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Jazztel shows South Africa how to inc. broadband2005-11-17 Improved broadband services and increased broadband penetration is high on the agenda of the Department of Communications, ICASA and Telkom. Jazztel in Spain is a great example of how easily these targets can be achieved. This company, who until recently had only 9000 customers and showed a 100 million Euro loss, has turned their situation around by introducing cheaper and faster ADSL services. Jazztel launched a 20 Mbps ADSL2+ service, which includes free local and national calls, for 29.99 Euros per month. Leopoldo Fernandez Pujals, the man behind this revival, decided to install 100 exchanges of Huawei ADSL2+, with 400 more to follow. Since this decision they have moved from a floundering company to the broadband market leader. They are currently signing up around 3000 new customers per day. To put this figure in perspective, Jazztel now signs up more customers in three days than Telkom signs up in a month. This is impressive considering that Jazztel is only one player in the Spanish broadband environment. “I will make Jazztel shine like diamonds” said Pujals. He is looking for a million customers by 2007. With a video package rolling out soon, he has projected revenue of a billion euros in 2007. A similar situation locally is unlikely to materialize unless we see true deregulation of the telecoms environment coupled with local loop unbundling. First Tier ISP’s like Internet Solutions, DataPro and UUNet are eagerly awaiting a more liberal telecoms environment and the freedom to offer innovative products to consumers. Unfortunately the legally restrictive telecoms arena, the high cost of SAT3 access, IPConnect and long haul pricing and the lack of local loop unbundling makes it impossible for other ISP’s to effectively compete with Telkom. Telkom controls the DSL arena, and unless other players can easily and effectively enter this space, consumers will continue to pay exorbitant prices for sub-standard services. Source: My Broadband |
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