Broadband: SA’s poor performance

oh come on. 70% of the people in this country can barely afford a phone. wtf are they gonna do with a 20Meg pipe?
 
You know. .

is a 10mbs uncapped unshaped connection so much to ask for in this country?
 
"Good Day Sir/Madam, this is an automated message from Telkom SA Ltd. We regret to inform you that your application for a Telkom phone line was rejected, like the 99 out of 100 people before you who requested a phone line in your region, due to a bulk Cable theft problem in your area. We will not be replacing the cables, despite the fact that we pay a security company millions of rands per year for anti cable-theft alarm systems which do not even exist. See, we're obviously raping our existing corporate customers so hard that we don't really need your money and couldn't care less about following our responsibility as the fixed-line monopoly to give you a home essential - a phone line, not to mention what's practically considered a RIGHT in most other developed countries: affordable internet access"
news said:
South Africa is however an anomaly in terms of broadband subscriptions by technology. In the OECD basically all broadband connections are fixed line services – 60% DSL, 29% Cable Modem and 11% Fibre and LAN.
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The article should reveal the important facts which should have the company react accordingly, rather than just release the statistics which most readers would interpret arbitrarily with an ignorant 'too bad, we're different' attitude
 
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Dit gaan oor die pond !

Telkom can't see past the fact that 4 subscribers @ R219 is less than 24 subscribers @ R50

Are there any economists out there ?
 
Goldstuck jokingly points out that there is four times more competition in the South African cellular market than in the ADSL space. Goldstuck said that the lesson in South Africa is simple: In order to increase penetration rates vigorous competition is needed.
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Yes and the two largest of the four have been colluding on their prices for years, but you seemed to skip over that point there Mr. Goldstuck. The ADSL resellers have done a lot more for internet affordability than the mobile operators have IMO.
 
In theory, we could actually completely dump telkom, BUT that would mean that cellular providers will have to replace telkom and as such at least be priced equal or lower than telkom.

My simplistic view is:
1. that you do not need a copper cable or trunking.
2. The virtual "cable" cannot be stolen
3. and less points of failure or as such sites to protect.
4. You can have your "line" with a simple sim activation,
5. you can use pre-paid to limit bad debt write-offs -

BASICALLY you could wonder why we even need a fixed line at all? It kind of sounds like ancient tech really - if hardwire was that good, then why even bother with creating wireless tech?

Now thats the dream, which the cellular providers CAN achieve if it wasn't for greedy shareholders!
 
Don't be blind and ignorant like our government.

You cannot simply sit back and ignore Telkom's distress due to crime.
If we do remove Telkom from the equation, the criminals will simply switch to electric cabling, and then we're back to square one.

Telkom should be laying heavy claims against government for their failure to implement systems that prevent uncontrolled sale of telecoms cabling.

Point the fingers at the right people dammit.
 
george_vg said:
In theory, we could actually completely dump telkom, BUT that would mean that cellular providers will have to replace telkom and as such at least be priced equal or lower than telkom.

My simplistic view is:
1. that you do not need a copper cable or trunking.
2. The virtual "cable" cannot be stolen
3. and less points of failure or as such sites to protect.
4. You can have your "line" with a simple sim activation,
5. you can use pre-paid to limit bad debt write-offs -

BASICALLY you could wonder why we even need a fixed line at all? It kind of sounds like ancient tech really - if hardwire was that good, then why even bother with creating wireless tech?

Now thats the dream, which the cellular providers CAN achieve if it wasn't for greedy shareholders!
Click to expand...

I'm sorry but I have to disagree. Hardwire will always be a more reliable connection - wireless was created to facilitate portability. If wireless was that good half the world's data centers would've switched to wireless internet by now.
 
ruan567 said:
I'm sorry but I have to disagree. Hardwire will always be a more reliable connection - wireless was created to facilitate portability. If wireless was that good half the world's data centers would've switched to wireless internet by now.
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I'd also like to know where he proposes available spectrum to allocated to facilitate his wireless wet dream.
 
Sigh. Well I am off to get my fixed line from the second fixed line operator in South Africa. Oh wait. I can only get rubbish CDMA wireless that seems to be going the way of Sentech MyWireless. What a fail...
 
Cadavre777 said:
I'd also like to know where he proposes available spectrum to allocated to facilitate his wireless wet dream.
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The same place it comes from now... There are already more wireless broadband connections than wired according to the article - does this mean the available spectrum is already congested?

Given the choice of no wired line or a cellular connection, myself and I wager most ppl will choose wireless. The point being it removes telkom, cable theft, LLU, and the high entry point from the broadband equation. This also means that someone in rural SA can access internet at affordable rates on pre-pay for example. The only stumbling block IMHO is the cost of data on cellular currently.
Technology also adapts - so if "instability" is a problem it will be improved or replaced with better tech as per the upgrades by Cell C.
 
george_vg said:
The same place it comes from now... There are already more wireless broadband connections than wired according to the article - does this mean the available spectrum is already congested?

Given the choice of no wired line or a cellular connection, myself and I wager most ppl will choose wireless. The point being it removes telkom, cable theft, LLU, and the high entry point from the broadband equation. This also means that someone in rural SA can access internet at affordable rates on pre-pay for example. The only stumbling block IMHO is the cost of data on cellular currently.
Technology also adapts - so if "instability" is a problem it will be improved or replaced with better tech as per the upgrades by Cell C.
Click to expand...

Your point is well taken that nobody is really offering what they could be offering in terms of wireless. I would love to see it.

But I have to agree with the other guys... nothing beats a fixed line connection.

I wish somebody had the capital outlay to start putting in fibre.
 
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