Interesting reading

[rpm]

Hi guys

I just received a mail that makes for interesting reading. I did not validate any of the facts, so please draw your own conclusions.

"Telkom ADSL - consider these facts:
• Telkom sees fit to charge South Africans $50 per ADSL modem for R 2500 - an 800% mark-up
• Most ISPs in the rest of the world give you the modem for free...
• ICASA will 'test' the modem for R 20 000 for 'compatibility' whilst these modems are made to international (ITU) standards and no-one will make one specially for South Africa with its paltry ADSL take-up numbers.
• This raises the cost to end users without any benefit to anyone except ICASA
• The cost of setting up a new ADSL line on an exchange is approximately US $ 40 per line
• Telkom charges R 460 EVERY time they (re) connect a new user to the exchange
• Telkom complains about the 'high cost' Internet transit traffic yet sees fit to charge R 800 for a ADSL connection and R 200 for the actual IP going through it
• Telkom owns 20% of the new 130 Gigabit fibre optic link to Portugal - yet uses only a fraction of its available bandwidth
• Telkom's CEO has gone on record to say that this new link will be paid back in 2 years - just by telephone traffic!
• Sine the cable is paid back ADSL in Portugal should cost about the same as in South Africa
• ADSL in fact costs about a quarter of the SA cost in Portugal (or anywhere else in Europe)
• Has Telkom considered that Seoul or Tokyo is also far away from America when it comes to explaining why international bandwidth is so expensive?
• Note that India has 50 000 cable TV COMPANIES supplying TV signals - that same TV cable is now providing Internet access in India
• South Africa has 0 (zero) TV cable companies. Even Maputo has cable TV.
• Even though your ADSL line connects at 6 megabits, the connection is 512 kilobit but runs at 50 kilobit (modem speed) during business hours ...
• Telkom has failed to provision sufficient international bandwidth for the ADSL users
• The coming of the SEO will do nothing to change the above - duopoly is not competition.
• All that ICASA and the government end up doing with their regulations is to regulate who gets the profits from an inferior service"




RPM
rpm@myadsl.co.za

[Jerrek]

That is just sad. Why doesn't someone start a cable company? I know you don't have the existing infrastructure for that, but surely if you can lay down telephone cables when new houses and neighborhoods are constructed you can lay down a thick fiber cable and split it off into coaxial cable for residential use? Then you can feed 125 TV channels to residential homes and have several 40 Mbps channels for internet. (Ignoring the obvious international problem, this should be great for local access.)

[rpm]

Hi Jerrek

That would be great indeed. But there are laws in place prohibiting anybody from transferring data unless you use a Telkom service. There are therefore laws protecting the monopoly and making any form of competition illegal. Difficult to believe if you come from the US or the UK I am certain.

Regards,

RPM


RPM
rpm@myadsl.co.za

[ASnogarD]

Not too sure but I think cable modem would fall under the catagory of communication and thus is in Telkoms hands...they get to say yay or nay.

Second reason is population density vrs cost of infrastructure...the most densely populated areas in RSA have the lowest income per individual thus is not profitable..the areas where people could afford it is less populated and thus not enough unless the price is ridiculous.

[Jerrek]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by rpm</i>
<br />
That would be great indeed. But there are laws in place prohibiting anybody from transferring data unless you use a Telkom service. There are therefore laws protecting the monopoly and making any form of competition illegal. Difficult to believe if you come from the US or the UK I am certain.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
That is just stupid. You have satellite TV right? How does that work?

[rpm]

Hi Jerrek

We do indeed, and a SAT connection is possible…as long as you use a Telkom line! You must therefore use a Telkom line with the SAT (usually for upload while the SAT serves the downloading side) in order to be legal. As I said…not easy to fathom :-)


RPM
rpm@myadsl.co.za

[plug]

RPM, some really shocking info you got. [V] Let's hope we can do something about it. [:D]