{"id":416,"date":"2011-12-06T12:54:29","date_gmt":"2011-12-06T12:54:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=416"},"modified":"2011-12-07T19:18:08","modified_gmt":"2011-12-07T19:18:08","slug":"split-telkom-john-holdsworth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/telecommunications\/416\/split-telkom-john-holdsworth\/","title":{"rendered":"Split Telkom: John Holdsworth"},"content":{"rendered":"

The November 2011 deadline for local loop unbundling (LLU)<\/a> is looming, but doubts are cast on whether anything concrete will happen this year.<\/p>\n

LLU is seen as an intervention which will increase competition in the fixed line and ADSL market, which in turn will drive down prices and improve service levels.<\/p>\n

Speaking at the recent MyBroadband conference, ISPA\u2019s<\/a> Ant Brooks<\/a> said that competition is the key component to creating more choice and driving down prices to consumers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need competition on every level,\u201d said Brooks, adding that local loop unbundling will create competition right at the consumer level.<\/p>\n

Brooks said that he expects opposition from Telkom, who is still fighting competition and retain their grip on infrastructure which they have built over the years.<\/p>\n

Former ECN CEO, John Holdsworth,<\/a> said that regulatory intervention is needed before competition. \u201cBecause of Telkom\u2019s<\/a> inherent monopoly position it is not possible for any other operator to enter the space and set up a network to compete with Telkom,\u201d said Holdsworth.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are arguing about LLU. I have got more chance of falling pregnant than LLU being introduced this year,\u201d quipped Holdsworth.<\/p>\n

Holdsworth said that LLU is a mature technology, and that has been around for many years. However, he added that what is really needed is equivalence of input.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe regulator and the Department of Communications<\/a> need to step in and they need to split Telkom. They need to say that we are going to create a network company and a separate retail company,\u201d said Holdsworth.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore competition we need to set a regulatory framework. It is very difficult to compete against Telkom retail when they have all this inherent dominance and monopoly possession.\u201d<\/p>\n

LLU November deadline<\/strong><\/p>\n

ICASA<\/a> said that they are not planning to draft LLU regulations as part of the current process, and it is therefore not something people should be looking for.<\/p>\n

ICASA said that they are on track to announce their recommendations on a framework for LLU by the end of November 2011.<\/p>\n

\u201cFollowing the public consultation recently held, ICASA will be in a position to announce its findings and recommendations on a framework for LLU by the November deadline,\u201d the regulator said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former ECN CEO John Holdsworth said that there is a bigger chance of him falling pregnant than LLU happening this year<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":419,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[67,64,26,68,66,65],"class_list":["post-416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-telecommunications","tag-ant-brooks","tag-ecn","tag-headline","tag-ispa","tag-john-holdsworth","tag-telkom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416","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=416"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":418,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416\/revisions\/418"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}