Telecoms turmoil soap operas
I KNOW I’ve said this before, but forget politics. During the raging storm over the Dalai Lama’s scandalous visa problems last week, there was a flurry of intrigue in the telecoms sector.
What a day last Wednesday was. First, MTN announced that it would spend R4.6-billion this year on its next-generation network, while muttering that 45percent of its faults were due to Telkom and 39percent to Eskom.
Then Telkom announced that it was reorganising itself — can anyone out there say the words “competition is coming” — and rehired its former chief of sales and marketing, Pinky Moholi, to head its newly formed Telkom SA arm.
This is one of three new units — the others are Telkom International and Data Centre Operations — all with their own chief executive, and all reporting directly to Telkom chief Reuben September.
But the big news happened the day before, when Telkom shut down Telkom Media, a whopping R700-million waste of (mostly) taxpayer’s money.
It paid exorbitant salaries to hordes of television staff for nearly a year after Telkom announced it wouldn’t fund the entire project.
It was looking for a partner but — surprise, surprise — no one wanted to sink any more good money after bad.
Telkom Media was the telecoms utility’s grand plan to launch a television channel using its network and offer so-called triple play, a combination of voice, Internet access and television, a package offered by other major telecoms operators around the world.
It’s hard to say if the non-existent partners were the result of not wanting to partner with Telkom or not wanting to take on the market- dominant MultiChoice and SABC. Either way, the much-lauded process of introducing alternative television channels is now all but dead. Thank God for e.tv’s news service, the only decent locally produced news channel.
Telkom is in the midst of some interesting times, as that old Chinese saying goes (just ask Barbara Hogan, who seems to be the sole struggle politician to remember what fighting for human rights is all about).
Competition is certainly coming, and unless the moribund state-owned monolith does something, and fast, it will be overtaken.
On Wednesday, research firm TeleGeography confirmed Skype’s claims that it carried 8 percent of international calls last year, a staggering 41 percent increase on the preceding year. Five years ago, the Internet telephony service didn’t exist. Now, eBay is trying to work out how to make money from it.
On the local front, Neotel, for all its promise, has struggled to keep up with demand. A nd its inability to comply with its foolish public promise to provide handsets within 48 hours of an order, has incensed consumers more than any other problems.
I believe call centres perform an important role in society as an emotional pressure valve. Screaming at a Telkom call-centre agent has become not only a national pastime but a cathartic release. Welcome to the party, Neotel.
And last week, Cell C’s outspoken chief executive, Jeffrey Hedberg, paid the price for said outspokenness. He resigned, but rumour has it that he was pushed after wondering aloud to the Financial Mail whether it would be a good idea for the Vodacom-less Telkom to merge with the country’s third- largest cellphone operator. Guess not.
But that’s not all, as they say in those adverts.
Telkom suspended its executive for network provisioning, Marius Mostert, shortly after it fired chief operating officer Motlatsi Nzeku, in February.
The latter was caught up in a massive outsourcing scandal, believed to involve R2-billion. Trade union Solidarity said last week that the outsourcing was now on hold.
Telkom apparently wants to outsource most of its network and rid itself of its large staff contingent. No one knows if the call-centre staff will still be around to shout at.
Who said competition wasn’t good for the consumer?
Telecoms in SA – give your views
Loading ...