[kictanet] Seacom goes live- wait for TEAMS

Mon Aug 3 16:17:03 EAT 2009

Michael J,

Just gone through recent posts and i get the feeling it is MY post that seems to send you back into hibernation.  

Plse note that my comments have and will always be in good faith - even though they may sound provocative.  In Academia we call this Critique-ing (as opposed to criticizing).  It is an important part of the critical thinking process and serves to unveil and share knowledge (as it has just done with the sharing of published shareholding values in TEAMs, EAssy, SEACOM). 

But again not everyone is Academic, and not everyone is that gifted and successfull CEO or that good Politician, or that top Technocrat  or that skillfull Internet Engineer, or that Media die-hard or that Consumer die-hard - just to mention a few of the profiles that have continued to define the KICTAnet Value simply by hanging in there - even when they felt totally misunderstood. 

walu.
nb: on a happier note as you hibernate- I have finally pinged from .KE over the Safaricom modem and boy, the results indicate its 3times faster! I agree with Aki's comments.

--- On Sat, 8/1/09, Michael Joseph <MJoseph at Safaricom.co.ke> wrote:

> From: Michael Joseph <MJoseph at Safaricom.co.ke>
> Subject: Re: [kictanet] Seacom goes live- wait for TEAMS
> To: jwalu at yahoo.com
> Cc: kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke
> Date: Saturday, August 1, 2009, 9:00 PM
> 
> 
> 
>  
>  
> Re: [kictanet] Seacom goes live- wait for
> TEAMS
> 
>  
> 
> 
> I think the allegations and language used
> on this list really discourage real informative comment.
> 
> 
> 
> For information the shareholders of the Teams cable, who
> are most of the telecom operators in Kenya, will own and
> manage the cable and will sell their capacity both wholesale
> and retail as they see fit. The GOK owns 20%.
> 
> 
> 
> The Seacom cable is owned by a separate set of shareholders
> and this info is publically available.
> 
> 
> 
> The Eassy cable will be owned by another group of
> shareholders including a number of African telecom
> operators. This info is also publically available.
> 
> 
> 
> Not one shareholder will want to price themselves out of
> the market and, as another commentator mentioned earlier,
> the first to market with competitive prices will gain the
> most.
> 
> 
> 
> I broke my silence on this subject a few days ago and I
> regret it now as mostly the comments have been somewhat
> impolite, to put it mildly. I will refrain in future.
> 
> Regards
> 
> 
> 
> Michael Joseph
> 
> CEO
> 
> Safaricom Limited
> 
> 
> 
> BlackBerryÂ® powered by Safaricom
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> 
> From:
> kictanet-bounces+mjoseph=safaricom.co.ke at lists.kictanet.or.ke
> <kictanet-bounces+mjoseph=safaricom.co.ke at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
> 
> To: Michael Joseph
> 
> Cc: kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke
> <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
> 
> Sent: Sat Aug 01 19:16:51 2009
> 
> Subject: Re: [kictanet] Seacom goes live- wait for TEAMS
> 
> 
> 
> Competition?
> 
> 
> 
> 3 cables does NOT = competition. 
> 
> 
> 
> As Waudo mentioned elsewhere in his posts, the big boys and
> girls sitting on TEAMs board are the same ones on SEACOM,
> EASSy and most likely anything else likely to land in
> Mombasa in the near future.
> 
> 
> 
> Basically you are looking at a conducive\cartel
> environment for fixing prices - think of our oil industry.
> Yes you have competition in the name of Agip, Total, Caltex,
> etc but has that brought down prices for gas?
> 
> 
> 
> Probably am being paranoid but I am waiting for the case
> study where public good won over private profits...maybe it
> will happen in another 4 months as the PS said.  And
> when it happens it should  should not be the misleading
> by 1-5% price drops.  Ideally for the TEAMs
> 
> (tax-payers) cable you should be asking for the less than
> 100USD per MB prices that have been floated around over the
> recent years. And that should be per month rates NOT the
> punitive per byte of download rates.
> 
> 
> 
> walu.
> 
> 
> 
> --- On Sat, 8/1/09, Gakuru Alex
> <alexgakuru.lists at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> > From: Gakuru Alex <alexgakuru.lists at gmail.com>
> 
> > Subject: Re: [kictanet] Seacom goes live- wait for
> TEAMS
> 
> > To: jwalu at yahoo.com
> 
> > Cc: kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke
> 
> > Date: Saturday, August 1, 2009, 12:54 PM
> 
> > Competition!! Yes indeed is consumers
> 
> > best friend.
> 
> >
> 
> > In fact, instead of staying out all night pinging,
> pinging,
> 
> > and
> 
> > pinging.. and nothing much changes...then burning
> ourselves
> 
> > out
> 
> > arguing on Seacom pricing, we should now strategise
> how to
> 
> > fuel more
> 
> > competition, confront next connectivity
> frontier-rural.
> 
> >
> 
> > Skunkworks are pleased to inform you that PS Ndemo
> will be
> 
> > talking to
> 
> > us about the one million laptops stimulus, technology
> 
> > innovation and
> 
> > entrepreneurship- On Tuesday next week (4th August).
> 
> >
> 
> > I intend to ask him "what would be the
> government's plans
> 
> > regards
> 
> > hooking Kenya up with http://www.o3bnetworks.com/?"
> 
> >
> 
> > See the attached image.
> 
> >
> 
> > Regards,
> 
> >
> 
> > Alex
> 
> >
> 
> > On Sat, Aug 1, 2009 at 3:41 AM, Joseph
> Mucheru<mucheru at google.com>
> 
> > wrote:
> 
> > > Walu,
> 
> > >
> 
> > > I personally think it is a bit simpler than that.
> Over
> 
> > the many years we
> 
> > > have lobbied for better services and/or prices in
> the
> 
> > country, the one sure
> 
> > > thing that always worked was competition. In the
> case
> 
> > of the cables, I think
> 
> > > the competitive pressures are much more for the
> 
> > operators as the investment
> 
> > > (stakes) are much higher. By various calculations
> both
> 
> > Seacom and Teams have
> 
> > > more than three times the current bandwidth
> demand.
> 
> > That means the wiser
> 
> > > operators will not only be the ones that are
> first to
> 
> > market, but those that
> 
> > > give the right price to attract the economies of
> scale
> 
> > they need to ever get
> 
> > > back their investment. Any operator that delays
> this
> 
> > process will only have
> 
> > > much more future cost to convincing consumers to
> get
> 
> > onto their network.
> 
> > >
> 
> > > I am convinced right now it is a consumers market
> and
> 
> > what will be
> 
> > > interesting is which operators are able to see
> things
> 
> > from a long-term
> 
> > > perspective and win the market. The fact that
> some
> 
> > operators have a much
> 
> > > broader and wider local loop infrastructure only
> makes
> 
> > this more interesting
> 
> > > and does not give outright victory to one.
> 
> > >
> 
> > > In summary, investment in the cables is a sunk
> cost
> 
> > and the game now is who
> 
> > > can get the user numbers on their network. Any
> 
> > short-term gains by an
> 
> > > operator through higer prices will cost them
> 
> > significantly more in the
> 
> > > long-run.
> 
> > >
> 
> > > my 2cts worth
> 
> > >
> 
> > > Joe Mucheru
> 
> > >
> 
> > > On Sat, Aug 1, 2009 at 1:14 AM, Walubengo J
> <jwalu at yahoo.com>
> 
> > wrote:
> 
> > >>
> 
> > >> Waudo,
> 
> > >>
> 
> > >> Difference -at least on paper- is that TEAMS
> was
> 
> > put up with Tax payers
> 
> > >> money by close to 40% (i think). Â So you
> and me
> 
> > have a 40% say or demand
> 
> > >> that they sell the bandwidth commodity at
> cost.
> 
> > Â But you and me (tax payers)
> 
> > >> have 0% (zero%) shares in SEACOM.
> 
> > >>
> 
> > >> SEACOM was put up with 100% private money -
> only
> 
> > the individual
> 
> > >> shareholders can decide on pricing (remember
> the
> 
> > famous SAT3 cable on the
> 
> > >> west-african cost that had little impact on
> 
> > pricing? the individual
> 
> > >> shareholders decided to keep the prices just
> 1-5%
> 
> > below satellite in order
> 
> > >> to recoup investment with the shortest
> timeframes.
> 
> > Â 15 years later, the
> 
> > >> prcing was still the same at 1-5% satellite
> costs.
> 
> > Â That is called Business-
> 
> > >> increasing shareholders value and yes nobody
> 
> > should apologies for that)
> 
> > >>
> 
> > >> In short, SEACOM can go the SAT3 way and you
> and
> 
> > CCK can shout as much as
> 
> > >> they want and they have every right not to
> care.
> 
> > Â BUT with TEAMS you and i
> 
> > >> do have a say - however small it is or it
> maybe.
> 
> > >>
> 
> > >> And its pretty grey area how say like Safcom
> with
> 
> > shares on both cables
> 
> > >> can be compelled to reduce prices because if
> push
> 
> > comes to shove Safcom can
> 
> > >> say their data is strictly running on the
> 
> > (private) SEACOM cable which is
> 
> > >> exempt from all the regulatory pressures. It
> can
> 
> > chose to say TEAMS is
> 
> > >> simply it back-up route.
> 
> > >>
> 
> > >> Thats why I think we are breaking new ground
> here
> 
> > and its going to be very
> 
> > >> interesting...
> 
> > >>
> 
> > >> walu.
> 
> > >>
> 
> >
> 
> > -----Inline Attachment Follows-----
> 
> >
> 
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> 
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> 
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> 
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> 
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> 
> >
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>      
> 
> 
> 
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