Telkom surrenders to Hellkom
Last year Telkom initiated legal proceedings against the website to the tune of R5 million.
Gregg Stirton, the Hellkom website owner, has walked away victorious as Telkom agreed to drop the case and pay the legal costs involved.
The Hellkom website claims that Telkom’s bandwidth charges are crippling the South African economy and provides links to surveys showing Telkom to be the most expensive fixed line communications provider in the world.
In its application filed at the Cape High Court, Telkom alleged that the Hellkom website was being used by Stirton to cause harm to Telkom’s business activities.
“That’s not true,” says Stirton. “I’m just trying to raise awareness of an issue in the hope that something might eventually be done about it.”
“Telkom makes almost R20 million profit every day because of its monopolistic position but its high prices mean that many South African’s can’t afford the most basic internet or telephone services,” Stirton added.
Stirton was defended in the litigation by Michalsons Attorneys, a specialist firm of ICT attorneys.
In response to Telkom’s legal action, Stirton raised the defense of “fair comment” and filed a 280-page answering affidavit setting out the facts on which he based his criticisms of the company, including devilish adaptations of the Telkom logo with pay-off lines like “prices that’ll make you sweat”.
Stirton has stated that, “I am relieved but also disappointed that the case did not reach court to see what the outcome would be. But the equable resolution is another victory for freedom of speech.”
Stirton will continue to run the site as he did not sign any agreements with Telkom, so it is “business as usual” which typically involves keeping the public informed about Telkom’s exorbitant prices and poor customer service.
“Hopefully this move is a sign from Telkom that they plan to improve on their customer relations and will start to listen to them instead of fight them,” added Stirton.
Telkom posted record after tax profits of R6,8 billion in its last financial year, while South African President Thabo Mbeki denounced local telephony charges as “unacceptable” in his state of the nation address to parliament in February.
Telkom was unavailable for comment.
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