An e-mail bemoaning the fact that the tier one Internet service provider (ISP) is struggling to roll-out its own Internet connectivity offerings, due to the slow pace of liberalisation and accusing Telkom of deliberate obstruction, was sent by Internet Solutions (IS) CEO Angus MacRobert last week.
The e-mail was addressed to "all our valued channel partners", in an effort by MacRobert to explain the recent growing pains experienced by IS that have disrupted its services.
He goes on to explain that IS has "always fought Telkom (via wholesale pricing), to reduce pricing, to deliver cheaper and newer technologies, to continually deliver to the South African market a service and solution that is of a world-class nature and affordable".
"Unfortunately with the slow liberalisation and deregulation of our telecoms market and no SNO [second national operator] up and running, we have had very little choice but to use Telkom, and pay too much for these services. This has resulted in the costs of telecommunications in SA to be overly inflated," MacRobert continues.
Telkom prevented IS from rolling-out its own ADSL offering due to the telecoms utility`s scoping solution, and the pricing of the local transit bandwidth, claims MacRobert`s e-mail.
"We did, however, finally take the plunge by bypassing Telkom as much as we could, but are still at the mercy of them with regard to the peering debate, costs of the IPC links (linking the IS network to the Telkom ADSL network), the contention of the Telkom last mile (copper wire), and the other network hardware it has provisioned," the e-mail says.
MacRobert outlined some of IS`s future plans in the e-mail saying it is now able to roll-out its ADSL offering because of having landed its own satellite circuits, with no fixed cap services and 512KB and 1MB business DSL products.
"We have had to provision our own bandwidth so as to try and provide a price competitive solution. In doing this, we have learned a lot, and realised we need to invest more in our networks to provide the right amount of stability and redundancy," the e-mail says.
As part of IS`s ambition to become a "next-generation telco", the company is procuring and landing its own bandwidth wherever possible, "instead of being at the mercy of Telkom", which, it says, is causing significant growing and learning pains.
To meet this, IS plans to invest in two more satellite hubs (costing R8 million each), but these links will only be available in late February.
This will take IS`s total international bandwidth to 1GB, says MacRobert.
"In the interim, we are going to upgrade other links, and source connectivity on a temporary basis. We will also be investing a further R100 million of capital expenditure in our networks over the next 12 months."
MacRobert says he has been told the SNO may be able to offer services by the second quarter of next year.
"If that is the case then we can look forward to some better choices," he says.
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