Telkom wishes to respond to the above complaint as follows:
If the first complaint, dated 12th of August 2005, is analysed it transpires that the complainant refers to the so-called "current policies" when indicating that online gaming and music downloads are restricted by Telkom
Tho only policy that Telkom could find in this regard is its "Acceptable Use Policy" (AUP) whicj applies to Telkom's DSL services.
It is Telkom's view that, although the AUP referred to above does stipulate that downloading movies and gaming could lead to excessive usage, it also makes recommendations pertaining to how to minimise usage by employing certain downloading protocols when accessing these sites.
It is therefore our submission that the AUP merely ensures that usage is managed effectively and does not contradict the advertisment, which merely promotes the optimum (but still responsible) usage of Telkom's DSL service.
With regards to the second complaint received from the complainant on 21 August 2005, Telkom wishes to confirm that the comments made by the ICASA hearings should be read in the correct context and that Telkom's DSL services has evolved since the inception of the said service.
At the outset Telkom's DSL service was not focused on or developed for bandwidth-hungry applications, such a gaming and online trading.
However, due to the rapidly changing technological landscape Telkom wishes to confirm that the aforementioned views also evolved, and submit that while gaming and video streaming would be somewhat restricted on the two and three gigabyte services due to its shaped nature, Telkom made a four gigabyte unshaped service available where there is no protocol shaping that favours applications such as video streaming and gaming.
It should also be noted that, while a customer is connected to the internet, Telkom only enforces a twenty-four hour time out and sixty minute idle time-out, so if the customer is gaming for twenty-four hours at a trot, Telkom will interrupt his/her session to enable us to allocate dynamic internet protocol's and measure usage.
The customer therefore effectively has a twenty-four hour window since last login to game or do video streaming before the dynamic internet protocol will affect him/her on the four gigabyte unshaped service.
In light of the above comments Telkom differs, with respect, with the unsubstantiated comment expressed by the complainant, namely "it is a well known fact around the Internet community" that Telkom branded multimedia and gaming users as abusers.
In light of the above comments, Telkom are of the respectful view that it did not mislead its customer's in respect of the above DSL service.
