Telkom has finally torn the fingernails off local consumers and dealt South Africa a mortal blow, in terms of communications and credibility.
Telkom was exposed for the overpriced, grubby money-making scam that it is in the recent Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) findings. Download and read the report of which Telkom is in direct breach with its new pricing structure to resellers starting November 1: Icasa ADSL Report Findings.
Icasa found that a variety of things that Telkom does are, at best, rank profiteering off the sweat of local citizens. So, Telkom decided to do a legal sidestep. Instead of directly increasing costs to consumers — which would mean Icasa could step in and stop it — Telkom has increased the cost of “its” bandwidth to resellers. They, in turn, would have to pass the cost on to consumers, a slimy legal step allowing Telkom to bypass the regulator “legally”.
What does this mean? Here’s a simple example. I used to pay about R600 for my ADSL connection, via an internet service provider (ISP). Now, thanks to Telkom’s massive November 1 price hike — in direct contravention of Icasa’s recent rulings — it will cost me R2 600 to have the same quantity of downloading.
Disregard any waffling PR nonsense by Telkom to justify its price hike on an internet pipe that we paid for, with our tax money. (Telkom tries to compare its prices to British Telecom (BT) prices, to justify its price hike. However, it is simply lying. A 30GB cap here now costs at least R2 000, compared with BT’s price of less than R200 for the same quantity. What Telkom avoids mentioning is that there is massive competition in the United Kingdom, and genuine “broadband” speeds.) Look at UK Broadband Comparisons.
Now read the articles at Hellkom and look through the online forum at MyADSL.
I’m disgusted and appalled that local media — and, more importantly, lawyers — have not sought immediate court action to stop this financial rape of net users, which clearly puts the internet out of the reach of the majority of citizens in South Africa. This is digital apartheid. It’s nothing new for Telkom, which clearly delights in tearing every last cent it can from those who need telecommunications. Read Telkom’s 1 500% Profit.
Where’s the government in this? (Or at least the politicians who aren’t Telkom stockholders, and thus profiting from the molestation of the economy.) Where’s Icasa and why is it not defending consumers? Read through some of the E-Mails Sent to Icasa.
Look at the price increases that ISPs have had to institute because of Telkom’s price hike. Here’s Axxess Price Increase, and here’s another — Web Africa Price Increases.
Just one lone ISP is trying to fight this price increase legally — and naturally Telkom has said that the ISP doesn’t have to pay the increased price … for now. Read Court Action Brought against Telkom by Dotco. However, if it loses the case, then the money will have to be paid “retroactively”.
Of course no one is saying the logical thing that, if Telkom loses its court action, then it should have to reimburse all the ISPs it is now overcharging: ADSL Billing Dispute Reaches Fever Pitch.
Telkom is clearly an insanely greedy, money-hungry organisation that doesn’t care about the damage it’s doing to local IT and telecommunications in South Africa. Just its fake “ADSL line rental” charges alone (and I call it fake because that’s what Icasa found — namely that Telkom had no reason to be charging for it each month) give Telkom about R30-million every month, for doing nothing — a hundred thousand ADSL users times about R300 monthly “rental”.
No wonder you have news items like Telkom Sees Higher Interim Earnings.
The rest of the world (and Africa) are moving towards much higher speeds and larger caps, but here in South Africa, we’re being pushed back into being told that three gigs a month of data is “sufficient” — and beyond this is “abuse”. Why? So that we don’t squeal like the molested pigs that Telkom clearly thinks we are when it overcharges us by 200% to 400% for wanting more than its arbitrary quantity of “allowed” data — despite the fact that the internet pipe, at present, can easily handle much larger volumes of bandwidth.
Telkom is the company that posted a R6-billion profit in the last year. That’s six thousand million rand profit.
You and I, and our parents’ taxes, paid for the internet pipe for which Telkom is mutilating us each month. It’s a national resource that’s being exploited and abused by one money-grabbing company that simply doesn’t care about the damage it is doing to the South African economy.
It seems clear that Telkom saw that resellers of its bandwidth were doing good business all by themselves — and it decided to raise the price of its own bandwidth, in order to kill the growing choice that was available to net users.
And few local ISPs and companies have the cojones to dare face off against this monolithic company, with the power and clout to destroy anyone who dares to try to confront its vile rape and pillaging of South Africa’s money, telecommunications and IT industries.
Many people this week are no longer going to be able to afford to be online.
Considering how much of this country’s economy is increasingly reliant on the internet for its operation, any threat to the economy must surely be seen as nothing more than economic terrorism. (Consider how Telkom, after the Icasa report was released, threatened to close down its ADSL service completely, should it have to comply with the Icasa findings.)
The effect of one profit-focused company arbitrarily threatening to close down a vital part of a country’s communication and business systems is the same as a bomber who threatens to destroy vital communications infrastructure with explosives. The end result is the same: disruption of the economy.
To have even the mindless arrogance to suggest what Telkom did demonstrates that the government needs to step in and take the internet pipe away from Telkom now.
It’s not “competition” or “just the free-market system in action” when there are threats being made by a single company that has near-total control over this nation’s ability to communicate and conduct business with the rest of the world.
This situation is beyond allowing some people to “download stuff” — it strikes at the heart of the modern South Africa, its democracy and its current and future ability to function. Telkom is, in effect, now holding the economy of this country hostage.
And many more people — mostly the “historically disadvantaged”, to use the local euphemism — will no longer be able to access the world wide web, from November 1. Telkom has seen to that — and its saying “but everyone can have access” is a blatant lie, given its thumb-sucked inflated prices for download bandwidth. (This is like suggesting that you can have a new car, as long as you don’t mind never driving it — because when you do, you’ll be made to pay R80 for a litre of petrol.)
It’s our internet pipe, our telecommunications, our world to interact with — but Telkom doesn’t give a damn. It is clearly saying “fornicate the poor” — to put it politely.
So where’s our president now? It’s now nine months ago that he stated that the high costs of telecommunications were damaging the economy. And because of the November 1 price hikes to resellers, a digital, artificially expensive “iron curtain” is now in place around South Africa’s borders, thanks to Telkom.
You lawyers, you social activists, you politicians reading this — what are you tangibly doing about this? Anything? Or is the truth simply that you don’t you care, because you can afford to pay Telkom’s economically obnoxious and unacceptable high prices?
Pity about the majority of citizens in South Africa.
Halloween
It’s Halloween. And we love Michael Myers, and all things sick and nasty, and all evil great and small. It’s occasionally useful to be in a country that clearly follows this same Halloween goth nihilistic idea at every possible turn. To get you into the day, read Embrace the Darkness.
To stay in the mood, and to shake your ideas of art, find and grab the awesome Photoshopped Horror Heroes as Famous Art Works.
A Halloween news item to make you go “ah geez”. Read about the woman who hanged herself — and people thought it was a Halloween gag. Read Hanging Mistaken for Halloween Decoration.
For those of you Halloween freaks who — like me — are about to go carve up a pumpkin to make a cool, scary-looking Jack o’ Lantern, try this for a modern take. Instead of a candle inside, try this Jack o’ LED. And to see what the tireless Photoshop geeks have been doing with pumpkins, browse through Halloween Pumpkins Photoshopped.
For more pumpkin-related goodness, those of you who remember the comic strip Peanuts — and specifically Linus and his thing for The Great Pumpkin — will be alarmed and disturbed by this meshing of the Lovecraftian Cthulhu Mythos, of The Old Ones, and Linus’s Great Pumpkin in a downloadable MP3 called The Great Old Pumpkin.
CNN reports that albino pumpkins are the rage this year. Read White Is the New Orange.
Halloween tats: if you’re about to go cry in the tattoo parlour and get yourself a neat tattoo, then browse for inspiration through these Halloween Tattoos. There are more horror-themed tattoos here.
Need to have something extra special in your garden? Why not build your very own Haunted Backyard Crypt? Or how about a nice haunted house made out of gingerbread? For architecture meeting cookery, drool over The Haunted Manor.
Evil film geeks and editors have been attacking and re-editing well-known films, and making trailers that show a movie completely different to the original. Have a look at the trailer for the fun, happy, family comedy version of The Shining. To freak out and disturb the film geeks and snobs you know, have a look at the revamp of a well-known classic musical — grab The Zombie Version of West Side Story. Then, edited to show that it’s a horror film, how about The Extra-Scary Version of Titanic?
Imagine Gandhi remade as a film about a stand-up comic, or The Sound of Music as a documentary on snuff films; personally I’d love to see a trailer for Cry Freedom as a comedy. Anyone locally with editing skills up to the challenge? Read about this growing form of fun that remakes history before your horrified eyes at Making Light: Creative Editing.
Granny knitted what? Go be awed and a little nervous, at a Knitted Version of the Human Digestive System. Or, if you’re a knitting geek, try Knitting DNA.
Now for something slightly more preppy. There’s nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come. The same can also be said of music tunes. Take, for instance, the viral aural memes of a certain little melody that just keeps on coming back to scratch our consciousness. For more versions of a classic little tune than you thought possible, go get the butter and salt ready at Popcorn.
Slightly into David Lynch territory, browse through these odd photographs of toys, arranged into poses to suggest that something else is going on. Look at A Photoset of Toys. Or, to step towards the totally surreal, look over these pix of giant pieces of meat, in landscapes. It’s hard to describe, but very interesting — just look at MeatScapes.
Something to disturb visitors is this vertical bookcase that lets you stack books one on top of the other into a completely stable but totally disturbing stack of books that is also a great space saver. I want one, or two — or many. Go stare at The Vertical Bookcase.
In marked contrast to local Telscum-created conditions, have a look at this “in car” video blog, created by a man who decided to fill his time while commuting to work by making his own TV show: Drive Time: The Telecommuting Video Blog.
As opposed to the local urine-soaked streets and exhaust fumes that make up the general smells of urban Africa, read this odd news item: The Sweet Smell of New York. (Being a happy conspiracy follower, let’s see if there’s a “surprise” disease outbreak within the next five days in New York.)
If you’re an HP Lovecraft fan, have a look at some cool paper craft so that you can Make Your Own Necronomicon.
For the geeks who remember that recently a “nanocar” was made, here’s there next step, literally — go stare at A Walking Molecule.
Finally, obscenity is always wonderful — but what’s better than when tech geeks are flaming and being abusive in text to each other? Correct! Tech geeks who don’t speak English too well, yet still have the urge to punish. This might be the new “all your base are belong to us” meme in the making. Read the back-and-forth e-mails at Indian Techie Flame Wars.
Until the next time, if the Great Pumpkin doesn’t get me.