The biggest of Telkom's enemy is themselves. They take too long to make decisions and when they do they make the wrong decisions. They planned to have quadplay by the launch of 2010 world cup, starting with rolling out FTTx (way back in 2007), and launching Telkom Media at the same time. But, allas, they canned both projects, went and invested heavily in a market they do not understand and now they want to come and reclaim that lost time by competing in SA market by going mobile.
I don't have a problem with mobile, but studies have shown that fighting from 3rd and higher position (4th, 5th etc) is not easy unless you have very deep pockets - ask Cell-C. For telkom to fight from 5th position in the mobile space is not going to be easy, especially if they still rely on the slow anti-customer-centric Telkom shops, they also need to make sure they make money from an efficient, superior fixed-line business - of which currently is not. It's also a shame that Telkom has allowed mobile data speeds to overtake their own - something which is unheard of in any part of the world, including sub-sahara Africa. telkom's decision process is also just too slow, with Telkom it takes 6-9 months to ratify a product launch which is just too, too long.
Anayway, we'll just watch the behemoth die a slow slow death. What we can do?
