More to competition than interconnect rates

Nice to see one of the smaller players also talking sense.
 
Full marks for this guy. Hope he got through to the parliament guys. The thing that worries me is that parliament's hands are still pretty tied. ICASA needs to step up to bring about meaningful change.
 
How does Telkom keep getting away with redefining terms of things that should be obvious? We get "uncapped local" and Telkom redefines that to mean "we can't limit you, but you pay for usage". Here we have number portability and Telkom requires additional regulation to get "local number portability" to deal with their artificial hurdles of a 1000 number block. I only hope that Parliament keeps kicking ICASAs bum to get them to do their job, and stop accepting more of Telkom's word games.
 
Did you hear the violins? I herd the violins. The tears welled. I almost cried.

What we REALLY need is the gwaverment to sell it's stake in Telkom. Just look at the movement being made on interconnect rates since they lost their stake in Vodacom (via Telkom). I bet LLU could be achieved in 3 months flat. :cool:
 
Agreed but Vox is mixing up fixed and mobile tariffs. Interconnect reductions will *definitely* bring down peak mobile tariffs. The Telkom-to-mobile tariff will come down almost immediately. Least cost routers (which bypass Telkom when calling mobiles) will then become unprofitable unless the related mobile-to-mobile tariffs are reduced in tandem (Vox may ironically take a big hit here). And so the skittles will start to fall.
 
I suppose it's good to see Vox making the point that there are still important hurdles to competition to be removed, and we shouldn't focus on interconnection alone.

Unfortunately, the statement is largely self-serving, since they are trying to deflect attention to prevent a substantial reduction in interconnection fees, since this would destroy the LCR industry in South Africa, and maybe Vox along with it. Currently, more than 70% of Vox's business depends on the LCR bypass business, something that has disappeared in other countries very quickly once interconnection rates drop.
 
Vox most definitely doesn't want a drop in interconnect - what would happen to the Vox Telepreneur program which is based on paying participants when they receive calls, ie from interconnect revenue?

So while everything else they point at is true and needs to be addressed, let it not detract from the the fact that lower interconnect rates are a good thing. I would rather have a positive step delivered now, piecemeal, than have to wait for some holistic miracle at the end of yet another long drawn out ICASA "process."
 
Gatecrasher said:
So while everything else they point at is true and needs to be addressed, let it not detract from the the fact that lower interconnect rates are a good thing. I would rather have a positive step delivered now, piecemeal, than have to wait for some holistic miracle at the end of yet another long drawn out ICASA "process."
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+1
 
Gatecrasher said:
Vox most definitely doesn't want a drop in interconnect - what would happen to the Vox Telepreneur program which is based on paying participants when they receive calls, ie from interconnect revenue?
That may be true but the benefits they gain could outweigh that. High interconnect rates favour Telkom over fixed line alternatives.
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interconnect rates

while im all for the small guy surviving and making a living for himself, i dont see any unavoidable way for any ISP or IT company that is adversely affected by any price reduction in our telecomms sector.
what it means is that they were only able to exist & survive due to our high telecomms charges.
just because a few smaller companies will have to close, i dont think thats a valid argument to keep things as they are.
they should look elsewhere and find another niche market or alternate way to make money.
enough is enough.
 
msmoorad said:
just because a few smaller companies will have to close, i dont think thats a valid argument to keep things as they are
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This is the unintended consequence of reducing prices in the telecoms sector that no-one seems to be talking about - it's not just in voice, but is already affecting second tier ISPs as well (e.g. the migration from dial-up to ADSL is the greatest threat to M-Web's profit margin).

The result is that smaller companies will either go out of business, or be swallowed by larger companies - we've already seen this trend in South Africa. I tend to agree that this is not altogether a bad thing, given the benefit to consumers. However, it is a signal to smaller players that they should look for complementary business models to the big five players, or dress themselves up to be bought.
 
IMHO the high interconnection fees are not the major contributor to the overall excessive telecommunication costs in SA. The issues at hand are far more complex than a simple "reduce interconnect fees and call costs will come down". In previous discussions I have illustrated how dropping the MTR could actually put upward pressure on the retail rate of mobile calls.

My major concern is that the current highhanded approach of the parliamentary committee is perpetuating the public perception that once interconnect rates fall telecommunication costs will magically fall. I am not disputing that ICASA has not been effective in regulating the industry but I personally think parliaments efforts would be better spent in eliminating the bottlenecks and regulating impediments encountered by ICASA and ensuring that they obtain sufficient resources to do the job properly. (This could include replacing all or as many of ICASA staff that are not qualified to do their job.)
 
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