Question 1: Does Telkom inform widely its potential subscribers about all ADSL modems approved by ICASA? If so, how?
Not too sure.
Question 2: Should customers be restricted to only two suppliers of modems?
No, this has the effect of increasing the overall broadband startup costs for South African consumers. ICASA’s objective must be to make broadband accessible to the masses. On average, South Africans do not have high disposable incomes. They should be permitted to choose from an infinite variety of modems and suppliers, at extremely competitive prices. Unless there are strong technical reasons, I don’t see the need for ICASA to regulate the supply of ADSL modems.
Question 3: Should Telkom guarantee the throughput speeds of the service?
Yes, it is essential that consumers and businesses consistently obtain the advertised throughput. Many business and consumer applications (e.g. online presentations, remote desktop sharing, VOIP, etc.) on the Internet require specific levels of throughput to function effectively. Furthermore, there is a direct correlation between the productivity of the users of an Internet service and the actual throughput provided. For these reasons, ISPs differentiate their product offerings using throughput speed as a buying criterion. Without a guarantee, consumers and businesses will be unable to choose the products that satisfy their needs.
Question 4: Did Telkom inform their customers that they intended introducing a cap of 3GByte on the service? If so, when and how?
Not too sure.
Question 5: Is it reasonable to put a 3GByte cap on the service? Given the capping of the service, do the subscribers still get the promised 512kbps downstream speed? Please explain.
The 3 GB cap is somewhat unrealistic for many individual and small businesses. As a software developer, I frequently need to download open source tools and research technologies on the Internet. The tools can run into anything up to 250 MB each. Over a month period, I can easily run into the CAP.
Question 6
Telkom has also communicated that the 3GByte cap protects users from a small minority of people who abuse the service. What would be regarded as abuse of service according to Telkom? Is this an international norm? Is it possible to identify and penalize the minority that abuses the service?
When Telkom refers to “abuse” of the system, they are most likely referring to users who use large amounts of bandwidth for entertainment purposes (i.e. downloading music, video content, games, etc.). The 3 GB cap is rather crude mechanisms to limit this activity as it also restricts more productive uses of the system (see above).
Since Telkom already uses more selective ways to prevent the “abuse” of the system, such as placing restrictions on the use of P2P file sharing protocols (i.e. via port prioritization), the 3 GB cap is hardly justifiable as it clearly targets productive uses of the system.
A 3 GB cap is definitely not an international norm. The necessity to implement a 3 GB cap is a consequence of the extremely high costs of broadband Internet access to consumers and businesses in South Africa.
In a healthy marketplace, an ISP will have a variety of subscribers with different usage patterns. The cost of bandwidth used by a small of minority of “power” users would be offset by the large majority of “average” users who primarily use the Internet for email and surfing.
In South Africa, broadband prices are so exorbitant that average users are unable to afford broadband access. The result is that the “power users” constitute the majority of broadband users. If broadband prices in South Africa were equivalent to 56k dialup, the cost of bandwidth used by power users would be offset by the revenue generated from “average” users. This is consistent with the culture of the Internet which promotes the pooling and sharing of resources.
We need to support “power” as much as “average” users in South Africa as they are innovators and early adopters of new technologies that advance the economy and productivity of the nation.
Question 7
How does port prioritization affect the quality of service that subscribers receive? Should Telkom give traffic priority to certain subscribers? When should subscribers be informed about port prioritization and how it would affect them?
Port prioritization requires ISP’s to make generalizations about how their users will use the Internet. In reality, every user has different requirements. For example, a South African photographer uses the Internet primarily for uploading her photographs to an agency in New York using the FTP protocol. Telkom may deem FTP has having a lower priority than HTTP traffic (i.e. browsing). However, the priority placed by Telkom does not apply in her case. In essence she being segregated against even though her use of the system is productive when compared to a user who frequently uses the Internet to browse pornography sites.
Incidentally, port prioritization is in contravention with the spirit of the Internet, which is freedom of expression. Internationally, it is not the ISPs role to decide how their users use the Internet.
If port prioritization is absolutely necessary, it is essential that subscribers are informed about this in plain language in all advertising and service contracts. If there are any changes to the priorities assigned to ports, the users must be notified by email.
