Telkom calls off Cell C acquisition talks

This is good for us consumers as both companies are currently only improving and bringing good deals to the table keeping MTN and vodacom on their toes, if it wasn't for these two we wouldn't be paying the relatively low call rates we currently do, we would still be paying over r2 per minute and r300 per 1gb of data!

I'm glad the deal fell through and competition lives on. Telkom needs numbers so watch them go aggro again soon on the mobile value.
 
MickeyD said:
From the report it would appear that Telkom and their consultants cannot find the value that Cell C have attached to their business. i.e. the price was too high
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This what I suspect, during the due diligence I suspect they uncovered things that made the deal not to proceed, i.e. they saw how high is they debt, or state of Cell C and decided to walk away.
 
Dlamaqhinga said:
This what I suspect, during the due diligence I suspect they uncovered things that made the deal not to proceed, i.e. they saw how high is they debt, or state of Cell C and decided to walk away.
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There is another, bigger, reason...

For the deal to be approved the new merged entity would have to comply with the BEE requirement of 30% equity ownership by HDIs per the Electronic Communications Act.

It is possible that ICASA could provide some leniency, like in the Vodacom - Neotel acquisition, but even giving them two years to get to that 30% rating will be virtually impossible.
 
Telkom is busy doing away with its landline and ADSL business legs. Their monthly installations, which was between 4000 and 7000 installs a month, dropped down to 1,100 in September this year. I mention this, because we have found that Telkom no longer allow many areas access to landlines or ADSL. This is also the case with new areas where these services are no longer made available.

Telkom Mobile may be okay, but its reach is very limited. It would make only sense for them to buy out an existing mobile company to expand their infrastructure and reach. This would also fall 100% into their plans to do away with their landline and ADSL legs.

I am glad this deal fell through.

Since Telkom has the monopoly on landlines and ADSL, they should be forced to relook their business plans. They should be forced to bring landlines and ADSL back to areas they discontinued. They should be forced to stop forcing consumers onto their wireless network,
 
MickeyD said:
Wrong.
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Anyone can tell me NOPE. Anyone can disagree. I do not really care. I know the truth and can see this happening. I said this about 3 years ago when they started this, but no one agreed. Just take a look at recent media reports. 4000-7000 installs a month, constant for a number of years, down to 1,100 this year tells one a picture. Just take a look at this forum about people complaining that they can no longer get ADSL or landlines in their areas.

Nope will not change this for me.

Wait a year or so more and you will all see.
 
Toothless said:
Anyone can tell me NOPE. Anyone can disagree. I do not really care. I know the truth and can see this happening. I said this about 3 years ago when they started this, but no one agreed. Just take a look at recent media reports. 4000-7000 installs a month, constant for a number of years, down to 1,100 this year tells one a picture. Just take a look at this forum about people complaining that they can no longer get ADSL or landlines in their areas.

Nope will not change this for me.

Wait a year or so more and you will all see.
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They are not doing copper rollouts anymore (or at least slowing it down considerably)... the focus is on fibre these days.
 
ToxicBunny said:
They are not doing copper rollouts anymore (or at least slowing it down considerably)... the focus is on fibre these days.
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That is very true, and yes, we have spoken to Telkom about that too. According to them they already identified areas in which fibre will be rolled out in a 10-20 year time period. Fibre will not be rolled out to smaller areas in the near future. They will only be covering the major centres over this period of time. Other areas will be moved to telkom's wireless services.

So, again, we are f**cked and a good thing this deal fell through.
 
Toothless said:
Anyone can tell me NOPE. Anyone can disagree. I do not really care. I know the truth and can see this happening. I said this about 3 years ago when they started this, but no one agreed. Just take a look at recent media reports. 4000-7000 installs a month, constant for a number of years, down to 1,100 this year tells one a picture. Just take a look at this forum about people complaining that they can no longer get ADSL or landlines in their areas.

Nope will not change this for me.

Wait a year or so more and you will all see.
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You said that Telkom is doing AWAY with it landline and ADSL business legs. That is false. Your definition of landline includes fibre and copper connections.

What they are doing is to maximise their resources on landlines by either attempting to have a broadband connection on every landline or moving the voice only landlines over to a wireless option.

On the DSL front, the migration away from ADSL provided on DSLAMs is a technology requirement. DSLAMs are obsolete and soon they won't be able to source new equipment or spares. If I am not mistaken Telkom has not purchased new DSLAMs for over 3 years already - they shift the current ones around and also break them down for spares.

If an area runs out of DSLAM ports Telkom will now install a MSAN in that exchange.

So, yes, Telkom are most definitely moving away from ADSL... to VDSL and FTTH.

Furthermore regarding landlines... Telkom has indicated to the market that it wants 1 000 000 FTTH capable connections by 2018. So how does this tie in with your "do away with landlines" theory?

Regarding landlines with voice only services, it makes no financial sense to provide that link over a copper connection. Telkom have already started moving the existing Waya-Waya (prepaid) users off their copper network and onto a FLLU (wireless) connection.

So the numbers you quote already include churn, which takes into account moving the prepaid connections.

BTW did the total number of active landlines increase or decrease?
 
genetic said:
:rolleyes: You clearly know s*t* about Telkom then. The best mobile provider by far.
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I can also vouch for Telkom Mobile (data package). I'm quite happy with the speeds and latency. So in that respect I'm glad this deal didn't go through as things can only get worse if they start sharing resources with CellC.
 
I was never in support of this deal as well. I like how Telkom and Cell C are fighting over themselves to get to me, the low income user that I am. Now I can still pick and choose who I want. Maybe I don't understand business well enough to see the value of them ganging up to fight Vodacom and MTN.
 
Marcan said:
Telkom Mobile might be quite OK from a technical perspective, but how about customer service ?

In this province Telkom closed all except one of their 6 or 7 Direct stores, while Cell C expanded their number of stores from 2 to 7.
For porting your number to Telkom Mobile, you have to show up personally with proof of residence and ID in one of their Direct stores.

My experience with Telkom call centre, customer service has been mostly disappointing, the left hand doesn't know what the right one is doing. If they reply at all

With Cell C it has been quite OK over the years.
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So Cell C bought 5 Telkom stores. :D

supersunbird said:
They have the default monopoly.

Any other provider will ask R1000s to get a land line to my property. LLU is not reality yet.
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Yup, quite right.
 
Gudnews said:
I was never in support of this deal as well. I like how Telkom and Cell C are fighting over themselves to get to me, the low income user that I am. Now I can still pick and choose who I want. Maybe I don't understand business well enough to see the value of them ganging up to fight Vodacom and MTN.
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Think long term. Vodacom and MTN have huge wallets. A price war would only bankrupt those with the smallest pockets and we're left with less competition. Hence why Telkom buying Cell C would have been great for us as consumers.
 
Chevron said:
Think long term. Vodacom and MTN have huge wallets. A price war would only bankrupt those with the smallest pockets and we're left with less competition. Hence why Telkom buying Cell C would have been great for us as consumers.
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Vodacom and MTN haven't attempted a campaign against Cell C and Telkom's large data bundles. They aren't interested in competition.
 
Swa said:
Vodacom and MTN haven't attempted a campaign against Cell C and Telkom's large data bundles. They aren't interested in competition.
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Again. Hence why the Cell C and Telkom merger would have been a force that cannot be ignored.
 
Chevron said:
Again. Hence why the Cell C and Telkom merger would have been a force that cannot be ignored.
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Leaving the merged entity with no competition. I'm glad this fell through as Telkom would would have just continued to increase prices.
 
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