Telkom South Africa has announced a 15% price reduction on its IP Connect (IPC) product offering with the new price to take effect from 1 February 2014. This announcement follows a 5% ‘free’ IP Connect bandwidth allowance that was offered by Telkom’s wholesale division on a temporary basis from 1 October 2013. ‘Telkom has now decided to convert the above allowance into a permanent price reduction. This, together with an additional 10% price reduction, means that wholesale customers will receive an effective 15% price reduction on all new and existing IP Connect capacity procured from Telkom as from 1 February’, the company’s press release noted. Casper Kondo Chihaka, managing executive for Telkom Wholesale Services, commented: ‘I believe that this price reduction will further assist and enable ISPs to grow fixed broadband service offerings in South Africa. This is yet another significant contribution by Telkom to lower the cost of communication in line with the government’s objectives. We are also hopeful that this price reduction will ultimately result in more affordable broadband price offerings for South African broadband consumers.’
Meanwhile, Telkom CEO Sipho Maseko has disclosed that the company will be offering consumers a triple-play combination of uncapped internet access, voice services and video-on-demand (VoD) for one flat-rate fee within the next twelve months, TechCentral reports. The executive said: ‘If last year was about putting in place the building blocks for our company’s recovery, 2014 will be the year in which we will focus on efficiently executing our plans and modernising our network to make this possible. We also intend to reset our relationships and partnerships with the industry in a fundamental way.’ Maseko also commented on telecoms watchdog ICASA’s recently submitted draft regulation on Local Loop Unbundling (LLU) by stating that although LLU was meant to promote competition, it was an outdated regulatory remedy which would not achieve its goal ‘in the era of fourth-generation wireless technology’. He added: ‘The problem is that LLU will discourage investment in the sector – which wouldn’t be desirable in a country where teledensity — the number of fixed lines in service — is only 7%. At best, LLU will only benefit this 7% of largely urbanised people. So what about the other 93%?’