{"id":8539,"date":"2012-03-28T09:44:50","date_gmt":"2012-03-28T07:44:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=8539"},"modified":"2012-03-28T12:17:12","modified_gmt":"2012-03-28T10:17:12","slug":"holdsworth-explains-cheaper-costs-and-legal-threats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/telecommunications\/8539\/holdsworth-explains-cheaper-costs-and-legal-threats\/","title":{"rendered":"Holdsworth explains cheaper costs and legal threats"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reunert<\/a> has instituted legal proceedings against John Holdsworth<\/a> and AppChat for breaching restraint of trade agreements – but John Holdsworth said that he does not believe that they are in breach of any confidentiality or restraint undertakings, and will be opposing the matter.<\/p>\n

Reunert said in a SENS announcement that it seeks to enforce contractual restraint of trade and confidentiality undertakings given by Holdsworth in favour of Reunert. This followed Reunert\u2019s acquisition of the ECN Telecommunications<\/a> business in June last year.<\/p>\n

ECN Telecommunications now operates as Nashua ECN, a division of Reunert Limited.<\/p>\n

Holdsworth confirmed that a team of senior technical staff have resigned from Nashua ECN and will be joining AppChat.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe matter is before the courts, so I cannot comment on the legal specifics at this point in time, however, we do not believe that we are in breach of any confidentiality or restraint undertakings and will be opposing the matter,\u201d Holdsworth told MyBroadband.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is our view that Nashua ECN operates in the fixed line market, whilst AppChat intends to operate in the mobile market. It is widely accepted by regulators globally that the relevant markets for mobile and fixed telecommunications are separate and different. This distinction is recognized globally and is consistent with ICASA<\/a>\u2019s market definitions,\u201d said Holdsworth.<\/p>\n

Committed to cutting mobile communications costs<\/strong><\/p>\n

Holdsworth explains that AppChat has been set up with the specific purpose of passing on the benefit of reduced wholesale costs and lower interconnect rates to consumers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to make sure that the difference between R1.25 and R0.40 lands in the wallets of mobile subscribers and not the coffers of incumbent mobile operators. We believe that competition is good for the market and will benefit all parties including Reunert\u2019s mobile division Nashua Mobile<\/a>,\u201d said Holdsworth.<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately mobile prices will fall, mobile traffic will increase, subsidies will be cut to the bone and mobile dealer commissions will be reduced. New entrants will acquire market share and the large incumbent operators will have to up their game in order to compete.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is very healthy and the big winners will be South African consumers and businesses. They will experience a mobile market with lower prices, increased competition and leaner incumbent mobile operators,\u201d Holdsworth added.<\/p>\n

AppChat intends to provide consumers with the lowest cost and highest quality voice minutes in SA.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will be one of the first mobile operators in SA to position off-net rates substantially below the incumbent operator\u2019s on-net rates,\u201d explains Holdsworth.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe rapid rollout of IP based networks, the explosive growth of data based services and devices, ICASA\u2019s plan to implement wholesale open access and lower interconnect rates will see the biggest change in the mobile market for 15 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Reunert takes legal action against John Holdsworth and AppChat<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Mobile voice disruption planned for SA market<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Holdsworth remains committed to bringing low cost mobile communications to consumers despite legal threats from Reunert<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7406,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[1878,2131,26,66,555],"class_list":["post-8539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-telecommunications","tag-appchat","tag-ecn-telecommunications","tag-headline","tag-john-holdsworth","tag-reunert"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8539","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=8539"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8541,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8539\/revisions\/8541"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}