Telecoms snafu all our own fault

too many with vested interests and not enough with the vision and understanding of how it can benefit the country.
 
Why, if lower telecoms costs are so important, have we been unable to do anything about it in the past five years?
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i have an opinion why, but id rather not say.

Eventually it boils down to money,money,money and fat cats.
 
Oh! wonderfull!!! Blame it on the Sheeple!!! Bloody gravy trainers... we all know who is line'ing their pockets!!!
 
Talk is cheap... rather show us what the new administration is capable of.
 
a simple change in mindset would a long way... but unfortunately it has to start at the top, aka government.

to be honest, if i were telkom or any other incumbent in this country, i would not do much different in terms of value for money versus product/service than already being offered.
why would i if the odds were stacked in my favour?
 
Remember how Mbeki said in parliament, at every "State Of The Nation" speech "Telecoms prices must come down" and then a big applause by those present.

This is going on for 10 years - nothing happened

It seems there is no will to do this
 
Talk is cheap.

Here is what they should do.

1. The local loop should be taken away from Telkom. Anybody can put their own wiring in. Telkom will still be required to maintain their existing client's connections, but if Neotel/Vodacom/Sipho wants a new line then Telkom cannot hold the line hostage.

2. Telkom and TelkomInternet be split up into two SEPARATE companies.

3. Icasa be disbanded, and a new Icasa be drawn up without government intervention, AND with industry experts, NOT cabinet-appointed lapdogs.
 
Part of the blame must also rest with consumers who continue to support the monopolies, in areas where they have a choice. Telkom is extorting a monthly rental for our ADSL from us on top of our normal monthly line rental. In doing so they are raking in huge sums of money. They are also undercutting the other ISPs by playing in the market as an ISP themselves.

They need to either do away with the line rental to level the playing field. or they need to seperate the ISP portion of their business.

There is nobody else in South Africa who supplies an ADSL product so there you have no choice. But when it comes to your bandwidth you do have a choice... and a very competitive choice. Why use Telkom as your ISP? You are only cementing their place as a monopoly. You are only handing them more money on top of what they have already stolen from you. I don't understand it?

... and don't even get me started about M-web's prices :mad: Anybody who uses M-web as their ISP is an ignorant fool.
 
We are the ones who must take the blame, we continue to vote in an ineffective government.
We continue to support companies that rape us at every turn.
We continue to moan and complain but do nothing constructive about it.
We should be marching in the streets like Cosatu and burning down Telkom offices.
Maybe then the GVT will listen.
But no we rather lick Telkom's behind and let them do things th way they want.
 
Garyvdh said:
... and don't even get me started about M-web's prices :mad: Anybody who uses M-web as their ISP is an ignorant fool.
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Have to agree with you there, but (and this is a bit off topic i know), is there any way to keep an e-mail address assigned to you by mweb if you move away from them?

I'm asking because my fathers company is with Mweb for the simple reason that back in the day when he started he joined with Iafrica (way before Mweb's big black box campaign), and to change his e-mail address as well as that of other employees will cost a lot of effort (notifying ppl etc) and presumably some cost as well.
 
Change always brings pain ...

Boomstomp said:
Have to agree with you there, but (and this is a bit off topic i know), is there any way to keep an e-mail address assigned to you by mweb if you move away from them?

I'm asking because my fathers company is with Mweb for the simple reason that back in the day when he started he joined with Iafrica (way before Mweb's big black box campaign), and to change his e-mail address as well as that of other employees will cost a lot of effort (notifying ppl etc) and presumably some cost as well.
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Off the cuff?
1.) GET YOUR OWN DOMAIN ... then the e-mail is ISP independent. Host it at Hetzner or some similar place (and you CAN move between hosting companies, so you are never locked in again).
2.) Get a new ISP and run them in tandem for a while. During that time you can:
A.) Inform all clients / suppliers of the change
B.) Redirect all e-mail from M-Web to the new Domain
C.) Change all "Reply-to" addresses in your e-mail software to the new e-mails
D.) Monitor who of A.) Do not change in the 1st 3 months & "prompt" them regularly.
E.) After the 3rd month, set up a mail rule on your M-Web addresses to BOUNCE (not forward) the e-mails back to the sender with a very definite message that "THIS e-MAIL IS NO LONGER VALID AND WILL NOT BE ANSWERED, PLEASE USE [email protected]"
F.) After the 4th month, cancel your M-Web.
 
marine1. I fully agree with you.
Its the ignorant South African consumers that f.ck up the prices.
If we dont give the monopolies a reason to drop their prices they never will.
People moan but do nothing.
Look how many Adsl lines is there. How many DSTV subscribers. Shame on you people. Nobody gives a siht.

South Africans Just Love Being Ripped Off
 
Boomstomp said:
Have to agree with you there, but (and this is a bit off topic i know), is there any way to keep an e-mail address assigned to you by mweb if you move away from them?

I'm asking because my fathers company is with Mweb for the simple reason that back in the day when he started he joined with Iafrica (way before Mweb's big black box campaign), and to change his e-mail address as well as that of other employees will cost a lot of effort (notifying ppl etc) and presumably some cost as well.
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There sure is! Call them and ask to downgrade to the e-mail only option. then you only pay for that e-mail account. I think it costs R55 a month. It is a stop-gap solution until you can move to another account. I strongly suggest you get him a Gmail account (they have excellent spam filters) and set his M-web to forward to the Gmail. Create a signature that advertises his new e-mail and set the "reply-to" field on both accounts to respond to the Gmail. Go through the list of e-mail you receive every day and change the automated e-mails to the new account. After about three months you should be ready to close the M-web account. I have done this several times for friends and it works quite nicely. Never ever use an ISP account again as your primary e-mail. You don't want to be tied down to them.
 
I fully agree with marine1 but we really have no other choice in licking telkom's backsides, there is no alternative.

And pls can someone tell me why on earth are we paying telkom for line rentals, I mean even the phone line rental portion is disputable, you can easily get a cellphone contract that comes with R50 airtime per month for R50 best part is they throw in a free phone, now compare that to telkom...... OMG is the only expression I can think of. we pay phone line rentals at R130pm and get..... nothing for it. this is where we need REGULATION.
 
The article is great until you get to the last paragraph. We can't afford more long-winded talk shops. We need action now.
 
SlimJim said:
a simple change in mindset would a long way... but unfortunately it has to start at the top, aka government.
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To change a mind... Yes, I know this one... There must first be a mind to speak of and then the set of this mind. Well, if you need an exploritory event via an olfactory orifice up to the third digit to affect such a change...

Sorry, you did say government (past and present - I can show you an incident from 1944 that would put ADHD drug companies out of business:eek:)... We are talking up to the elbow again... I think Shapiro could do some good cartoons off the comments on MyBB.

Unfortunately. The SA consummer is lazy... (that would be me) AND well conditioned...
PnP, Woolworths, Checkers, Shoprite and SPAR do us exactly the same way... The banks, the municipality... To name a few of the main players.

How many of us have the time or money to fight Isabel Jones style... Hell, Rambo-style... And blow ***** up... Not me.

How about you?

"The sins of the father vested upon the son.":sick:

We definitely need a proverbial "cat among the pigeons" to get us out of this one...:D
 
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Telskum just needs one main stream competitor on dsl i hope neotell sorts out there infastructure asap just so telskum can't suck us dry. i hope they also have a service just for the digital part of the line and we don't pay for the analogue portion if we don't want it...is that possible does any one know perhaps?
 
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