Telkom’s fixed line numbers decline

Jeez.. from 2001 they took a dive.

Stop charging people line rental , make ADSL cheaper (to be competitive towards mobile) and Telkom will get more people.
 
Not sure if this is a shocker and perhaps just someone reading the reports wrong. My take on the decline in fixed lines would be more about the consolidation of branches and businesses - i.e. moving into multi-tenant office parks where a FTTB has replaced individual lines. Perhaps also a large consolidation of diginet/ISDN lines into ADSL or FTTB.

I would also think that consolidation in the call-centres (move to VOIP, least-cost routing etc) would play a role in a drop in fixed lines. Unless MyBB looks at the complete picture of Telkom's numbers the above article makes no sense. There might have been a shift to mobile data for residential customers and a consolidation of services for business customers. It would be more interesting to see the actual customer churn rate.

For what it is worth: All mobile SP always overreport their subscriber numbers. All three big players always report MSISDN's and not actual customers and a MSISDN is considered active as soon as it has been activated, irrespective if it has been dormant for a year.
 
Ah well, this comes as no surprise....

In Krugersdorp in a few suburbs Telkom no longer allows landlines and ADSL, and the main reason for that is cable theft. They only install wireless phones via Telkom Mobile. In some areas, such as mine, there are no reception, so Telkom refer all these clients to Vodacom and MTN and tells everyone that they cannot provide any services any longer.

In another area I know of 22 companies who are making use of Neotel as Telkom do not provide any more services. They just simply shrugging off these businesses.

So, if you are not interested in providing services, do not expect a rise in clients....
 
The lower number of fixed lines mean that the number of “fixed access lines per employee” is now 188 – up from 179 a year ago. This is not good news for the company.
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:confused:
Surely the increase in lines per employee means that Telkom is running a leaner operation and has shed some "dead wood" in its ranks?

Whether the current employee mix is correct, operations versus admin, is another debate.
 
I would assume that the strategy is that Telkom no longer supplies fixed lines at "any cost" as they did in the past; especially in rural and high risk (theft) areas.
 
Also, areas marked for upgrade are taking forever to upgrade. My area will only be upgraded in April 2015 which means that I can't make use of Telkom until then.
 
Bighit said:
Also, areas marked for upgrade are taking forever to upgrade. My area will only be upgraded in April 2015 which means that I can't make use of Telkom until then.
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True, I also lived in an area marked for upgrades some time ago. They also gave a deadline for 2013, but last year they changed their so-called 'planned upgrades' to no more services, obviously due to cable theft. My old neighbours are now all using cellphones and 3G with no ADSL as no other operator are servicing the area.
 
My area (Broadacres) was scheduled in 2013 for a VDSL upgrade by April 2014. I got a call from Telkom in Jan 2014 that they will start with the upgrade of the mini-DSLAMs in March (I subscribed to their "faster internet list form on the web"). Middle of April I get another call, telling me that my 4mbps line has been upgraded at no charge to 10mbps (the sales guy was very good, he knew that my ISP was with Afrihost and he wanted to convert me back with some special VDSL offer).

I was quite surprised about this and honestly never had a bad experience with Telkom (even when MWeb last year took my ADSL line hostage when I wanted to cancel, Telkom intervened and helped) - I doubt I am the only one having a decent experience with Telkom.
 
It's not a shocker! Even a gardener like me knowns that with cell telecommunications the fixed line will loose. You don't need to be a brain scientist!
 
Well this is what you get when you double charge for the same piece of copper line... people will just move on!

These days Telkom cannot offer the average comms savvy user anything he/she cannot get cheaper elsewhere! And I not referrring to the bandwidth hogs on 10mbps+ ADSL... they are a dinky minority in the bigger scheme of things!
 
It takes time for a monopoly to realize that things have changed and people are moving on. Cost is a major factor for everyone and if you continue charging people some rental fees for services they don't use they'll drop you and potential customers will find better deals elsewhere and never knock on your door. I'm shocked......not
 
MagicDude4Eva said:
My area (Broadacres) was scheduled in 2013 for a VDSL upgrade by April 2014. I got a call from Telkom in Jan 2014 that they will start with the upgrade of the mini-DSLAMs in March (I subscribed to their "faster internet list form on the web"). Middle of April I get another call, telling me that my 4mbps line has been upgraded at no charge to 10mbps (the sales guy was very good, he knew that my ISP was with Afrihost and he wanted to convert me back with some special VDSL offer).

I was quite surprised about this and honestly never had a bad experience with Telkom (even when MWeb last year took my ADSL line hostage when I wanted to cancel, Telkom intervened and helped) - I doubt I am the only one having a decent experience with Telkom.
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I am sure you will find a couple of happy people here and there.

Unfortunately, Telkom cannot live up to expectations and they cannot deliver the way they should. They have prevented access to millions of people to landlines and ADSL, which is obviously part of their 'new strategy'. So, a lot less people to worry about, they should be able to pay more attention to the smaller market cap they are catering for now...
 
House said:
I am sure you will find a couple of happy people here and there.

Unfortunately, Telkom cannot live up to expectations and they cannot deliver the way they should. They have prevented access to millions of people to landlines and ADSL, which is obviously part of their 'new strategy'. So, a lot less people to worry about, they should be able to pay more attention to the smaller market cap they are catering for now...
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This leaves a nice gap in the market for other network operators to offer fixed lines services, not so?
 
MickeyD said:
This leaves a nice gap in the market for other network operators to offer fixed lines services, not so?
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This is exactly what I have been hoping for the past 4 years since Telkom cancelled its services in various suburbs around us. Neotel came in and targeted a number of businesses in one specific suburb, but not yet to residential suburbs.

I really do hope that some SP comes to these areas real soon!
 
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