Telkom launches convergence bundles
Telkom today gained significant momentum on its journey toward fixed mobile convergence (FMC) when the Company revealed converged bundled solutions for business customers, to bring together the best fixed and mobile solutions, on a single bill, from a single provider.
"This innovation is an expression of Telkom's key strategic thrust to lead in the fixed mobile convergence market. We recently undertook to keep our stakeholders informed on development of the Company strategy and I am pleased to announce our progress on the FMC journey," said Telkom Group CEO, Ms Nombulelo Moholi.
"This journey has been led by Dr Brian Armstrong and his team at Telkom Business who remain committed to delivering innovation in FMC and ultimately seamless unified communication," she added.
Telkom Business' Managing Director, Dr Brian Armstrong says, "One of the key drives in Telkom is a move from being the "incumbent" to market leadership. Single service offerings and ultimately the move toward converged solutions is a key part of achieving this."
Telkom has mapped out an aggressive roadmap toward offering true FMC and seamless unified communications and has already achieved a number of milestones including the launch of Cybernest, Telkom Business Mobile and the unveiling of Telkom Business Broadband.
"We believe that Telkom is best positioned to lead in this space. We have the necessary infrastructure, network, products, scale and resources to offer the best of the fixed and mobile technology worlds."
Converged bundles will now marry Telkom's fixed, mobile and data offerings into a single solution.
"The convenience of flexible and scalable tailor made solutions; unified billing and a single point of purchase and service
support will deliver unrivalled value, cost and productivity gains for our business customers," said Armstrong.
Telkom unveiled three fixed mobile "Killer" deals today; however, Armstrong announced that in the coming weeks the Company would reveal almost two dozen more convergence deals.
"Furthermore all the convergence deals can be tailored to the customer's specific requirements via a deal builder portal on Telkom Business' Online Shopping Basket."
He also revealed that coming soon, Telkom would offer SIM bundle Deals on Convergence accounts and Closed User Group Deals, with up to 20 000 mobile users, and free calls to one fixed line on certain deals.
"Telkom has prioritised the journey toward convergence as a key part of the Company's overall strategy. Looking ahead we know that FMC will form an integral element of seamless unified communication (UC) and that is where we are heading," offered Armstrong. UC enables people to communicate anywhere, anytime, over any media.
"Essentially, FMC will evolve from basic PBX mobile extensions to comprehensive UC with collaborative solutions. Telkom is currently piloting premise-based UC solutions with three large corporate customers as we gear up to reach the next milestone on this journey.
"We spend a lot of time talking to our customers to make sure we know what they want. We are confident we can deliver both their existing and latent ICT needs," concluded Dr Armstrong.
For further enquiries, please contact:
PYNEE CHETTY
Senior Specialist: Media Relations
Tel.: (012) 311-5247
Cell: 081 389 7874
Email: chettpr2@telkom.co.za
or
LEIGH-ANN FRANCIS
Specialist: Media Relations
Tel.: (012) 311-7114
Cell: 081 391 4780
Email: francilm@telkom.co.za
About Telkom
Telkom is a leading communications services provider in South Africa and on the African continent. We had consolidated normalised operating revenue from continuing operations of R33.4 billion and normalised profit for the year from continuing operations of R2.4 billion for the year ended 31 March 2011. Total assets from continuing operations amounted to R54.3 billion and equity attributable to the owners of Telkom to R29.6 billion as of 31 March 2011. The group generated normalised free cash flow of R3.5 billion for the year ended 31 March 2011.
We had consolidated operating revenue from continuing operations of R16.4 billion and profit for the period from continuing operations of R502 million for the six months ended 30 September 2011. Total assets amounted to R52.4 billion and equity attributable to the owners of Telkom to R29.1 billion as of 30 September 2011. The group generated free cash flow of R1.5 billion for the six months ended 30 September 2011.
As of 30 September 2011, we had approximately 4.1 million telephone access lines in service and 99.9% of our telephone access lines were connected to digital exchanges. We offer business, residential and payphone customers a wide range of services and products, including:
- fixed-line subscription and connection services to post-paid, prepaid and private payphone customers using PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) lines, including ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) lines, and the sale of the subscription based value-added voice services and customer premises equipment rental and sales;
- fixed-line traffic services to post-paid, prepaid, and payphone customers, including local, long distance, fixed-to-mobile, international outgoing and international voice-over-internet protocol traffic services;
- interconnection services, including terminating and transiting traffic from South African mobile operators, as well as from international operators and transiting traffic from mobile to international destinations;
- fixed-line data centre operations and internet services, including domestic and international data transmission services, such as point-to-point leased lines, ADSL (Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line) services, packet-based services, managed data networking services and internet access and related information technology services;
- e-commerce, including internet access service provider, application service provider, hosting, data storage, e-mail and security services;
- W-CDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access), a 3G next generation network, including fixed voice services, data services and nomadic voice services;
- mobile communication services, including voice services, data services and handset sales through its mobile brand called 8•ta; and
- other services including directory services, through Trudon (Proprietary) Limited, wireless data services, through Swiftnet (Proprietary) Limited and internet services outside South Africa, through iWayAfrica Group (integration of Africa Online Limited and MWEB Africa Limited).