ADSL speed upgrades on track

HavocXphere said:
Bit strange that the 1mbps upgrade is more certain than the 384k upgrade. The 1mbps subscribers were recently upgraded from 512->1024. Though I guess keep it at 384 creates a stronger incentive for users to upgrade...and thus pay for a higher tier product.


Pretty sure we're approaching the edge of what the copper is capable of anyway, so this makes sense.
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This is because Telkom don't make any profit on the 384 guys. They just get the service for too cheap.
 
Qwikslver said:
This is because Telkom don't make any profit on the 384 guys. They just get the service for too cheap.
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Oh I'm sure they make profit - just not as much as they'd like too.
IIRC the majority of ADSL subscribers are on 384K lines and you can be sure that Telkom are not doing it for charity.

There is one big problem regarding upgrading the 384K lines to 1Mbps - backhaul from the exchanges.
If the majority of Telkom's ADSL subscribers are on 384K lines then upgrading them to 1 Mpbs will require a massive increase in backhaul bandwidth.
This is not feasible on congested exchanges so my guess is it will be a slow migration.

It has to be done though because mobile broadband is eating into Telkom's market share and 8ta hasn't been doing as well as they'd hope it would.
 
ngadao08 said:
It says that the decision on the 384kbps is still pending.

This worries me, guess i wont be counting my chickens before they hatch.
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That, is a shock... I predict another year on 384...

flat rated ADSL will be good.
 
The other day my torrent speed suddenly jumped to 3mb/s for a short while. This can be the only explanation.

Oh how I lust for true broadband! More more!
 
Synaesthesia said:
The other day my torrent speed suddenly jumped to 3mb/s for a short while. This can be the only explanation.

Oh how I lust for true broadband! More more!
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Jumped to 3mb? Something wrong with your line?
 
Synaesthesia said:
The other day my torrent speed suddenly jumped to 3mb/s for a short while. This can be the only explanation.

Oh how I lust for true broadband! More more!
Click to expand...

This is your torrent client caching some of the data similar to how that save as dialog box in your browser shows fast data transfer if you click save after a min or so.

All in good time :D

@freaksta, don't kid yourself for being happy with 10MB, sure t is nice seeing 3.5GB of data come down in 1 hr but Moar is better :p
 
Qwikslver said:
This is because Telkom don't make any profit on the 384 guys. They just get the service for too cheap.
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Do the math.

Telkom can sell 1mbps bandwidth to:

1 customer at 1mbps for R289 or
2.6 customers at 384kbps for R152 each (total R395)

So where do you think they make the most profit ?

As Paul_S says, there's just so many 384 users that the increase would require lots more backhaul bandwidth
 
They should raise the speed of 1mb and lower the line rental for it to 169 rand, helping some of the 384kb guys to make the move. The 384kb package should be relegated for the underprivileged of the nation, i.e. make it 49 rand a month and increase it to 512kb.

My 0.02c.
 
hedgehog said:
Do the math.

Telkom can sell 1mbps bandwidth to:

1 customer at 1mbps for R289 or
2.6 customers at 384kbps for R152 each (total R395)

So where do you think they make the most profit ?

As Paul_S says, there's just so many 384 users that the increase would require lots more backhaul bandwidth
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Except that each line, regardless of speed, has a fixed admin and maintenance cost. The cost of 384 barely covers this.

That's why the higher speed products are comparatively cheaper. The admin and maintenance costs of the copper don't increase with line speed.
 
Qwikslver said:
Except that each line, regardless of speed, has a fixed admin and maintenance cost. The cost of 384 barely covers this.

That's why the higher speed products are comparatively cheaper. The admin and maintenance costs of the copper don't increase with line speed.
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"The admin and maintenance costs of the copper don't increase with line speed"

But isn't line rental used for this? Those R152 are just admin cost for ADSL part so if we want to be honest for coper maintenance Telkom gets R122+R133 in there pocket (line + 386 rental EX VAT)
 
Telkom looks set to bump up the speed of their 384kbps ADSL service to 1Mbps, and boost the speed of their 1Mbps clients to 2Mbps.
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Love it how they make it sound so .. progressy.

My line will be dropped from 4meg to 2meg to save some bucks as I've been paying Telkom for a 4meg service they can't provide.

For those of us 10meg is a bad joke.
 
what's a wait of another decade or two among friends?

Oh, right... we're not friends... go die in a fire, Telkom.
 
Qwikslver said:
The cost of 384 barely covers this.
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Has this been verified by someone other than Telkom?

As an aside, surely Telkom should be motivated to get more people using more data, as they charge the ISPs for the data usage. If the cost of 384 and 4 meg is the same to them, then surely it would be in their interest to get the majority of users onto a faster line and using more data at the same cost. This statement is based on my assumption that people on a faster line are more likely to use more data as more services become available to them, I could be wrong though. I know my data usage jump significantly after making the move to 1 meg (probably as I no longer have to wait for youtube to buffer ;)). Although Telkom might have done these calculations and found out that ripping off the minority with higher 4 meg rental is more profitable.
 
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