Sentech in unique position

[TadMadLad]

I was thinking a few seconds ago.

Sentech is in a unique position to screw over people like telkom in more than just the ISP market, if they played their cards right.

Just a thought that occured.

I had a sentech problem the other day.. and as you know, I wanted to cancel telkom, AND at that time, my phone lines were dug up by a bulldozer. Sooo, when i phoned them i had to use my cell, but that is beside the point.

So, I am just thinking, people like me, who have been abused by telkom in the past, have thought about cancelling telkom alltogether because after years of 56K and watching the world on 1000K , i thought to myself : "telkom, phone me on my cell when you have a better deal"......

The flip side is, i would then be a sentech customer with no other option for my internet, and for a very very long time.

As things go, i have not cancelled my telkom, and i have not given my 56K modem away, and i have not cancelled all my dialup accounts, only reason i dont use it is because of my budget i have for internet....

So, i say again, sentech is in a unique position to not only be one of the top ISPs in the country, but skrew telkom's normal analogue revenue and normal subscriptions to for people like me who only use the homephone for internet and phoning sentech support.

 

[lewstherin]

TML, you should check out what has been happening in New Zealand with Woosh. I've read several news reports about Woosh and their plans, and I must agree with you that Sentech really has the chance to take Telkom out of the data market as well as the voice market. Why voice? Well in NZ, Woosh is getting set to provide a VOIP solution that will force the incumbent telco there (basically a NZ equivalent of Telkom) into fighting for its traditionally protected voice market.

Whilst Woosh would appear to be having similar problems to Sentech with rollout, and they also appear to be running low on cash due to an very aggressive modem subsidisation program, they have signed up a hell of lot of customers - and thats with covering basically Auckland only!

What Sentech should look at is competing with Telkom in the diginet (guaranteed bandwidth) arena - business contracts are where the real $$ are [8D]

Anyway, I must say seeing how Woosh is shaking up the NZ telco market, Sentech has the same chance to really give Telkom a wake up [}]

<font color="blue">Telkom needs a leash, ICASA needs some guts, and the </font id="blue"><font color="red">SA consumer</font id="red"><font color="blue"> needs to make it happen</font id="blue">

 

[kaspaas]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by dbnnet</i>
<br />Corporate SA will be able to remove all the risks associated with the "last mile"
(including copper theft)<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Recently it was demonstrated that radio can be "stolen" by creating undue interference.

Radio linked internet is not as riskfree and guaranteed as people would like to make it.

On the otherhand, there is far less incentive to disrupt radio signals than pinching copper.

But I love the idea of Telkom being forced to recalculate their rates in a year or 5.


South Africa needs World Class Broadband at World Competitive Prices.

 

[reech]

This jamming bug applies, as far as I know , only to 802.11x technology

 

[regardtv]

Nope ... Jamming most certainly CAN affect Mywireless ...

Have a look at the problems on the forum - specifically in PTA. It appears that Loftus ? was broadcasting on the same frequency and knocking MyWireless users offline...

R

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The views expressed on this site are my own and NOT those of my employer.

 

[Ditch]

The difference with copper theft is that you steal the copper, you get out, and take the copper with you. But if you're broadcasting on someone else's frequency, you basically have to just sit there and keep doing it for it to be worthwhile, in which case you can be caught. I heard it was not Loftus.

 

[bb_matt]

I can definately see Telkom loosing it's market share in some segments of the market, but don't expect it to vanish !

They are expanding into Africa and cable is still very much needed. Sentech fills a "last mile" gap and it's infrastructure still relies on cable - it has to be "fed" from somewhere.

Also, it's likely that VIOP could be made illegal over here if Telkom were to see huge profit loss.

Having said that, I'm one of those people who have discarded the land line at home - I have Sentech for internet and Cell for phone - I don't need a landline.

But at work, I still do - there's no getting around that right now, as I need fax and cell calls are still far more expensive than land line calls.

I don't predict a massive loss for Telkom anytime soon, but it's nice to see alternatives at last. Telkom is going to have to get used to being competitive which might have a benefits for it's service levels and consumer benefits for pricing structures.