SA's Local Loop Unbundling: what should be achieved according to industry players

As long as everyones networks are unbundled as well, including the mobile networks, mweb, IS etc.
 
inferno said:
As long as everyones networks are unbundled as well, including the mobile networks, mweb, IS etc.
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That will not happen. Mobile networks paid for their own networks - Telkom never, Joe Public paid for them
 
I realy hope no one makes a jack ass of them selves at the ICASA hearings
 
FNfal said:
i sugest you read this if you believe what you have just said]
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The line going past my house preceded that article and was paid for by Telkom when it was a government department. I pretty much paid for that line -either as a taxpayer or via high, monopolistic rates.
 
It is vitally important for the industry that the local loop be unbundled and we need to collectively apply all the pressure we can - either through hearings or possible future collective action.
 
entrepr said:
The line going past my house preceded that article and was paid for by Telkom when it was a government department. I pretty much paid for that line -either as a taxpayer or via high, monopolistic rates.
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You obviously did not read that article
 
entrepr said:
The line going past my house preceded that article and was paid for by Telkom when it was a government department. I pretty much paid for that line -either as a taxpayer or via high, monopolistic rates.
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You paid for the installation POSSIBLY many many many years ago.... that installation investment you provided for has been amortised or has depreciated to zero, therefore you no longer have any vested stake in it as a taxpayer... you have not contributed to the continuing maintenance of the network since the day Telkom was privatised.

The paying of high monopolistic rates is a different issue, but still doesn't give you the right to demand that something you have no stake in is returned or leased to you at a cost + % basis.
 
I wish local loop progress can be reported on by now, instead of just theory and white papers =\
 
I think the best way to do it is to form a new company split from Telkom(didn't they do something like this with BT? heck this can be a way for gov to break from Telkom) specifically for infrastructure management, in this case Copper Local Loop(this should extend to other things too and will ensure gov that services will be allowed to be delivered in usal, rural etc areas). Why? Telkom is always gonna be iffy with LLU due to high levels of copper theft(it has to be covered no matter how u look at it) and this having a direct impact on their revenue(competition, theft, insurance etc). Gov should have a 50% buy in that cannot be bought or sold off at any stage however the company will remain semi public but not be allowed to sell any service over it(likely companies will buy in to have a say). This doesn't prevent other providers from laying cable.. or even supporting gov projects under the new company.

Gov should never have given over infrastructure like this to a private company anyway especially not in africa where mno's are known to milk the populous dry and as an emerging economy, Sa has shown countless times that our business people are in it for profit alone most of the time. Yes it creates a monopoly on LL but then all operators will be using it but right now this s the only way to ensure competition on the service level happens without arm twisting and holding country randson while still giving gov their profit share + maybe better enforcement of copper theft.

Telkom, like it or not does suffer from having the LL and with LLU their willingness to accept the responsibility of it is going to diminish fast. I dont think its doing sa a favor with leaving it in their hands
 
krycor said:
I think the best way to do it is to form a new company split from Telkom(didn't they do something like this with BT? heck this can be a way for gov to break from Telkom) specifically for infrastructure management, in this case Copper Local Loop(this should extend to other things too and will ensure gov that services will be allowed to be delivered in usal, rural etc areas). Why? Telkom is always gonna be iffy with LLU due to high levels of copper theft(it has to be covered no matter how u look at it) and this having a direct impact on their revenue(competition, theft, insurance etc). Gov should have a 50% buy in that cannot be bought or sold off at any stage however the company will remain semi public but not be allowed to sell any service over it(likely companies will buy in to have a say). This doesn't prevent other providers from laying cable.. or even supporting gov projects under the new company.

Gov should never have given over infrastructure like this to a private company anyway especially not in africa where mno's are known to milk the populous dry and as an emerging economy, Sa has shown countless times that our business people are in it for profit alone most of the time. Yes it creates a monopoly on LL but then all operators will be using it but right now this s the only way to ensure competition on the service level happens without arm twisting and holding country randson while still giving gov their profit share + maybe better enforcement of copper theft.

Telkom, like it or not does suffer from having the LL and with LLU their willingness to accept the responsibility of it is going to diminish fast. I dont think its doing sa a favor with leaving it in their hands
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Telkom belongs to the share holders
they are not going to let any one interfere with their company with out a goood fight bank on that
 
It's odd how everyone seems to be thinking of LLU as some kind of "intervention" outside of the context of creating a competitive telecoms market.

Let's leave mobile aside for a moment, because the structure of that market, and how you make it strong and competitive is very different from the fixed line market.

Take a monopoly that has built up over a century or so, and decide that the best way to improve, grow and reduce the price of services is to change to a competitive market with multiple players. You can do it the American way, by simply forcing the monopoly (AT&T) to break up into a whole lot of smaller companies, which will be easier to compete with, or you can do it the European way, and leave the incumbent intact, but simply issue a bunch of new licences. We (South Africa) chose the latter.

Having chosen the European way, why on earth would we stop short of taking some of the critical steps that naturally form part of this process? Clearly, it is almost impossible for any new entrant to compete fairly with an incumbent that owns (no matter how it happened) millions of access lines, which are today the key element in the delivery of broadband. LLU simply adjusts the market structure to make serious fixed line competitors viable, so that we can have a functional market, and achieve the goals above. Why all the argument?

Perhaps we'd prefer the Chinese way, where the companies are all owned by the state, and we create multiple artificial competitors. It certainly works for China, but it's a huge leap from the free market model we've already embarked on.
 
ads said:
We (South Africa) chose the latter.
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Problem is we have no faith in goverment since Ivy fought so hard for managed liberation which turned out a complete failure.
Talk about breaking Telkom's monopoly has been around for how many years exactly, and what has become of it? Zip.
Neotel, who was supposed to be the SNO went wireless proving very little competition for Telkom leaving us still at Telkom's mercy 'specially with regards to line rental charges.

As a consumer the first effect of LLU I'd be happy with is the unbundling of line charges. I have no need for a voice line with my ADSL and should not be forced to pay for something I don't want.
Even the CPA agrees.
 
According to wiki:

"On 25 May 2006 the Minister of Communications of South Africa Dr Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri established the Local Loop Unbundling Committee chaired by Professor Tshilidzi Marwala to recommend the appropriate local loop unbundling models. The Local Loop Unbundling Committee submitted a report to Minister Matsepe-Casaburri on 25 May 2007. This report recommends that models that permit customers to access both voice and data be offered by many different companies. The models recommended are Full Unbundling, Line Sharing and Bitstream Access. It is recommended that customers should exercise carrier pre-selection and thus be able to switch between service providers. It is also recommended that an organisation be created to manage the local loop and that this organisation should be under the guidance of the regulator Icasa and that Icasa be capacitated in terms of resources. The committee recommended that service providers approved by Icasa should have access to the telephone exchange infrastructure whenever necessary. The committee recommended that a regulatory guideline be established and be managed by Icasa to guarantee that strategic issues like quality of the local loop be optimised for regulation and delivery of services. Based on this report the Minister has issued policy directives to Icasa to move swiftly with the unbundling process.[15] At the end of March 2010 nothing has happened yet, however a deadline of November 1, 2011 has been set by the Minister of Communications for monopoly holder, Telkom SA to finalise the unbundling process."
 
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