Sunday, September 25, 2005
No touch-i tomorrow! Bye bye Telkom!
Our proudly unproudly telecoms monopoly believes they are providing their customers a service by making huge profits for their investors.
I am sorry to say, but they priced themselves out of the market. How dumb is this? To make more money you have to charge more? No, let me explain economics 101, make it cheaper, get more customers, more customers will mean more business, more business means greater profits. Is it such a difficult concept to grasp? It must be! for our telecom operator, and them record labels seem to be clueless. That is where companies like google are spot on. They actually "get it". I wish I had some shares...
Last week I decided to get rid of my trusty telkom ISDN line, T3|k0m was charging me R 190 line rental, R 50 for infinitcall, ISP costs were another R 115. So that is close to R350 just to have the ability to have a line for internet access. Then there were normal phone calls, every connection to the net costs around R10 (during off peak) and insanely expensive during peak times. Minimum amount per month was about R450. I basically use my line to check email, read some news, chat on IM from time to time, and now and then I will post something to my blog. Most people use their lines in a similar fashion. Well it is official, using my cell phone is way cheaper! I pay a monthly fee for my contract R170 in total, I get 50 free anytime minutes and internet costs me R2 per MB, the best thing is that a even got a funky phone for free! A horrible month would probably cost me around R250. Sad but true. Plus I have the added comfort of being portable. This means I can in theory take my internet connection along on vacation, the coffee shop etc. be a true geek ;).
The best thing I can do is by spreading the word, if you use your telkom line mainly to check email and chat via IM, maybe check out a site or 2, then you should be switching to GPRS. There are no monthly fees for internet unless you buy a bundle, so if you do not use the internet, there are no fees. When posting to my blog I might spend an hour or two online, the best part that it costs me between 50c to R1. Touch that! Telkom! Next time you touch tomorrow, you might get slapped!
I am sorry to say, but they priced themselves out of the market. How dumb is this? To make more money you have to charge more? No, let me explain economics 101, make it cheaper, get more customers, more customers will mean more business, more business means greater profits. Is it such a difficult concept to grasp? It must be! for our telecom operator, and them record labels seem to be clueless. That is where companies like google are spot on. They actually "get it". I wish I had some shares...
Last week I decided to get rid of my trusty telkom ISDN line, T3|k0m was charging me R 190 line rental, R 50 for infinitcall, ISP costs were another R 115. So that is close to R350 just to have the ability to have a line for internet access. Then there were normal phone calls, every connection to the net costs around R10 (during off peak) and insanely expensive during peak times. Minimum amount per month was about R450. I basically use my line to check email, read some news, chat on IM from time to time, and now and then I will post something to my blog. Most people use their lines in a similar fashion. Well it is official, using my cell phone is way cheaper! I pay a monthly fee for my contract R170 in total, I get 50 free anytime minutes and internet costs me R2 per MB, the best thing is that a even got a funky phone for free! A horrible month would probably cost me around R250. Sad but true. Plus I have the added comfort of being portable. This means I can in theory take my internet connection along on vacation, the coffee shop etc. be a true geek ;).
The best thing I can do is by spreading the word, if you use your telkom line mainly to check email and chat via IM, maybe check out a site or 2, then you should be switching to GPRS. There are no monthly fees for internet unless you buy a bundle, so if you do not use the internet, there are no fees. When posting to my blog I might spend an hour or two online, the best part that it costs me between 50c to R1. Touch that! Telkom! Next time you touch tomorrow, you might get slapped!
# posted @ Sunday, September 25, 2005 5:20 PM 
