In the world of telecommunications, you get awful regulators and you get bloody awful regulators. Fortunately, SA has only had awful regulators. The US, Europe and other unfortunates have had bloody awful regulators. In the US, they destroyed one of the greatest companies in the world and issued hundreds of wireless licences with too little spectrum. In Europe, they managed almost to bankrupt credible telecoms operators with horrendously
I know that this article is going shock you, but not in the way you expect, so buckle up. I have oversimplified the piece, but its essence is as true as you could wish for. The other day, I found a Telkom — in those days Posts & Telecommunications — internal “newspaper” called Postel, dated December 1982. The front page article — coincidentally written by myself at the time — described a 40% cut in international data communication tariffs based on X.75 packet-switching. Before the 40% cut, it cost, in today’s money, more than R10 000 to send 1MB of data. After the 40% cut, it cost only R6 000/MB — a bargain, with demand exceeding supply
I get really pissed off when there is good reason to change something but the status quo prevails because people who should know better spout nonsense about why there should be a change
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