Telkom claim it’s because of the high price of International Bandwidth. This is one of the main arguments RPM has laid down before ICASA as bandwidth is a ISP cost. For example bandwidth is what Saix should be charging and not Telkom. However IMO, I reckon Telkom is maximising its ROI on the DSLAM's while it still has the advantage of being the sole provider of ADSL in SA. Also take into account that not everyone is buying into ADSL, never mind what Telkom tells you. So the 20000 ADSL subscribers are subsidising for all the empty ports at the exchanges. The 661% increase Telkom refers to is merely statistics. In other words only 17000 new customers for the initial period since ADSL was implemented have joined up from the 2000 odd that had it first in the Gauteng area. This is hardly what I would brag about seeing that Telkom has complete control over the market. In the same period, 90 000 new customers took up ISDN. If ADSL was priced correctly and wasn't capped and shaped, ADSL could have been the product that would have had 90 000 new customers.
Telkom are very clever with their statistics. Its one way of making the state think they are doing their stuff. But when they bragged about the 187% increase in Earnings, that they couldn't hide, a few eyebrows were raised in Parliament.
IMO, Telkom should be forced by ICASA to refund every ADSL subscriber in SA for overcharging them for line rental. Base this argument on what ISDN rental costs per month and your eyes will be opened. Telkom cannot expect the mere 20000 ADSL subscribers, just because they have businesses or can afford ADSL, to pay for Telkom's ADSL roll out in SA. And I strongly believe this is what we are doing.
If Telkom had priced ADSL reasonably, we would have seen an enormous take up of the product.
In my estimate I reckon, the take up of ADSL, should have been at least 100 000 ADSL subscribers in the first year alone. Not 20 000. If one had to equate what other countries are doing around the world, then 20 000 is a joke. Someone in another thread said that it costs about R1500 per port on the DSLAM. So basically in 2 months, they have covered their investment per port. But they obviously need to recover the ROI on all the ports. Food for thought?
Perhaps Podo might like to take a stab at your question. [
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<b><hr noshade size="1"></b><font size="2"><font color="red"><b>You can take Telkom out of the Post Office but you can't take the Post Office out of Telkom.</b></font id="red"></font id="size2">
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