Zarathustra
07-08-2003, 09:22 AM
ADSL – The truth is out there. Albeit VERY elusive. The trick is to
convince an uncorrupted soul from Telkom to talk to you ‘off the
record’.
Our company accessed the Internet via ISDN dial-up. After moving to
new offices, an interim solution while awaiting Telkom’s ADSL
installation, was that we used normal analogue dial-up via a 56K
modem. A month and a half ago, we had ADSL installed. That is when
our problems started:
We used to send (SMTP) and receive (POP3) our e-mail from our mail
server which is located in Germany. It was a little slow, but worked
without any problems. After the ADSL installation, suddenly, we
could no longer send or receive any e-mail with attachments.
After making sure that there was no physical problems i.e. Telkom
cabling, router, cache server etc. and many calls to the Telkom
‘Helpdesk’ on 0800375375, I eventually made contact with a helpdesk
person who was willing to tell me what was really going on.
Firstly, when someone from a company says to you:
‘Do you want to hear what I am allowed to tell you or do you want the
truth?!?”, you know there is trouble.
I opted for the second option and in short, this is what I found out:
- Telkom made sure that no one else could afford to provide ADSL as a
service on their own, by charging phenomenally high rates for the
links which would be required. That is what happened to the Internet
Solutions offering.
- Telkom has only allocated a certain amount of international
bandwidth for ADSL users. This bandwidth ‘flatlines’ from 07h00 until
03h00. It is basically on a first-come first-served basis during
this time.
- If you view your ADSL access speed via
http://www.telkom.co.za/dsl/speed1.shtml everything looks fine.
Besides the fact that this server is running on the SAIX backbone and
browsing speeds would obviously be faster, I was informed that HTTP
traffic is routed a priority service. The result is that local
browsing is fast and in general, international browsing is acceptable.
This was implemented because three months ago, no one using ADSL
could even browse the internet. This was due to the fact that the
entire service offering was done on a first-come first-served basis.
All other protocols are not prioritised eg. POP3, SMTP etc.
- Telkom is looking into providing ADSL packages, where one could have
‘guaranteed’ access speeds for certain protocols. It would have good
to know this before going the ADSL route and spending money on things
like an ADSL ISP, ADSL router, cache server, Telkom ADSL costs etc.
This brings me to the problems which we experienced:
- Firstly, our POP is located at an international location. Which in
order to access, would require some international bandwidth during
normal accepted working hours
- Secondly, POP3 has no priority of service, so if you can actually
get some international bandwidth, POP3 requests would time out i.e. No
download of e-mail.
- The solution to this, was to have all our mail forwarded from our
mail server in Germany to a local ISP and then POP and SMTP our e-mail
via them. All this adds up to extra costs.
My comments regarding ADSL are the following:
- Telkom says that they don’t guarantee ADSL access and for that
matter, ISDN or 56K analogue dial-up either. Not guaranteeing, surely
does NOT mean NO access at all. We are, after all paying alot of
money for these so-called ‘services’ .
- The problem is not that our mail server is in Germany, but the fact
that Telkom does not provide what they advertise or at least tell you
what you can expect. I refer to their misleading flaming mouse logo –
“Always available’.
- I believe that Telkom has purposely degraded the ADSL service to
protect their ISDN and Diginet market. After all, the cheapest
Diginet solution is around R5000.00 for 64K. Which SME can actually
afford this kind of expense?!?
- Lastly, let us not forget what speeds ADSL is actually capable of!?!
Once again, the customer suffers while Telkom rakes in the cash and
announces huge profits. <font color="red">Bring on the competition</font id="red">!?! [:D]
convince an uncorrupted soul from Telkom to talk to you ‘off the
record’.
Our company accessed the Internet via ISDN dial-up. After moving to
new offices, an interim solution while awaiting Telkom’s ADSL
installation, was that we used normal analogue dial-up via a 56K
modem. A month and a half ago, we had ADSL installed. That is when
our problems started:
We used to send (SMTP) and receive (POP3) our e-mail from our mail
server which is located in Germany. It was a little slow, but worked
without any problems. After the ADSL installation, suddenly, we
could no longer send or receive any e-mail with attachments.
After making sure that there was no physical problems i.e. Telkom
cabling, router, cache server etc. and many calls to the Telkom
‘Helpdesk’ on 0800375375, I eventually made contact with a helpdesk
person who was willing to tell me what was really going on.
Firstly, when someone from a company says to you:
‘Do you want to hear what I am allowed to tell you or do you want the
truth?!?”, you know there is trouble.
I opted for the second option and in short, this is what I found out:
- Telkom made sure that no one else could afford to provide ADSL as a
service on their own, by charging phenomenally high rates for the
links which would be required. That is what happened to the Internet
Solutions offering.
- Telkom has only allocated a certain amount of international
bandwidth for ADSL users. This bandwidth ‘flatlines’ from 07h00 until
03h00. It is basically on a first-come first-served basis during
this time.
- If you view your ADSL access speed via
http://www.telkom.co.za/dsl/speed1.shtml everything looks fine.
Besides the fact that this server is running on the SAIX backbone and
browsing speeds would obviously be faster, I was informed that HTTP
traffic is routed a priority service. The result is that local
browsing is fast and in general, international browsing is acceptable.
This was implemented because three months ago, no one using ADSL
could even browse the internet. This was due to the fact that the
entire service offering was done on a first-come first-served basis.
All other protocols are not prioritised eg. POP3, SMTP etc.
- Telkom is looking into providing ADSL packages, where one could have
‘guaranteed’ access speeds for certain protocols. It would have good
to know this before going the ADSL route and spending money on things
like an ADSL ISP, ADSL router, cache server, Telkom ADSL costs etc.
This brings me to the problems which we experienced:
- Firstly, our POP is located at an international location. Which in
order to access, would require some international bandwidth during
normal accepted working hours
- Secondly, POP3 has no priority of service, so if you can actually
get some international bandwidth, POP3 requests would time out i.e. No
download of e-mail.
- The solution to this, was to have all our mail forwarded from our
mail server in Germany to a local ISP and then POP and SMTP our e-mail
via them. All this adds up to extra costs.
My comments regarding ADSL are the following:
- Telkom says that they don’t guarantee ADSL access and for that
matter, ISDN or 56K analogue dial-up either. Not guaranteeing, surely
does NOT mean NO access at all. We are, after all paying alot of
money for these so-called ‘services’ .
- The problem is not that our mail server is in Germany, but the fact
that Telkom does not provide what they advertise or at least tell you
what you can expect. I refer to their misleading flaming mouse logo –
“Always available’.
- I believe that Telkom has purposely degraded the ADSL service to
protect their ISDN and Diginet market. After all, the cheapest
Diginet solution is around R5000.00 for 64K. Which SME can actually
afford this kind of expense?!?
- Lastly, let us not forget what speeds ADSL is actually capable of!?!
Once again, the customer suffers while Telkom rakes in the cash and
announces huge profits. <font color="red">Bring on the competition</font id="red">!?! [:D]