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Long live ADSL
ADSL South Africa (Broadband South Africa), 24 June
2007
One can come to this conclusion after Vodacom said that they are planning to launch their own
ADSL offering before the end of the year.
‘Vodacom, South Africa’s largest mobile operator, said that they will be adding ADSL
to their current broadband product offerings before the end of the year. They will initially act as a reseller of
ADSL services, but will develop an ADSL offering using their own bandwidth in due course’ (Vodacom to launch ADSL,
MyBroadband, 19 June 2007).
In other words, Vodacom is planning to release a fully-fledged ADSL broadband
offering before the end of the year.
Why is Vodacom suddenly interested in launching a fully-fledged ADSL
offering?
Well, it’s no secret that Vodacom has made its desire to compete head-on with the
likes of Telkom clear. It started
off with Vodacom announcing that they want to compete in the Pay TV arena and the consequent announcement that they
are planning to enter the fixed-line arena as well. Now they want to launch a fully-fledged ADSL
offering.
‘Vodacom further said that Local Loop Unbundling (LLU) can bring many benefits to the
local telecoms environment, and that they will definitely take advantage of these benefits. This can effectively
make Vodacom a provider of fully fledged ADSL services’ (Vodacom to launch ADSL, MyBroadband, 19 June
2007).
In other words, Vodacom is striving to take advantage of the fact that Telkom will
not be able to call all the shots when Local Loop Unbundling (LLU) becomes a reality.
Will Local Loop Unbundling (LLU) happen overnight?
No.
Pieter Uys, Vodacom COO, made it clear ‘…that he does not expect LLU to happen
overnight as it is a complicated process that will take time to complete’ (Vodacom to launch ADSL, MyBroadband, 19
June 2007).
In other words, don’t expect too much over the short term where LLU is of a
concern.
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