The consumer wins. Because as you rightly point out, "one of these giants" are overcharging.
Nothing prevents a competitor from stepping in except putting forward the capital to kill that the incumbent that overcharges.
That is how it works in a free market.
This is exactly what happened in the last 5 years.... Competitors took the risk and capital to attack Telkom's incumbency.
But it's easy to forget why this forum started, and the reason for it's existence in the first place. It used to be called myadsl.co.za, and it was all about people venting their frustrations with Telkom having a stranglehold on the DSL market in South Africa. This has been ongoing since the early 2000's.
They aren't doing anything uncompetitive.
The practice you highlight is very common in many countries.
Nothing is special about OpenServe in that regard.
I would disagree. Telkom had the advantage for many years, even laid claim and fought in court to have them (SAIX) allowed to be the only entity allowed to provide IP service in South Africa. The local copper loop was under Telkom control from the mid 2000's as a free asset to use, and abuse, for the purposes of internet access.
Telkom has a history of being obstructive, monopolistic and anti-competitive. Telkom has abused and used anticompetitive practices for well over 2 decades. Google "VANSA" (now ISPA) and "Telkom" and read up about the many court cases there were.
OpenServe, whilst having a new name, is nothing special. It's still just part of "Telkom", which had a huge stranglehold and monopoly in the fixed line space in South Africa for decades. They still do, because they own the tar poles in everyone's back yard, and boat loads of wayleaves and infrastructure by default, all paid for by the taxpayer... Yet they still failed miserably in responding to the deployment of fibre once competition arrived.
It took ISP's nearly a decade to fight them (in court) to even allow ISP's to use the DSL network in the crippled and extortionate IPConnect format which still exists today in Fibre as well as DSL.
Telkom hasn't played by free market rules, for decades, and still doesn't. Several anticompetitive practices were pointed out by ISP's which paid a fortune to contest these practices in courts, and Telkom was fined several million rands, which they then contested again. I've always said that Telkom is the biggest legal firm with a telecoms division.
They sat on so much spectrum and other assets which were essentially given to them by default, but now the whining is starting. At one point, it was "illegal" for WiFi signals to cross a property boundary, because the law stated that Telkom was the only company allowed to carry signals across property boundaries. Telkom even sued several companies that did private microwave links accross a public road.
It's easy to forget these things, and think that Telkom is now just "another competitor". But that is certainly not the case considering the "leg up" they've had for decades.
Let's consider the facts.
1Gbps of ISP crossconnect to Vumatel = R6000 per month
1Gbps of ISP crossconnect to OpenServe = R135 000 per month.
And this is after nearly 10 years of decrease in IPConnect fees. I recall days when it used to be R700 per Mbps of crossconnect to Telkom, and international transit was R7000 per Mbps.
Telkom was certainly NOT instrumental in changing any of these costs, and they have done their level best to obstruct the growth of IP connectivity in South Africa.
And let's not forget that if it were not for the fact that Altech won against the then Minister of Communications (Ivy Matsepe-Cassaburi) back in 2008, that for ISP's and other people with capital, it would still have been illegal for anyone but Telkom or Liquid/Neotel to deploy national and local infrastructure.
A case which Telkom obviously vehemently defended as well. So... Yes, monopolistic and anticompetive much....
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