Telkom has thrown down the gauntlet to the regulator. Like any dominant incumbent with a legal department the size of the North Korean Army, it knows this game well. The regulator must respond to its proposed interconnection rates for other operators and value-added network service (VANS) providers. How it responds will show whether it is as impotent as its predecessor, or can regulate decisively in the public interest.

Years ago, Telkom brought a case to the South African Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (Satra), a well-intended but resource-starved body that would later be folded into Ivy's Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa).