Local fixed telecoms operator TelOne has made substantial investments in the provision of retail broadband and voice services, however, most of its business is still generated from business clients.
The chairman of the TelOne board, Charles Shamu, recently revealed that 80% of its subscribers are business consumers versus the 20% retail users.
These business clients or wholesale consumers are split between the private sector (which makes up 60% of TelOne’s wholesale clients) and the government (which makes up the remaining 40%).
TelOne’s service lineup for wholesale clients includes ADSL, VSAT, fibre connectivity and voice (which also includes its new VoIP service suite).
In terms of active subscribers, Shamu pointed out that the figure normally reported on of 333,000 subscriptions represented an installed capacity and that TelOne’s active subscribers actually came to 270,000.
TelOne’s split between B2C (Business to consumer) and B2B (business to business) highlights the need for a significant focus on wholesale client management to secure revenues. This then ties in with the challenges that TelOne has faced with debtors that include government entities.
The operator is currently owed $146 million which it has been making efforts to recover despite an economic environment which has rendered some corporates insolvent and hamstrung revenue capabilities of government departments.
