{"id":11657,"date":"2010-03-04T10:32:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-04T08:32:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2010-03-04T10:32:00","modified_gmt":"2010-03-04T08:32:00","slug":"sentech-discontinues-biznet-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wireless\/11657-sentech-discontinues-biznet-service.html","title":{"rendered":"Sentech discontinues Biznet service"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sentech entered the South African broadband market in 2004 with its MyWireless broadband offering.&nbsp; It followed this launch with its Biznet offering, taking on Telkom in the dedicated leased line space with its wireless alternative.<\/p>\n<p>Sentech was however dogged with quality of service and funding problems, and in 2008 announced that it will discontinue both its MyWireless and Biznet services.<\/p>\n<p>In 2009 Sentech said that due to the fast changing nature of the ICT market and entry of well-funded competitors, it has not been able to sustain the momentum and growth of these products and services. &ldquo;In addition, the equipment delivering retail broadband services is now entering the planned redundancy period,&rdquo; Sentech said in a press statement.<\/p>\n<p>Sentech discontinued its MyWireless service in November 2009, and has now confirmed that its Biznet services were terminated at the end of February 2010 in accordance with their exit strategy.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;In addition to its core business of Broadcasting Signal Distribution, Sentech will henceforth concentrate on offering a wholesale broadband network as a common platform for all service providers,&rdquo; Sentech said towards the end of last year.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sentech future uncertain<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It is however unclear exactly what the future holds for Sentech.&nbsp; A recent report from the Communications Minister&rsquo;s task team found that Sentech is in urgent need of a turnaround strategy, and that immediate and drastic action is required to avoid the collapse of Sentech.<\/p>\n<p>The task team made four suggestions as to how to solve Sentech&rsquo;s problems:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Reposition Sentech in terms of its core competence as a broadcasting signal distributor<\/li>\n<li>Sentech to leverage core competence to look for opportunities in the continent where it is already doing business<\/li>\n<li>Sentech to continue with diversification strategy of growing the telecommunications business<\/li>\n<li>Sentech to transfer its non-broadcasting ECNS and non broadcasting ECS businesses to Infosat<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>The task team also offered strategic recommendations:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Exploitation of Sentech&rsquo;s unused licenses through public-private partnerships<\/li>\n<li>Clarity regarding Sentech&rsquo;s funding going forward<\/li>\n<li>Sentech should remain responsible for encoding and multiplexing<\/li>\n<li>Lobby government to develop legislation to guarantee its position as the preferred supplier of broadcast signal in SA<\/li>\n<li>Sentech should discontinue all loss making ventures<\/li>\n<li>Government should urgently address Sentech&rsquo;s DTT infrastructure shortfall<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>The Communications Minister&nbsp;said that he will engage with Sentech&rsquo;s board directly before making any decisions about the future of the company.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/vb\/showthread.php?219474-Sentech-discontinues-Biznet-service-as-part-of-exit-strategy&amp;p=3668453#post3668453\">Sentech discontinues Biznet service<\/a><\/strong> &lt;&lt; Discussion<\/p>\n<p><strong>Related Links<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/Telecoms\/11382.html\"><strong>Shake up at Sentech<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sentech discontinued its Biznet offerings as part of its \u2018exit strategy\u2019; future of the parastatal uncertain<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wireless"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11657"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11657\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}