[kictanet] [ke-internetusers] Fw: [NVK-Mageuzi] Re: MOBILE PRICE WARS COULD DERAIL NEW KATIBA - JOKE OF THE YEAR (Was Are we letting the PS get away with this too?)

[Odhiambo Washington]

On Wed, Jan 19, 2011 at 11:06 PM, Barrack Otieno
<otieno.barrack at gmail.com>wrote:

> Well Listers i suggest we move away from a personalised (political :-))
> debate targeted at the PS and tackle the issues that have been raised in the
> article soberly, i have picked some excerpts from the article posted by
> Shem. Could we also comment on the comments attributed to Michael Ghossein
> (TKL) and Mr. Peter Wanyonyi?
>
> Regards
>
> “We have asked CCK (industry regulator Communications Commission of Kenya)
> to evaluate if this kind of pricing is sustainable,” Dr Ndemo said on
> Monday.
> “I am not opposed to reduced prices but they have to make business sense,”
> he said. “Competition has to take care of re-investment in the sector as
> well as shareholder value.”
>

My simplistic view:

"re-investment" and "shareholder value". I don't see how those relate to
Airtel. If Airtel's shareholders are fine with the move, then why are we
bothered? Who are we worrying about here? Safaricom, Yu and Orange??



>  Orange Kenya CEO Mickael Ghossein said on Monday that the future of the
> industry’s profitability appears grim should the current price wars be
> allowed to prevail.
>

The matter raising this debate is about "on-net" calling rates for Airtel.
How does that affect their competitors??


>  “There has not been largely significant increase in the traffic across
> networks that would indicate that the low pricing model offered by the
> competition has resulted in massive recruitments.
>
Why does Mr. Ghossein expect "traffic across networks" when actually,
Airtel's mission is to promote more calls "on-net"?



>  In any case, cannibalisation of another player’s market share cannot be
> considered as industry growth,” Mr Ghossein said.
>

Competition is being called cannibalisation??



>  “Operators will see little justification in improving call and related
> quality when profits are falling under assault from Airtel’s strategy.
>
>  “Improving service quality requires investment in new infrastructure, but
> with ever-reducing revenues, this will not happen,” warns Mr Peter Wanyonyi,
> a telecoms analyst.
>
It will happen, if operators started sharing infrastructure. Soon, they will
be sharing it anyway, thanks to the govt's plan to "own" the infrastructure
to be used for LTE.



>  But India’s Bharti Airtel-owned Kenyan subsidiary has defended its
> decision.
>

I too have defended Airtel, in my own simplistic way, as a consumer.

What everyone is seeing is a situation where the PS's comments are being
seen in two dimensions: Attempts to favor some players in the field, and an
attempt to manipulate the regulator.


-- 
Best regards,
Odhiambo WASHINGTON,
Nairobi,KE
+254733744121/+254722743223
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Damn!!
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