Broadband crisis in South Africa

ADSL South Africa (Broadband South Africa), 20 June 2006

The state of affairs in regard to broadband or ADSL in South Africa can now easily be categorized as a crisis. A crisis when compared to the state of affairs in all most all other countries. Demand for broadband is growing but service deliverance and offerings remain outdated even with Telkom’s latest lower broadband price offerings. Promises of better offerings and service are not going to do it. Action is what’s needed.
 
Local is lekker but not when loyal ADSL users in South Africa have become the laughing stock of the rest of the world mainly due to Telkom’s incompetence. “Ten years ago South Africa was ranked the 14th most connected country in the world. Today, we’ve slipped down to 37th place. The reason is the lack of choice afforded to the Internet consumer due to Telkom’s stranglehold over the industry,” according to Greg Massel, Co-chair of The Internet Service Providers Association of South Africa (ISPA). The situation is even worse concerning broadband. South Africa comes last when compared to OECD countries with a local broadband penetration rate of only 0.5%. This is a massive 2700% worse than the OECD average of 13.6%.
 
A drastic improvement in customer service is one of the vital necessities needed to turn confidence around. For instance the message irate broadband users get when they phone Telkom more than once in order to get solutions to their problems just shows how much Telkom really cares: “If you did not call Telkom to do business,” the canned voice says, “take the time out to speak to a family member or a friend. You are denying someone else the opportunity to do so [deal with Telkom]. Please remember that these calls are recorded and can be traced.” Telkom’s CEO Papi Molotsane’s mission to delight customers will fail before it even started with a response like this. No person in his right mind will just phone and ‘annoy’ Telkom call centre staff for the fun of it. Ordinary law abiding citizens mostly only get hot under the collar when they are faced with absolute incompetence. Point of fact is that Telkom and Sentech, both pet dogs of the ANC government, seems to know the art of getting people from zero to a 100 in less than 0.001 seconds. MyWireless subscribers at Sentech will agree on this especially since their latest battle with Sentech in regards to significant downtime experienced and Sentech’s pathetic response to complaints or inquiries.
 
Cooperation between the major role players is another much needed necessity to ‘turn the boat away from the rocks’. Not the wishy-washy kind of cooperation backed-up by empty babbling but the kind that’s backed up by solid action. The recent ICASA hearings offered the perfect chance for just that but it seems that Telkom for one is sticking with its old guns. ICASA has for instance called for free local access but Telkom is unwilling to move back to their old model in order to make local access more affordable. This is the reason why DataPro launched a ‘local only’ ADSL product in order to reduce pricing for users with local connectivity.
 
Another factor that needs to be addressed is the welfare of staff at Telkom. By the look of things staff at Telkom are overworked and underpaid. A situation totally unacceptable if you take the billions Telkom made in the past financial year into account. Sure shareholders want to see a good return on their investment but not to the point where employees suffer. It’s a simple equation. If the majority of employees suffer than there must be a correspondent loss like for instance in the level of customer service. The big Telkom bosses, and major shareholders for that matter, should get their act together and fast. Don’t tell us you can’t use the power invested in you to change things for the better. Don’t try to fool us. This is the simple message that needs to be send home and we’re sure most members of staff at Telkom will be happy to sign such a petition.
 
Last but not least. Another much needed necessity is effective telecoms regulations. It’s not a matter of secrecy that the relevant authorities have mostly failed. We’re sure a lot of reasons for this can be found but the fact of the matter is that it’s totally unacceptable. The launch of the second network operator (SNO) in a few weeks from now will shed more light on the overall effectiveness of regulations. This will not be clear from the start but maybe only after weeks, months and even years in business we will get to see the real benefits of such a move. We can only hope that things will change for the better.
 
It must be said that the aim mustn’t be to sink Telkom but to patch her up and have her ready to sail for the benefit of all South Africans. Real leadership is needed not the type of leadership that fades away after the cocktail party. All participants and role players need to address the issues at hand in a way mutually beneficial to all.