Is Telkom really the only company with infrastsructure in South Africa?

[King_Hermy]

I am trying to understand how this works.
What exactly is Internet Solutions / AfriHost and Axxess then?

I thought that everybody leaned on Telkom someway or another but i recently discover that OpenWeb uses IS services.

Or is it a flow chain like this:
Openweb > Internet Solutions > Telkom

If so or not.What does Telkom provide exactly? Besides expensive internet services.
Telephone lines? I am sure i have seen other companies like Telkom.

Also what exactly was the fuss with KT and Telkom and the A.N.C?
How was KT going to help US?

This is quiet confusing.But i hope that somebody can enlighten me.

Thanks

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At an infrastructure level, there are two major fixed line backbone networks in South Africa - Telkom and Neotel - including national and metropolitan network infrastructure. In addition, there are five major international cable systems landing in South Africa, which are typically shared by multiple players. Don't confuse this with mobile networks - which consist largely of radio high sites, but which are still connected by the fixed networks.

However, the above is only part of the picture, since there are several hundred players who have the right to deploy infrastructure such as optical fibre, and there are quite a number who have deployed some, including the mobile operators.

For broadband access, though, the reality is that Telkom is the only player offering copper-wire (xDSL) services. All the other broadband offerings in the market are wireless, with the exception of some true broadband speed fibre services for businesses (e.g. Neotel).

Hence, yes, Telkom is still effectively a monopoly provider of copper-line broadband, and this is why we need Local Loop Unbundling... Every ISP that offers ADSL basically resells Telkom's service, in one way or another. There are several tiers, so yes, some larger ISPs on-sell down the line to smaller ones etc.

[King_Hermy]

Thanks.

So how does one go about being a big direct ,independant ISP?

Supplying super fast speeds of reliable internet

It's alot of fiber optic cables underground connected to server points wich the cables from homes connect to?

If so ,that is alot of work and digging.


You said,this method is not simply "gone around" by using sattelites because plan 1 is faster?

[MickeyD]

You firstly have to differentiate between network operators and internet service providers...