702 Journalist... Need your help MyADSL Users!!!

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moosag

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I have a friend who is a 702 Journalist. He is agreeing to do investigation into the Telkom 1 November issue. There are no guarantees that this will make hard news. Buts its worth the effort. Below is the Mail Correspondence between me and him.

Hey Dee

Having a look at myadsl. Found an article on new ADSL pricing and its impact on SMME's. Admit I need a bit more time to digest it all and get my head around it. Drop me a mail on what it's about, why it's bad and how it'll affect man on the street. Also lead me onto any other NB stuff you think I should have a look at on the site.

Sweet bru
Sheldon
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Now ladies and gentlemen out there. I am going to point him to this thread. I would highly appreciate it if you can keep your posts 'INFORMATIVE' so that he can get a better understanding as to what is actually going on, and how it will affect everyone in the long run, especially the man in the street compared to the rest of the world...etc...

So please post some insightfull information that is easy for your average laymen to understand. Keep it sweet, simple, short and to the point. And include all the hard hitting facts.

PS: I have pointed him to other threads on the forum. My line of thought is that if we can consolidate everything into 1 thread then his turn around time for understanding it will be shorter then having to go surfing through all the other threads out there. He aint technical at all.

Thanks and hopefully this will make it on air.
 
Hi there,

I was wondering if a new story can be done with specific regard to the broadband/ADSL situation in the country of South Africa.

Telkom (the only Telecoms operator in SA, Monopoly by legislation) is introducing new pricing structures as from the 1st of November, that rather than in line with normal international trends, which usually allow broadband to get faster and cheaper with higher usage. Telkom is making the usage slower, more expensive and with less usage.

The current situation is (before November 1st) which is also a bit of a joke, is as follows.

Firstly, in South Africa, not only do we just have to pay for our bandwidth packages, we have to pay a 'line rental' which is very uncommon in other countries, as ADSL runs over existing copper wires.

Nevertheless the pricing, firstly the rentals.

192 Kbit/s - R270 (23 GBP) per month [Is this even broad band?]
384 Kbit/s - R329 (28.75 GBP) per month
512 Kbit/s - R477 (41.69 GBP) per month
1024 Kbit/s - R680 (59.44 GBP) per month

Now like I said, thats only the line rentals, which shouldn't even exist but lets excuse that.

In South Africa at the moment we have a bandwidth cap on international data, which is most commonly 3 GB, but there are various packages available, once capped, users still have unlimited local (South African) access, but no international access, this system will be in place until the end of October 2005, the pricing as follows:

3GB Account - R199 (17 GBP)
5GB Account - R219 (19 GBP)
10GB Account - R259 (22.63 GBP)
20GB Account - R299 (26.13 GBP)
30GB Account - R349 (30.50 GBP)

So for a 1 Meg ADSL Line with 30 GB International, unlimited local access, it will cost you (pre November 1st)

R680 + R349 = R1029 (90 GBP per month)

Which, quite frankly is alright a crapload of money, especially in a very poor country like South Africa, but we somehow deal with it.

But now, with over 100,000 ADSL subscribers in South Africa, Telkom has decided to implement new capping structures, which are completely insane and in any country but South Africa would be completely shunned.

Not only are the caps much more expensive, but the previously uncapped local access will become locally hard capped, which means when you hit your 3GB limit, you get kicked off the ADSL network to the next month. Without further ado, here are the new pricing structures:

3 GB Account - R179 (15 GBP)
5 GB Account - R321.48 (28.10 GBP)
10 GB Account - R638.40 (55.80 GBP)
20GB Account - R1254.00 (109.62 GBP)
30 GB Account - R1847.00 (161.45 GBP)

So for the same configuration mentioned above, it would now cost:

R680 + R1847 = R2527 (220.90 GBP) per month!

What I have mentioned in the article yet is that the bandwidth is not true internation bandwidth, firstly HTTP traffic is passed through a transparent proxy, and traffic is 'shaped' meaning certain services are getting preference over others, which doesn't sound all the bad, until you figure out that they shape things like VPN services as well as VOIP services such as Skype. This is to protect their other products, ie very expensive VPN services as well as their Telephone costs (which are also crazy!)

I can go on for hours but I suggest if you really want some background to how frustrated the South African public is, visit the following websites:

http://www.hellkom.co.za/ (Parody site showing how expensive Telkom is)
http://www.myadsl.co.za/ (Public forum for broadband users)

The main problem in SA is that Telkom has a monopoly on pretty much everything, People are not allowed to setup WiFi networks, Companies can't buy their own international bandwidth, to put it simply, its a total shambles.

I am trying to get some international coverage on the subject just so the world can find out how under the gun we are here!

Please help,

Thank you
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This is an email I sent to an journalist overseas, It might not be entirely accurate but I was in a rush and I am desperate.
 
Well I would like to point out from the onset that it is important that the stimulus of this new ADSL pricing structure be recogised. It is, in my view, a clear attempt by Telkom to sidestep the findings and possible implementation of recommendations from the ICASA ADSL hearings held in (April?) this year. To me it's yet another example of Telkom sidestepping the law in order to be able to continue to economically rape the public and business.
 
Just some feedback regarding this.

Had a chat to the journalist. His editor has told him to make it his number 1 priority. He did say that they will start to investigate this and get their heads around it. Anyways if things go according to plan there will be a show on closer to 1 November. Heres hoping that it will hit home.
 
In short:

What:
  • Telkom is instituting a pay per gig system whereby ADSL users buy bandwidth per gig as they need it. This goes against the norm anywhere else in the world. Per gig billing on its own might not be such a big problem if the suggested retail pricing wasn't so incredibly restrictive. +/- R2000 for a 30 Gig account is absolutely ludacrous! Especially if one understands that the average current price for a 30Gig account is between R200 and R400 depending on the ISP you buy it from...
  • They are also insituting (for the first time ever) a local cap coinciding with the International data cap. THis means that if you use more than your alotted bandwidth (which is miniscule compared to the international norm anyway) they not only cut off your international access (they say throttle but it is useless, thus I prefer cut off) but local too.
Why?
  • Telkom wants to protect their legacy services like ISDN and Diginet.

Effects?
  • Sites like this one will have no insentive to host local anymore seeing as capped users will not be able to access them after being capped anyway.
  • This will have a huge impact on local hosting and content provisioning industry amongst others. Telkom's lack of broadband visions is also holding back the South African economy and their general pricing attitude is unecessarily hampering economic growth...
 
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ic thats what i have done.... LOL you wont believe it but their ADSL Access is down at 702. Typical...

But anyways he has been bugging me asking questions till he is able to come here and do it.
 
We have one of the most expensive and mismanadged Telecom system in the world all that to create more profits for a monopoly. We are going backwards not forward. Are we not suposed to be the flagship of African countries and show the way?
 
I think the price and CAP are valid points to discuss, but I would like to draw attention to the broadband penetration rate.

This is generally used worldwide as a measure of advancement. In the past Teledensity (number of telephone lines per 1000 people) was and is still used as a measure for how advanced a country is. South Africas teledensity has not increased in 10 years!

The broadband penetration is now more commonly used as we move forward.

At the last coloquim held by ICASA the following fact was laid on the table:
At the current rate that Telkom is rolling out ADSL, it will take them 7 years to reach a penetration of 1%!! I found this staggering.

Telkom refuses to make ADSL available to masses, and will continue to suck businesses and individuals dry, who can afford their exorbitant prices until they are forced not too, either by ICASA or by competition. As their is no competition it is all up to ICASA.

The fact that Telkom now want to move to charging a rate for all data used is just another way for them to increase their profits. Last financial year they netted 6 Billion Rands. I bet they can kick this up to 8 Billion if they tried??!!
 
Guys This is my understanding of what is required. Please pm me to edit and improve

Road of a new Broadbander. My simple understanding

1) You will pay a very high monthly subscription (compared to international standards) to have an ADSL line connection. Telkom feels that is their service offered, nothing else (This amazes foreign country citizens, paying these fees for no service) (same line you pay for already as a telephone line service)
They test the line and service integrity with a local high-speed connection and if all works fine, that’s it, they are not further responsible for the quality of the service. They label it as "Best effort" service

2) Additionally you will pay a very high monthly subscription (compared to international standards) for an ISP service, ie the Internet connectivity port or gate, Resold by Telkom-Saix to the ISP and controlled by Telkom on their network structure
The ISP server is now up and running at high speed and all is fine. If you have queries regards to speed and quality of service they refer you back to Telkom who redo the test in point 1 and state all is Ok You have what you pay for..??

3) Now you are on your own you have the connection with the potential speed capability and you have the access to Internet. Now you are not getting the performance expected, you cannot do the things you heard so much about and TELKOM advertises, You cannot use VoIP effectively, you cannot download the information you want at the expected speeds, you cannot use P2P connections, You cannot get high speed gaming, local or international, You are limited to Internet browsing and E-mail availability the same as when you had the old dialup system at higher speed and only now it is 24/7

4) Now as you have nowhere to go but read and complain to users on a forum, such as MyADSL here, and then learn that:

"Yeah" we used to be able to do all those things but Telkom sold you a shaped, capped, "Best effort service".
What does this all mean? Oh they limit the service for what and how much it can be used it for They change this all the time so what You have today You maybe wont have tomorrow (VoIP).
How? They employ dubious software tools and features to read what you send and receive over the Internet. Based on this they will limit (slow down), block or delete information to make the use of the service impossible or at least unbearable (slow)
Why? Oh for their own financial gain and protection of outdated expensive and obsolete services and stop abuse of Internet services
What do you mean, “abuse”? Oh Telkom defined recently that all consumers using the Internet for services they do not approve off, that competes with their own product offerings like VoIP etc is abusing the services. Telkom labelled them “abusers”. Note that these are products and services freely available on the Internet, consumers thought they bought into in the first place as internationally this is standard. Thus this includes practically all consumers not using the Broadband Internet for only access to their E-mail and normal browsing.
What can I do? Oh Nothing really, For gaming, P2P, VoIP and fast downloading and smooth streaming of music, video, pod- casting and all these Broadband high-speed services, (Such as Telkom advertise to sell this product), you have to get a Free-Proxy or VPN connection services, some could be free or have to be paid for additionally. Or you can become an IT expert and employ methods and technologies to counteract the Telkom limitations impeded on us

5) But don’t worry; as of 1 November it’s getting worse. While the Government and Icasa are discussing these exact issues, Telkom are implementing further restrictions on the Broadband services they already so wilfully degrade. There is no moratorium placed on Telkom until these new regulations is finalised, so they work at a frantic pace to set a new level of “low” standards, before they get regulated if any. (Possibly to improve on later and charge additional for it, give back what you should have or had at a further cost)

What are they doing? They are implementing a “Hard Cap” Service and will also now change to a “per GIG billing system”.
What’s that? Oh it’s where they allow you to in future only use the data volume You purchased (3GiG) and thereafter your internet link or service will be disconnected completely to the next month or you have to purchase another tempory account, That means you will not be able to browse the Internet locally or internationally or get your e-mail when you used up your data volume.
But 3GiG sound a lot! Not? No not if you consider the fact that the volume is inclusive of all data travelling in the network, your data, protocol overheads, all the pictures and information displayed on your PC screen when you browse the internet, with content you do not have control over, and this can be a lot of data, then you did not even start do download files or information you need yet.
What if I did not use the full data purchased by the end of the month? Oh you lose the remainder stupid, like cell-phone “free” minutes. The contract only works one way, Telkom’s way, so make sure you use everything you must, by the end of the month, become a real abuser! When you have data allocation left over.

That is not all; in the past local and international bandwidth was separate entity’s. Now Telkom will not differentiate so your locally used data bandwidth counts the same as international bandwidth, not withstanding the fact that the International data bandwidth is the expensive portion, that is why Telkom claim they have to implement these so called restrictions on the South African Broadband users in the first place. That effectively means you will from now on paying international rates for all data traversing over the Internet even local content!

What does this all mean? Oh from 1 November additional limitations and added financial constraints will be placed on all Broadband users. You will have to pay additional for the type of data and volume content you use, You will effectively have a fast broadband connection to use for reading e-mails and do limited browsing on the Internet at (over inflated) International bandwidth prices. This will suit low volume users and TELKOM pockets fine. To effectively use any other broadband services, synonymous as de-facto inclusive Internet services (as per international standards), will be prohibitively expensive, and out of reach of especially the Small Business owner and SOHO Community who use or needs more data than the normal average user.

Telkom use technology's they implement called shaping and port prioritising to make the services we bought totally unusable with the deliberate intention to force You to purchase or contract for "higher graded packages" or additional services that Telkom sells for high costs. In effect this downgrade the ADSL service as nothing more than a faster dialup service with 24/7 connection


Why is TELKOM doing this (Biting the hand that feed him)?
By making the Broadband facilities unusable and unreliable to use in business they protect their own financial gain and outdated expensive and obsolete services, that would otherwise prompt small business owners to switch to ADSL which is cheaper than the exorbitant prices businesses is charged for by TELKOM on Diginet and other systems

The fallacy is that Telkom do! sell a technically competent ADSL1024 service, this is clear when you address the problem of speed and performance with them. They check the line and run speed tests to confirm the system is technically sound, and they are correct, but the use of data services on this equipment does not live up to the standard norm due to the blocking and shaping techniques Telkom employs on the data information stream to strangle the usability of the system for the average consumers. Proof of this is the need to have to resort to use of alternate offerings from other small businesses that give us facilities as free proxy’s and VPN connections at additional costs on top of the ADSL connection and ISP Internet link fees to attain the performance features that we purchased from Telkom in the first place.

Services direct affected by these dubious Telkom methods is all the popular services freely available on the Internet, Yes that use more bandwidth but that is what we pay for in the fist place when we bought the ADSL "Broadband" services.

P2P file sharing and operations
International and local gaming
Now also legal use of VoIP is hampered or interfered with by Telkom
Downloading of information or files (speed limited)

Now in the Telkom Advertising campaigns no mentioning is made to the limitation it employs to limit the use of the ADSL broadband service to something a little better than a 24/7 dialup system but does not live up to the advertised benefits or the speed of the service You purchase. Only once the service is bought on a monthly or 2 year contract then only these limitation becomes apparent when You find after two weeks the service is performing worse than a dialup because Telkom felt that You had your share of data usage they want to allow You and then they slow You down to no usability at all. From 1 Nov this slow performance will be a total cut of the services.
 
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pupa said:
Services direct affected by these dubious Telkom methods is all the popular services freely available on the Internet, Yes that use more bandwidth but that is what we pay for in the fist place when we bought the ADSL "Broadband" services.

P2P file sharing and operations
International and local gaming
Now also legal use of VoIP is hampered or interfered with by Telkom
Downloading of information or files (speed limited)
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Typo in Bold Italics

Pupa my my, very nice.
Now what choices should you offer those ADSL users so that he does not get caught in this trap of port shaping and capping.

1) Monitor his traffic and keep below his hard cap
2) Apply for a bigger cap if yor account borders on the 3 Gb cap.
3) Switch your ISP ADSL account to Internet Solutions ADSL account - maybe Clipse can explain IS ADSL benefits about 30 Gb local traffic, Uncapped and unshaped for VoIP, VPN & P2P (Peer to Peer)

My 2 cents worth
 
kilos said:
Typo in Bold Italics

Pupa my my, very nice.
Now what choices should you offer those ADSL users so that he does not get caught in this trap of port shaping and capping.

1) Monitor his traffic and keep below his hard cap
2) Apply for a bigger cap if yor account borders on the 3 Gb cap.
3) Switch your ISP ADSL account to Internet Solutions ADSL account - maybe Clipse can explain IS ADSL benefits about 30 Gb local traffic, Uncapped and unshaped for VoIP, VPN & P2P (Peer to Peer)

My 2 cents worth
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3.) Switch to IS for the following reasons:

- Its not Telkom/SAIX, even tho Telkom will still get cash somehow from ISADSL, they will definitely get less than they would from SAIX users.

- IS offers local bandwidth after your CAP, SAIX hardcaps you and then force you to buy more GIG's or else no internet access at all.

- IS peering with UUNET and vica versa is near perfect, as oppose to SAIX peering with IS or UUNET, which is rather unstable ie. SAIX killing active pptp vpn connections at random intervals being one very good reason.

- If your worried about gaming, IS ADSL Accounts latency to mweb game servers is nearly half that of SAIX adsl latency. By moving from SGS to Mweb servers for starters, it would generate demand and new servers will effectively pop up on the IS network, killing off all SGS/SAIX support and effectively damaging their newly found profits.

- IS international latency is higher than SAIX, but very stable, making VOIP'ing 100% usable as oppose to shaped SAIX accounts, which is so unstable, you end up using a 56k modem for VOIP'ing.
 
ic said:
Apart from the local softcapping, latency & VoIP are what matter most to me, so I have to admit IS sounds very appealing, but can I afford it?
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almost the same price as SAIX + 30 gig local traffic and they offer flat rate uncapped lines in the region of R1500 - R2500
 
ic said:
Another question I have about ISDSL, is do I still need a special Cisco-router? I do not want to have to replace my ADSL router just to use ISDSL...
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The Cisco ADSL Router 837 is supplied free, is for the IS Business ADSL 512k or 1024k, giving you 5 public static IP addresses (great for hosting your own email,web & VoIP server with Uncapped, Unshaped access
http://www.imaginet.co.za/accessoptions.asp?from=ADSLPREMIUM512
 
For uncapped you get Cisco (needed for static IP conf which requires L2TP tunnel), and because of this its 24 months ... way out of your price range anyway.

For capped any ADSL router will do and you can get month to month.
 
All fair and well, There is alternate solution and there will always be. But point is that you are already paying Telkom for the service you are not getting and they change it with impunity every day.
Why do you have to go through these extremes to get what should be and deserved in the first place.
I think this thread is derailed somewhat as the discussions should not be the alternate solutions but how Telkom affect the Broadband community by their continued degrading of the service especially relating to post 1 November
 
ic said:
As one of the "derailers", I disagree - if the dude from 702 wants to research this thing fully, then he should know that some alternatives exist via IS-resllers...
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Accepted. No grudge. I based my assumption on posts in the past. When one of the posts is slighly of line then You get scorched. But I agree with You.
 
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