Business Day (Johannesburg)
Toby Shapshak
26 August 2006
Johannesburg — FRUSTRATED at slow or nondelivery of promised telecoms services, a group of dissatisfied telephone users plans to take out a full-page advert in a major Sunday newspaper to protest against how Telkom abuses its monopoly.
This latest consumer backlash against the state-owned telecoms company was launched by journalist Richard Frank, and is being publicised by Tectonic, Africa's leading source of news about open-source software.
Frank says the anti-Telkom advert is "inspired by Firefox's campaign to take out a double-page spread in the New York Times to tell the world that there was an open-source alternative to Internet Explorer". Internet Explorer is Microsoft's web browser which comes with Windows, while Firefox is a free browser that has captured 12% of the market since its launch in 2004.
The Telkom campaign is an attempt to highlight how Telkom "continues to ride roughshod over SA's information economy", says Frank.
His key argument is that there is no alternative to Telkom -- which, for voice calls, there won't be for quite a time while the second network operator grapples with breaking into Telkom's protected turf.
There are other broadband options but suppliers are forced to use wireless means to get content to consumers.
Frank's advert, which is being called the Telkom Action Group, follows the much publicised case of Dr CH Swart, who took out an advert in Beeld newspaper asking for someone from Telkom to connect his ADSL after 31 "fruitless" calls to a service number.
This also comes as the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) published new ADSL regulations that require Telkom to install a new line within 30 days.
But the regulations do not address key problems with pricing and capping of bandwidth. Analysts and activists have described them as "disappointing", with MyADSL founder Rudolph Muller, the unofficial spokesman of the country's broadband users, saying SA's telecoms are 1000% more expensive than other developing countries'.
Muller, an ICT lecturer at the University of Johannesburg, established the MyADSL website in protest against Telkom's poor broadband service and it has become a beacon for users frustrated by the lack of options and quality service.
Muller's website has become a thorn in the side of Telkom and other broadband suppliers, as visitors to the site provide expert commentary and criticism of these services.
Arguably the most famous Telkom protest has been the Hellkom website, which reinterpreted Telkom's branding in a series of amusing spoofs, including "prices that'll make you sweat"; "we charge so much because ... we can"; and "R6,7bn profit in 2005. Thanks, public".
Telkom's attempt to sue Hellkom two years ago resulted in lots of free publicity for the satirical site and further embarrassment for the company.
"Bandwidth is the lifeblood of the digital economy," Mark Shuttleworth told a conference in Kenya earlier this year. He said African telecommunications sectors were run by "cartels", which could not deliver effective and affordable bandwidth to the continent.
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