Telkom may keep its power
People open their fat Telkom phone bills with impatience every month. They are tired of paying huge telephone bills and cannot wait for a competitor to come sailing along to challenge Telkom’s monopoly and bring down prices for everyone.
But it’s starting to sound like it won’t really happen that way. The second network operator (SNO), which should have set up shop three years ago, is due to come on stream next year.
Transtel’s CEO, Karl Socikwa, is the official voice of SNO shareholders and is expected to play an important executive role — maybe even CEO — in the new alternative telecoms provider.
But Socikwa and Papi Molotsane, an ex-Transnet director who was recently named the new CEO of Telkom, are quite close — maybe a little bit too close to make good competitors.
Socikwa has said it is inevitable that costs will come down, but he also says he doesn’t think it would be a good idea for the new SNO to get into a price war with Telkom.
Consumers aren’t interested in two expensive network operators. But this could be what’s on the horizon.
In Australia, managed liberalisation of the telecoms market has meant that the monopoly operator, Telstra, has kept its market domination, even 14 years after an SNO was licensed.
Telecom prices are still high. The Australian government decided recently to break up Telstra to make the market more competitive.
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