The Gartner Group came under criticism from some sectors last month after it released a study on the SA telecommunications sector. General consensus was that Gartner`s outlook is downbeat because the organisation ranked SA at level four on the liberalisation scale – meaning the country is only beginning to open up its market.

Gartner analyst William Hahn found that the voice sector still dominates in SA but that opportunities are narrowing because of recent regulatory developments and ongoing growth in the mobile segment.

Speaking on a local radio station, he acknowledged that liberalisation will hurt Telkom. “It`s important to note that, as a telecommunications regime liberalises, things get better for end users things don`t get better for [service] providers. Life gets very tough for them and they have to really scramble to compete. So certainly it will eat into Telkom`s profits,” he said.