Telkom customers pay more

I can understand a company increasing prices in accordance with inflation in order to continue paying their workers a living wage.

But in this case you have a company that has a VERY HIGH margin of profit raising prices where there is no justification for doing so (in fact 90% of the other companies in the telecommunications sector are fighting a price war and are in fact REDUCING prices)...

and AT THE SAME TIME... TELKOM are facing a strike by their workers because that company IS NOT PAYING THEM A LIVING WAGE!

So Lancelot... Telkom could have paid their workers a fair wage AND absorbed the cost increases WITHOUT taking inflation into account... AND THEY WOULD STILL BE MAKING OBSCENE AMOUNTS OF PROFIT!

So take your "rate of inflation" and fit it in sideways (since you obviously have plenty of room to spare). :mad:
 
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LancelotSA said:
At risk of making everyone on here extremely irate while they all toi toi and gang up on Telkom... anyone have any idea what inflation is currently running at?

A little hint it is now well into double figures...
Click to expand...
So the governments fiscal policy is worse than their telecommunications policy? Point taken.
Arthur said:
That's why we have caps in SA ... because Telkom has contractual price tiers on the cable and is charged A LOT MORE per meg when they go over the contracted volume.
Click to expand...
Source?
 
LancelotSA said:
At risk of making everyone on here extremely irate while they all toi toi and gang up on Telkom... anyone have any idea what inflation is currently running at?

A little hint it is now well into double figures...
Click to expand...
And why do you suppose that is exactly? - could it be that just about everything in SA is exorbitantly priced - especially what Telkodemonopolies has been charging for years & very effectively managing to retard SA's economic growth by punishing man & woman & legal entities alike for merely existing & needing some sort of telecoms service...

SA's ICT sector has for several years been falling behind several other African countries, SA's economy is starting to flat-line - apart from the global economic slowdown, one of the reasons is Telkodemonopolies' exorbitant pricing which have taken their toll over several years and in particular discouraged BPO investment - even the guavamentalists knew it would probably happen - why do you think the guavamentalists invented ASGISA?

Just think about where SA could have been if Telkodemonopolies had not been allowed to charge exorbitantly....

If anything, a reduction in pricing would make Telkodemonopolies more competitive, and the beast would get more customers as well as generate some well earned profits. All indications are that Telkodemonopolies is in serious trouble, and increasing pricing is only going to make the problem worse than it already is.
 
LancelotSA said:
But now wait a minute... what do rates cover again?

So surely the guy in the mansion with 7 bathrooms as well as three guest loos should surely pay more!!

Some times people seem to battle to see things from a neutral unbiased perspectve...
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Rates are a property tax. While you pay your inflated electricity bill,
refuse removal, water and sewage you also pay municipal rates which
are over 50% of the bill in our case, which I think is most unfair.

What is he paying for? Is the person with the mansion getting anything
extra out of the rates than someone who pays 1/5th of that? I agree
a man with a huge house can run a huge electricity bill and his
pool could run up a huge water bill - but rates??? That should
be uniform across the board and should be some small charge OR
nothing at all, municipalities already make a huge profit on
electricity, water and everything else.

Its just
another example of SA mentality, like with customs at SA airports
and customs checking parcels. Let's screw everyone over
just a little more.

Customs never check me or my family in Europe in fact I've never ever
actually seen customs officials pull anyone over, but NO in SA, its every
10th person. And declarations - bringing so much in. You don't
do those for the EU.

How moronic.

Again the rich (mostly white) man can pay, that's the governmental
mentality behind it, and its also why 3G/ADSL is so expensive,
the rich (all you people on this forum) can pay. Doesn't matter
that the business the guy could start could employ 10 people
who are currently unemployed if he had abundant internet
and local telephone calls. Short sighted view.
 
Srack0verflow said:
ignorant question, just wondering, who do the copper lines belong to? telkom or the government?
Click to expand...

The question should be, who paid for them. Your tax paid for them,
like your tax paid for the electricity grid and the road system,
and it's your airwaves the government is selling at huge prices
to cellular and wireless providers. These things were all funded
with public funds (well except for the airwaves) but those
are public anyway.
 
bwana said:
So the governments fiscal policy is worse than their telecommunications policy? Point taken. Source?
Click to expand...

ic said:
And why do you suppose that is exactly? - could it be that just about everything in SA is exorbitantly priced - especially what Telkodemonopolies has been charging for years & very effectively managing to retard SA's economic growth by punishing man & woman & legal entities alike for merely existing & needing some sort of telecoms service...
Click to expand...

I am not in the mood to give you an economics lesson but in these posts your ignorance as to the causes of inflation is startling!
 
LancelotSA said:
I am not in the mood to give you an economics lesson but in these posts your ignorance as to the causes of inflation is startling!
Click to expand...
Go for it - I'm sure I can keep up. ;)

NB - But not in this thread.
 
LancelotSA said:
I am not in the mood to give you an economics lesson but in these posts your ignorance as to the causes of inflation is startling!
Click to expand...
Thanks for that, I feel obligated to point out that your ignorance where telecoms in SA is concerned, and the effect that exorbitantly high telecoms pricing has had on SA as a whole, is disturbing.
 
LancelotSA said:
I am not in the mood to give you an economics lesson but in these posts your ignorance as to the causes of inflation is startling!
Click to expand...

Don't assume you don't display ignorance yourself. Maybe you need a lesson on Telkom's rent seeking behaviour or is that not positive enough?

Telecoms services (voice & internet) are an input in just about every product or service, there's no denying that a reduction in these costs would lower inflation.

You imply that Telkom is operating in a perfectly competitive when the reality could not be further from that.

Telkom's operating as a government-protected monopoly which naturally results in production of a lower quantity of services at a higher price, exactly what we see in the SA telecoms market.
 
It's hard to be objective when your head is permanently "in the shadows" :p
 
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