High Internet costs making headlines
In this insert, aired last night, Carte Blanche highlighted the fact that South Africa’s Internet costs are in excess of 1000 % more expensive than many international countries. They further showed the negative impact of these costs on education and small businesses.
A great deal of focus fell on the Department of Communication’s shareholding in Telkom and other telecoms companies.
Comments from Lyndal Shope-Mafole, Director-general of the DoC, drew particular attention. Her comments on Government’s shareholding ‘on behalf of the people’ and their need for network shareholding in the case of a natural disaster like a tsunami were not well received.
Duncan McLeod, award winning ICT journalists at the Financial Mail, found Shope-Mafole’s comments rather amusing. He was not alone in his synopsis.
MyADSL forumites described her feedback as “talking lots of crap”, “slightly hilarious” and "Where can I collect my check?".
It is somewhat ironic that Government would describe their shareholding as ‘for the people’ while they themselves said that South Africans are paying far too much for telecoms services.
Telkom’s refusal to discuss this issue was also met with disdain. Carte Blanche questioned their dedication to customer service, regarding their failure to address the public on programs like Carte Blanche.
The lack of open communication with the South African public is not new and has in the past tarnished Telkom’s image significantly.
MyADSL forumites made their feelings known about Telkom’s absence with comments like “no comment from Telkom – why doesn’t that surprise me” and “Telkom made themselves look particularly stupid by refusing to appear on the show”.
Within the South African broadband community this lack of transparency from Telkom is not new or surprising but interestingly enough it does still serve to provoke tremendous irritation from consumers who are already unhappy with high prices.
In an interesting twist of events Telkom’s website experienced some downtime shortly after the show. It is uncertain as to what caused the downtime, but users did ask tongue in cheek whether the blame could be placed at the door of the possible tsunami Shope-Mafole spoke about.
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