Rumba sold to Zazu

By Iain Scott, ITWeb group consulting editor

Johannesburg, 02 Sept 2004

Low-cost Internet service provider (ISP) Rumba has been bought by another small ISP, Zazu Internet, which is keen to structure other similar deals.

Rumba has been beset with connectivity problems since soon after listing, but Zazu spokesman Francois Joubert says those issues have now come to an end.

He says when Rumba began, it received its connectivity through Pretoria company yournet, which had a Telkom contract.

"It could connect next to nothing, but it had to have a subscriber base of 20 000," Joubert says. "That never happened so it ended up owing Telkom a lot of money. So that was closed off and Rumba`s access was closed off with it.

"I followed the ITWeb story and thought I would phone Rumba up, but [Rumba boss] Charles [Odendaal] had just done a deal with XSInet. We then took part of yournet`s subscriber base."

However, when the deal with XSInet soured, Joubert phoned again and discussions were successful.

"The benefit that we have is that we are not in the same position, to have to ask someone else to do our authentication," he says. "We spent a lot of money to be able to do our own authentication.

"So we took their entire customer base and put them into our system and switched them on. We have also taken ownership of the www.rumba.co.za domain name."

Both brands will retain their separate identity, and a new entity, Rumba Interactive, has been created to take care of marketing and brand awareness. Rumba Interactive is being run by Rumba`s Odenaal and Moira Tolkin.

Joubert says an ISP cannot make money on the R49 monthly fee charged by Rumba. "Zazu used to charge R79.50, but now we`ve brought ours down, and increased Rumba`s fee, to meet in the middle, and we`ve also added value to the Rumba services."

The combined business is now offering 56Kb dial-up from R54 a month and ISDN dial-up from R70 a month.

Joubert says his company is in talks with other small ISPs with a view to structuring similar deals.