citations for verification . please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . unsourced material may be challenged and removed . june 2009 learn how and when to remove this template message telkom sa soc limited 1 type public state owned corporation traded as jse tkg industry communications services founded 1991 johannesburg transvaal province south africa headquarters centurion gauteng south africa key people sipho maseko group ceo deon fredericks cfo dr brian armstrong coo products telecommunications wireless and wireline broadband services managed services data hosting revenue 2015 r31 675 billion zar 1.2 % 2.526 billion usd 2 2014 r31 .288 billion zar 2.490 billion usd 2 2004 r43 billion zar 6.5 % 7 billion usd 3 2005 r43 .1 billion zar 6.9 billion usd 4 number of employees 19 197 2014 5 website www.telkom.co.za telkom sa soc ltd. is a wireline and wireless telecommunications provider in south africa and operating in more than 38 countries across the african continent . telkom is a semi privatised 39 % state owned company . telkom group head office as seen from church square pretoria city center direction nnw contents 1 history of telecommunications in south africa 2 telkom group structure 3 telkom market position and ownership 4 infrastructure 5 undersea cables 6 products and services 6.1 telkom adsl 6.2 telkom 3g 7 local subsidiaries 8 competition 9 pan african operations 10 criticisms 10.1 user complaints 10.2 monopoly and state ownership 10.3 adsl capping 10.4 shaping 10.5 fine 11 see also 12 references 13 external links history of telecommunications in south africa edit see also internet in south africa the first use of telecommunication in the republic of south africa was a single line telegraph connecting cape town and simonstown . when after bell labs development of the telephone the first undersea links were introduced first connecting durban and europe and soon after the rest of the world . the network continued to develop through internal financing in a heavily regulated market as international technology developed . at this point telephone services were operated by the south african post office . in the 1960s south africa was connected to 72 nations and total outgoing annual international calls numbered over 28 800 . in the 1990s south africa launched its mobile operations underwritten by telkom in partnership with vodafone . this subsidiary grew to be vodacom which telkom sold in late 2008 in preference for its own 3g network . vodacom has a subscriber base of more than r45m with an average revenue per user of more than r60 across both rural and urban subscribers . vodacom together with the other operators have come under criticism in late 2009 by government and the public for high interconnect charges . 7 this issue is currently being discussed by the parliamentary committee on telecommunications . in 2004 the department of communications redefined the electronics communications act which consolidated and redefined the landscape of telecommunications licensing in south africa both mobile and fixed . the independent communications authority icasa currently licenses more than 400 independent operators with the electronic communications network license with the ability to self provision as well as issuing electronic communications service licenses for service deployment over infrastructure in the retail domain . telkom is no longer the single operator in south africa and faces competition from the second fixed network operator licensee neotel as well as the three mobile operators vodacom mtn and cell c. however it still receives criticisms see later from smaller operators and the competition commission for setting south african broadband pricing in its favour . telkom group structure edit telkom sa is structured under group ceo mr sipho maseko . the retail division including telkom business telkom mobile consumer marketing cloud and it operations are run by group chief operating officer dr brian armstrong and its wholesale and networks division is under md alphonso samuels . cybernest focuses on telkom s newly deployed dco infrastructure in cape town pretoria and johannesburg as well as services thereupon including data hosting lan and application management and managing it infrastructure for corporate and large business customers . jeffrey hedberg was appointed acting group chief executive officer on 7 july 2010 following reuben september s resignation . jeffrey was the ceo of cell c from 2006 2009 . however on 13 january 2011 techcentral reported that hedberg will quit telkom by the end of march 2011 8 citing that he felt that he would not be given the mandate he needed to fix telkom commercially and operationally . the mandate to control telkom s corporate and business strategy was managed by the south african government a class a shareholder in the privately listed company . it is speculated that government is intending telkom to play a more active role in the rest of africa . telkom s performance in africa has been less than spectacular reporting a significant goodwill impairment in 2010 of its nigerian operations . 9 telkom has recently been rocked by speculation of corruption in terms of poor procurement practice nepotism and mismanagement 10 and the uncertainty around fired coo motlasti nzeku 11 whose future at the operator remains uncertain . telkom market position and ownership edit telkom was managed by us based sbc communications now at & t inc. from 1997 to 2004 . sbc has since sold its interest in the company after reducing operational expenditure reducing staff resources etc. and increasing revenue by increased product prices thereby increasing the share price for greater roi . the company is currently the market leader in the broadband space with more than 500 000 customers on 2 40 mbit s dsl ; it dominates the managed services market and has more than 250 corporate customers on its order book . telkom sa operates 4.5 m fixed access lines bases on its 2008 annual report . 12 infrastructure edit according to the world factbook it is the best developed and most modern in africa . it consists of local copper loops microwave and fiber optic loops and wireless connections . the routing and billing system were almost completely digital by the mid 1980s which made way for the currently used systems of me ng sdh adsl wimax d atm and others . undersea cables edit the eastern africa submarine cable system eassy is an initiative to connect countries of eastern africa via a high bandwidth fibre optic cable system to the rest of the world . seacom is a privately funded venture which built owns and operates a submarine fibre optic cable connecting communication carriers in south and east africa . sat 3 wasc or south atlantic 3 west africa submarine cable is a submarine communications cable linking portugal and spain to south africa with connections to several west african countries along the route . it forms part of the sat 3 wasc safe cable system where the safe cable links south africa to asia . the south africa far east cable is an optical fiber submarine communications cable linking melkbosstrand south africa to penang malaysia . products and services edit telkom adsl edit telkom provides adsl retail services via their isp telkom internet to consumer and business customers and through telkom wholesale to other licensed operators . most isps in south africa such as afrihost utilise telkom s copper infrastructure for resell adsl services . telkom provides adsl with pots . according to telkom s figures 92 % of exchanges have been upgraded to support adsl . 13 telkom is currently the largest provider of fixed line broadband in the country with 412 190 subscribers according to the 2008 annual report . telkom adsl is billed as an add on service to a pots voice line . a pppoe account which can be provided by most internet service providers isps must be purchased separately to the adsl connection for internet access . isps are divided into two categories those who purchase ipconnect from telkom and those who resell pppoe accounts from ipconnect isps or telkom themselves . ipconnect is a telkom bit stream access product allowing isps to route internet bandwidth from their adsl subscribers over their own bandwidth . three connection rate ranges are offered associated with different connection fees which are fast 1024 384 kbit s faster up to 2048 512 kbit s fastest up to 10240 1002 kbit s adsl2 14 of bandwidth for downstream upstream respectively . the actual speed obtained can vary depending on line conditions . telkom have released an 10 mbit adsl 2 service for a limited amount of fastest users on 15 august 2010 . 15 as of 24 august 2012 faster 1024 kbit s users started reporting speed upgrades to 2 mbit s 2048 kbit s on their adsl lines . 16 as of 2 september 2012 telkom have begun the process of trialing 40mbit s vdsl and fttx . 17 telkom internet offers business and residential softcap packages as of 1 february 2012 . 18 packages offering uncapped unlimited data usage have also recently been made available . 19 from 18 october 2011 telkom internet launched business offerings 20 and has subsequently increased value with speed upgrades and improved prioritisation for business users as well as converting products to include soft capping unlimited browsing . 21 telkom 3g edit this section contains content that is written like an advertisement . please help improve it by removing promotional content and inappropriate external links and by adding encyclopedic content written from a neutral point of view . june 2009 learn how and when to remove this template message telkom had 3g products supporting at least 7.2 mbit s hsdpa available since 2008 . 22 the coverage was initially limited to a small part of the country . telkom fully entered the south african cellular market under the brand 8ta . the public launch of the network took place on 14 october 2010 and products have been available since 18 october 2010 23 supporting both gsm and 3g services . the 3g network supports speeds up to 10 mbit s hspa 23 while the gsm network is fully edge disable . telkom will be roaming on the mtn network outside its coverage . 24 local subsidiaries edit telkom group limited has the following south african subsidiaries trudon previously tds directory operations and swiftnet trading as fastnet . 25 trudon is the largest directory publisher in south africa providing white and yellow pages directory services and electronic white pages . swiftnet operates under the name fastnet . fastnet operates the company s internet of things portfolio as well as offering point of sale and wireless connectivity solutions to financial retail agri business and property management sectors . competition edit this article s tone or style may not reflect the encyclopedic tone used on wikipedia . see wikipedia s guide to writing better articles for suggestions . april 2015 learn how and when to remove this template message recent legislation passed by the south african government have lowered many restrictions on companies wishing to provide telecommunication access in the republic . competitors to the land line monopoly have flourished with special note given to providers of wireless broadband who provide greater geographical penetration by means of the technology used than telkom . examples of these providers include sentech an extension of the state owned south african broadcasting corporation and wbs co. a black owned enterprise . on 31 august 2006 neotel second network operator announced the launch of its services as the second national operator initially offering wholesale international services with plans to expand to business & residential customers within months . neotel plans to initially use cdma 2000 wireless technology for the last mile infrastructure due to the government and icasa s the regulator inability and unwillingness to unbundle the local loop leading some to suggest that it s not much more than a cellular operator instead of the much needed competitor to telkom . the three mobile telephone networks in south