list two characteristics of the market structure where telkom operated before the emergence of the big three
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Answer:
Explanation:
The first use of telecommunication in the Republic of South Africa was a single line telegraph connecting Cape Town and Simonstown.[when?] After Bell Labs' development of the telephone, the first undersea links were introduced, first connecting Durban and Europe, and soon after, the rest of the world. The network continued to develop through internal financing in a heavily regulated market as international technology developed. At this point, telephone services were operated by the South African Post Office.
In the 1960s, South Africa was connected to 72 nations and total outgoing annual international calls numbered over 28,800.
In the 1990s, South Africa launched its mobile operations, underwritten by Telkom in partnership with Vodafone. This subsidiary grew to be Vodacom, which Telkom sold in late 2008 in preference for its own 3G network (established as 8ta, but now Telkom Mobile). Vodacom has a subscriber base of more than 45M, with an average revenue per user of more than R60 across both rural and urban subscribers. Vodacom, together with the other operators, have come under criticism in late 2009 by government and the public for high interconnect charges.[2] This issue is currently being discussed by the Parliamentary Committee on Telecommunications.
In 2004, the Department of Communications redefined the Electronics Communications Act, which consolidated and redefined the landscape of telecommunications licensing in South Africa (both mobile and fixed). The Independent Communications Authority (ICASA) currently licenses more than 400 independent operators with the Electronic Communications Network License (with the ability to self-provision) as well as issuing Electronic Communications Service Licenses for service deployment over infrastructure in the retail domain.
Telkom is no longer the single operator in South Africa, and faces competition from the second Fixed Network Operator Licensee, Neotel, as well as the three mobile operators, Vodacom, MTN and Cell-C. However, it still receives criticisms (see later) from smaller operators and the Competition Commission for setting South African broadband pricing in its favour.
Telkom group structure
Telkom SA is structured under Group CEO, Mr Sipho Maseko. The retail division, including Telkom Business, Telkom Mobile, Consumer Marketing, Cloud and IT Operations are run by Group Chief Operating Officer, Dr Brian Armstrong and its Wholesale and Networks division(OpenServe) is under MD Alphonso Samuels.
Cybernest focuses on Telkom's newly deployed DCO infrastructure in Cape Town, Pretoria and Johannesburg, as well as services thereupon, including data hosting, LAN and application management and managing IT infrastructure for corporate and large business customers.
Telkom acquired Business Connexion in September 2015 for approximately ZAR 2.7 billion with the strategic intent of obtaining a significant presence in the Information Technology (IT) market in South Africa. This was the second attempt at the acquisition by Telkom and was subject to a number of prescribed conditions set out by the competition authorities i.e. one of which was to ensure minimal impact on staff retrenchments. The integration of the two (2) organisations enabled a new and compelling value proposition to be offered to private and public business customers in the domestic market.
Jeffrey Hedberg was appointed acting group chief executive officer on 7 July 2010 following Reuben September's resignation. Jeffrey was the CEO of Cell C from 2006 to 2009. However, on 13 January 2011, TechCentral reported that Hedberg would quit Telkom by the end of March 2011,[3] citing that he felt that he would not be given the mandate he needed to fix Telkom commercially and operationally.
The mandate to control Telkom's corporate (and business) strategy was managed by the South African Government – a Class-A shareholder in the privately listed Company. It is speculated that Government is intending Telkom "to play a more active role in the rest of Africa". Telkom's performance in Africa has been less than spectacular, reporting a significant goodwill impairment in 2010 of its Nigerian operations.[4]
In 2013, Telkom was rocked by speculation of corruption in terms of poor procurement practice, nepotism and mismanagement[5] and the uncertainty around fired COO, Motlasti Nzeku,[6] whose future at the operator remained uncertain.
Telkom market position and ownership