Vox warns against Telkom
|
15 October 2009
And the catch all along is that Gov makes more money if interconnect is cut. Tut tut. |
| |
A sudden drop in interconnect rates would benefit Telkom, says Vox Telecom CEO Tony van Marken. Telkom is the only operator that will get a Christmas present if interconnection rates are cut immediately, and it will use it to cross-subsidise and frustrate competitors, said Vox Telecom CEO Tony van Marken.
JSE-listed Vox Telecom, which has made a name for itself in the least-cost routing (LCR) market, was the last to present before Parliament during the marathon two-day public hearings into the interconnection rate and proposals to reduce it.
In its presentation, Vox said it did not mind a smaller immediate cut in the interconnection rate. However, it strongly recommended that a lower rate, such as Parliament's suggested 60c per minute, should be done incrementally over a longer period.
Van Marken made no bones about his company's standpoint. He emphasised that while its LCR business did stand to lose, the point was that it needed time to convert custom...
|
| |
Recent South African News Articles |
Seacom plans to upgrade its subsea telecommunications network to newer fibre-optic switching technology later this year that will more than double the capacity on the system.
CEO Mark Simpson says the company will begin tests in the next couple of months with a view to upgrading the US$600m system from 10Gbit/s to 40Gbit/s optical-fibre technology.
The move comes as the third anniversary of the launch of the system, which brought down bandwidth price... |
While a silent price war is brewing in the South African mobile industry, mobile operator Vodacom is prepared for the next amount of salvos from the competition which sees four mobile operators taking on each other in a highly-competitive industry.
֓Strong competition and falling prices arent new Җ over the past year our average effective price per minute has fallen 14% and the price per MB on the same basis is down 18%, said Vodacom CEO Pi... |
Last Friday, the Independent Communications Authority of SAs (IcasaҒs) complaints and compliance committee brought Neotel a step closer to gaining access to rival Telkoms network into homes and businesses. But with the unbundling process underway, albeit belatedly, is it worth continuing the fight?
Neotel CEO Sunil Joshi says local-loop unbundling (LLU) җ the process where operators gain access to Telkoms ғlast-mile infrastructure
... |
In what could be a landmark decision for SAs telecommunications sector, and for consumers, the Independent Communications Authority of SAҒs (Icasas) complaints and compliance committee on Friday appeared to open the door for Neotel to gain access to TelkomҒs last-mileӔ copper network.
A written decision is expected to follow in the next few weeks. The decision could have profound implications for the industry as it could mean that Neot... |
Vodacom, SA's largest network operator, has paid back about 95% of its free cash flow in dividends to shareholders this year.
The company this morning released its results for the year to March and said service revenue gained 7.8%, to R58.2 billion.
Vodacom made R10.97 billion in free cash flow, a 24.3% gain on the year. It paid out a total of R10.6 billion in dividends during the year after declaring a 260c payout at half year and a 450c dividend at... |
Vodacom is expanding its reach into under-serviced areas and has reworked its distribution models in a bid to grow its subscriber base, which could place pressure on average revenue per user.
The company yesterday released its results for the year to March. It said South African customers grew about 26.5 percent, to 28.9 million, a gain that was partially driven by the company pushing ultra-low-cost handsets, promotions and a focus on under-serviced are... |
Vodacom is in breach of Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) regulations for not filing its new 99c/minute prepaid tariff plan with the regulator before announcing the new rates on Wednesday.
Thats the view of Icasa, whose spokesman, Paseka Maleka, tells TechCentral that Vodacom ғdid not follow the process of applying to the authority as required by regulations when it introduced its tariff changesŔ.
But Vodacom spokesman Ri... |
ALAN Knott-Craig promised to shake up the cellphone industry when he joined Cell C last month and he has not disappointed he cut prepaid call tariffs by more than 34% yesterday, bringing them lower than contract call rates for the first time in 18 years.
Cell C introduced a new prepaid package with prices reduced by 34% to an all-day rate of 99c a minute, with per-second billing from the first second. This applies to voice calls from Cell C to any netw... |
Second cellphone operator MTN has turned its nose up at the significant prepaid pricing cuts announced yesterday by Vodacom and Cell C, saying it still offers the most affordable prepaid experienceӔ in the market.
Vodacom and Cell C have slashed their prepaid rates, each coming out with 99c per minute deals that will be available to their respective prepaid markets as of Sunday. Vodacom's new prepaid product, Freedom 99Ӕ, allows customers to... |
Its no secret that despite having the longest-standing mobile networks on the continent, SA still has some of the highest mobile call rates in Africa. This week, Cell C went some way to correcting that when it announced it was cutting prepaid rates, and hinted that new post-paid pricing will follow soon, but thereҒs arguably still a long way to go.
On Wednesday, Cell C announced it was dropping prepaid call rates to 99c/minute regardless of the ti... |