Toby Shapshak: Pattern Recognition

reduced its Ebitda loss to R43m from over R2bn three years ago. Calling it a “star performer”, Maseko says the mobile business has been breaking even on a monthly basis since the fourth quarter.

Good news from Telkom has been scarce in recent years. The public has had a long-standing adversarial relationship with the company over its arrogant and monopolistic tendencies in the past. But there is evidence that the relationship is on the mend.

There was a time when Telkom was the only telecoms game in town and that monopoly made it lazy and arrogant. When cellular networks first entered the market in the 1990s, they applied the first injection of pressure on Telkom’s voice business.

Faster wireless data networks from other operators — and Telkom's overpriced ADSL service with up to three months’ delay in installation — soon began to draw its customers away, just as Internet use began to skyrocket.

But the new game in town is fibre and while Telkom has begun to offer better options for this faster way of getting online, its packages still seem underwhelming.

Smaller Internet service providers, with less resources, offer better value for money than Telkom.

It’s an enigma to me that Telkom, with its abundance of fibre infrastructure and much larger economies of scale, still appears to lag behind. I’ve often criticised Telkom for not understanding that broadband is a volume business (based on its expensive ADSL pricing) and it still doesn’t seem as if that has filtered through.

But credit is due to Maseko and his team — including industry stalwarts in chief operating officer Brian Armstrong and marketing executive Enzo Scarcella — for getting Telkom to this positive place and rebuilding its once-tattered brand and reputation.