You snooze, you lose

A story, which this week created some discomfort within the industry, dealt with the fact that value-added network service provider ECN Telecommunications has beaten Neotel and other providers to offering alternative fixed-line telephony.

The company is said to offer connectivity across all networks, having concluded bilateral interconnection agreements with Telkom, Vodacom, MTN and Cell C.

Now, anyone beating Neotel to providing fixed-line telephony, or anything else for that matter, hardly comes as a surprise. Perhaps the second national operator's stuttering, much-delayed launch has set the tone for its presence in SA.

I, for one, would have expected Neotel to come out fighting - `a la Sir Richard Branson style. Is this not the last great hope of the SA consumer, the knight in shining armour coming to slay the Telkom-dragon? So, where's the hype, where's the media blitz, where's the action?

Neotel has the presence of a lame duck. Maybe it's really working hard in the background. Maybe it has already reached out and made a real difference in someone's life. But we don't know. The company makes media statements reluctantly, if at all. And its media liaison people seem to be as useful as a screen door on a submarine.

If I was really cynical, I'd be tempted to speculate around some sort of comfortable duopoly deal with Telkom, instead of the promised real competition.

What really tickled me this week was KPMG's launch of a software program that will assist organisations to manage their black economic empowerment (BEE) "journey" in an efficient and cost-effective manner.

Now, I'm sure this is a brilliant product that will no doubt prove to be very useful to many companies. But come on, who can resist? "BEE in a box" - don't you just dig technology?

Imagine the scenario.

After running the initial setup, the user is given the following instructions:

Click "next" if you have already identified a potential BEE partner. Or "click here" to browse a list of available, ANC-affiliated fat-cats who would be interested in concluding a deal.

OK, I could go on, but that would just be silly. Rather read the real story.

The BEE Evolution Model is now installing. This may take a few minutes. Click finish to become fully BEE-compliant. Please restart your company to complete the installation...

Perhaps the second national operator's stuttering, much-delayed launch has set the tone for its presence in SA.

Martin Czernowalow, news editor, ITWeb

The City of Johannesburg has beaten Cape Town to host the 2010 World Cup international broadcasting centre (IBC). This is good news for Joburg, and finally another tangible step in SA's preparation for the event.

But, frustratingly, government is a bit secretive on the details. No news yet on timelines, tenders or other plans for this facility, which is expected to be hosted at the Nasrec show grounds.

An official announcement is supposedly on the way. A Department of Communications spokesman is also refusing to comment on alleged tensions between certain government departments regarding the announcement.

This is perhaps worrying. Let's, for once, put egos aside. Why can't we all just get along?

So, somebody has finally figured out that SA's ridiculous bandwidth capping policies could derail the country's push for Internet Protocol television (IPTV) services.

Despite the revelation that, without a dedicated network established for IPTV, the service is pretty much dead in the water, broadcasters are stubbornly pushing ahead with IPTV delivery.

Industry observers warn that IPTV only makes sense in an uncapped environment, otherwise it becomes too expensive and inefficient.

This, of course, brings us back to the underlying fundamentals of the local telecoms industry. Ho-hum.

But hang on, we have a second national operator who is going to shake things up and... oh, wait. Maybe not.