Sentech dumps retail

By Candice Jones, ITWeb online telecoms editor

Johannesburg, 18 Sept 2008

Sentech's retail product, MyWireless, will fall away entirely over the next year, following a long, controversial history.

According to the state-owned enterprise's 2007/8 annual report, government made a strategic decision this year to phase out MyWireless from Sentech's arsenal of products. "In line with the 2008 to 2011 corporate plan, Sentech will phase out retail products in their current form during the 2008/9 financial year."

Sentech has long been criticised for the retail product. Analysts commented that the poor service delivery and Sentech's inability to deliver on its mandate of becoming SA's wireless broadband champion caused many consumers to write off the company as a legitimate competitor in the retail market.

Earlier this year, National Treasury criticised the company for squandering R500 million on the MyWireless service that should have been spent on maintenance and upgrading of the TV signal distribution system.

Sentech has been complaining since 2002 that it has not received adequate funding to upgrade the analogue TV signal system to digital terrestrial TV, with the switch-on due to occur on 1 November this year.

The 2007/8 annual report has committed Sentech to focus more attention on its public and wholesale service, alongside its 2010 directive, rather than any consumer business it was targeting before.

Sentech will now focus on wholesale broadband delivery to hospitals, clinics, schools (particularly the Dinaledi Schools), Thusong community centres, post offices and other government offices located in rural and under-serviced areas.

Catching up

Sentech has also turned its focus towards digital terrestrial television (DTT), which looks to be falling behind.

The company's annual report for this year says it is committed to providing coverage to 40% of the country, a far cry from what it had promised during the same period last year. Back then it had promised to deliver 56% of coverage by the end of this financial year (March 2009), 78% by the end of the 2009 financial year and 92% by 2010.

However, Sentech has completed the first phase of DTT implementation with the R120 million that was provided by government. "Our ability to meet government's target date for DTT switch-on, of 1 November 2008, is dependent on the allocation of timeous transfer of the required funds for the 2008/9 financial year."

Sentech says, while the first phase went well, it is concerned that its current financial "shortfall" will limit the number of sites it is able to switch over by the deadline. "This is unfortunate, considering the success of phase one and two," said Sentech CEO Sebiletso Mokone-Matabane.

However, she is confident Sentech will still manage to facilitate 80% digital coverage by 2010. Complete analogue switch-off occurs the year after.