Politics.za: ICASA Is Useless

ICASA Is Useless

Farrel — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 07:41:00 -0500

After two years of deliberation into the state of state of broadband internet access in South Africa caused solely by Telkom (our incumbent privatised monopoly), it’s extortion level tarriffs, uncompetitive practices, general mismanagement and media spin, ICASA has finally released their report.

And it’s a complete waste of time:

SA’s long-awaited pricing model for ADSL services has fallen short of industry expectations.

The final draft of the ADSL regulations, which ITWeb obtained ahead of the scheduled publication in the Government Gazette, will disappoint industry players, who earlier called for an international price model, the scrapping of line-rental fees and the lowering of access charges to ADSL infrastructure.

Interconnection guidelines will be addressed in a parallel investigation, says ICASA chairman Paris Mashile. Interconnection guidelines will be addressed in a parallel investigation, says ICASA chairman Paris Mashile. In addition, the Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) has ignored industry’s expectation that it should regulate ADSL pricing by putting a specific figure to Telkom’s wholesale tariffs. No figures are quoted in the new document.

The regulations show the price of ADSL services remains bundled into a once-off installation charge, a monthly rental for provisioning and maintenance of ADSL lines, and a bandwidth charge.

The only change recommended is uncapped local bandwidth, something which was previously available until Telkom capped it in November last year.

What a comletely useless regulator ICASA has become.

"ICASA Is Useless" by Inyoka

Fri, 18 Aug 2006 10:24:07 -0500

Absolutely appaling and made worse by the fact that a second provider (whenever) is unlikely to be any better given that Hellkom is a ‘partner’ (???)

One cannot have real competition when everyone has thier hands in each other’s pockets. The mobile providers are just as bad. They simply get together and make up prices, disguising their collusion with convoluted and confusing offers and advertising.

In other countries the ombudsman would have their guts for garters.

"ICASA Is Useless" by Farrel

Thu, 17 Aug 2006 09:26:54 -0500

Supposedly the regulations are not all bad but the two biggest points which make ADSL so expensive, namely monthly ADSL line rental and Telkom’s exorbitant IPConnect fees, are basically left alone. With those two issues still there not much changes.

I can already see Telkom’s new ads “New! Uncapped local bandwidth!!!” of course not mentioning that we had that until they took it away in November 2005.

"ICASA Is Useless" by someamongus

Thu, 17 Aug 2006 09:09:08 -0500

Unfortunately, the joke is on all of us.