Broadband Shootout Questions: Your Feedback Needed

[kilps]

Telkom: Are you aware that companies have desided not to invest in South Africa because of your high costs? What is Telkom doing to help compensate South Africa for the 1% of economic growth you cost us?

That should get them - pls check my facts though

 

[RoseAfrica]

of course i have a vested interest but.........

The things I would like to know are:

1. Total subscribers and breakdown of package type being used.
2. Local loop capacity and maintenance costs for the ADSL portion.
3. Wholesale international bandwidth purchase price.
4. Cost to land that bandwidth locally per GByte.
5. Contention ratios
6. Technical details on the shaping policies in place.

These are mostly Telkom related but I think accurate answers on the above 6 would clarify many things which affect all players.

In the name of objectivity, I would love to see not only ( Total subscribers and breakdown of package type being used.) but a definitive comparisom scale of the providers involved in all categories relating to the products. Actually an ongoing scale / poll somewhere would be great so one does not have to wade through forum topics, but at a glance can see where providers are falling short and/or where they have improved . Would this not be nice in a sort of graph form, using the categories of price, speed, coverage, reliability, technical support etc?

 

[bin3]

Why is it so difficult / expensive to get a static ip ? Excluding cost, but just for security: Should this not help a lot with identifying spammers / bandwidth abuse ? It will surely help all my tech work.

 

[Peter7]

on the static IP thing: Telkom's been moaning about abuse of service - well with the static IP they'll be able to identify the so-called "abusers". The abuse thing is a load of rubbish IMO, just an excuse from Telkom b/c they're not willing to upgrade the network, or more specifically spend money to do so.

 

[ambo]

Why is it so difficult / expensive to get a static ip ? Excluding cost, but just for security: Should this not help a lot with identifying spammers / bandwidth abuse ? It will surely help all my tech work.

And if the pull out the "there are insufficient IP's to go around" card then 2 counter questions:
1. How can you say that since many of the people interested in static IP's already are connected and using one of the dynamic allocated IP's 98% of the time.
2. When does telkom plan to rollout IPv6 on its networks?

 

[Moederloos]

And if the pull out the "there are insufficient IP's to go around" card then 2 counter questions:
1. How can you say that since many of the people interested in static IP's already are connected and using one of the dynamic allocated IP's 98% of the time.
2. When does telkom plan to rollout IPv6 on its networks?

If they answered honestly, the answers would be
1) Because then we would lose money on our over-priced Diginet
2) When hell freezes over and the devil sells ice creams

 

[Perdition]

1)telkom: what has happened to the 1mbps speed that was promised first in june, then in august?

2)telkom: when will we see international trends of increased speeds and reduced prices? as opposed to reduced speeds as an excuse to offer lower prices.

3)telkom: are the rumors of per-gig billing true? if so why are the touted prices so exhorbitant?

4)telkom: aren't your recent ad campaigns against your policy of "abuse"? why should people who use adsl in the manner in which it was meant to be used be classified as abusers? surely broadband wasn't meant to be used only for http traffic and email use.

5) telkom: recently your spokesman blamed demographics and terrain on the inability to deliver on adsl rollout. why is it possible for countries such as new zealand and australia to provide fast rollout, high speed, lower prices when they are basically in the middle of nowhere? additionally, their terrain and demographics are very much similar to ours with deserts and mountains as well.

and NO 3G speeds cannot be classified as broadband as far as i'm concerned. its merely wireless access to internet content. and regarding abuse, reference should be made to the ICASA report which mentions acceptable uses of adsl. everything that is considered acceptable by definition, is considered abuse by telkom.

I second these questions, it's difficult to bullsh!t around them.

I guarantee that questions of a very specific and technical nature e.g. cost price of SAT-3 bandwidth or DSLAM ports will be met with "that's confidential information".

 

[mbs]

Telkrap: Please provide verifiable evidence of your contribution to the universal access obligation, given the disconnection of 2,7 million fixed lines for non-payment in the face of the exorbitant profits posted for the past two years!
/@rseholes

 

[Moederloos]

The first question is a lead up to the more important, so bear with me.

1) What percentage of people reach their cap in a month?

Based on that answer, we can determine the number of capped users (so, if as Telkom claim, most people DO NOT, that may mean 5% of people do. 5% of 100 000 - there are less users, but make the math easier for now - is 5 000.)

2) How big is the "capped" international line, that is cannot even support browsing for 5000 users. My best ever speed while capped is 1kb, that makes 5000kb of international bandwidth for capped users - that is totally disgraceful.

Add to that, the fact that a large number of capped users, like myself, have more than one account. So, even when one account is capped, I use another. This diminishes the number of capped users on the capped line, perhaps as much as halves it.


This now leads us to make one of two conclusions -

1) Telkom is not being truthful about the number of users that reach cap, and that this figure is much higher
2) The international bandwidth for capped users is dismally inadequate. ( a reference to the ICASA ADSL report, in terms of minimum speeds for capped users, can be made here)

 

[The_Unbeliever]

If things get boring during the ahem 'shoot out' - please ask the experts:

"What great opponent of Cartesian dualism, resists the reduction of
psychological phenomena to a physical state, and insists there is no
point of contact between the extended, and the un-extended?"

I'm sorry, it's friday. But it IS a question that needs to be asked at people who
have the nerve to appear in public and pretend to have all the answers..

*creeps away quietly*

What was THAT?

Anyway, mine is :

Telkom : You complain that the local loop is very expensive to maintain, yet you boasted a profit of R6,807 billion for the financial year of 2005. How do you explain this?
Further : You claim that you do maintenance on the local loops, where is the proof that you are indeed doing maintenance?


My 0.05c.

Regards

Lib

 

[doobiwan]

I would think the questions need to be applicable to ALL the providers at the shootout, not pointed at particular providers, so you have to ask things like:

1. What are your local / international contention ratio's and why?

2. Why are all your services so expensive? Why are you prices not comparable to similar offerings internationally? Even in other developing countries, without the existing infrastructure we have?

3. Why does you services limit usage via both shaping and capping when they serve the same purpose?

4. Why are the imposed limits for both capping and shapping so ridiculously low, and expensive by world standards.

5. Why are some services introducing caps on local traffic? This is unprecedented anywhere in the world.

6. Do you not consider it unethical thal ALL of your ads promise first world multimedia services but in truth deliver glorified Dial-up? (Rather than "broadband" lets rather say non-dial-up services.)

7. Why then do you denegrate and brand users who try to use these services for such as, "Abusers"?

8. Why is Mauritius and Senegal more advanced than South Africa, when we've had the technologies for longer and better infrastructure?

9. Do you believe your service is currently capable of making the internet more accessible AND Affordable for the average South Africa, not just for the wealthy.

10. Currently the cost of "broadband" is such that the service itself is a luxury. However the true value in BB is in content delivery, of which currently in South Africa there is little or non. How do you intend on stimulating the content market in a non-restrictive, affordable manner?

11. What do you thing is the best way to grow local Internet Usage?

12. Do you know you're all greedy leech scum? ( )
Um. okay, or maybe to rephrase : Are your companies aware of the publics opinion of you? Does the overall negative perspective of your companies not bother you?

 

[AdLo]

I think there should also be questions regarding the rumored new 12 hour IP reset sessions from 1 Nov.
Why the need for it and do ISPs who do their own authentication have to abide by it?

 

[rpm]

Hi folks

Thanks a bunch for all the questions. I have forwarded them to the 'shootout' organizers and will do my best to deliver the others myself at the conference.

Regards,

RPM