<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; ">Dear All,<DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>We are really living in interesting times especially in the ICT industry because a few years ago, it was the mobile operators and ISPs who would be knocking on the doors of the regulator complaining and sometimes weeping at the anti-competitive practices of the imcumbent PTT towards them.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Today the tables have turned and in Kenya as per the story below, Telkom Kenya is rather asking CCK to put Safaricom in check because they are acting anti-competitively on the SMS platform against their CDMA operation. Five years ago, this would have being an "incorrect prophesy" but it has happen sooner than all would have expected. </DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>What is more interesting is the fact that Safaricom is 60% owned by Telkom Kenya which is fully owned by government that means that the mobile operators have become so powerful that the combined years of PTT operation and their political forces cannot turn the tables except the mediation of the regulator. This confirms Russell Southwood's recent story of the emergence of the mobile operators as the new incumbents of our time. </DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>May be one good thing is the fact that the mobile incumbents are so powerful that not a combiantion of PTT operation and political forces can impact them except the court of the regulator so the political leadership in some of our countries would now see reason to strengthen their regulators and make them independent enough to be the pivot to balance the weight of the mobile operators against their "cash cow" incumbents. </DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Eric here</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 1.0px 0.0px"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#00072F" face="Verdana" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><B>Telkom Lodges SMS Petition Against Safaricom in Kenya</B></SPAN></FONT></P><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; line-height: 19.0px"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#00072F" face="Verdana">In the fight for control of Kenya's lucrative telecoms industry, competition is becoming a useful weapon in the hands of rival firms -especially those that need to play the catch-up game to remain in the race.</FONT></P><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; line-height: 19.0px"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#00072F" face="Verdana">This market share war has become so intense that players are breaking all boundaries in the corporate rulebook.</FONT></P><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; line-height: 19.0px"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#00072F" face="Verdana">Five months ago, mobile phone service provider Celtel took its bigger and only rival Safaricom before the market regulator, accusing it of playing unfairly in the market to the disadvantage of the consumer.</FONT></P><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; line-height: 19.0px"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#00072F" face="Verdana">Now it is the national operator Telkom's turn to lodge a landmark complaint against its subsidiary -Safaricom.</FONT></P><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; line-height: 19.0px"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#00072F" face="Verdana">In its letter to Mr John Waweru, the Communications Commission of Kenya director general, Telkom Kenya is accusing Safaricom of practising anti-competitive behaviour in the market -especially in the Short Messages Services (SMS) segment of the business.</FONT></P><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; line-height: 19.0px"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#00072F" face="Verdana">Telkom says Safaricom has been blocking the exchange of SMSs between the two networks, thereby denying its customers access to key services that the national operator is offering such as the one that enables them to check their voter registration details with the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK).</FONT></P><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; line-height: 19.0px"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#00072F" face="Verdana">"Telkom Kenya is concerned that Safaricom is engaging in anti-competitive behaviour and in essence abusing its dominant market position by introducing barriers to new entrants targeting SMS market segment," Telkom says.</FONT></P><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; line-height: 19.0px"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#00072F" face="Verdana">Public attention was first drawn to the matter after some Safaricom subscribers complained that Safaricom was charging them for undelivered SMSs to Telkom Kenya's Wireless network. SMSs to Telkom network got an automatic reply indicating that delivery had failed yet the consumers were being billed.</FONT></P><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; line-height: 19.0px"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#00072F" face="Verdana">Safaricom CEO Michael Joseph acknowledged that some of its subscribers had sent messages to Telkom Kenya during the test period and may have been charged erroneously.</FONT></P><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; line-height: 19.0px"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#00072F" face="Verdana">He said that although the company was not billing SMSs to Telkom Wireless network between August 13 and August 27, some of its customers may have been billed. Safaricom later agreed to refund the affected subscribers.</FONT></P><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; line-height: 19.0px"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#00072F" face="Verdana">Telkom says that on August 16, the two interconnectivity negotiating parties met and agreed on interconnection rate and a technical testing schedule.</FONT></P><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; line-height: 19.0px"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#00072F" face="Verdana">During this period the parties also exchanged SMS test templates to be adopted in the tests. Safaricom has however not cooperated in facilitating the process, making it unable to commercialise the service.</FONT></P><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; line-height: 19.0px"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#00072F" face="Verdana">The matter seems to have reached fever pitch after Safaricom introduced a voter registry query service similar to the one Telkom Kenya had rolled out after it won an ECK tender.</FONT></P><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; line-height: 19.0px"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#00072F" face="Verdana">Telkom Kenya is complaining that failure by Safaricom to activate the SMS service is affecting its ability to use an innovative platform that delivers voter registry query services by utilizing the 460 numeric to access the ECK database.</FONT></P><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; line-height: 19.0px"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#00072F" face="Verdana">Telkom Kenya says Safaricom acted maliciously in delaying to activate the SMS service only to launch a similar service.</FONT></P><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; line-height: 19.0px"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#00072F" face="Verdana">"We are perturbed that Safaricom, having not been involved in the initial tender process is currently able to provide a similar services using the 460 prefix. This is a totally unacceptable anti-competitive behaviour," Telkom says.</FONT></P><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; line-height: 19.0px"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#00072F" face="Verdana">Mr Joseph declined to comment on the matter saying it was already before an arbiter.</FONT></P><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; line-height: 19.0px"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#00072F" face="Verdana"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;">Telkom Kenya is the majority shareholder at Safaricom with a 60 per cent stake. It co-owns the company with the United Kingdom's Vodafone Plc which has a 40 per cent stake in the firm.</SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#00072F" face="Verdana"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;"><BR></SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#00072F" face="Verdana"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;"> (Source: Business Daily)</SPAN></FONT></SPAN></P><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR><DIV> <SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 20px; ">Eric M.K Osiakwan</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 20px; ">Executive Secretary</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 20px; ">AfrISPA (<A href="http://www.afrispa.org">www.afrispa.org</A>)</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 20px; ">Tel: + 233.21.258800 ext 2031</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 20px; ">Fax: + 233.21.258811</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 20px; ">Cell: + 233.244.386792</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 20px; ">Handle: eosiakwan</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 20px; ">Snail Mail: Pmb 208, Accra-North</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 20px; ">Office: BusyInternet - 42 Ring Road Central, Accra-North</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 20px; ">Blog: <A href="http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/eric/">http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/eric/</A></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 20px; ">Slang: "Tomorrow Now"</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"></SPAN></SPAN></SPAN> </DIV><BR></DIV></BODY></HTML>