Telkom sells fixed lines below cost

If only the ex's from Telkom could read these forums .... if they did I would propose that they show us a COMPLETE breakdown of costs and income. I am sure this great community of MyBB can assist with their books and accounting sheets. If they offered us everything without making up crap, I am sure we could assist and work together.

But alas, that ain't going to happen.
 
Grep said:
If only the ex's from Telkom could read these forums .... if they did I would propose that they show us a COMPLETE breakdown of costs and income. I am sure this great community of MyBB can assist with their books and accounting sheets. If they offered us everything without making up crap, I am sure we could assist and work together.

But alas, that ain't going to happen.
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Telkom provides this information to ICASA every year so it is available.
 
Cry me a river Telkom. Their monopoly is the only way they can make enough money to cover their inefficiencies and mismanagement. Even if I did pay R250 it would still be less than than the line rental + ADSL cost I pay now. How stupid do they think we are?

Here's a tip for you idiots at Telkom, why is my invoice 3 pages long when all that's required to process my payment is on the first page? Easy cost cutting measure right there. Also, when I pay my account at a Telkom direct shop why do I first have to get 6 pages printed to indicate how much I owe AND THEN can I only pay? Why not just lookup how much I owe on the computer then charge me and give me a one page invoice/reciept?

They know that when they lose their monopoly they'll also have to actually think about efficiency like everybody else instead of throwing money at the problem.
 
Here's a tip for you guys at Telkom, why is my invoice 3 pages long when all that's required to process my payment is on the first page? Easy cost cutting measure right there. Also, when I pay my account at a Telkom direct shop why do I first have to get 6 pages printed to indicate how much I owe AND THEN can I only pay? Why not just lookup how much I owe on the computer then charge me and give me a one page invoice/reciept?
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+1

a bit off topic but a very good point!!
 
No discount unfortunately.. I currently do just that.... no paper statements whatsoever
 
The merits of Telkom's arguments about LLU are not really the issue here - they're mostly very old (and mostly wrong) arguments that have been raised repeatedly by incumbents during the process of LLU in other countries. A lot of the comments on the forum seem to be directed at Telkom, which is largely a waste of time, since Telkom has clearly decided to fight LLU, and it's simply doing that with the best tools (read: lawyers) at its disposal.

Sadly, given that Telkom has yet again put the defence of its share of the pie ahead of the good of the country (and growing the pie), we really need to address our arguments to those who can do something about them - specifically Telkom's major shareholder. The Minister is certainly determined to make sure that LLU happens in some shape or form. We need to help him (and ICASA) to ensure that that form is what we need - full local loop unbundling, rather than yet another Telkom wholesale ADSL product. No amount of lawyers or economic arguments are going to help if Telkom's shareholders decide that LLU should happen.

Ironically, whilst LLU would certainly change the nature of Telkom's business, it's never been fundamentally bad for incumbents anywhere. The argument that it stops investment in new infrastructure is easily disproved by looking at the substantial ongoing investments being made in broadband access in countries with LLU.
 
Sting said:
Telkom provides this information to ICASA every year so it is available.
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Pity is Telkom/ICASA don't seem to makee this data public or easy to access.

I know I for one would be more accepting if I could see actual figures to justify this cost... or I could be a procative customer and help Telkom reduce those figures in ways they may not have thought of yet.
 
Aztech said:
if I play devil's advocate, prepaid users pay a surcharge of 60 cents per call.
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"Normal" telephone lines also have surcharges on calls. The surchare and call rates are 15% more for prepaid lines. This does not make up the huge difference in line rental pricing though.
 
PPJ said:
+1

a bit off topic but a very good point!!
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Thanks, it was just an example to highlight the backward thinking of Telkom.

MickeyD said:
Why not sign up for e-billing and have your account emailed to you and then pay it online?
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Because it's my little way of screwing Telkom. I pay online via CC anyway but still choose to receive my bill via post. The Telkom Direct stint was a one-time thing.

Gatecrasher said:
Do they give you a discount if you do that?
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Nope. No discount, which is why I have the invoice mailed to me.

MickeyD said:
I have absolutely no idea! But they should incentivise it somehow to encourage a paperless system...
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You seem to be under the assumption that Telkom execs possess common sense :D
 
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Telscum

SaiyanZ said:
I'd rather pay R250/R300 than the current R524.90 for ADSL access.
So LLU will reduce costs for us.
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Exactly!!! Right now the R524 is just effectively covering last mile, your ISP cost covers the rest.

As noted it still sounds like complete trash as it would be a completely crazy situation to have such a huge cross subsidy (R250 x 4 million odd line rentals? Really?...)

If Telkom don't wise up they will just get cut out completely, City of Cape Town has built (phase 1) a fibre network which will be paid off with one or two years worth of Telkom bills completely, from then on they will be saving tens of millions. I am fairly certain this will then become a province wide project where the fibre can be rented by ISPs and Telcos who will then completely undercut Telkom in the consumer space. Then there are the fibre projects in Johannesburg and Durban, so once all the major urban areas are no longer using Telkom where will they find money for their so called cross-subsidation? No foresight, no planning.

Telkom are eventually going to push themselves to the scrap metal businesss if they continue with their current business logic. So frustrating as the internet is one of the true levellers in an economy, the internet search done in Khayalitsha gets all the same info as the one in Sandton- now if it could just be seen as a national imperative....
 
Bern said:
If Telkom don't wise up they will just get cut out completely, City of Cape Town has built (phase 1) a fibre network which will be paid off with one or two years worth of Telkom bills completely, from then on they will be saving tens of millions. I am fairly certain this will then become a province wide project where the fibre can be rented by ISPs and Telcos who will then completely undercut Telkom in the consumer space. Then there are the fibre projects in Johannesburg and Durban, so once all the major urban areas are no longer using Telkom where will they find money for their so called cross-subsidation? No foresight, no planning.
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I think you totally underestimate the size, extent and reach of Telkom's copper network. It will take many, many years and a few hundred billion rand to totally replace it with fibre.
 
MickeyD said:
I think you totally underestimate the size, extent and reach of Telkom's copper network. It will take many, many years and a few hundred billion rand to totally replace it with fibre.
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I don't, but the problem is the new fibre players will attack all their good clients first, then the mobile guys are eating in to the lower end of their market and if Neotel could wake up and get a decent retail offering out they could decimate the lower end of the market. Add all the voip providers (I have a free FNB one which I use from home now on ADSL) Telkom really do have a problem.

Sure it will take some time, but the problem is once it reaches a certain point it will be too late for Telkom to react as the negative perception will prevent them from regaining the lost customers. At that point they will be sitting with a whole pile of copper and a diminishing base of customers to sell it to. My point to this made on another thread was they should have spent their excess money on getting fibre to the exchange, not on 8ta and then looked to migrate to a VOIP based system. Made sure that fixed line will options outperform wireless by a good measure and make sure they retain the backhaul market for the mobile guys.
 
and rip all the customers off with everything else????
Where is the procurement department??? are they not suppose to negotiate better prices from suppliers????
 
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