“Telkom’s PC–Internet bundle a fraud”
Tebogo Khaas, president of the SA SMME Forum, has slammed the new service as “another blatant case of the fixed line monopoly’s anti-competitive behaviour and the now cavalier manner in which it regards consumers of its product.”
One has to raise the question as to whether the Forum has a case and when examining the figures the new offering does look to be in Tebogo’s words another “onslaught on the hapless consumer”.
A top-of-the-range package will put you back a cool R29 000 over the 36 month period. Once the ADSL portion has been deducted the customer is still sitting with R12 000 in debt.
One does not know what Mecer are putting in these particular computers that is so special but according to the Telkom leaflet a top-of-the-range computer is a Pentium IV 3GHz, 512 MB memory, 120 GB HDD, 17” monitor and a Geforce FX card plus a few other little goodies.
Perhaps the mouse is gold plated but that still does not make up for the fact that by the time this R12 000 computer has been paid off it is in line for an upgrade.
But the sad reality is that this offer which has been touted by Telkom as an attempt to “bridge the digital divide through an increased penetration of PC’s per household”. This falls far short of this noble goal.
According to Tebogo an average four-roomed township house is worth less than the
R12 000 it will take to buy the PC component of the offering and makes the startling statement: “The (un) intended consequences of this may very well be that poor consumers may be forced to mortgage their houses in order to ‘bridge the digital divide’ a la Telkom.”
Whilst it is not expected that families will start selling their ‘houses en mass’ to get connected it does bring home the realities of South Africa. The average South African cannot afford this service and that is after all where Telkom’s social responsibility should lie.
“Telkom has failed to roll out fixed-line telecommunications to the underpriviledged as per its commitment under its now-expired licensing conditions and one wonders how genuine its intentions are to ensure PC and ICT penetration improve, especially to those who need ICTs the most,” said Tebogo.
These are damning words and were they directed at a truly competitive business unfounded but unfortunately Telkom is a legally protected monopoly which just happens to make the phrase ‘social responsibility’ apt.
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