BUSINESS NEWS
SNO gets network access
Posted Mon, 14 Aug 2006
The Second Network Operator has been give access to an inter-city communication network following the signing of an agreement on Friday, it said. The "Heads of Agreement", signed with the department of public enterprises, provides for the SNO to have access to an inter-city, high-capacity, full-services network, the SNO said in a statement. The arrangement came close on the heels of the SNO's purchase of high-capacity fibre-optic network assets from Transnet.
The network was originally created by state-owned enterprises, Eskom and Transnet, who are also shareholders in the SNO. "The network/asset transactions will go a long way in allowing the SNO to deploy a high-capacity national telecommunications network based on leading-edge convergent technologies," said Ajay Pandey, the SNO's managing director in a statement. The SNO would switch on international wholesale services at the end of August and business services by the end of this year. It would be the
first full-scale, national infrastructure-based competitor to Telkom and was expected to help reduce high telecommunications costs in South Africa.
Public enterprises department spokesperson Gaynor Kast said: "From our side, we are pleased. This [agreement] takes it a step closer to realisation of the SNO." This week Business Day newspaper reported that the SNO was at "advanced stages of readiness" to deliver its services later this year. This amid claims that the government would not sell it the telecommunications infrastructure under Eskom's ownership. The assets included a substantial base of deployed fibre-optic cable as well as telecommunications equipment and facilities countrywide. "We are currently in discussion with various potential customers and we are now in advanced stages of readiness to deliver," the paper quoted Pandey as saying then. But, the paper said, if government had decided to lease and not sell Eskom's telecommunications
network to the SNO, as had been claimed, this could delay the rollout of services. The aim of leasing the infrastructure to the SNO, it was claimed, was to ensure that the government played a potent role in driving prices down, Business Day said, quoting anonymous sources.
Sapa
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