[kictanet] The Death of Landlines?

Sat Jul 21 16:12:56 EAT 2012

Washington,
KPLC provide self defense to their cables/transformers by the just
depending on the very nature of the service they offer! I thief would need
a window of "power black-out" to harvest the transformer or power cables;
otherwise the thief will be fried in seconds!

TKL does not have that advantage. You cannot compare the two.

Regards
Philip

On Fri, Jul 20, 2012 at 11:41 PM, Odhiambo Washington <odhiambo at gmail.com>wrote:

> Thanks, Philip, but this is pure nostalgia you've put across. It has
> nothing to do with service delivery, really.
>
> TKL is the only company that had fibre as the last mile before everyone
> else. Did they take advantage of that?
>
> TKL is the parent company of Safaricom, who now is the market leader. What
> went wong?
>
> Do you remember the days of "The Watchman" - when people had to resort to
> the Daily Nation's Watchman column in order to spur KPT&C into action?
>
> I see the problem as being more of culture than vandalism. Yes, there is
> vandalism, but culture plays out more prominently.
>
> You just need to single out a problem, like what Edith is facing and
> you'll come to realize that vandalism has nothing to do with it.
>
> Even KPLC faces vandals who take away transformers - a more dangerous
> venture. If they were TKL, there will be no more service on copper!
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jul 20, 2012 at 10:30 PM, Philip Adar <philip.adar at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> The problem with the landlines has nothing to do with Telkom Kenya
>> Limited (TKL), but has everything to do with the rest of us, yes all of us
>> as Kenyans. TKL as a company will always be happy to offer better services
>> to her customers in this competitive and saturated telecommunications
>> market place.
>>
>> Investment in copper is a very expensive undertaking. It is expensive to
>> procure and  install copper cables more than any other form of
>> telecommunications infrastructure the world over. Many companies who
>> operate copper lines make profit by striving to derive maximum benefit from
>> copper over long durations of time (maybe 5 to 10 years of service). But of
>> late, the Kenyan populace has developed a very high appetite for harvesting
>> copper such that even getting 24hours of copper in the ground is becoming a
>> nightmare!
>>
>> I know this from my previous experience while working for TKL.
>>
>> TKL has a maintenance team. Every time an outage occurs (most cases will
>> be that somebody has cut-out and stolen some copper cable), they will
>> respond by visiting the affected areas and replacing the stolen cables. But
>> in 99% of the cases, the replaced cable will be stolen the very night it is
>> installed! The thieves will keep an eye and immediately the cable is
>> replaced, they will come harvesting again!!!
>>
>> Now the question arises: How many times will the company be financially
>> capable of replacing cables that get stolen 24 hours later?
>>
>> I remember with nostalgia some times back when overhead copper cables
>> used to run parallel to the major roads in Kenya; even to the remote
>> village where I come from, we had copper cables providing
>> telecommunications services to the local post office. It was common to see
>> KPLC power cables on one side of the road and Kenya Post and
>> Telecommunications Corporation (KPTC) cables on the other. How comes KPLC
>> cables still remain standing while KPTC cables are today non existent? Do
>> anyone believe KPTC initiated a project to harvest the cables and kept them
>> in a store somewhere?
>>
>> People in this country; and perhaps people in the ICT industry have made
>> money by profiteering from copper cable vandalism!
>>
>> It is still common to get fixed lines in developed countries, and I
>> guarantee that fixed lines will remain the best form of providing
>> telecommunication services for several years into the future.
>>
>> The ministry of communications (thanks to Dr. Ndemo) has done her bit by
>> supporting the industry by introducing strict penalty for cable vandals. We
>> need to do our part by encouraging community policing and ensuring that all
>> cable vandals are identified, arrested and charged in court.
>>
>> TKL would love to have everyone on landlines, in fact TKL would be very
>> happy to install additional landlines if we were to stop stealing them. In
>> my view, it may not be very correct to believe that TKL employes are very
>> incompetent and  just too lazy to support the infrastructure which
>> generates revenue for the company.
>>
>> We have identified a problem, and the problem is extremely unsustainable
>> levels of cable theft than has been experienced in any part of the world
>> before. We  need to see people here generating ideas on how we can root out
>> cable vandalism in our society. We need ideas on methods of providing
>> infrastructure sustainability in our country. The academia, the industry
>> and the society have roles to play to see a future of development into
>> vision 2030, a future of honesty, a future devoid of business malpractices
>> that have seen some organizations benefiting using in appropriate means by
>> sabotaging others...
>>
>> TKL, our companies, our institutions and all our people need such ideas.
>> This should be the focus....
>>
>> Regards
>> Philip
>>
>> On Fri, Jul 20, 2012 at 5:47 PM, Odhiambo Washington <odhiambo at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Jul 20, 2012 at 4:51 PM, Edith Adera <eadera at idrc.or.ke> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Lister’s****
>>>>
>>>> ** **
>>>>
>>>> Does anyone know what’s going on at…is it Orange Telkom or Telkom
>>>> Kenya? about landlines. When corporate lines go down it seems they are not
>>>> being repaired, is this a sign of the “death of landlines”?****
>>>>
>>>> ** **
>>>>
>>>> Seriously need to understand what is going on?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> Personally, I think that unless someone has something special to carry
>>> on top of the copper, then it's that time in life they drop the "landline".
>>> There is nothing special about them.
>>> It's also pretty easy these days for an organization to "change their
>>> contact phone numbers"  - by a simple change of "Our Contacts" on the
>>> website, or a mailshot to their suppliers/clients.
>>>
>>> Sorry I did not answer your question directly, but TKL/Orange has been
>>> working on redoing their cabling in many areas. Perhaps this is what is
>>> affecting you. I understand how difficult it is to do business with Orange
>>> when it comes to fixing problems. Their Customer Care still sux, and the
>>> bureaucracy is still very much embedded. I resorted to walking to the
>>> Exchange and seeking out the technicians in order to have my problems with
>>> landlines addressed. Maybe you should do just that!
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Best regards,
>>> Odhiambo WASHINGTON,
>>> Nairobi,KE
>>> +254733744121/+254722743223
>>> _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
>>> I can't hear you -- I'm using the scrambler.
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Regards
>>
>> Philip Adar
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Best regards,
> Odhiambo WASHINGTON,
> Nairobi,KE
> +254733744121/+254722743223
> _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
> I can't hear you -- I'm using the scrambler.
>
>
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>
> The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform
> for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and
> regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT
> sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development.
>
> KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors
> online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth,
> share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do
> not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications.
>

-- 
Regards

Philip Adar
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