How very satisfying to read the front page headline in last week’s ‘Business†insert in this paper. It gave expression to a desire inscribed on the very sub-conscious of this nation.
The headline to Lloyd Gedye’s splendid article was ‘Knysna’s ‘up yours’ to Telkomâ€. There are few in this country who, seeing that headline, would be able to resist reading the story it introduced. Anything which strikes at the fixed-line telephone monopoly with which South Africa has so long been doomed is welcome.
To paraphrase the immortal Winston: Telkom is a fiasco hidden inside a disaster enveloped in a national disgrace wrapped in Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri. Just like the old Posts and Telegraphs department used to do, Telkom jealously mothers its lucrative monopoly. When you deal with Telkom, you take it or leave it. There’s nowhere else to go.
Few will deny that these days Telkom is much improved from the times when getting a telephone took anything between 18 months and two years.
It now takes only nine days from application to installation. In theory, that is. In reality, Telkom will agree to a date and a time for the installation of the phone in the home you are moving to (and which is unoccupied) and then send their technician two days earlier, when there’s no one there. In the event they might suddenly decide to install earlier than arranged, Telkom agree to telephone the day before so as to make sure someone would be at the premises to meet them. This they forget to do.
Nonetheless, within half an hour of the Telkom technician arriving at an empty house, a young lady from Telkom will call you on your cellphone, whinge about your miscreance and inform you that, as a result of your having not been there, your phone won’t be installed for another fortnight. The first law of the Telkom Mission states: ‘If Telkom fucks up, the customer must hurt.â€
Anyone phoning up a Telkom complaints number will wonder what I am talking about. If there’s one tiny corner of its vast monopolistic empire where Telkom excels, it is in the quality of its call centres. Allowing that no one anywhere in Telkom appears to have a second name, these are of world standard. You simply can’t imagine a more pleasant and helpful selection of people. More to their credit and training when you think of the level of bitterness, frustration and inclement anger that doubtless must come pouring into the ear of any poor soul receiving complaints about Telkom’s service out there in the real world of maintenance, installation, faulty equipment and underpaid staff.
Having robot-like humans in your call centre is by no means another Telkom monopoly. All mega corporations indulge in this charade. Sweet talk and first names are so much cheaper than actually eliminating the problems.
But then, Telkom management will loftily dismiss as unessential great tranches of its technical staff. We are saving money for our customers, its spokesfolk will state smugly. Telkom will, however, spend R20-million or R30-million on sending a selection of its top corporate staff and their families on first class trips to the Athens Olympic Games. To accommodate its luxury guests at the games, Telkom will charter a small luxury liner.
But back to the headline above. What the Knysna municipality is doing is erecting a rigid middle finger at Telkom’s ridiculously excessive charges for high-speed and voice-over access to the Internet. Knysna municipality wants to offer these as a wireless service. In other words, people signing up will able to access e-mail, surf, make telephone calls, all without ever using a phone line. Which is even better is that Knysna’s charges will undercut Telkom’s by around 50%. Telkom’s charges for its ADSL lines are, by any measure, absurdly inflated. In the United Kingdom my daughter pays £16 a month for uncapped broadband and that took all of three days to install — on a line supplied independently of British Telecom. See if, for around R180, you can get a similar deal in our Telkom dependent telecommunications industry.
Here comes the expected surprise. Knysna’s planned breaking of the Telkom stranglehold is being challenged by Telkom, which claims the proposed Knysna wireless service is illegal — even though it appears to be have been sanctioned by Dilatory Ivy herself. Telkom is also threatening to sue for loss of earnings. I’ll give you one guess as to who will be paying for this legal action every time one of us picks up a phone.
A few and much larger municipalities — Durban, Tshwane, Cape Town, Johannesburg — are looking at the Knysna option. More power to their wireless modems. Telkom must be humbled.
Happier news to finish. Look out for the first edition in 2006 of this humble tabloid. This is because wrapped inside this tabloid will be a screamingly funny, daringly controversial, crabbily satirical, even slightly satanistic tabloid called Not the Mail & Guardian III.
If you want to know about the International Space Station being hijacked, about plans to erect a humungus statue of Brett Kebble in Trafalgar Square, about Kortbroek’s hopes of becoming a presidential candidate, and a lot more, then remember January 6.
Don’t be disappointed! Secure your copy of Not the M&G now!