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Encyclopedia > Telkom

Telkom SA, Ltd.
Image:Telkomlogo.png
Type: Public
Founded: Johannesburg, South Africa, 1991
Headquarters: Pretoria, South Africa
Key people: Leapeetswe Rapula Radiala (Papi) Molotsane 2005-Present, CEO
Industry: Communications Services
Products: Telecom
Broadband Services
Revenue: 2004: R43 billion ZAR ( Image:green_up.png6.5%)
($7 billion USD) [1]

2005: R43.1 billion ZAR ($6.9 billion USD)[2]
Employees: 26,133
Website: www.telkom.co.za
For the Indonesian company of the same name, see Telkom (Indonesia).

Telkom SA Ltd. (NYSE: TKG, JSE:J653) is a wireline telecommunications provider in South Africa. Telkom is a semi-privatised, 39% state-owned company. This work is copyrighted. ... A public company is a company owned by the public rather than by a relatively few individuals. ... , City motto: Unity in Development Province Gauteng Mayor Amos Masondo Area  - % water 1,644 km² 0. ... 1991 (MCMXCI) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... City motto: Praestantia Praevaleat Pretoria (May Pretoria Be Pre-eminent In Excellence) Province Gauteng Area  - % water 1,644 km² 0. ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The present is the time that is perceived directly, not as a recollection or a speculation. ... Chief Executive Officer (CEO) is the job of having the ultimate executive responsibility or authority within an organization or corporation. ... Telecommunication is the transmission of signals over a distance for the purpose of communication. ... Telecom is an abbreviation of telecommunication. ... Broadband in general electronics and telecommunications is a term which refers to a signal or circuit which includes or handles a relatively wide range of frequencies. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... Green up arrow for a positive change in revenue from last fiscal year. ... The United States dollar is the official currency of the United States. ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... The United States dollar is the official currency of the United States. ... Employment is a contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee. ... Website - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia (PT. Telkom or just Telkom, formerly Perumtel. ... New York Stock Exchange (June 2003) The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) , also nicknamed the Big Board, is the largest stock exchange in the world in dollar volume and second largest by number of companies listed. ... The Johannesburg Securities Exchange (JSE) is the largest stock exchange in Africa and one of the ten largest in the world. ... Telecommunication involves the transmission of signals over a distance for the purpose of communication. ...

Contents


Telkom Market Position and Ownership

Telkom has a monopoly on both handling international connections to and from South Africa on the SAT3 & SAFE backbone lines, which account for the majority of international bandwidth in the Republic, and fixed-line communications over public roads. In economics, a monopoly (from the Latin word monoplium - Greek language Greek monos, one + polein, to sell) is defined as a persistent market situation where there is only one provider of a kind of product or service. ... A submarine communications cable is a cable laid beneath the sea to carry telecommunications between countries. ... The backbone is a synonym for the spine of a vertebrate organism. ... Bandwidth is a measure of frequency range, measured in hertz, of a function of a frequency variable. ... In a broad definition a republic is a state or country that is led by people who do not base their political power on any principle beyond the control of the people of that state or country. ...


Telkom was managed by US-based SBC Communications from 1997 to 2004. SBC has since sold its interest in the company. SBC Communications NYSE: SBC is an American telecommunications company based in San Antonio, Texas. ... 1997 (MCMXCVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...


Infrastructure

At a 2002 estimate, there are close to five million fixed lines currently in use in South Africa, all of which are currently owned and operated by Telkom. According to the World Factbook, it is the 'best developed and most modern in Africa'. It consists of local copper loops, microwave and fiber optic loops, and wireless connections. For album titles with the same name, see 2002 (album). ... Estimation is approximate or uncertain calculation of a result, often based on approximate, uncertain, incomplete, or noisy inputs. ... The World Factbook is an annual publication by the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States with basic almanac-style information about the various countries of the world. ... For other uses, see Africa (disambiguation). ... Microwave image of 3C353 galaxy at 8. ... Fiber Optic strands An optical fiber in American English or fibre in British English is a transparent thin fiber for transmitting light. ...


The first use of telecommunication in the Republic of South Africa was a single line telegraph connecting Cape Town and Simonstown. After Bell Labs' development of the telephone, the first undersea links were introduced, first connecting Durban and Europe, and soon after, the rest of the world. The network continued to develop organically in a heavilly regulated market as international technology developed. At this point, telephone services were operated by the South African Postal Service. Telecommunication is the transmission of signals over a distance for the purpose of communication. ... Telegraphy (from the Greek words tele = far away and grapho = write) is the long distance transmission of written messages without physical transport of letters, originally over wire. ... , City motto: Spes Bona (Latin: Good Hope) Location of the City of Cape Town in Western Cape Province Province Western Cape Mayor Helen Zille Area  - % water 2,499 km² N/A Population  - Total (2004)  - Density Ranked 100th 2,893,251 1,158/km² Established 1652 Time zone SAST (UTC+2... Simonstown is a naval base in South Africa near Cape Town. ... Bell Laboratories (also known as Bell Labs and formerly known as AT&T Bell Laboratories and Bell Telephone Laboratories) was the main research and development arm of the United States Bell System. ... A submarine communications cable is a cable laid beneath the sea to carry telecommunications between countries. ... City motto: Debile Principium Melion Fortuna Sequetu (Latin: Better Fortune Follows A Difficult Beginning) Province KwaZulu-Natal Mayor Obed Mlaba Area  - % water 2,292 km² N/A Population  - Total (2004)  - Density Not ranked 3,346,799 1,460/km² Established 1835 Time zone SAST (UTC+2) Calling code 031 edit... World map showing Europe Political map Europe is one of the seven traditional continents of Earth; the term continent here referring to a cultural and political distinction, rather than a physiographic one, thus leading to various perspectives about Europes precise borders. ... Organic growth is not the rate of a business expansion through increasing output and sales as opposed to mergers, acquisitions and take-overs. ... In the second half of the 20th century, humans acquired sufficient technology to leave the surface of the Earth and explore space. ...


In the 1960s, South Africa was connected to 72 nations and total outgoing annual international calls numbered over 28,800.


The routing and billing system were almost completely digital by the mid 1980s, which made way for the currently used systems of ATM, SONET, ISDN and others. Telkom SA, Ltd. was founded on 1 October, 1991. In computer networking the term routing refers to selecting paths in a computer network along which to send data. ... Billing may mean: The process of sending accounts to customers for goods or services is called billing. ... The 1980s decade refers to the years from 1980 to 1989, inclusive, informally sometimes including the years 1979, 1990 and 1991. ... Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) is a cell relay network protocol which encodes data traffic into small fixed-sized (53 byte; 48 bytes of data and 5 bytes of header information) cells instead of variable sized packets (sometimes known as frames) as in packet-switched networks (such as the Internet Protocol... Synchronous Optical Networking, commonly known as SONET, is a standard for communicating digital information over optical fiber. ... ISDN is also short for isosorbide dinitrate Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) is a type of circuit switched telephone network system, designed to allow digital (as opposed to analog) transmission of voice and data over ordinary telephone copper wires, resulting in better quality and higher speeds, than available with analog... October 1 is the 274th day of the year (275th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ...


Broadband Internet in South Africa

Telkom provides ADSL to subscribers, typically to inner-city and suburban areas in Pretoria, Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Durban. The roll out of the service continues slowly. Telkom is currently the largest provider of broadband in the country, with over 120,000 subscribers at last count in 2005. Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) is a form of DSL, a data communications technology that enables faster data transmission over copper telephone lines than a conventional modem can provide. ... City motto: Praestantia Praevaleat Pretoria (May Pretoria Be Pre-eminent In Excellence) Province Gauteng Area  - % water 1,644 km² 0. ... , City motto: Unity in Development Province Gauteng Mayor Amos Masondo Area  - % water 1,644 km² 0. ... , City motto: Spes Bona (Latin: Good Hope) Location of the City of Cape Town in Western Cape Province Province Western Cape Mayor Helen Zille Area  - % water 2,499 km² N/A Population  - Total (2004)  - Density Ranked 100th 2,893,251 1,158/km² Established 1652 Time zone SAST (UTC+2... City motto: Debile Principium Melion Fortuna Sequetu (Latin: Better Fortune Follows A Difficult Beginning) Province KwaZulu-Natal Mayor Obed Mlaba Area  - % water 2,292 km² N/A Population  - Total (2004)  - Density Not ranked 3,346,799 1,460/km² Established 1835 Time zone SAST (UTC+2) Calling code 031 edit...


The cost of ADSL services are separated into a line rental fee, a connection fee and an Internet Service Provider (ISP) fee. Telkom has an overt monopoly on the first two services, but the company allows local ISPs to repackage the third item. An installation fee is also applicable. There is a lengthy backlog in several ADSL installation departments caused by demand far exceeding supply, along with a severe shortage of subscriber slots in local DSLAMs and employees to install the service. An internet service provider (abbr. ... A market economy (aka free market economy and free enterprise economy) is an economic system in which the production and distribution of goods and services takes place through the mechanism of free markets guided by a free price system rather than by the state in a planned economy. ... A Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer (DSLAM) is a network device, usually located at a telephone company central office, or within a neighborhood SAI as part of a digital loop carrier, that receives signals from multiple customer Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) connections and aggregates the signals on a high-speed...


Different connection speeds on offer (associated with different connection fees) include 384/128, 512/256 and 1024/256 kilobits per second of bandwidth for downstream/upstream respectively. In August 2006, Telkom announced that all DSL1024 users will be upgraded for free to a 4096/384 trial service. Total ADSL usage per calendar month is limited, with the limit depending on the ISP package used. Telkom's default ISP package limits the user to three gigabytes in a calendar month, with port prioritization and bandwidth shaping. Packages offering up to thirty gigabytes are available from other ISPs. An average ADSL subscriber in South Africa pays roughly R670 ($109 currency conversion) per month for access; the annual sum of this fee is around 11.8% of the national per-capita income. A kilobit is a unit of information storage, abbreviated kbit or sometimes kb. ... Bandwidth is a measure of frequency range, measured in hertz, of a function of a frequency variable. ... A gigabyte (symbol GB) is a unit of measurement in computers of one thousand million bytes (the same as one billion bytes in the short scale usage). ... Seaport, a painting by Claude Lorrain, 1638 The Port of Wellington at night. ... The per capita income for an area may be defined as the total personal income in an area, divided by the number of people in that area. ...


Competition

Recent legislation passed by the South African government have lowered many restrictions on companies wishing to provide telecommunication access in the Republic. Competitors to the land-line monopoly have flourished, with special note given to providers of wireless broadband, who provide greater geographical penetration, by means of the technology used, than Telkom. Examples of these providers include Sentech, an extension of the state-owned South African Broadcasting Corporation, and WBS Co., a black owned enterprise. Bold textJAMES CHECKLEY Legislation (or statutory law) is law which has been promulgated (or enacted) by a legislature or other governing body. ... Telecommunication is the transmission of signals over a distance for the purpose of communication. ... The notebook is connected to the wireless access point using a PCMCIA wireless card. ... The term penetration can mean several things: In business, penetration is often short for market penetration, the degree to which a product or service is known and/or used among potential customers. ... SABC logo The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) is the state owned broadcaster in South Africa, and was for many years the monopoly, controlled by the white minority National Party government. ... WBS can refer to: Work breakdown structure Websters Revision This is a disambiguation page, a list of pages that otherwise might share the same title. ... Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) is a program launched by the South African government to redress the inequalities of apartheid by giving previously disadvantaged groups (black Africans, Coloureds and Indians) economic opportunuties. ...


The four cellphone networks in South Africa, listed in terms of numbers of subscribers, are Vodacom (who both Telkom and the United Kingdom's Vodafone own large stakes in), MTN, Cell C and Virgin Mobile. There are approximately six times as many cellphone subscribers than land line subscribers in South Africa (30 million versus 5 million), and since these networks route their calls over their own network, GSM providers have taken a large chunk of Telkom's business. Vodacom is a South African based mobile telecommunications company, and was the first mobile telecommunications company in South Africa. ... Vodafone Group plc is a British mobile phone operator headquartered in Newbury, Berkshire, England, is the largest mobile telecommunications network company in the world by turnover and has a market value of about $134 billion (June 2006). ... Cell C is South Africas third mobile phone network operator, having commenced operations in November of 2001. ... Not to be confused with Get Some Mates The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is the most popular standard for mobile phones in the world. ...


Another promising technology is Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), which may decrease the amount of calls made over the PSTN in the near future. Telkom's international calling rates are already far undercut by VoIP providers: A Telkom call to the United States will cost R1.40 a minute ($0.19 currency conversion); a call of the same duration made through Skype will cost only one tenth of that - R0.14. ($0.02 currency conversion) IP Telephony, also called Internet telephony, is the technology that makes it possible to have a telephone conversation over the Internet or a dedicated Internet Protocol (IP) network instead of dedicated voice transmission lines. ... The public switched telephone network (PSTN) is the concatenation of the worlds public circuit-switched telephone networks, in much the same way that the Internet is the concatenation of the worlds public IP-based packet-switched networks. ... Skype (pronounced to rhyme with type) is a proprietary peer-to-peer Internet telephony (VoIP) network founded by the entrepreneurs Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, also founders of the file sharing application Kazaa. ...


Competition in broadband and telephony is diminished immensely due to the fact that Telkom owns the international links to the rest of the world - the vast majority of bandwidth and telephone calls are routed through them. Finally, although the Government are taking steps to liberalise the market, laws regarding telecommunications are still quite restrictive relative to the United States and other developed nations.


An example of restrictive legislation is the Draft Convergence Bill, which attempts to control the development of such commerce. Telkom is currently under much fire from the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA), who accused it of excessive ADSL line charges. The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) is the regulator of the telecommunications and the broadcasting sectors in South Africa. ...


Criticisms

The continuing monopoly of Telkom in South Africa's communications industry, and governments large stake in the company have been perceived as not being in the public interest. Call costs are considered to be high, and the regulator ICASA as toothless. The elderly minister of communications has a penchant for falling asleep during meetings and by her own admission "only hears about rate changes when her friends tell her". Telkom has a monopoly of all international calls originating within South Africa excluding VoIP, and of traffic over the SAT3 fibre that provides most of South Africa's international bandwidth. The indecision over the second network operator, to Telkom's advantage, is also not considered to be in the public interest.


Monthly Traffic Limitations and Port Prioritization

Perhaps one of the biggest criticisms of Telkom was its introduction of a monthly traffic limit or "cap". According to Telkom, This was a measure instituted in order for the South African network not to become "congested" with an overflow of information. However, the general feeling in the South African ADSL community is that monthly traffic limits were strategically put in place by Telkom in order to obtain the maximum amount of money from ADSL users. This is mainly due to the fact that Telkom offers extra bandwidth to users for a price. If the limit is exceeded during the course of the month, the ADSL connection is cut off until the end of the month. The user can purchase extra GBs after he/she is capped however. The average monthly traffic limit in South Africa is 3GB, an amount which can be used up in less than a day, even on a low-speed line. Another major criticism of Telkom was its institution of port prioritization or "shaping". This, also was a measure introduced by Telkom in order for networks throughout South Africa not to become congested with too much information. However, port prioritization was an idea conceived mainly to benefit businesses in which employees all shared the same internet connection. Employees who used "bandwidth hogging" applications such as Peer to Peer applications and graphically intense online games often slowed down the network dramatically preventing users who wished to browse web pages or check their mail to do so in a short space of time. Port prioritization solves this problem as it prioritizes certain ports to for certain applications. It works according to a protocol which includes all ports and applications generally used in conjunction with them. These ports are sorted into a list of sorts. At the top of the list appear web browsing and email. These ports and the applications which use them receive the most bandwidth from the network. At the very bottom of the list are Peer to Peer applications and online games. These receive very little if not no bandwidth from the network. Although it is the ideal solution for large companies there is no choice in the shaping matter. Personal connections to the internet also get shaped. This has caused an uproar in the South African P2P and online gaming community as one has to pay over exorbitant prices (roughly two times more) to get their connections "unshaped".


See also

MyADSL.co. ... Hellkom [1] is a parody site about Telkom, South Africas telecommunications monopoly. ... This article is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedias deletion policy. ... South Africa has switched to a closed numbering system, although as of 2005 it still isnt mandatory to dial the three-digit area code. ... // First Telephone Call (Anybody know when and by whom?) First Mobile Phone Call Initiated by Vodacom, happened when? First Public Videoconference The first public videoconference between the continent of Africa and North America occured on June 24, 1995 (2:00-3:00 pm PST). ...

External links


  Results from FactBites:
 
Telkom - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (1398 words)
Telkom has a monopoly on both handling international connections to and from South Africa on the SAT3 and SAFE backbone lines, which account for the majority of international bandwidth in the Republic, and fixed-line communications over public roads.
Telkom was managed by US-based SBC Communications from 1997 to 2004.
Telkom is currently under much fire from the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA), who accused it of excessive ADSL line charges.
STT Telkom - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (151 words)
Telkom School of Engineering (or STT Telkom) was established on September 28, 1990, by Telkom Education Foundation (YPT), a foundation owned by Telkom as the biggest state-owned telecommunication company in Indonesia.
Telkom provides scholarship to all of 1991 and 1992 students of STT Telkom and has guaranteed them jobs after finishing their study.
Telkom also conducts courses for company staff development in order to enhance their proficiency in telecommunication technologies.
  More results at FactBites »

 

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