Is Telkom taking our calls?

I don't want to get anyone's hopes up but there is a chance, a slim chance, that there are signs of life at Telkom.

Last week, the moribund state-owned telecoms utility revealed it's in talks with Korea Telecoms which wants to buy a 20% stake.

It's far from an ideal scenario, given the profiteering that happened the last time Telkom acquired a foreign co-owner, but it suggests there is a glimmer of hope that South Africans might finally get the decent kind of telecoms system the country deserves.

The inertia at Telkom, which is beset with structural and managerial problems, has cost this country untold billions in lost opportunities in the last decade-and-a-half.

The cost of telephone calls, of internet access and of broadband is artificially high. There is little or no real competition to Telkom, despite the cellphone operators stealing its voice customers and providing data; and the limited opportunities Neotel has wrestled for itself.

It remains almost criminal that the largest internet service provider in the country is a cellular operator, Vodacom, and that Telkom's own cellphone unit, 8ta, can provide cheaper broadband than its parent. Anyone with the slightest understanding of the telecoms industry will tell you this is an anomaly and one that should never have happened.

Like so many ego-driven South African enterprises without substance to back them up, it's like watching a train wreck in slow motion.

The problem with Telkom is that it is effectively 50% state-owned and therefore the agenda of creating, or preserving jobs, takes precedence over efficiency, even if there are good reports about new CEO Pinky Moholi's turnaround strategy.

Telkom needs to shed much of its workforce to become competitive, invest in newer technologies and be innovative instead of fighting to maintain its monopoly and dominance.

This backward-looking focus has meant its eye is on protection not innovation - a recipe for disaster that Microsoft, Nokia and scores of other tech firms can warn them about.

The latest evidence of this was seen when Telkom came out aggressively in defence at regulator Icasa's hearings into unbundling the local loop - the last mile of connection between those blue exchange boxes on street corners and your home or business.

I would remind Telkom that those copper cables carrying overpriced calls and broadband were paid for by taxpayers. They belong to us, not you.

Years of weak-willed ministers and government interference with Icasa's ability to do its job, coupled with a lack of funding and resources have allowed Telkom to get away with economic strangulation.

If we truly want to compete, if we want to be a part of BRICS, as more than China's pawn, we need to get with the broadband programme.

The technological highlight of my week was using MTN's trial LTE, the next generation of wireless networks. It stands for long-term evolution and is blisteringly fast - like real broadband, the kind I use in developed countries such as the US, Europe and Asia. It should be supplied by Telkom, via a fast pipe. I pay R50 a month less for the same ADSL line via MWEB than from Telkom. How on earth is that possible in a sane world?

Sentech, another useless parastatal, is sitting on a virtual gold mine with the frequencies allocated to it. But it is in even more of a mess than Telkom and those frequencies needed for LTE sit idle. To build an LTE network will cost about R20-billion, according to industry estimates. That's a whole new Gautrain. I can't see Sentech rolling out digital terrestrial television, let alone delivering a TV signal.

For real change, we have to unbundle the local loop, take the spectrum away from Sentech and give it to those who will use it effectively.

• Shapshak is editor of Stuff magazine