Telkom bashers meet their cybermole

[The_Right_Honourable_Brit]

100 Members in one-day is bloody fantastic! But 5000 members overall is better

I wonder who is the Business Day reporter who browses there forums....

 

[rebel]

Uhm, that article is actually pretty sarcastic, i.m.o.

Yeah, fu©k that article

 

[Alkine]

I like it that they call us telkom bashers.

Is that another lie telkom? #*BASH*#! take that! and go tell your friends!

 

[malec]

try google.co.uk or yahoo.com
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=tellkom&meta=

that's because you spelt telkom wrong

- edit -
oops, never saw the earlier reply

 

[Karnaugh]

Ya well no fine

Telkom responds as predicted - Wed, 03 Aug 2005 11:46:41 GMT
In a recent blog I said "Telkom has a duty to its share holders to maintain good profits, and namely growth there of. When placed in these positions - it's evident that they will use other tactics to increase prices elsewhere, or simply reduce network service".

Telkom has now responded to ICASA's report saying that they might rather discontinue ADSL all together than comply with the 'regulations' (if passed). This may seem a little rash, however when faced with low costs its often perfectly reasonable for a company to rather 'shut down' - the only problem is that we have no alternative. Since they are a private company I don't see any regulation enforcing them to continue the service. Which is all very unfortunate, but as I also said - "Be careful what you wish for".

I said elsewhere, and should probably say here that the problem is not Telkom. If we are going to go on Telkom destruction rampages, it would make a lot of sense if there were some alternative first.

However, if there were any alternative then this problem would not exist at all. That is something far out of Telkom's control and I see no need for them to be bludgeoned for what is essentially a government mess. Telkom has *not* tried to prevent or slow deregulation at all, in fact if I remember correctly at the ICASA hearings they themselves said that prices would decrease when competition entered.
Posted by Colin Alston

http://www.karnaugh.za.net/show?id=128

 

[nOhIwAy]

Hi Karnaugh,

I think you miss the point, with all due respect.

Firstly consider this : Assume ADSL cost = R700.00 (500 Line Rental + 200 ISP)


Scene 1. Line rental R700.00 ISP portion R0.00

Consequence : ISPs throttled out the game.


Scene 2. Line rental R00.00 ISP portion R700.00

Consequence : competition can thrive (survive)


In both scenarios Telkom's income is the same.

In scene 2. Telkom cannot bully ISPs out the game
and there is protection for all shareholders not just
those of Telkom.


Secondly,

Consider the total consumer cost of ADSL.

Once the above has been promulgated there can be
fair debate on the total consumer cost of ADSL.

Here ICASA has ruled that total ADSL costs are exhorbitant
and even found that by international standards the ISP portion
alone is quite high by comparison.

Here Telkom and ICASA AND the ISPs must negotiate to our benefit.

The idea of zero cost ADSL was created by Telkom and noone else,
we can expect such vitriolic responses and destructive rampages
from their ranks.

In all of this myadsl members have responded with satisfaction
and in some cases joy and those who know little about how a network
is modelled have been misled by none other than Telkom.

In this case the government is not the villian.

 

[Myrrdin]

lol Learned a new word did we.....

 

[Karnaugh]

Hi nOhIwAy, I think you miss the critical point, that this is all very well - however what you state is not Telkom's model.

Regulating Telkom into a position will make them react "rashly" (to the consumer view), as can be seen. It's a stupid thing to do, from every corner of the earth you will be told that by anyone who has looked into it. As an example used often in econmic textbooks as to why price caping is incredibly harmful, is SA house rentals. After the war or something a shortage of housing resulted in the government forcing a price cap on rentals - so the people who owned the buildings either simply abandoned them (because the rental price did not cover maintainence, or wasnt enough to bother with) or converted them into office blocks (which was not subject to the price cap). Either way, it only resulted in a further lack of housing.

You're talking about consumer view dictating business practice, and this is not the way the world works. You can say "Yes we want cheaper ADSL" but it is NOT your place to say how it should be done.

Firstly, moving the line rental provision over to the ISP, I dont see how that will make any difference at all - Telkom still has monopoly position. I can't even understand technicaly how that would work. Does the ISP rent the DSLAM from Telkom? Why doesnt Telkom just charge a high price for that and undercut everyone with TelkomISP?

Or are you going to next demand that TelkomISP be disolved?

No. This needs to end, right here, and right now.

If Telkom is going to be further regulated, it will only further entrench it as a monopoly. A situation everyone obviously doesnt want. So long as its a monopoly, all of your ludicrous economic theories are going to be of little use to man or beast. As many people said, and as Telkom said, they are a private ****ing company with a legal obligation to show percentage gain in proffit to their shareholders. I cannot see how anyone in their right mind can not come to grips with this concept - and the fact that some are claiming that people here are responding "unemotionaly" I find rather hard to believe with all the personal attacks that are flung at random Telkom staff simply for doing what they are told to do by shareholders and others.

If I were the government, and I were listening, I'd shut ICASA the hell up and deregulate very quickly before there is no telecoms left to deregulate and no one wants to touch this country with a 1000km pole.

 

[Debbie]

Karnaugh may know a lot about technical things (so I've heard), but he has an immature understanding of the political dimensions involved.

 

[Karnaugh]

I'll have my BA/Bcom student with a side of fries and a pinch of salt.

"Telkom reaction highlights the critical importance of expediting real competition in the telecoms market, and broadband in particular." - Marc Furman, legal manager at Internet Solutions

Note that does not read "Telkom's reaction highlights the cretical importance to regulate them further and return them to a state controlled entitiy"

 

[stoke]

Nice statement Karnaugh.
But - what about the argument of the type of service provided by teklom, and their ability to shift and change their service contents without any garauntee's to the customer whatsoever, and the lack of transparency within this huge monopoly, and the blatent hold that the monopoly has on this country [banks are spending at least 100m a month on network infrastructure], that all sucks, and until competition actually exists, it must be regulated, otherwise it'll kill the country even further. It is just so damn easy to make even more profit when you are a monopoly.

So - NO, until competition exists, you cannot deregulate. Forgetaboutit.

But - some of the proposed regulations can be scrapped, we all agree on that, now which ones is a matter of negotiation.

 

[Karnaugh]

So - NO, until competition exists, you cannot deregulate. Forgetaboutit.

Oxford dictionary is a good place to learn english. Other than that I have no other sugestions for you.

So until competition exists, we must further prevent it from existing?????

 

[bwana]

I suppose that would depend on the method of regulation. It needs to be realized that telkom is so deeply entrenched its existence precludes any proper competition. At the very least the local loop needs unbundling and the SAT3 landings need to be nationalized - both of these will need to be done through regulation.

 

[neio]

Forgetaboutit is New York slang

 

[Karnaugh]

But.. there are already plans to build a rival to the SAT3.

How about... remove the regulations on bringing international bandwidth into the country? Remove all this silly VANS licencing, and/or give them the ability to provision their own infrastructures? (which whether they do or do not, is still a grey area but they cant provision to customers)

 

[Debbie]

"I'll have my BA/Bcom student with a side of fries and a pinch of salt."

Good come back. I'll never challenge you again after that!

/me bows in respect to Karnaugh

 

[Karnaugh]

Appologies, that was a bit childish.

 

[nOhIwAy]

Hi nOhIwAy, I think you miss the critical point, that this is all very well - however what you state is not Telkom's model.

Telkom are not so stupid, they just knee jerked when they saw their
dominance of Line rental (which excludes ISPs out of the major part of
ADSL income) being removed.

Did you not understand the rights of ISP shareholders ??

Anyway, most of Telkom's responses are pure spin and a pose, quite
typical of these types.

Another SATx will make no difference, but what will make a difference
is the local loop - DSLAM ownership by the ISP as in other countries.

I know you very clever and respect that.

 

[Kalvaer]

That entire article is more than just sarcastic, it seems to me as its trying to make MYADSL out to be a group of people who are soul bent on "basing" telkom" and who have no clue as to what we are on about.

I have not checked all her posts, but has Ms Pro-telkom ever denied the fact that she is a telkom employee?

While telkom may be the only telecomm’s provider in the country, They are far from the experts in the field. I am sure there are many more people on these forums who are more educated and better informed than 99% of the telkom staff... As to why they don’t work for telkom then as somebody might ask.. its because the are more educated that they wont!

 

[Karnaugh]

That entire article is more than just sarcastic, it seems to me as its trying to make MYADSL out to be a group of people who are soul bent on "basing" telkom" and who have no clue as to what we are on about.

Well, I think that is what it has become.