Is there some connection with Telkoms board of executive directors and members of the ANC???????????? Just something i heard while having lunch in a restaurant today. Something about government not allowing a major telecommunications company into the country because certain individuals would not get what was denied to them for so long. I'd like to know what others out there think of this.......

computeralien, I would say you are correct!

First off: Where's our SNO that was promised to use in 2003?
Second: Teleskum screws us over so much and we biach and moan but what's being done? More Answering messages telling us to wait another 50000000000000000000 seconds and our Call is important to them?
Thirdly: The gov has the say in who the SNO should be but why are they delaying it?

Excellent. Glad somebody agrees. A few years ago there were deals going on with AT&T, BT a Belgium contingent and an Indian group and Telkom with the government for a 2nd major telecoms company in the country. Why was there not much information given to the public about the outcome of such meetings, and why was no "competition" allowed into the new democratic SA. Words from a certain individual at a certain newspaper are that members of government have about a 42% share in Telkom stock that was bought in the normal fraudulent ways, and that a 2nd operator would not allow this to happen. Please, how can a public company dictate its terms to the government and get away with it. Around the same time Telkom decided to go public. Why did this happen? But telkom is a company for the people owned by the people, except the people have no say in its policy and structuring. Notice how Telkoms shares dont do all that well recently. There is so much that needs to be said about what is actually going on but people in SA need to start doing something. Maybe some ethics group can be set up by the public to look into this because the government and telkom can talk about this SNO and this reduction in price and this extra gig cap,but thats all they do and so many people fall for that crap. Where the hell is our 10gig cap for $30 a month and where is our government making sure that people have access to the internet for the betterment of our society, a good example of this would be a country like Belgium that can lay ISDN lines for 75% of the country for free ( now thats democracy ) helping others Talking does not bring change, only action.

Well, sadly that is just the state of affairs in this country - people will always get screwed (well, actually that is the way it is in most countries in any case).

The governemt (to my knowledge) does have quite a large stake in Telkum, and look at the increasing profits from Telkom over the last few years. Naturally, the more profit Telkum makes, the more dividends the shareholders will get as well.

Introducing a SNO will result in people (obviously) shifting to the new operator, and thus a decrease in Telkum's profits, and thus a decrease in Telkum's shareholder's dividends.

In the world of business, and politics, a LOT happens behind the scenes, and the public is naturally the last to know about these things.

At the end of the day, money is worth more than a lot of things - including people's lives (Iraq/Afghanistan - the war on "terror" aka the war for oil), so continually, people like you and me will end up drawing the short straws in life.