Derrick
ლ(ಠ_ಠ )ლ
- Joined
- Nov 22, 2010
- Messages
- 5,085
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- 5
I had my ADSL line moved into my new residence today. The request to have the line moved was put in two weeks ago and I am quite happy with the turnaround time on the installation at the new place. Got into the usual fishing exercise with the Telkom technician who explained Telkom’s fiber plans and how they are trying their best to get the turnaround times down for new installations and so forth.
As always I cannot help but ask the usual round of questions whenever I have a Telkom techie cornered and I started off by asking when we can expect higher speeds. He was quite clear on the fact that according to what he hears in the grapevine inside Telkom that speed is not going to be Telkom’s first front of defense against a possible onslaught from Neotel. Note that I didn’t even mention Neotel to the man.
He then went on to say that from what he understands Telkom will uncap its users in response to Neotel. If I weren’t such a skeptic my jaw would have hit the floor. The techie finished up, I connected my router and sent him on his way. Friendly chap by the way. Long story short, I started thinking about what he said.
If Telkom would rather compete by giving customers more bandwidth than speed there must be some reasoning behind it. Could it be that Telkom can simply not afford the expansion process involved in upping speeds for broadband connections nationwide? Could it be that due to a supposed inability to upgrade it would be easier to provide uncapped accounts to clients? Why did the technician say uncapped and not higher cap accounts?
He was clear that the rumor has one big catch and that is, that Telkom will only do said uncapping if Neotel encroaches. The techie mentioned that Neotel has a large possible customer base. I assume one would have to be naive to believe otherwise and Telkom is all too aware of this fact. I know many people who would jump ship simply because Telkom kicked them around so much.
I think there might be some truth in the matter. Perhaps not uncapped, but definitely higher capped accounts rather than higher speeds. If my assumption that providing higher speeds is more expensive than higher caps for Telkom to wield as a defensive weapon against competition then we are in for some interesting times. Telkom would know how much bandwidth can be piped on our slow connections. It is safe to say that most users fall at the bottom of the speed spectrum as things stand now.
If higher or uncapped surfing is indeed cheaper than the network upgrade (assuming the network cannot handle higher speed ADSL configurations) then one has to ask what bandwidth really costs Telkom. There are tons of official figures out there, none of which I believe. In my opinion Telkom gets bandwidth at close to the cost of the air the Telkom CEO breathes.
Wishful thinking or not, uncapped is a good trade for speed if this is true. I might not be able to view streaming media all that well, but at least I won’t have to worry about the 1MB bandwidth it takes just to open some sites these days…
As always I cannot help but ask the usual round of questions whenever I have a Telkom techie cornered and I started off by asking when we can expect higher speeds. He was quite clear on the fact that according to what he hears in the grapevine inside Telkom that speed is not going to be Telkom’s first front of defense against a possible onslaught from Neotel. Note that I didn’t even mention Neotel to the man.
He then went on to say that from what he understands Telkom will uncap its users in response to Neotel. If I weren’t such a skeptic my jaw would have hit the floor. The techie finished up, I connected my router and sent him on his way. Friendly chap by the way. Long story short, I started thinking about what he said.
If Telkom would rather compete by giving customers more bandwidth than speed there must be some reasoning behind it. Could it be that Telkom can simply not afford the expansion process involved in upping speeds for broadband connections nationwide? Could it be that due to a supposed inability to upgrade it would be easier to provide uncapped accounts to clients? Why did the technician say uncapped and not higher cap accounts?
He was clear that the rumor has one big catch and that is, that Telkom will only do said uncapping if Neotel encroaches. The techie mentioned that Neotel has a large possible customer base. I assume one would have to be naive to believe otherwise and Telkom is all too aware of this fact. I know many people who would jump ship simply because Telkom kicked them around so much.
I think there might be some truth in the matter. Perhaps not uncapped, but definitely higher capped accounts rather than higher speeds. If my assumption that providing higher speeds is more expensive than higher caps for Telkom to wield as a defensive weapon against competition then we are in for some interesting times. Telkom would know how much bandwidth can be piped on our slow connections. It is safe to say that most users fall at the bottom of the speed spectrum as things stand now.
If higher or uncapped surfing is indeed cheaper than the network upgrade (assuming the network cannot handle higher speed ADSL configurations) then one has to ask what bandwidth really costs Telkom. There are tons of official figures out there, none of which I believe. In my opinion Telkom gets bandwidth at close to the cost of the air the Telkom CEO breathes.
Wishful thinking or not, uncapped is a good trade for speed if this is true. I might not be able to view streaming media all that well, but at least I won’t have to worry about the 1MB bandwidth it takes just to open some sites these days…