now there 3G has been crap of late let them die a slow death and i will do the funeral.

If I may, for a brief moment change sides, I think Telkom also needs to shed some staff who still have the old school kind of attittude...I have dealt with them and when you get there its like you are in a government office...receptionist chatting away with a messenger while the phone rings, people always late for meeting or not showing up at all, etc etc...I think there might still be some "god fathering" of positions there (nepotism). If they can fix that and hire real pros who can develop counter strategies...

lets not throw the baby out with the bath water.

@Djinn - If Telkom Kenya 'failed' I am sure Safaricom or Airtel or many others would happily buy out the Internet Fibre & backhaul they have/own...

Heck, even KPLC has fibre from Mombasa to Nairobi & can easily extend it to most towns within 2 years!!!

@KulaRaha - THIS I agree with 100%...and this is why a while ago there was talk of dominant operators...I think the main exploitation and abuse of its dominance has been by SCOM...CCK has tried to manage this but there are too many powers at play...SCOM with a 80% share had most of its OWN traffic terminating in its own network and very little to other networks, while their networks also had considerable traffic it its network...its a bit hard to map out in words but that dominance precluded any operator from gaining a good foothold....lets remember this is an operator that has been providing mediocre services and still posting obscene profits...

If the Herfindahl Index (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herfindahl_index) were used to measure the competitiveness of the Kenya market and its players, I'm sure SCOM will be pronounced as a dominant player (BTW I am no economist)

Sorry, this cannot happen....it will go against the spirit of liberalisation. Let me quickly give an example of something going on currently in Nigeria - the state owned operator, after several botched privatisations, now wants to sell off the operator in bits - the mobile division, satellite, VSAT, etc etc....MTN, Zain, Glo and Etisalat are NOT eligible to bid...

see http://www.itnewsafrica.com/?p=5203[/quote]Fine, then someone else... I am sure there are MANY firms that will happily pick up the pieces of Telkom at the right price especially the internet backbone! There is Zuku, Tangerine, AccessKenya, YU... Maybe even KPLC...

Vibrant debate on the death and burial of telkom. With due respect the govt of kenya (tax payers) sold a sound business with viable assets to the french. They were not the only buyers, they did their due diligence, we pocketed the cash, they have the business and assets but no ideas. Should the butcher sell you a good piece of meat then follow you home to show you how to cook it? These guys have failed in their role as strategic investor.

On this you need to also consider that with the reduced prices the talk time minutes will automatically go up from 8 billion to double that or more...

Maybe it's because their commissions were also reduced?

Safaricom will definitely loose some of its market share as well as a drop on its revenues and followed by an increase in operational cost (esp in advertising.

I hear they are about to launch a masaa ya SMS tarrif which will be permanent.

Really? How much?