Broadband-centric investigate journalism request

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nanonyous

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How 'bout a formal investigation into why 'outlying areas' are still bereft of 10Mbps ADSL services while paying the same rate for their 4Mbps services as their 10Mbps counterparts?

Specifically, why are said 4Mbps subscribers forced to pay the same for half the upload speed as their 10Mbps or greater counterparts?

This is an issue which has caused me and many others very significant aggravation for many years yet while we've finally relatively-recently gained such functionality as excess sync to allow for more consistent throughput we're still left on the metaphorical back-***-jou-burner of the tech world with what can only be described as stone-aged technology.

Year on year other African nations show S.Africa to be a joke in terms of its broadband offerings from a cost:performance perspective.

Year on year Telkak try to proclaim they're at the forefront of broadband technology when in reality they're recycling tech which other countries abandoned more than four goshdarned years ago, literally buying surplus hardware from countries like Brazil to bring their own to several-years-ago's 'up to date' standard.

I, and I'm sure many others, want to know why we on the lower tiers of the provider's offering have paid for so many years –in some cases more than a decade– to subsidize what wealthier closed gate communities and/or suburbs end up getting for so long. #TakeBackTheBandwidth #FeesMustFall #UploadMustRise #LoLHashTags

Edit: amg I see you okes are even censoring Afrikaans lovespeech now... Siesa :(
 
Erm...telkom has had 4mbps adsl for a while now. If you're paying for 10 and only getting 4 then it's your own fault for not changing down to 4.
 
Except the same rate was, if not still, charged for 10Mbps as for 4Mbps for many years. Whether you got upped to 10Mbps or not while paying the same rate was purely down to whether Telkak felt like it or not.
 
The days of network exclusivity are very long gone.

What about polling the other network operators to provide fixed line services in your area?
 
MickeyD said:
The days of network exclusivity are very long gone.

What about polling the other network operators to provide fixed line services in your area?
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Come now MickeyD.. you know the answer to this one, which the OP won't want to hear. :p

Nobody wants to provide service in those outlying areas since they aren't financially that great for the network operators.

The best the OP can hope for is possibly some sort of mobile/fixed-mobile solution since I doubt any type of fixed line service will be rolled out anytime soon.
 
nanonyous said:
Except the same rate was, if not still, charged for 10Mbps as for 4Mbps for many years. Whether you got upped to 10Mbps or not while paying the same rate was purely down to whether Telkak felt like it or not.
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I suspect it's based on the return on the outlay for installing the infrastructure. They'd probably make less money per line in the outlying areas if they charged the same as they do for a line closer to civilization because it costs more to get it to you and there are less customers to spread the cost to. In fact they probably make less in outlying areas even though they charge more anyway. I suspect you kind of know this already and just wanted to vent though.
 
Here's the thing though; they already have the backhaul necessary to accommodate a single connection of N size (the backhaul capacity) in place.

So, logically, if people want higher connection speeds they ought to be improving the capacity while also ensuring the DSLAMs can accommodate the higher connection speeds*. By my knowledge the same hardware stuffed into DSLAMs today which can accommodate the 5Mbps sync speeds we can get here are able to allow 10Mbps connections as well.

So why have they not allowed for such connection speeds to be available? That's what I want investigated. If the hardware is/was already there, if the capability is/was there, why was the option not made available and why were those customers made to pay the same rate (which it seems has been made separate some time ago, though I haven't yet determined when) as people who were given the higher-speed connections?

There are claims of cost effectiveness and return on investment for the operator not being enticing enough to warrant improving connection speeds in 'outlying areas'; is that really a sound justification for subsidizing the cost to improve the available services for 'the select few' while the majority keep getting the scrapings from the bottom of the pot?

Just how much has Telkak racked up over the past 20 years from their pricing and upgrade scheme relative to how much they've expended on upgrades in reality?

How much capacity is truly available out this way and if there's an excess of capacity relative to load, why are higher connection speeds not being offered here?

"it doesn't make financial sense for them" doesn't answer those questions.

Edit: *It's not like this doesn't end up getting paid for. It's the equivalent of a petrol station in the middle of nowhere seeing enough demand for fuel that having an extra tank installed makes sense since if the fuel is there, the customers will come; if the fuel runs dry people will try to find an alternative petrol station OR reduce their consumption, neither which does anything for increasing the fuel station's revenue at all.
 
nanonyous said:
Here's the thing though; they already have the backhaul necessary to accommodate a single connection of N size (the backhaul capacity) in place.

So, logically, if people want higher connection speeds they ought to be improving the capacity while also ensuring the DSLAMs can accommodate the higher connection speeds*. By my knowledge the same hardware stuffed into DSLAMs today which can accommodate the 5Mbps sync speeds we can get here are able to allow 10Mbps connections as well.

So why have they not allowed for such connection speeds to be available? That's what I want investigated. If the hardware is/was already there, if the capability is/was there, why was the option not made available and why were those customers made to pay the same rate (which it seems has been made separate some time ago, though I haven't yet determined when) as people who were given the higher-speed connections?

There are claims of cost effectiveness and return on investment for the operator not being enticing enough to warrant improving connection speeds in 'outlying areas'; is that really a sound justification for subsidizing the cost to improve the available services for 'the select few' while the majority keep getting the scrapings from the bottom of the pot?

Just how much has Telkak racked up over the past 20 years from their pricing and upgrade scheme relative to how much they've expended on upgrades in reality?

How much capacity is truly available out this way and if there's an excess of capacity relative to load, why are higher connection speeds not being offered here?

"it doesn't make financial sense for them" doesn't answer those questions.

Edit: *It's not like this doesn't end up getting paid for. It's the equivalent of a petrol station in the middle of nowhere seeing enough demand for fuel that having an extra tank installed makes sense since if the fuel is there, the customers will come; if the fuel runs dry people will try to find an alternative petrol station OR reduce their consumption, neither which does anything for increasing the fuel station's revenue at all.
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You are missing a key piece of the DSL equation... viz. the length of the copper cable between the DSLAM and the customer.

Secondly; many of the older DSLAMs can only handle a max of 4Mbps.
 
"You are missing a key piece of the DSL equation... viz. the length of the copper cable between the DSLAM and the customer."
No, I'm not. It's a given the longer the distance the lower the speeds. That's completely irrelevant to what I'm asking about.

Anyway, in the town I'm in as example the farthest anyone lives from the exchange is around 1.7km in traceable cable length. I personally am within about 330m of it (CL) and can walk up my street to go throw stones at it if I want.

"Secondly; many of the older DSLAMs can only handle a max of 4Mbps"
Hardware gets replaced, and part of what paying customers' money ought to be used for is ensuring they don't keep getting put on the older, less-capable hardware whenever something breaks. Hardware phased out in one area could instead be moved to other locales as backup units, such as areas which are, as you mentioned, too far to attain higher sync speeds anyway.

The DSL type we're connecting with here is, according to my router:
DSL Type: ITU-T G.992.1 Annex A (ADSL over POTS)

Which translates to 12Mbps down, 1.3Mbps up capability, if I'm not mistaken. Again if I'm not mistaken, if that's the connection type the router sees then the DSLAM it's hooked into is equipped with the hardware to facilitate a 10Mbps connection, distance and signal quality permitting. AFAIK it takes around 2km+ worth of line before one can't sync at 8/10Mbps anymore. So why is neither connection speed an option here?

Edit: Also for reference, in the next town over where our primary exchange for backhaul to Cape Town (amusingly, our connection has to go farther from Cape Town before heading back toward it), the farthest anyone lives assuming there's no secondary exchange closer to them is roughly 2.5km cable length for the farthest point within the most affluent part of town, a little more but still under 3km for the poorest part of town.

Every other town in the region, such as Arniston, Agulhas, Struisbaai etc are each so compact their distances are drastically shorter, and I'm confident there are plenty of rich folks living in each who'd love for faster connection speeds (I don't know whether they do or don't have anything more than 4Mbps).

This is only the area I know. I'm certain there are many other areas which serve as suitable examples where copper length from the exchanges isn't the problem, where backhaul capacity is presumably where it needs to be and where the hardware in the DSLAMs is already capable of accommodating them.
 
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would be great to find out somehow what are Telkoms plans for exchange upgrades. Which upgrades are scheduled for an upgrade, dlsams, fibre, vdsl etc etc
 
nanonyous said:
"You are missing a key piece of the DSL equation... viz. the length of the copper cable between the DSLAM and the customer."
No, I'm not. It's a given the longer the distance the lower the speeds. That's completely irrelevant to what I'm asking about.

Anyway, in the town I'm in as example the farthest anyone lives from the exchange is around 1.7km in traceable cable length. I personally am within about 330m of it (CL) and can walk up my street to go throw stones at it if I want.

"Secondly; many of the older DSLAMs can only handle a max of 4Mbps"
Hardware gets replaced, and part of what paying customers' money ought to be used for is ensuring they don't keep getting put on the older, less-capable hardware whenever something breaks. Hardware phased out in one area could instead be moved to other locales as backup units, such as areas which are, as you mentioned, too far to attain higher sync speeds anyway.

The DSL type we're connecting with here is, according to my router:
DSL Type: ITU-T G.992.1 Annex A (ADSL over POTS)

Which translates to 12Mbps down, 1.3Mbps up capability, if I'm not mistaken. Again if I'm not mistaken, if that's the connection type the router sees then the DSLAM it's hooked into is equipped with the hardware to facilitate a 10Mbps connection, distance and signal quality permitting. AFAIK it takes around 2km+ worth of line before one can't sync at 8/10Mbps anymore. So why is neither connection speed an option here?

Edit: Also for reference, in the next town over where our primary exchange for backhaul to Cape Town (amusingly, our connection has to go farther from Cape Town before heading back toward it), the farthest anyone lives assuming there's no secondary exchange closer to them is roughly 2.5km cable length for the farthest point within the most affluent part of town, a little more but still under 3km for the poorest part of town.

Every other town in the region, such as Arniston, Agulhas, Struisbaai etc are each so compact their distances are drastically shorter, and I'm confident there are plenty of rich folks living in each who'd love for faster connection speeds (I don't know whether they do or don't have anything more than 4Mbps).

This is only the area I know. I'm certain there are many other areas which serve as suitable examples where copper length from the exchanges isn't the problem, where backhaul capacity is presumably where it needs to be and where the hardware in the DSLAMs is already capable of accommodating them.
Click to expand...

Drop an email to Alphonzo Samuels at Openserve and ask him... [email protected]
 
Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo

nanonyous said:
Guess I'm going to have to revisit this around the 9th'ish then and hope they see the mail among all they'll have received up till then.
View attachment 408608
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ANSWER :

https://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php/862692-UK-The-farmer-who-built-her-own-broadband?p=18891372&viewfull=1#post18891372

Read the whole thread

ALL tax paying South Africans MUST come to the realization that regardless of how much you pay to assorted state , municipal and other NGO's
You will NEVER get the service for which you PAY and which you are entitled to

You Will Have To -- DO IT ALL YOURSELF !

Last week POWER went off for two hours -- NO notification NO warning !
Today all WATER off -- NO notification NO warning !

DELENDA EST
 
I could've sworn Telkak have been reasonably autonomous in terms of expenditure and operations for quite some years now, that their operations and fiscal expenses aren't dictated by the government anymore?
 
nanonyous said:
I could've sworn Telkak have been reasonably autonomous in terms of expenditure and operations for quite some years now, that their operations and fiscal expenses aren't dictated by the government anymore?
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You are correct, and especially so since the current CEO and chairman of the Board were appointed.
 
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