MWeb boosts ADSL arsenal | ITWeb

By Leigh-Ann Francis
Johannesburg, 30 Jun 2010

Local Internet service provider (ISP) MWeb has extended its ADSL market shake-up to its business unit, unveiling a bonded ADSL offering it claims is up to 70% cheaper than the nearest comparable offering on the market.

This announcement follows the recent unveiling of the ISP's range of uncapped ADSL offerings for consumers and business.

Now, in the latest round of an aggressive market strategy, MWeb's bonded ADSL entails combining up to four ADSL lines into a single router that creates a single channel, high-speed link, effectively multiplying the speed of each line by the number of bonded lines.

The benefits of such an offering will be particularly attractive to small to medium-size business, explains BMI-Techknowledge analyst Brian Neilson, because it offers an alternative to leased lines.

“As ADSL services become more highly specified, they can perform a similar functional role to leased lines of lower 'ticket speeds', despite their asymmetrical nature,” he explains.

Neilson notes, however, that it would be necessary to compare bonded ADSL solutions to a single 10Mbps ADSL service from Telkom, which may also perform adequately.

Telkom has been trialling its 10Mbps ADSL service for some time now, but due to a network freeze during the 2010 Fifa Soccer World Cup will likely only introduce the product after the tournament.

MWeb, however, is taking a very aggressive approach to winning the ADSL war, notes Neilson.

“This campaign is the heart and soul of the market share war for business connectivity as a whole,” he opines.

“In the long term, when some proxy for local loop unbundling is finally implemented, the players leading in this space could be even better positioned, because they will already have the customers.”

Neilson explains this announcement means other players will step up their own product strategies, and that more announcements are expected to follow in this regard.

MWeb Bonded ADSL packages
Business ADSL 50GB 8Mbps (2 x 4 bonded) - R 2 299
Business ADSL 50GB 12Mbps (3 x 4 bonded) - R 2 799
Business ADSL 50GB 16Mbps (4 x 4 bonded) - R 3 299
Business ADSL Uncapped 8Mbps (2 x 4 bonded) - R 5 399
Business ADSL Uncapped 12Mbps (3 x 4 bonded) - R 7 999
Business ADSL Uncapped 16Mbps (4 x 4 bonded) - R 10 699

Telecoms Transformation – How to move forward?

A fascinating read by Paul Budde on his blog.

The discussion that is taking place about the trans-sectoral use of broadband is gaining momentum and many countries are now asking themselves serious questions about the future of their telecoms sector.

Until recently governments were convinced that they could separate themselves from the telecoms sector, and the key policies were focused on deregulation and privatisation. During the last few decades, however, this course reduced telecoms to the status of a commercial sector. Governments have accepted the priority placed by telcos on the interest of their shareholders and failed to understand the importance of telecoms as national infrastructure.

The Internet was a major ingredient in changing the direction of telecoms, particularly when broadband was added to the mix. In no time Internet and broadband penetration went through the roof, a clear indication that people were extremely interested in using these new technologies. More and more countries began to recognise the social and economic importance of this infrastructure. Political pressure started to emerge, aimed at governments in countries that were lagging behind in broadband infrastructure.

To read more click on the link above.....

Vodacom takes on Telkom | ITWeb

By Nicola Mawson, ITWeb senior journalist.

Johannesburg, 29 Jun 2010 Read in this storyBattle lines drawnBusiness solutionFail safeSmart moveSA's largest mobile company, Vodacom, is taking on its former parent, Telkom, as it launches an ADSL service into the corporate sector – with plans to eventually cut out Telkom's copper last mile.

The company could also try and usurp Telkom's dominant position in the residential market, but has yet to make an announcement as to whether it will launch fixed broadband to homeowners.

Vodacom's venture into fixed broadband could further unsettle Telkom, which has pinned some of its growth plans on launching a mobile offering sometime this year. Telkom has seen a steady decrease in the number of voice only fixed-lines, although its data penetration is growing.

Telkom reported flat revenue growth for the year to March, and outgoing CEO Rueben September emphasised the importance of mobile as a strategy to defend and grow its local market share. He said the company was aware of the risks of launching as SA's fourth mobile operator.

Battle lines drawn

Now Vodacom has taken the battle for market share onto Telkom's turf, in a move that could herald the first step towards fibre to the home.

Gary Hart, executive head of Managed Network Services at Vodacom Business, says the company will eventually be fighting Telkom for market share on Telkom's turf, but is currently reliant on the fixed-line operator for use of its last mile.

He explains that the offering will run on Telkom's copper access network for now, but will eventually move onto fibre, cutting Telkom out of the loop. Hart says, however, this will require economies of scale, which will be achieved as more fibre is rolled out to large corporations.

Vodacom has 11 metro Ethernet rings around the country, which it deployed for mobile backhaul. The company is now in the process of linking these rings to each other, and is using the infrastructure, which is already in the ground, to provide the ADSL backbone, explains Hart.

In addition, once the company moves its mobile network onto LTE, an upgrade to the current 3G offering, additional broadband offerings will become available, says Hart.

In future, Vodacom will expand its ADSL offerings to residential areas, although there are currently no specific dates or details available. “The launch of a residential ADSL service would be a logical response to Telkom's entrance into the mobile business,” says Richard Boorman, Vodacom executive head of corporate communications.

Business solution

Vodacom Business launched a premier business ADSL service, offering capped and uncapped offerings with speeds up to 10GB. Hart explains that the offering includes a voice over IP solution (VOIP), and businesses that buy the service are given a Vodacom 087 number.

Customers will also be able to port their landlines over to Vodacom once the company's application to the Independent Communications Authority of SA has been approved. In addition to voice calls and data, Vodacom will offer video services, says Hart.

The capped offering is available in monthly 1GB, 3GB, 5GB and 10GB packages, which are targeted at small and medium or home run businesses with a variety of options. Larger companies are offered uncapped broadband, with speeds of up to 4 096Kbps.

Both the capped and uncapped options come with a choice of being shaped or unshaped and come standard with an ADSL modem and a VOIP-enabled phone, which provides for landline-based IP calls to be made over ADSL, offering up to a 30% cost reduction on fixed-line calls.

Companies also have the option to bundle traditional voice, Internet access and VOIP into a single platform using Vodacom's private branch eXchange solution.

Fail safe

Vodacom Business uses a blend of SAFE, SAT3 and Seacom cables for international connectivity, which ensures built-in, automatic restore functions in the event of a break in any one of these cable systems.

In addition, should a Telkom cable break or be stolen, Vodacom's uncapped solution includes an optional 3G/HSPA failover.

If the line fails, the online business functions will automatically be rerouted on Vodacom's 3G and HSPA network, and put back onto ADSL once the service is restored.

Smart move

Chris Gilmour, Absa Investments analyst, says Vodacom is beating Telkom to the punch by launching ADSL before Telkom can offer businesses a mobile solution bundled with its current services.

“Telkom has been neglecting its own backyard, and other people like Vodacom have come in and are eating their lunch,” says Gilmour. He says Vodacom's strategy is “very clever” and is likely to make inroads into Telkom's most lucrative market, which is the corporate customer.

“At long last, we are starting to see the benefits of enhanced broadband availability. The more entrepreneurial companies like Vodacom are grasping the opportunity with both hands,” adds Gilmour.

Vodacom's ADSL offering;

Capped prices*
1GB at R59 p/m
3GB at R169 p/m
5GB at R279 p/m
10GB at R549 p/m

Uncapped pricing*
384kbps @ R1 132 p/m
512kbps @ R1 588 p/m
4096kbps @ R2 842 p/m

*Excluding ADSL line rental, see Web site for more details

Where to, Telkom?

[By Duncan McLeod]

Telkom is a fixed-line operator with ambitions to get into mobile telecommunications. Analysts aren’t sure it should be investing in a mature cellphone market. Do they have a point? Should Telkom be sticking to its knitting in fixed lines?

Pity whoever is appointed to replace Reuben September as the next CEO of Telkom. The new head will be inheriting a difficult business facing its biggest-ever competitive and regulatory threats.

Telkom isn’t the same company it was in the late 1990s, when, led by a foreign management team, it was able to hike prices out of all proportion, milking SA consumers for all they were worth, all the while abusing its monopoly and chasing off the slightest hint of competition.

Today, Telkom is threatened. Vodacom and MTN are demanding a piece of the action. And the industry regulator, emboldened by a department of communications that wants to see action on telecoms rates, is starting to talk tough.

With a fixed-line business that is in accelerating decline — the number of fixed lines in service declined by 4% between March 2009 and March 2010 — Telkom is turning to mobile to make up for it.

It says it will invest R6bn over five years building a second- and third-generation cellular voice and data network.

But many analysts have expressed doubt that Telkom has what it takes to take on two powerful incumbent operators — Vodacom and MTN — and a re-energised Cell C. Telkom, they say, has little or no experience in mobile, and its forays into other business areas, most notably pay-TV, have proved to be disastrous.

Now the company has lost its CEO, the very man who led the decision to offload Telkom’s 50% stake in Vodacom, a company over which it had little or no say, and to build its own mobile network.

There are real dangers ahead for Telkom. It could be the big loser if it succumbs to obvious temptation and, seeking to grow its mobile subscriber base quickly, starts a price war with the incumbent mobile players.

And there are already worrying signs that it could be distracted from its traditional core business of providing fixed lines.

Management mustn’t make the mistake of thinking Telkom can stop investing heavily in the access layer of its fixed-line network — the mainly copper-cable infrastructure that connects consumers to its core network.

If anything, it needs to be investing more heavily in the fixed-line side, replacing copper with high-speed fibre optics where it can. Fibre, not wireless, is the real future of broadband. It’s a space Telkom can own, if it has the foresight now to invest before its rivals take the market.

The company also needs to react faster to market changes. MWeb introduced uncapped broadband recently, and other Internet service providers have slashed per-gigabyte bandwidth prices. Yet Telkom hasn’t reacted. It’s like a deer trapped in the headlights.

And it’s losing broadband customers to the mobile networks — or not winning those customers in the first place. It should be up there, competing like hell to hang on to every single customer.

What the company needs now is a CEO who can shock the organisation into change. That would probably require an external candidate able to shake things up and shrug off the last vestiges of the parastatal mind-set.

Certainly, whoever is appointed needs to be visionary, empowered to take big but calculated risks.

Unfortunately, it also needs to be someone adept at managing politicians. Government has stubbornly and stupidly held on to nearly 40% of the company’s shares. This, ultimately, could prove to be Telkom’s downfall.

Duncan McLeod is editor of TechCentral; this column is also published in Financial Mail

Stage set for battle over telecoms rates | TechCentral

The stage is set for a battle of epic proportions at public hearings in Johannesburg next week. That’s when operators will make their arguments for and against proposed cuts in wholesale call termination rates.

MTN, for one, has warned of dire consequences for its business and for the entire mobile ecosystem if industry regulator, the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa), proceeds with its plans to cut mobile call termination rates to 65c/minute this year. Other operators have also lodged strong objections.

Icasa wants the rates — the fees the mobile operators charge each other and other telecommunications companies to carry calls onto their networks — reduced to 65c in July. This would follow a 36c voluntary cut by the mobile providers on 1 March.

High mobile interconnection rates have been blamed for keeping retail prices high and for keeping new competitors from emerging.

Now, MTN has gone on the offensive. In its submission to Icasa ahead of public hearings scheduled for 28 to 30 June, the company says the draft proposals “suffer from serious legal and regulatory flaws”.

Moreover, when the March rate cut is factored in, the “drastic nature of the proposal is truly revealed”, MTN says. “In fact, it represents the most aggressive mobile termination rate price control MTN has ever seen: the peak rate would fall from R1,25 to 65c in just four months, and 70% of the total 85c cut proposed by the authority would take place between March and July this year.”

The operator says the impact of too steep and unbudgeted-for cuts in one year would force it to take “dramatic cost-cutting actions in the second half of 2010, affecting not just MTN’s business, jobs and investment plans, but also its customers and the whole mobile ecosystem” of least-cost routing companies, independent service providers and distributors.

“The ‘business shock’ is further heightened by the removal, overnight, of the peak and off-peak price structure that has characterised the market for the past 15 years, with great wholesale, retail and network disruption,” MTN says in its submission.

Vodacom, though disagreeing with large sections of the proposed cut in termination rates, has taken a more conciliatory approach to the regulator. In its submission, it says it agrees with Icasa that the wholesale cost-based rate is about 40c/minute — the level the authority has proposed the rates be cut to in July 2012.

However, Vodacom has objected to what it thinks is a too-steep “glide path” — the two-year period over which the rates will come down. It says the proposed timeframe is “far too aggressive and will significantly impact on the wholesale and price structures of the SA communications industry”.

Vodacom wants to delay the first step in the proposed guide path until March 2011. “This will assist businesses to factor the new rates into their business models and decisions for the next financial year,” it says.

Like MTN, Vodacom has also questioned the process Icasa has followed in creating the draft regulations, and has warned that, if issued in their current form, would be “unlawful and open to judicial review”.

Cell C, meanwhile, has — not surprisingly — argued for asymmetric termination rates that favour it over its bigger mobile rivals. In other words, it wants Vodacom and MTN to pay it more than it pays them to carry calls between their networks.

The country’s newest and smallest mobile operator argues that higher termination rates have undermined its full potential. It has objected to being defined as an established operator with significant market power for the purposes of regulation, alongside the likes of Vodacom, MTN and Telkom.

“The use of asymmetric mobile termination rates for an interim period will promote competition in the long run in the SA mobile market as this will enable Cell C to grow its market share and become a more effective competitor,” Cell C says.

— Duncan McLeod, TechCentral

South African cellphone facts revealed

Staff Writer MyBroadband | 14 June, 2010

If you feel like you spend half your day on your cellphone, you have this in common with as many as one in six South Africans.
Dial Direct recently ran an online, independent survey to gain greater insight into South Africa’s cellphone habits, and the findings showed an interesting swing towards the use of cellphones for social media.

Respondents were asked questions including:

1. How much time (on average) do you spend on your cellphone per day?
2. Which function is most important to you above and beyond phoning?
3. Do you use your cellphone more for social purposes or business?
4. Do you prefer talking or SMSing?
5. Do you frequently use your cellphone to access social networking sites, and, how important is your cellphone to you?

Time spent on the cellphone

18% of the respondents said they spent more than five hours a day on their cellphones, while just over a quarter put that figure at four hours. 56% of respondents indicated that they used their cellphones for two hours every day.

Functionality

Apart from making and receiving cellphone calls, sending and receiving SMSes ranked as the most important functionality offered, with 58% respondents indicating that this was the case.
Just over 30% of respondents indicated that email was the most important function after making calls. Far fewer indicated that they used their cellphones predominantly for its camera (after making and receiving calls).

Business and pleasure

A high proportion of respondents (63%) indicated that they used their cellphones for social purposes only, while 37% said they used their cellphones for both social and business purposes.

Talking vs SMSes

Of those surveyed, 72% reported that they preferred talking on their cellphones to sending SMSes.

Social networking

When asked about whether or not they used their cellphones for social networking, 121 respondents said they did, while 90 said they did not.
The vast majority of respondents indicated that they subscribed to Facebook, with 12.5% of respondents using their cellphones for Twitter, and far fewer for MXIT and banking.

The importance of connectivity

135 of the respondents told Dial Direct Insurance that their cellphones were very important to them, while 69 people remarked that they were ‘necessary’. Just 2.3% of respondents said their cellphones were not important to them.

“This survey provided very interesting and useful results about cellphone usage in South Africa,” said Dial Direct Insurance’s spokesperson, Bradley Du Chenne. “It is evident that South Africans make full use of the technology their cellphones offer, and that the cellphone is a vital form of communication in terms of both business and leisure.”

Telkom spills beans on mobile strategy | TechCentral

Telecommunications group Telkom will leverage its existing customers, offering mobile products to them as it gears up to launch SA’s fourth mobile operator.

The company has finally begun to provide some details of its plans in the mobile space, where it is spending R6bn over five years to build a network to rival those operated by Vodacom, MTN and Cell C.

The traditionally fixed-line operator has ordered 2 000 base stations, which will be constructed over the next 12 months. It will spend R6bn building the network over the next five years, it says.

“Telkom is at an inflection point, with growth in traditional fixed-line voice revenues declining,” it says in notes alongside its annual financial results for the year ended 31 March 2010.

“The majority of global fixed-line incumbents have discovered that a successful operation requires an integrated mobile business,” it says. “We believe there is a market opportunity in SA as mobile voice and especially mobile data are still experiencing growth.”

Analysts, however, remain sceptical, with some questioning whether the group should be considering mobile at all. They argue that Telkom is investing in an already mature market.

But Telkom says it has a “competitive advantage by virtue of its existing business and customer base”.

“This is particularly so as wireless growth slows and converged data becomes more prevalent,” it says. “A product range spanning both the mobile and fixed value pools will assist Telkom to defend itself more effectively against competitors and to grow revenues.”

It says also that the mobile business is designed to assist it in addressing “fixed-line cost challenges and to position Telkom more competitively in the market”.

“To this, end Telkom will undertake best endeavours to attain the market share required to achieve its required internal rate of return.”

The company says it will enter the mobile market with “simplicity, quality and value” as its three main guiding principles.

Earlier this year, Telkom signed an agreement that will allow Telkom Mobile customers to roam on MTN’s second- and third-generation voice and data networks. The company now says it will offer international roaming at launch through “another established and experienced international service provider”. It declines to name the party concerned.

Telkom says it is at an “advanced stage” of negotiating interconnection agreements with other local operators.

The company will offer prepaid, postpaid and what it called “hybrid voice and data” products to the market.

It has appointed China’s Huawei to build the network and the billing support service systems.

Telkom says it is negotiating finance structures with its suppliers in an effort to reduce its capital investment in favour of operating lease-type payments, which include technology renewal.

The radio access network — the bit that connects its customers to its cellphone base stations — is all Internet Protocol based. This will allow it to deploy newer mobile technologies quickly, it says. Initially, the network will use high-speed packet access (HSPA) technology capable of theoretical download speeds of up to 14,4Mbit/s.

— Staff reporter, TechCentral

Telkom warns it may keep rate cuts to itself | TechCentral

Outgoing Telkom CEO Reuben September has warned the group’s customers not to expect an automatic cut in fixed-to-mobile call charges that are directly in line with future reductions in wholesale mobile call termination rates.

In March, Telkom elected to pass on the entire 36c/minute saving when peak-time mobile termination rates were reduced from R1,25/minute to 89c/minute.

Mobile termination rates are the interconnection fees the cellphone operators charge each other and other telecoms companies to carry calls onto their networks.

Parliamentarians and government officials have lobbied hard for the rates to come down, in part because they’re seen as a barrier to new competitors emerging in the mobile industry.

Industry regulator, the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa), wants the rates reduced to 65c/minute next month in both peak and off-peak periods. It wants further reductions to 50c/minute next year and to 40c/minute in 2012.

Icasa is set to hold hearings next week to consider submissions from the operators, some of which have argued for a longer “glide path” down to 40c.

Though Telkom passed on all the benefits of the initial and voluntary cut in mobile termination rates in March, September says there’s no guarantee the same will happen the next time the rates are cut.

“This matter requires further evaluation and we will make our position clear at the appropriate time,” he says.

However, Telkom may not have any choice in the matter. Communications minister Siphiwe Nyanda is keen to force down the cost of telecommunications and, given government’s nearly 40% shareholding in Telkom, there’s a fair chance the company will come under political pressure to pass on all the benefits to its customers.

— Duncan McLeod, TechCentral

Telkom leaves retail rates largely unchanged | TechCentral

Telkom has left its broadband line rental and post-paid call rates unchanged while hiking basic line rental costs by about 5%.

In its annual tariff filing with the Independent Communications Authority of SA, the fixed-line operator says it could have hiked its basket of rates by as much as 19,3%, but has declined to do so.

Telkom SA MD Nombulelo “Pinky” Moholi says Telkom has not taken advantage of the regulatory allowance because it has a “commitment to the process of ensuring affordable telecommunications access in the country”.

A more plausible reason, of course, is that competitive pressures and consumer distress in a tight economic environment are preventing it from increasing its rates.

Telkom’s broadband digital subscriber line (DSL) and monthly bandwidth charges remain unchanged.

Oddly, the company has made no mention of improving bandwidth allocations for consumers, despite the introduction by competitors like MWeb of uncapped offerings.

It has also given away no details about its plans to increase DSL line speeds. News of this may come on Monday when Telkom reports its annual results.

Telkom is increasing its entry-level Closer 1 calling plan by a modest R5, while leaving other calling plan prices unchanged.

The new tariffs, which become effective on 1 August, are likely to put more pressure on Telkom to cut costs as competitive pressures intensify. It can no longer rely on tariff increases to offset inefficiencies.

International call prices remain mostly unchanged, with some cuts, and increases in call costs to Namibia and Botswana.

The cost of calls to Neotel and other licensed operators remains unchanged, too, as do calls from payphones. However, changes in the metering periods for public payphones will be made to introduce a single tariff for local and long distance calls.

Prepaid users will see a hike in call costs of 4,5% for local and long-distance calls. Prepaid installation costs have also risen. Postpaid line installations rise 4,9% to R491, from R468,05 previously. — Staff reporter, TechCentral

Numbering regulations reach final phase / ITWEB

By Leigh-Ann Francis
Johannesburg, 14 Jun 2010

The Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) is in the process of formulating the Number Plan Regulations and has published a draft version, which is now open for public comment until mid-July.

The regulations are intended to align the regulatory framework with the Electronic Communications Act 2005 and the ICASA Act 2000, as amended in 2006, and to cater adequately for the newly competitive environment.

Senior telecoms consultant at BMI-Tech Knowledge Tim Parle explains that the regulations cover three phases, two of which are already complete.

The first phase was completed in 2007 and entailed changing the international dialling prefix used in SA from "09" to "00". This was in line with international norms and freed up the numbers with the second digit of 9, states Parle.

The most visible part of the second phase was the withdrawal of local calling, requiring South Africans to come to terms with dialling the prefix to local numbers and not just national, long-distance numbers, he continues. “For example, where we had to add 011 to all Johannesburg numbers regardless of whether we were calling from Sandton or Durban.”

The second phase introduced non-geographic numbers and short codes, needed to allow Neotel, and operators, to compete in the fixed market, he explains.

Parle notes that the third phase entails a more radical change. Here, the first digit dialled will change from "0" to "6" for geographic numbers and to "8" or "9" for non-geographic numbers. The aim is to provide more capacity for the long-term, he explains.

ICASA has called for public comment by 19 July and is holding public hearings on the topic in early August. The date for the implementation of phase 3 will be determined after these events.

Neotel welcomed the publication of proposed changes to the national telephone numbering plan, which the telecoms operator says promises to provide structure and clarity that has been lacking to date.

The regulations will force the industry to prepare for new infrastructure requirements and changes to their business models, which is said to have positive long-term effects for operators and their customers.

Industry impact

“The impact of these changes will be felt by the operators, which will need to re-programme the routing tables in all their switches and do extensive testing,” Parle predicts.

This is a large operation for Telkom, given its footprint of telephone switches across the country, and a significant exercise for the mobile operators, given the large number of base station control and MSCs deployed, he continues.

“The effect ripples down to Neotel, ECN, Vox and the like too. For small to medium enterprises, company PABX/PBXes will need to be reprogrammed to handle the changes with knock-on impacts to billing systems, LCR systems, internal directories and the like.”

Gregory Massel, MD of Switch Telecoms, notes that, while mobile networks and wireless application service providers will have to amend some of their premium rate and content subscription services, both company and consumers stand to benefit.

“Companies like Switch Telecom will benefit by being able to provide toll-free services. At present, Telkom makes this difficult because rather than honouring the toll-free status of the 0800 number, it simply plays a message saying: 'Calls to this non-Telkom toll-free number will be charged.'

“In the future, the calls will be toll-free, irrespective of the network they originate on,” explains Massel.

Consumers also stand to benefit from regulations relating to SMS-based content subscription services. “Providers will not be allowed to sign a consumer into a subscription-based service unless the consumer subscribes via a premium rate shortcode.

“Any SMS-based advertisement they send you enticing you to respond will have to be sent from a premium rate shortcode so that consumers are not misled under false pretences,” he notes.

The regulations also allow for the implementation of tariff controls, adds Massel. Certain number ranges will be classified as cheaper calls and others will be classified as more expensive.

“Having two clear bands, excluding toll-free and premium-rate, will help remove the current situation that has arisen where consumers have no idea what the cost of a call is before dialling,” he says.

Parle predicts that consumers may grumble at the changes initially, and for a few weeks may fumble when trying to make a call, but will soon take the changes on board. There is also a chance that shares in media companies and PBX maintenance companies will become hot items, he concludes.

Telecoms costs still constrain BPO | ITWeb

By Nicola Mawson, ITWeb senior journalist.
Johannesburg, 9 Jun 2010

The cost of telecommunications in SA is still too high, says the business process outsourcing (BPO) sector. This hampers its competitiveness, despite the promise of cheaper connectivity through new undersea cables.

Seacom landed last July, and the Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (Eassy) should be up in August. The West African Cable system is also due to arrive soon.

However, the cables have not significantly forced down the cost of connecting internationally, says umbrella body Business Processing enabling SA (BPeSA).

Acting CEO Bulelwa Koyana says the increase in bandwidth should have reduced costs for players in the sector that use voice over IP to connect internationally. However, the reduction in costs has not taken place as the industry had hoped.

A few years ago, the BPO industry, through the Department of Trade and Industry, applied to Telkom for a concessionary rate. However, this bid was abandoned after it was decided this would be anti-competitive and would be thrown out by the competition authorities.

To read more click on the link above.....

New Icasa chair will face political challenges | TechCentral

President Jacob Zuma is expected to appoint a chairman to the Icasa council within the next few weeks to replace outgoing chair Paris Mashile, whose five-year term expires at the end of this month. It’s a decision that will reverberate in the telecommunications industry for years to come, says a leading consultant.

BMI-TechKnowledge MD Denis Smit says it’s important Zuma, in consultation with communications minister Siphiwe Nyanda, picks a strong and capable person to lead the regulatory authority for the next five years.

Zuma’s choices are somewhat limited, though. The Icasa Act requires him to pick the next chairman from the existing crop of councillors. But there are a few strong potential candidates the president could choose.

Smit says whoever gets the job will have a number of challenges to deal with the moment they walk into Mashile’s soon-to-be-vacated office. “And a lot of these are very political in nature,” Smit says.

To read more click on the link above....

Icasa under fire over spectrum auction | TechCentral

A top regulatory expert has lambasted the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) over its planned auction of spectrum for wireless broadband services, saying the process is deeply flawed.

Dominic Cull of Ellipsis Regulatory Solutions says there are a number of serious flaws in the process of licensing spectrum in the valuable 2,6GHz and 3,5GHz bands.

Cull’s concerns should be taken seriously, especially given the strategic economic importance of the frequency in question. The mobile operators, for one, stand to make billions of rand from selling services in these new bands.

There’s likely to a particularly wild scramble for spectrum in the 2,6GHz band, where operators will be able to build networks of national scope.

Click on the link above to read more....

Vox takes on diginet | ITWeb

By Candice Jones, ITWeb online telecoms editor
Johannesburg, 3 Jun 2010

With individual number portability a reality, local alternative operator Vox Datapro is taking aim at Telkom's leased-line customers, by releasing its Zeppelin product.

Vox's new offering targets the higher end small and medium-sized business, which Vox Datapro MD Gary Sweidan says will provide an alternative to traditional leased-line solutions, like diginet, at a fraction of the price.

Zeppelin is essentially a 4Mbps wireless solution over microwave technology, and allows for both voice and data. “It's a point-to-point (P2P) solution, and the offering uses a licensed spectrum band,” explains Sweidan.

Traditionally, P2P offerings in businesses come at a hefty price. However, as dedicated services, there is very little contention on the lines, and interference and downtime is expected to be minimal.

To read more click on the link above......

MTN spends R500m on network upgrade | ITWeb

By Candice Jones, ITWeb online telecoms editor
Johannesburg, 31 May 2010

MTN, Africa's first global sponsor of the Fifa 2010 Soccer World Cup, has spent close to R500 million upgrading its network in preparation for the soccer spectacular, which kicks off next week.

Speaking at the MTN media forum this morning, MTN CTO Sameer Dave explained that the company's investment only covers specifications for the World Cup, and not the entire network. The entire network investment for this year will be R4.1 billion.

Dave says that, over the past two years, MTN has implemented “super” coverage for the stadiums. Each of the stadiums will house around 22 base stations, have 38 cells or point-of-radio contacts, and will be fed by 6km of fibre.

To read more click on the link above..........