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How SBC (AT&T) Pillaged South Africa's Economy
Kifoth writes "For 8 years, SBC and Telekom Malaysia controlled South Africa's only telecommunications company, Telkom. Telkom had a government granted monopoly in order for it to connect the large parts of South Africa that had been neglected under apartheid. Instead of helping, SBC abused their position and raised Telkom's prices to be among the highest in the world. The billions they made here ultimately went to fund their AT&T merger. From the article: 'SBC, described as "congenitally litigious", is said to have played a major role in the failure of South Africa's telecoms policy to develop a competitive telephone service. Under SBC's control Telkom not only failed to meet its roll-out obligations but behaved "as a tax on industry and a drag on economic growth."'"
Heh... the only problem with that is the fact that the vast majority of our people are afraid of change from the ANC to another party. I guess mostly because they are afraid of another Apartheid. However they must realise that our current government pretty much sucks in a lot of ways and maybe a change is needed to make our country stronger and healthier. Or maybe the ANC could start actually doing something for us.. Our internet here isn't great at all.. With 1Mbps - 4Mbps ADSL being the latest thing coming out just recently. And until we see another telecommunications company coming along to help us we'll be stuck with the wonderful prices from Telkom...
When are governments going to learn?
... The ppl with all the money make the rules, or in this case break them.
Let me explain this to you...the poor don't bankroll politicians campaigns, the rich do.
Golden Rule
Most politicians in most countries are quite corrupt.
I am sure south africa is no exception to this.
The world needs a way to monitor the affairs of their politicians,
because for example here in the states, they often spend more to
get into office than they will receive as a paycheck the entire
time they are in office.
The math doesn't add up.....until....you account for under the table
gifts to them, their children, thei offshore accounts, numbered accounts
in switzerland, etc etc.
As Open Source is good for code, the world needs Open Government,
where those who serve are well paid and jack assery like this
I am about to mention is considered a crime, and sent to court accordingly:
http://www.tispa.org/node/14
$200 billion rip off right here in the USA.
The telecoms have a history of total theft, and nothing short
of destroying them totally and putting Co-ops in their place
has any chance of succeeding against this carpet baggers
of the new generation.
The WorldCom's , the global crossings, the Bells, Adelphia,
it just goes on and on.
It needs to be a regulated utility, and when it is foudn they
ripped us off "intentionally" they need their asses fined into oblivion.
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
I hear ya, my mother is from SA and so I've been there many times over the last 21 years. Biggest change apart from the race-related ones that I've seen is how much you guys use your cellphones. I was visiting a cousin while she was in hospital in Jo'burg and remarked that back home (UK) they don't allow cellphones to be turned on in hospitals - let alone used 24/7. She stated flatly that they'd never be able to do that in SA, people seem to be surgically attached to them. But with Telkom's charges it's not hard to see why.
What you described in not a truly Free Market, as in Pure Competition. You are showing that a regionally sanctioned Monopoly is still a Monopoly just not over the entire country.
It's analogous to each US State having their own single controller over basic services. You will find people proclaiming that there is no Monopoly. They list 50 different companies, yet will quickly change subject when they are challenged on the fact that a real Capitalist system would demand/require that all 50 competitors have equal access to all 50 states.
When that happens, and fails then I'll be willing to work on a more advanced open system that has safeguards from a government point-of-view.
Since we don't have any sort of real Capitalist system in the world we should stop the age old war of Capitalism vs. Socialism.
I'm personally sick of the fact that I've got only 1 cable company to choose from [Comcast] and only 2 major Satellite companies [DirecTV and DISH] to choose from where I get my digital media.
I'll not be impressed until there are at least 10 competitors in the region to fight for my money.
This goes for the auto industry, telecom industry, and any other industry that isn't the regulated like one's local PUD.
I've got one major telco to work with that isn't a cable provider: QWEST.
Ma Bell was broken up into 12 Regional Monopolies.
Reagan blew it and that's no surprise.
Ma Bell should have been broken up into 12 companies independently competing with each other and other new vendors across the U.S. Unfortunately, they decided to subdivide the backbone of the existing hard trunk by region and didn't invest into making a generic backbone with vendors running their own services to the trunk to then work across the entire backbone.
Services should separate the vendor, not the total fiber layed.
People would rather talk about being a Capitalist Republic instead of demanding one.