Telkom uncapped ADSL launched at rAge 2011; pricing revealed

[Necuno]

Definitely not getting. No connection is worth a contract, period. Besides the real story is over at techcentral it seems:

Competition played a role in Telkom’s decision to launch uncapped fixed-line broadband services on Friday. But the main reason it’s going uncapped is that it plans to launch video-on-demand (VOD) services within the next year.

The move — Telkom is at an “advanced stage” of discussions with a number of local and foreign content providers — will put the company on a collision course with incumbent pay-TV operator MultiChoice, which is also planning to introduce Internet-based VOD soon. MultiChoice owns DStv, which already offers a satellite-based subscription VOD-type service called BoxOffice.

Steven White, Telkom’s executive for converged business services, says Internet service providers can no longer provide differentiated services based on bandwidth and line speed alone and need to offer value-added products.

Content delivery will be a cornerstone of Telkom’s plans to remain competitive, he says.

“We understand that fast Internet isn’t the game anymore,” White says. “Our aspiration is to offer full content delivery services.”

He says Telkom isn’t trying to replicate Telkom Media (later renamed Super 5 Media), its failed attempt to launch a satellite-based pay-TV service in competition with MultiChoice. Rather, he says, the company will focus its efforts on Internet-based VOD, later offering full Internet Protocol television products.

White won’t say which content providers Telkom is talking to, but he will confirm that it is not engaging with Netflix.

Netflix is the largest VOD service provider in the US. “We’d love to have Netflix, but SA is not on their radar screen right now,” White says.

He adds that Telkom will increase fixed-line broadband speeds “across the board” to cater for VOD since these services can’t be provided over slower lines. However, he won’t put a timeline to this. Telkom’s entry-level product offers maximum download speeds of 384kbit/s, which is insufficient for VOD.

He also says Telkom is improving its network management capabilities to allow for “deep-packet inspection”. This will allow it to zero-rate certain types of content and premium-rate others.
—Duncan McLeod, TechCentral

[MOnk]

VOD services limited to a single ISP are doomed to fail. People still care about their ISP's ability to actually get them onto the net and if you can't do that properly or consistenly then people aren't going to stay with you just for a VOD service.

[will1023631]

The positive thing about this whole endeavor is that Telkom has now realised that they are vulnerable. With their market shares being on the steady decline over the past few months and the losses they sustained due to their Nigerian deal costing them almost half their capital worth, they are actually on the route to evolving and expanding beyond their monopoly that they have been running. They have seen that if they don't draw back their customers they are pretty much going to perish.

And this shows that Pinky Moholi is actually bringing some new flavour to Telkom. I thought she was just gonna end up being another figure head that would let Telkom die

[shadowfox]

I think Telkom need to dump their uncapped ideas, dump their upgrading the speed ideas, and maybe focus on fixing the exchanges that are falling over across the whole damn country.

They're arse-about-face at the moment.

[will1023631]

Unfortunately that isn't going to happen. They need to draw in revenue. They have taken big losses this year and need to refocus themselves on being a desirable ISP. Even though they have majority control over the exchanges in South Africa, they are waiting in suspense to see what the ruling on LLU is. There is no point in them investing in the national grid if there is a possibility of the national grid going up as a free for all.

Another Achilles heel that struck Telkom this year was the penalties they incurred (almost half their capital worth) when their Nigerian deal fell through the floor and they had to pay fines as per court order. So it makes sense for them to focus on trying to draw internet customers back since local loop unbundling will be end of them if they don't change market strategy now.

[Wesley Gombard]

It doesn't sound better than my current Mweb package though