All systems go for telecoms in 2005

Johannesburg, 17 Feb 2005

The recent liberalisation of the telecoms industry is going to rewrite the rules of the sector and has signalled a fundamental change in government`s thinking.

This is the view of Mike van den Bergh, chairman of Gateway Communications and a director of CommuniTel, one of the players in the second national operator (SNO), who spoke to guests at a CentraTel partner dinner last night.

"In the future, we are going to look back on 2005 and say this is the year when it all changed for the better," he says.

He says to know where we are going, it is important to know where we have been, and looking back at the industry, liberalisation only really began in any form in 1991, when the first value-added network service (VANS) provider licences were issued.

"This was the first time Telkom had experienced any kind of competition, although even so, most of the decade was characterised by protectionist attitude towards the incumbent, since it was still very much a government baby," says Van den Bergh.

"I do feel government missed a major opportunity with the Telecoms Act of 1996, when it failed to really open the market up, but in a sense this is understandable, as the thinking at the time was still to protect the monopoly."

He believes this way of thinking changed with the first set of Telkom results, when it could be seen that it was making what was an obscene amount of money, none of which was going to the people, namely the poor and disadvantaged.

"Real change, of course, only occurred in September 2004, when the minister announced her intention to liberalise the industry, choosing to finally use powers she`d had since 1996.

"Now with VANS able to offer voice as well as data, mobile operators able to self-provide and the SNO hopefully going to be operational in the third or fourth quarter of this year, it is all finally happening."

Van den Bergh says it is his belief we will witness plenty of change over the course of the year as the pieces of the puzzle begin to fall into place, and now is a wonderful time to be part of the telecoms sector.

"I know it is beginning to sound a little bit like the never-ending story, but I think this is the year where it will all finally come together," he says.

"Government has finally realised what we`ve been preaching for years - that telecoms is an economic enabler and we need to get the ball rolling, as we are lagging behind the rest of the world. However, now is the time for change and we are geared to make it happen."