Telecoms industry plays out like a blue movie
"There was an American male voice spewing horrible stuff," she was quoted as saying, claiming that after the pre-recorded voice that informs the listener that there is an SMS, another voice came on the line and launched into a graphic description of a sexual experience.
The communications juggernaut has offered the SMS to landline service since 2004, which allows landline owners to receive SMSes from mobile phones, which are then read out to listener.
Following her complaints, the (ex) monopoly naturally declined to comment on whether the sender of the message was identified when Voice SMS messages were delivered, and claimed that although customers are able to block Voice SMS messages, such an action automatically rejects all incoming SMSes, and cannot specifically block inappropriate content.
Unsurprisingly, Telkom spokesman Lulu Letlape stated that the company was against the misuse of its facilities for pornographic material, which may come as a surprise to those of us who have been repeatedly screwed by the former parastatal for many years.
In fact, one could quite easily compare the past few years of local telecoms to a pornographic movie.
After all, virtually every ‘blue’ movie has the same plot (if you can really call it that!), the same silicon-enhanced women and over-endowed men, taking up the same positions and concluding in a rather sordid finale.
With Telkom we get the same intimations from the company over and over again that they welcome competition and think it will be good for their business, while at the same time doing everything they can to stifle the opposition.
Just like the male stars in one of those movies, Telkom seems to think it is bigger than the industry and likes to wave its superiority (all borne from an overprotective government stance) in the face of the smaller players, while consistently doing to the public what the men in those films do to their female co-stars.
And just like the men in the films, Telkom only seems concerned about its own results, rather than the issue of customer (or co-star) satisfaction.
Finally, of course, the conclusion to any blue movie is a rather messy and disgusting affair, which could easily be mistaken for the way that the former monopoly has managed to maintain its leading status, thanks to the government’s rather sticky ‘managed deregulation’ process.
In fact, all that seems to be missing from the picture is the cheesy Hammond organ music playing in the background while you are put on hold by the company’s contact centre for the umpteenth time when trying to complain about the general lack of service, although perhaps I shouldn’t give the powers that be at Telkom any ideas.
Still, I suppose we can take some comfort from the fact that the Competition Commission gave the thumbs down to the proposed acquisition of Business Connexion by Telkom – had that been allowed to stand it would’ve been truly pornographic!
Loading ...