{"id":121282,"date":"2015-04-02T14:00:19","date_gmt":"2015-04-02T12:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=121282"},"modified":"2015-04-02T14:03:07","modified_gmt":"2015-04-02T12:03:07","slug":"sa-governments-empty-promises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/telecoms\/121282-sa-governments-empty-promises.html","title":{"rendered":"SA government’s empty promises"},"content":{"rendered":"

The South African government will have an approved local loop unbundling (LLU) strategy by March 2017, the Ministry of Finance announced as part of the 2015 national budget.<\/p>\n

LLU forms part of the Ministry of Telecommunications and Postal Service\u2019s programme to cut the cost to communicate in South Africa, it said in its Budget Vote (32).<\/p>\n

Unbundling the local loop, in this context, means giving other network operators greater access to Telkom\u2019s \u201clast mile\u201d infrastructure – copper lines that run into homes and businesses.<\/p>\n

This is not\u00a0the first time the government has made promises about LLU, with former Minister of Communications Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri saying in May 2007 that unbundling should urgently be completed by 2011.<\/p>\n

Had this process started in 2008 when it was supposed to, it could have helped introduce much-needed competition into South Africa\u2019s fixed-line broadband market, which Telkom still dominates.<\/p>\n

As things stand now, though, South Africa\u2019s existing copper telecommunications infrastructure is being made redundant by wireless and fibre technologies.<\/p>\n

Telkom still controls what is the biggest fibre and last-mile copper network in South Africa, but a number of operators – new and established – have rolled out fibre-to-the-home services in the past year.<\/p>\n

One can\u2019t help but wonder if the time for LLU has come and gone<\/a> thanks to Telkom\u2019s stalling tactics, an ineffectual regulator, and the Communications Ministry.<\/p>\n

Add to this the many deadlines that the government has missed and the promises it has broken regarding LLU, and it is difficult to take anything it says on the topic seriously anymore.<\/p>\n

The infographic below summarises the various deadlines for LLU that have been announced, and whether they were met.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The Lost Cause of Local Loop Unbundling (LLU)<\/p><\/div>\n

More on local loop unbundling (LLU)<\/h3>\n

Government plans to cut data prices<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Don\u2019t fall for Icasa\u2019s changing LLU story<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Telkom local loop unbundling stalling and FTTH: the silver lining<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Fibre in SA: are we headed for regional monopolies?<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With so many local loop unbundling deadlines missed, what\u2019s one more empty promise from the government?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":72704,"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":[3],"tags":[29040,23867,26990,35,1663,18092,6004,109],"class_list":["post-121282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-telecoms","tag-budget-2015","tag-budget-vote","tag-department-of-telecommunications-and-postal-services-dtps","tag-headline","tag-ivy-matsepe-casaburri","tag-local-loop-unbundling-llu","tag-minister-of-communications","tag-telkom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121282"}],"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\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121282"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":121312,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121282\/revisions\/121312"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}