Telecom abruptly drops service provider

WINDHOEKELVIS MURARANGANDA The State-owned Telecom Namibia has unceremoniously cut ties with a company providing its clients with Fax2EMail and Email2Fax services. In a short email, which circulated yesterday, Namfax accused the telecommunications giant of refusing to continue with their service provider agreement. "We have made every effort to negotiate with Telecom Namibia to continue with the service provider agreement but to no avail," the email to clients read. "We have tried everything in our power to prevent this unfortunate situation." The free client services, which are now discontinued, included simultaneous faxing by directing to email inboxes, as well as sending faxes from email to a fax machine. This created a smooth, fast and cheap way of sending files and documents. It also reduced paper usage. The abrupt end to Telecom and Namfax's business relationship left many users in the dark and unable to send or receive faxes through their email inboxes since Monday morning. An explanation was only forwarded yesterday. "We are in current discussions with Telecom Namibia to extend or re-negotiate the service provider agreement and will inform you as soon as we are successful with our negotiations," Namfax told its clients yesterday. According to Namfax, the sudden cancellation will not affect the service provider's Fax2Email service in the United Kingdom, South Africa, Lesotho, Mozambique, Zambia and Kenya. Telecom Namibia's managing director, Frans Ndoroma, refused to give any reason for the cancellation of the service provider agreement with Namfax. "It is an internal matter and we will deal with it internally," Ndoroma said. Telecom also runs a separate service which allows users to send messages to one or multiple cellphone numbers at once from the Telecom website.