New ADSL offering from Telkom is on its way

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lewstherin

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Hi Guys

Yesterday, I had a good chat with close friend who works in Telkom planning.

He informs me that Telkom will be launching a new ADSL line offering - DSL192. He is in fact delaying purchasing a DSL line until 192 launches - apparently the DSL192 line rental will be in the region of R250...

This is obviously hearsay, but this friend of mine is a honest, decent guy so I believe him. He reckons the new line will be announced around the end of this month...

I must say, a new DSL option is always good - but I was kind of hoping it was going to be a DSL1024 offering :D.

Use it don't use it.
 
It is a good thing in terms of promoting 24/7 internet but a bad thing in the sense that that is the price we should be charged for DSL 512...

So it is a bitter-sweet announcement...

Cheers
Antowan
 
Else where in the world companies are giving free upgrades and offering faster services. S.A. must be the only country in the world where we are in reverse gear when it comes to broadband. :(
 
adlo said:
Does the fact that they will be introducing this new offering mean that they are trying to compete with Sentech and iBurst's so-called broadband on price?
Click to expand...
Nope - methinks it's typical marketing strategy to increase market share in the face of new offerings. And such new offerings are not from WBS or Sentech (who don't seem to have the ability to provide services that the market expects, anyway), but rather the current offering from Vodacom, the prosepctive offerings from the other cellular providers, and the possibility of VANS/ISP offerings from the likes of IS. It's for this reason that they're focussing on T-Zone coverage and hope to deploy Wi-Max once the pilots are complete. Think about it - an existing customer would be more inclined to take-on an improved, augmented service (even though it may cost more), than battling for new customers. So... trawl/fish for as many new customers as you can right now, using cheaper, constrained offerings as a net/bait. There's method in their madness...
 
If the line rental is R250 then I guess the ISP costs will still remain in the same bracket and the same caps will apply ?
So, R500 a month for DSL192 = to speed of 24kbps download, probably averaging out at 19kbps.

If Telkom (and ISP resellers) can keep the reliability of thier speed, that kicks Sentech and iBurst square in the nuts with regard to average users.

(I think we can all agree that for the most part, ADSL line speed is a LOT more stable and reliable than the current wireless offerings)

Heck, if they can bring the ISP costs down a bit too, that at least sends out a message of competition in reaching a wider audience and the fact that Telkom are realising they have to start competing - the writing is on the wall, thier HUGE slice of the pie is slowly getting eaten up and they obviously don't want that = compete.

Trying to see some "reality of the marketplace" here in relation to a Telkom-monopoly and the fact that we're not going to see overnight drops in prices, it's a step in a direction of getting broadband more widely accepted thus increasing the market for broadband.

If they could drop the overall cost complete with ISP charges to R400 with a 2gig shaped cap, that will attract an untapped SOHO market who currently rely on dialup.

One final thing - allow home users to JUST have an ADSL line should they want - IOW, they don't require a standard telephone line rental.

Makes sense.

Being positive about it (and realistic), it IS a step in the right direction - the more home users adopt broadband, the bigger the market, the greater the competition, the better the prices.
 
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One thing that makes little sense is the fact that :::[]Telkom think it is logical to charge less for a slower DSL line, even though we all download the very same 3GB per account. They could offer DSL 8000 tomorrow, we would all be capped in about 8 minutes but it would make little difference to them. Sure, this doesn't take local unlimited downloading into account, but since long distance calls are so expensive, what exactly are :::[]Telkom using their intercity fibre network for anyway? I'm sure there are thousands of Gbps available. A more logical pricing structure would be something like:

DSL192 R250 pm
DSL384 R300 pm
DSL512 R350 pm
DSL1024 R500 pm

This would mean thousands more people could afford DSL and thereby subsidise heavy downloaders like us. Dialup and ISDN just don't make sense any more and with :::[]Telkom's rotting old local loop, these two are very unreliable.

As has been said many times before, it's all about cross-subsidising downloads with bandwidth charges. Like going to movies and paying R9 for the cup and R3 per 100ml of coke.
 
We get slower and slower offerings while countries overseas get speeds doubled for free while the connection is half the price of our cheapest option.

Telkom is ****ing this country squarely up the ass, and every mail I receive from abroad the people cannot believe the situation in South Africa.

A the end of the day it's a majorly bad reflection on the ANC as they own 39% of it.

My X is certainly not going next to the 'ANC' option next election - they haven't done anything to curb the rampant pricing by Telkom which has rendered the vast majority of the country unable to afford a phone let alone internet..

192k? Suck my what? Does any country even have such ridiculously low ADSL speeds? It's not what ADSL was invented for.. they might as well offer flatrate dialup for ****'s sake.

Telkom is the best at offering the worst.
 
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This offering just makes the world laugh at us more.

You are looking at USD 80 for 2GB per month and an ADSL line.
 
A good thing?

<rant>

If it is true then I'll definitely be getting it, for the following reasons:

I've been holding off getting a 'broadband' solution for a while simply because I believe everything on offer so far is too expensive. I'm willing to pay a maximum of R450 a month for isp/line rental and not more than R1000 for equipment (routers, modems, data cards or what not). That basically puts every current offering out of the picture at the moment. Its not that I can't afford it, its just the principle of it. I refuse to pay what I call exhorbant rates for what should be a basic right to South African's - decent telecommunications.

Until such time as a decently priced service emerges I'm stuck with my 56K and GPRS (which is great for web surfing by the way). If this is true then it'll be the first time there'll be a broadband solution for what I call 'affordable' rates even if its not as fast as it should be. The thing is I don't 'need' the extra speed. If we've all got the same cap it just means you hit it faster. As long as I'm always on and can use Skype, email, im, streaming video, etc, I'm happy. The only real benefit of fast connections is fast downloading and this is very effectively cancelled out by implementing a ridiculously low cap. What's the point of ibursts 1 meg connection? All it means is they get capped twice as fast as the 512 users. Its not even good for gaming because of the bad latency.

Sure this isn't the answer we've all been waiting for but its a step in the right direction. If it leads to more people getting broadband then its a good thing because it can only lead to more competition and better offers in the future. Telkom must be starting to feel a bit of pressure at last.

</rant>
 
fergus, I agree with your opinions.

My take on this, as I indicated about and considering current circumstances (before anyone flames me), at LEAST it's a better way to get broadband to a wider audience.

Yes, many of us, myself included are incredibly frustrated at speeds and caps and cost, but we actually are a minority in this.

Get more people onto broadband - yes, even if it is a k@k offering compared with overseas and we're been shafted blah blah blah - the more MARKET we get, the better chance we have of competition !

Assuming this rumour of a DSL192 connection sees the light of day, I'm hoping to see iBurst, after launch, say - "alrighty then, we're going to match that and go one better, we'll come in a 192 speeds with 6gig CAP for R400 a month"

And so it goes.

Yes, we ARE paying too much and we should be vocal about it, but a service like this would actually help, because then more people would know what it's like to have a connection a LOT faster than dial-up that's on 24/7 and they'd start comparing to overseas DSL "well, why are we paying so much, why can I only download so much, why is my DSL192 more expensive than a line 10 times the speed in the UK ?"

That's my take. Just trying to see a positive angle from this - not forgetting as Lewistherin said, this is all heresay.
 
Gotta agree with you Fergus...one thing I think the new product will signal is that ISDN is officially on its way out...I mean ISDN costs roughly R300 (ISP + line) per month without making a call...so for R450 (2GB ISP + 192 line) one can get faster speed, and fixed cost.
 
Unfortunately Lewstherin, the unshaped aspect of ISDN will too be lost. Im an avid gamer and when I hear some guys on these forums reporting pings of 180 to the UK I get reaaaly excited about it because some games are seriously are playable with that kind of latency.

But anyway to the point, if this DSL192 package is indeed true then gamers IMO will rush to get it (just becasue you have a DSL conn it doesnt mean you have to be a download-demon-whore ;) ). Im sure many will agree but what more would a gamer need other than a cheap, low ping 'broadband' service?

Ooohh I definitely support this move!
 
Telkom, you oaks are the joke of the millennium.
As the rest of the world moves forward, you oak decide to go backwards, and for the soul purpose of screwing the public.

Where in the world have you heard of broadband speeds been offered at slower speeds, but of course, in SA. Excellent message you are displaying to the rest of the world. Not only can we offer slow broadband, but we can charge high prices and the public accepts it and pays your crazy prices, well done Telscum, you oaks rule.

I would be so ashamed to be associated with you in any way. Rest assured, the day the SNO starts offering it services that I'll be the first one to sign on.
 
It's like getting taken from behind a little slower and not as hard, yes you don't get the same but it also doesn't hurt quite as much.
 
I think this is going to be a big hit with the 56k crowd, regardless of the fact that its daylight robery in international terms. R400-500 pm for a 24/7 "broadband" connection would double the current potential market. The current R700+ offerings are just too expensive.

Personally I think R300 is the ultimate sweet spot ...
 
IC I agree with you 100%!!!!


Here is one " A transmission facility having a bandwidth sufficient to carry multiple voice, video or data channels simultaneously. Each channel occupies (is modulated to) a different frequency bandwidth on the transmission medium and is demodulated to its original frequency at the receiving end. Channels are separated by "guardbands" (empty spaces) to ensure that each channel will not interfere with its neighboring channels. This technique is used to provide many CATV channels on one coaxial cable. "

I agree that we should determine our own minimum cap and speed limits....


:)
 
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