{"id":16643,"date":"2012-06-29T01:26:29","date_gmt":"2012-06-28T23:26:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=16643"},"modified":"2012-11-14T17:42:07","modified_gmt":"2012-11-14T15:42:07","slug":"telkoms-broadband-plans-on-the-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/telecommunications\/16643\/telkoms-broadband-plans-on-the-money\/","title":{"rendered":"Telkom’s broadband plans on the money"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ericsson<\/a> released its second Traffic and Market Report, called \u201cOn the Pulse of the Networked Society\u201d, predicting that 85 percent of the world\u2019s population will have 3G<\/a> coverage by 2017, and 50 percent of the world\u2019s population will be covered by 4G in the same year.<\/p>\n

Other predictions from the report include smartphone subscriptions expected to reach 3 billion, and that global data traffic will grow 15 times by the end of 2017.<\/p>\n

\u201cMobile broadband subscriptions, meanwhile, are forecast to reach five billion in 2017, compared to one billion by the end of 2011,\u201d the Ericsson report stated.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe main continuous trend identified in the report is that everything is going mobile. This evolution is mainly being driven by people\u2019s increasing demand for anywhere, anytime connectivity and the use of video, cloud-based services and the internet \u2013 but also by machine-to-machine connectivity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Subscriptions development \u2013 fixed and mobile<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to the Ericsson Traffic and Market Report, the number of fixed PSTN voice subscriptions will continue its downward trend as users increasingly switch to mobile and VoIP<\/a> substitutions.<\/p>\n

This trend is accentuated in South Africa where Telkom<\/a> lost nearly 1 million subscribers over the last decade (down from 4,924,000 in 2002 to 3,995,000 in March 2012).<\/p>\n

Good news for Telkom is that there will be continued growth in fixed line broadband numbers, as shown in the graph below.<\/p>\n

\"Fixed<\/a>

Fixed and mobile subscriptions 2008-2017<\/p><\/div>\n

With the predicted continued decline in fixed narrowband voice services (hence the majority of Telkom\u2019s 4 million fixed line subscribers), and the growth in fixed broadband subscribers (hence Telkom\u2019s ADSL services which currently stands at 827,091), it is logical for Telkom to focus on its fixed broadband services.<\/p>\n

Telkom is doing exactly that. The company has embarked on a massive \u2018Network Transformation Initiative\u2019 which includes upgrading the existing access network with new-generation VDSL2 technology, serving 4.4 million subscribers.<\/p>\n

Telkom\u2019s is transforming its network to provide far higher speed broadband services over their existing copper infrastructure, as well as preparing for future fibre-to-the-home (FTTH)<\/a> offerings.<\/p>\n

The graph further shows the massive growth expected in mobile broadband subscriber numbers, and this is another area which Telkom is focusing on.<\/p>\n

Telkom CFO and Telkom Mobile acting head, Jacques Schindehutte<\/a> said that it is not a good strategy to try to compete head-on against Vodacom<\/a> and MTN<\/a> in the mobile voice market, and that 8ta\u2019s<\/a> future lies in data.<\/p>\n

According to Schindehutte, 8ta is building a robust mobile data network, and is crafting a niche for itself where it can bring a superior offering to its subscribers.<\/p>\n

Related articles<\/strong><\/p>\n

Telkom turns to Alcatel-Lucent for superfast broadband<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

8ta\u2019s big plans for high speed data<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Telkom\u2019s fixed line numbers the lowest in 15 years<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Price cut for Telkom uncapped services<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

ADSL capped data prices plummet<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ericsson’s traffic and market report substantiates Telkom’s large investment in both fixed and mobile broadband networks<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16538,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[407,1069,2137,26,1079,65],"class_list":["post-16643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-telecommunications","tag-8ta","tag-ericsson","tag-ftth","tag-headline","tag-jacques-schindehutte","tag-telkom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16643"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26563,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16643\/revisions\/26563"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}