Telkom SA eyes partnerships in retail electronics
Telkom South Africa, in its endeavour to make its products and services more accessible to customers, is entering into partnerships with third-party channels in the retail electronics industry.
Telkom Tower in Pretoria. (Image: File)
“Retail channels remain the predominant channel for customer purchases and are therefore key to Telkom’s strategy to increase market reach and provide convenience and easy access to our products and services,” says Manelisa Mavuso, Managing Director: Consumer Services and Retail.
With this in mind, Telkom has started a pilot project involving DionWired stores Gateway in Durban, Woodmead in Johannesburg, and Canal Walk in Cape Town. The aim is to test the concept before commencing national roll-out.
Each of these stores now have a Telkom counter where customers can order our high-speed broadband services.
“In this way, we aim to capitalise on the synergies at the point of purchase where customers buy their PCs and laptops, gaming consoles, Internet TVs, tablets and cellphones,” says Manelisa.
A key selling point of Telkom broadband is that multiple users in the same household or business can simultaneously use the same broadband connection. Wireless routers allow family members in one room to download and play games or music while another family member in another room is able to chat on Facebook on a cellphone – at the same time and using the same Telkom connection.
This pilot project with DionWired follows an earlier announcement about Telkom’s partnership with Samsung, announced at the Samsung Africa Forum in Cape Town in March this year.
Through the Samsung deal, customers are offered Telkom broadband packages as part of their Smart TV purchase. This convenient, one-stop service enables customers to use the Telkom broadband connection to download movies, games and other Internet-based content over their Samsung Smart TV sets.
Staff Writer
patented in 2004 by a Togolese researcher, Dr. Victor Agbegnenou, the PWCS (Polyvalent Wireless Communication System) technology, the technology of the Thales Group, uses microwave and as “a fibre through the air”.
Lebon Ngounou, who heads the Cameroonian society IdreamGroup in charge of commercializing this technology in Africa, “the PWCS is the economical alternative market to reduce the digital divide by ensuring capacity and rates comparable to those of optical fibre for a lower cost up to 10 times”. The PWCS ould allow, according to its proponent, to offer African consumers of triple play (internet very broadband, telephony and television) for 15,000 CFA FRANCS per month.
Lebon Ngounou of Cameroonian society IdreamGroup.
Concretely, the PWCS is a “row of technology”, says Lebon Ngounou: “This means that the signal is transmitted between two antennas – a transmitter and a receiver – and that message passes between these two points that in the absence of obstruction, such as a building or a relief.” If obstacle, it adds a relay. The receiver is then connected to the user by wiring, optical or non. The Subscriber, equipped with a decoder can then benefit from an offer triple play. Each receiver can also become a relay transmitter, which allows the creation of a dense and this network to the last kilometre, often very expensive to connect fibre optique.».
To their promoter, radio technology requires little time to install, as the fibre which should support the achievement of trenches and therefore the cost of work in civil engineering. On the other hand, the antennas, which do not measure “18 inch”, are arranged on existing infrastructure and require that rarely the construction of towers. This low-cost infrastructure would thus bring very high flow in sparsely populated areas and ensure universal access to low-cost.
The process has already tested in a real situation in Auger Saint Vincent, 50 km from Paris, said Mr. Ngounou.(http://www.augersaintvincent.fr/article/articleview/64/1/27). It team already the University of Ouagadougou or UEMOA headquarters.