Matter will corrode before Telkom gives up the loop
SINCE time immemorial, well for the past six years at least, the telecoms industry has called for an end to Telkom’s monopoly over the local loop. That’s the copper wire connecting our houses and offices to the national telecoms network, entrenching Telkom’s dominance because other players cannot use that wire to reach us.
Still, things are inching forward. In 2006, Communications Minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri set up a local loop unbundling committee to investigate and devise a liberalisation process. It only took that committee until January this year to make some recommendations and hand them to the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa).
Now Icasa, which “acknowledges the important role” that freeing up the local loop may have in promoting competition, has promised to consult all stakeholders in the coming months.
First Icasa will set up “an overarching co-coordinating committee”, plus several sub-committees for good measure, to debate the issues. Then they will no doubt rush their reports back to the main committee to formulate a plan.
Meanwhile, Vodacom, MTN and a bunch of other operators are sticking up wireless networks everywhere to circumvent the entire local loop fiasco.
The Insider suspects that by the time the government and Icasa finally let other companies use those wires, the copper will have corroded.
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