And that`s not all. Icasa chairman Paris Mashile told a business daily in the same week that the regulator would soon introduce regulations that would end Telkom`s monopoly of the international line.
Now we`re talking! Just a few weeks ago, a note of exasperation crept into The First Word about the lack of specificity in official circles about the need to liberate bandwidth and the people who ought to have it.
Dare we hope that things have changed, now that government has finally been moved to talk the talk?
DOC Deputy Roy Padayachie, who somehow avoids the traditional government trap of having too little to say on the one hand, and being too much of a media darling on the other, came out most quotably: "There must be no holy cows in lowering telecoms prices," he said at the colloquium. "Why should it be unthinkable that certain local calls should be free? Why should it be unthinkable that there should be no monthly rental on the telephone?" Padayachie went on to promise ministerial declarations within a month, noting there would not be another colloquium.
It`s enough to make you want to write optimistic editorials. The temptation now is to sit back and relax, as sanity seems to prevail, for once. But as Mariette du Plessis pointed out in last week`s issue (13 October), don`t hold your breath. Telkom still has a few aces up its sleeve, and if you want to know what stalling tactics it has access to in terms of international precedents, look up Yankee Group on the tricks that incumbents have got up to in the past.
It`s bound to get a lot more interesting yet. On a less scary note, it`s our pleasure to introduce the six finalists of the IT Personality of the Year awards in this issue. Well done to one and all - we think you`ll find the reading interesting.
|
Post a comment
|
Login.
Business Best Practise
