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Telkom can bluster all it wants, but Icasa's had enough
August 4, 2005
By Renée Bonorchis
The fight between the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) and Telkom is gaining momentum, but there's such dust being thrown up it's hard to know who to believe.
In one corner there is the lobby group MyADSL, which, if you have a look at its online forums, can be a bit too vitriolic to be entirely believable as an objective body. Nonetheless, we need our consumer activists because, inbetween the bias, there often lies a grain or two of truth.
Then there's Icasa. This typically stern but measured body has been hitting out harder than ever lately and its latest report is particularly strong; at times it borders on barely disguised bouts of irritation.
At face value it seems a bit extreme, but if you look deeper there's a strategy here. Telkom has long been secretive about its business. It seems that Icasa has become so annoyed with trying to regulate in an information vacuum that it has had to come to its own harsh conclusions, giving Telkom a simple choice: lump it or offer up more information.
Icasa is playing tough, but has kept all the transcripts on the hearings into Telkom's high-speed internet services.
Telkom is also trying to play tough but its bluffing is rather disingenuous. It has said it would have to consider cancelling its high-speed internet roll-out if Icasa got its way on pricing. Yeah right.
The fixed-line monopoly, facing competition from a second network operator, all three mobile providers and Sentech, can't afford to miss out. This segment may only make up a small amount of Telkom's revenues now, but it is being sold as the market of the future.
If Icasa follows through and starts to regulate for lower charges Telkom will no doubt take legal action. This will keep Telkom's charges higher for longer but may not stave off the inevitable - that the service must become cheaper.
Telkom has a very successful business to protect and has been dropping prices slowly. If it hadn't upset consumers so much in the past, it might encounter more sympathy now. It's another lesson in bad corporate karma: rotten service levels are always going to come back to bite you. RB
http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=553&fArticleId=2816449
Telkom can bluster all it wants, but Icasa's had enough
August 4, 2005
By Renée Bonorchis
The fight between the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) and Telkom is gaining momentum, but there's such dust being thrown up it's hard to know who to believe.
In one corner there is the lobby group MyADSL, which, if you have a look at its online forums, can be a bit too vitriolic to be entirely believable as an objective body. Nonetheless, we need our consumer activists because, inbetween the bias, there often lies a grain or two of truth.
Then there's Icasa. This typically stern but measured body has been hitting out harder than ever lately and its latest report is particularly strong; at times it borders on barely disguised bouts of irritation.
At face value it seems a bit extreme, but if you look deeper there's a strategy here. Telkom has long been secretive about its business. It seems that Icasa has become so annoyed with trying to regulate in an information vacuum that it has had to come to its own harsh conclusions, giving Telkom a simple choice: lump it or offer up more information.
Icasa is playing tough, but has kept all the transcripts on the hearings into Telkom's high-speed internet services.
Telkom is also trying to play tough but its bluffing is rather disingenuous. It has said it would have to consider cancelling its high-speed internet roll-out if Icasa got its way on pricing. Yeah right.
The fixed-line monopoly, facing competition from a second network operator, all three mobile providers and Sentech, can't afford to miss out. This segment may only make up a small amount of Telkom's revenues now, but it is being sold as the market of the future.
If Icasa follows through and starts to regulate for lower charges Telkom will no doubt take legal action. This will keep Telkom's charges higher for longer but may not stave off the inevitable - that the service must become cheaper.
Telkom has a very successful business to protect and has been dropping prices slowly. If it hadn't upset consumers so much in the past, it might encounter more sympathy now. It's another lesson in bad corporate karma: rotten service levels are always going to come back to bite you. RB
http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=553&fArticleId=2816449