM never thought about this when they charged Cell-C R1-25 per minute to terminate a call on their network.
Leaving Cell-C with 25c profit of each Call. Sad when the shoe is on the other foot how we throw our toys out of the cot.

While regulatory interventions such as the Call Termination rate regulations may be well meaning in the short term, these interventions may have negative long-term consequences for our broadband future.

I dare you to not invest in your network and let services degrade. Need I tell you what will happen ?

MTN is in agreement with the Communications Minister, Yunus Carrim, in that it is regrettable that the issue ended up with the Court and would have preferred the matter to been resolved through negotiations with Icasa.



As i understand it you cannot agree with someone and take them to court.
Rather MTN should have told ICASA what they would like the regulations to be and awaited the outcome ?
Yet they are challenging the whole of Call Terminations Regulations.

Today we have South Africa which is a product of poor Regulation and insufficient Competition at the right time.
MTN & Vodacom was allowed to do as they please for far too long.
 
Last edited:
People who don't understand the industry should not comment. Its like telling a farmer he is selling his vegetables at a high price but yet no knows how much he pays his staff. Then we get farm laborers striking cause they get paid too little.
 
Last edited:
parmalat said:
People who don't understand the industry should not comment. Its like telling a farmer he is selling his vegetables at a high price but yet no knows how much he pays his staff. Then we get farm laborers striking cause they get paid too little.
Click to expand...
people who don't understand the industry shouldn't be given the opportunity weasel their way out of being showed up for gutting out value from the company in order to make short term profits to cover gross under performance.
MTN management adopted the wrong strategy, they ****ed up and have not gotten any return on the lavish endowments given under Pule's term, and are now trying to blame the regulator for a regulatory regime they've known of and been able to adapt for a considerable period of time. If executives were accountable in SA the contents of the founding affidavit would be accompanied with a letter of resignation and a return of any bonuses paid in 2013.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter