{"id":34029,"date":"2013-03-20T13:00:15","date_gmt":"2013-03-20T11:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=34029"},"modified":"2013-03-20T13:06:31","modified_gmt":"2013-03-20T11:06:31","slug":"telkom-mobile-is-the-future-of-telkom-md","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/34029\/telkom-mobile-is-the-future-of-telkom-md\/","title":{"rendered":"Telkom Mobile is the future of Telkom: MD"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cTelkom Mobile is the future of Telkom\u201d, Attila Vitai<\/a>, managing director of the rebranded business unit told journalists at a media briefing yesterday (19 March 2013).<\/p>\n

According to Vitai, he and many of his colleagues believe that all of Telkom<\/a> will look like the mobile arm in future, and that Telkom Mobile is the growth engine of the company.<\/p>\n

Vitai went on to explain Telkom\u2019s reasoning behind launching the Telkom Mobile brand and incorporating 8ta<\/a> into it as a \u201csub-brand\u201d.<\/p>\n

The new Telkom Mobile brand is set to launch on 20 March 2013 along with its own suite of products.<\/p>\n

Telkom Mobile Products<\/h3>\n

Vitai didn\u2019t reveal much information about the products Telkom Mobile has planned, saying that he didn\u2019t want to give their competitors advanced warning.<\/p>\n

However, when he officially announced Telkom Mobile, he said that the brand will target \u201chigh value\u201d customers that use a lot of voice and data.<\/p>\n

Vitai was also willing to confirm that there will be offerings for smartphone users that need only a little bit of voice and a lot of data.<\/p>\n

When further questioned about specifics, Vitai said that subscribers won\u2019t receive one bill showing their Telkom and Telkom Mobile services together, but that the option of a single bill will happen in future.<\/p>\n

\"Attila<\/a>

Attila Vitai<\/p><\/div>\n

Branding and perception<\/h3>\n

Asked whether the rebranding would negatively impact perceptions in the industry and with the regulator, Vitai said that they didn\u2019t believe it would.<\/p>\n

Telkom\u2019s retail businesses (such as Telkom Mobile and TelkomInternet) are not meant to receive preferential treatment from Telkom\u2019s wholesale arm, which offers services such as backhaul and international network connectivity.<\/p>\n

South Africa\u2019s regulating bodies may be called on to intervene if Telkom is shown to be behaving in an anti-competitive manner.<\/p>\n

One might argue that the 8ta brand made a clearer distinction between the retail and wholesale arms of Telkom.<\/p>\n

However, Vitai said that Telkom Mobile\u2019s relationship with Telkom Group will remain the same as it was under 8ta.<\/p>\n

More on Telkom Mobile and 8ta<\/h3>\n

8ta to rebrand as Telkom Mobile<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

8ta BlackBerry Z10 prices<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

8ta powered by Telkom<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cTelkom Mobile is the future of Telkom\u201d, according to Telkom Mobile’s managing director, Attila Vitai.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":34037,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[5083,26,65,1075],"class_list":["post-34029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","tag-attila-vitai","tag-headline","tag-telkom","tag-telkom-mobile"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34029","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\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34029"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34031,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34029\/revisions\/34031"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}