Transtel today used a full-page newspaper advertisement to explain why it should be included in the second national operator (SNO), the telecoms operator due to start competing with Telkom next year.
The ad explains that Transtel has all the assets a new operator could wish for, including an existing international gateway, established workshops and transmission tower sites and rights-of-way for the laying of cable.
What it does not explain is the need for such publicity.
Transtel recently issued a request for proposals on the design of a national telecoms network, with the successful bidder expected to supply and integrate the equipment and ensure skills transfers to Transtel employees.
All this activity seems to be aimed at impressing on government that, should it come down to a choice between Eskom subsidiary Esi-Tel or Transtel in the SNO, Transtel would be the best bet.
With the latest change in government policy direction it was announced that a decision on which parastatal is to be included in the SNO will be taken at a later, unspecified, date. Transtel and others do not take that to mean that both Transtel and Esi-Tel cannot be included, but an "either or" approach has not been excluded.
"A decision has not been taken yet, but the principle remains that the parastatals will be involved in the SNO," Robert Nkuna, spokesman for the Ministry of Communications, said today. He adds that the decision is up to government as a whole and not the responsibility of a single department.
The decision is likely to be crucial to the future of the parastatals. Industry watchers say an equity stake in the SNO is the best way for the organisations to derive value from their telecoms infrastructure, and whoever is left behind will be hard-pressed to catch up.
The Transtel tender closes early in September, but Esi-Tel is already busy with the roll-out of its own base network. The company revealed in May that it intends establishing a 14 000km backbone of fibre optic cable strung to high-voltage power cables.
Both organisations have their own international gateways; Esi-Tel by way of its shareholding in the Lesotho national operator, and both say using their existing radio and microwave tower sites will remove the burden of environmental impact studies from the SNO.
The SNO is due to start operation in May next year.
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