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No guidance, no
assistance
ADSL
South Africa (Broadband South Africa), 29 April
2007
Guidance and
assistance from the Internet Service Providers
Association (ISPA) pertaining to recent developments in
the ADSL broadband arena, seems to be non-existent, at
least at present.
Telkom recently launched its ADSL
resell product ‘…allowing ISPs to resell the ADSL access
portion of the service’ (ISPA mum on developments in ADSL
space, MyADSL, 26 April 2007).
In other words, Telkom’s ADSL
resell product allows Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to
offer their customers ‘one-price’ ADSL offerings.
Can it be described as
‘innovative’ or ‘groundbreaking’?
It’s important that ADSL users
are not blinded by Telkom’s efforts to sell its ADSL resell
product off as something innovative or groundbreaking. Telkom
is doing nobody a favour. The truth is that Telkom has
suppressed the introduction of an ADSL resell product that
makes the reselling of one price ADSL offerings possible, for
far too long. And now that its here, Telkom is making sure that
TelkomInternet is the only ISP that will truly benefit from
their half-assed ADSL resell product. Half-assed because it’s
nothing more than selfishness and greed disguised as something
good.
In short, Telkom pretends to be
the hero but it’s a case of Telkom addressing injustices
created by them in the past, by creating new injustices by
misusing its power AGAIN.
Why are many ISPs feeling
lost in regard to Telkom’s ADSL resell
product?
Well, nobody can really blame
many ISPs for feeling lost in a certain sense after the launch
of Telkom’s ADSL resell product because ‘…utilizing this new
offering from Telkom is (however) littered with obstacles and
transferring an existing customer’s ADSL access portion to an
ISP has proven to be near impossible’ (ISPA mum on developments
in ADSL space, MyADSL, 26 April 2007), and it’s further clear
that ISPA is no where to be found for guidance and
assistance.
In other words, what was supposed
to be straightforward and a delight has now become a nightmare
for many ISPs because of Telkom’s misuse of power. Added on top
of this: ISPA has so far failed to provide guidance and
feedback on the issue at hand, leaving many ISPs out in the
cold.
‘Another concern raised by
service providers is the free modem offer provided by Telkom
which does not seem to apply to them. The feedback from a
variety of ISPs is that this practice is unfair. According to
one of the ISPs, attempts to gain clarity from Telkom on the
matter have been fruitless’ (ISPA mum on developments in ADSL
space, MyADSL, 26 April 2007).
In other words, Telkom unfairly
supplies free modems to TelkomInternet as part of the ADSL
resell product but not to other ISPs.
‘Telkom’s Do Broadband offerings
bring true one-price packages to the local telecoms market,
something welcomed by many consumers. These packages, some of
which combine telephony offers from Telkom, are seen by many
ISPs as possibly uncompetitive. Their ability to bundle a
variety of services at a relatively low price puts pressure on
ISPs and places margin squeeze on them’ (ISPA mum on
developments in ADSL space, MyADSL, 26 April 2007).
In other words, Telkom
is squeezing life out of many ISPs because of their
ability to act as a wholesaler and a
retailer.
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