Broadband technologies: SA versus the globe

With what type of connection do you mainly access the Internet?

  • Fixed line

    Votes: 29 64.4%

  • Wireless

    Votes: 16 35.6%
  • Total voters
    45
Why are all the Telkom CEOs too dumb to understand this???!?!?!

29% = ADSL,
47% = 3G/HSDPA (Vodacom/MTN)
24% = The rest - iBurst, Telkom 3G, WISPs, etc

They have everything they need to run a highly profitable business, if only they can use their brains, just a little bit.

They're really scewing themselves over.
 
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What makes you think Telkom is not a highly profitable business?
 
I think telkom can make a lot more money by supplying a lot more cheaper lines as opposed to a few expensive lines... but just try and explain that to them :erm:
 
Oh look, another year, another article, same news.
When will Telkom/Notel, etc learn?
Fixed line is the way to go according to the rest of the world, but NO, SA has to be different.
w@nkers!
 
stevovo said:
I think telkom can make a lot more money by supplying a lot more cheaper lines as opposed to a few expensive lines... but just try and explain that to them :erm:
Click to expand...

Everyone who knows anything has been trying to explain this to them for years, they just don't get it.
There was actually an interview with some senior person at Telkom about 2/2.5 years ago on the radio, where they said DSL take up was incredibly slow when first released, so they believed there was no interest.
Then, they dropped the prices, and suddenly, there was quite an influx, but still not as high as they expected.
They were still unsure if this meant there was a demand and the pricing might just be too high, or if there just wasn't the demand.

Eejits!!
 
I hardly call a mtn 3g connection with 50meg a broadband connection. So i have a 10meg thing with mtn and a wireless connection that means i'm counted twice!
 
psichron said:
What makes you think Telkom is not a highly profitable business?
Click to expand...
Telkodemonopolies used to be a highly profitable monopoly, and despite the monopolistic beast's efforts to prevent competition, competition and the lack of profits from Vodacom [sold off] have taken their toll as can be seen in Telkodemonopolies' recent financial results.

The beast is not dead, but it has chewed off several of its limbs and is currently eating its own remains.
 
ic said:
Telkodemonopolies used to be a highly profitable monopoly, and despite the monopolistic beast's efforts to prevent competition, competition and the lack of profits from Vodacom [sold off] have taken their toll as can be seen in Telkodemonopolies' recent financial results.

The beast is not dead, but it has chewed off several of its limbs and is currently eating its own remains.
Click to expand...

I have to admit I don't really see what Telkom can do to save itself at this point.

The only thing Telkom has that differentiates it is the local loop, which will at some point in the future with LLU no longer be as closed as they would like it to be. After that what sort of competitive advantage do they have? They are slow, inept, their ISP tech-support section is a nightmare full of incompetent mongoloids.

Every possible service they could offer someone else in the market will be able to do better. What hope do they possibly have without fundamental restructuring of that company.
 
Why is it that no-one, particularly the writers (and apparently most readers) of articles like this just don't get the big picture? I think it has something to do with the fact that South Africans manage to think of almost anywhere else as better than us, whilst at the same time thinking that the South African way of seeing things is the only one. It's a strange mixture of inferiority and arrogance, but what's new?

There are two fundamental flaws in the assumptions that this writer is making.

Firstly, he's assuming that the OECD (and, basically, global) definition of broadband is the same one we get fed by media and operators here. It isn't. The marketing machines of the mobile operators here have managed to convince us that broadband includes "mobile broadband" (i.e. 3G, and some similar technologies, including a few other wireless technologies). In the OECD countries, this is absolutely not the case, and broadband, with very few exceptions, is defined as fixed, not mobile, and, with a few minor exceptions, is wireline, not wireless. Of course these countries have large 3G rollouts, but you won't find the numbers included in broadband, but in mobile stats. Hence, to draw any sort of sensible comparison with SA, you'd either have to include the OECD mobile figures, or exclude the SA mobile figures.

Secondly, he's assuming that it's sensible to compare broadband penetration in South Africa to the OECD. It probably isn't, much as we would like it to be. In global terms, and particularly in numerical terms, it makes much more sense to compare us to developing countries. There is most definitely a massive trend towards 3G being a workable substitute for true broadband (i.e. fixed wireline - and real broadband wireless - services) in developing countries, precisely because they don't have large old copper wire telephone networks that can be upgraded to broadband. By this measure, South Africa is very high on the list, and has nothing like the challenges of most developing countries, who have almost no wireline broadband, and even less hope of getting it. There is (obviously) a similar substitution trend in developed countries as well, but it's much smaller, and tends to affect the younger middle class, rather than the poor, since mobile broadband is typically more expensive than true broadband in such countries, and there aren't nearly as many poor people who don't actually own homes that could be wired. We have some of the lowest-priced 3G services in the world (per Mbps), so of course people think they're basic broadband, rather than a luxury high speed add-on.

The game changer in all of this is obviously optical fibre access. If we are going to get faster and more broadband in South Africa, there's little doubt that we need more access fibre rolled out. We just need to accept that we are a very diverse country, with large inequities, and that there is a place in South Africa for everything from fibre-based broadband at the high-end, right down to sub-broadband wireless access at the low-end. We can aim for some kind of minimum available to all, but not to have the high-end would be as logical as insisting that we shouldn't have expensive cars or expensive houses, because not everyone can afford them.

For South Africa, therefore, poised between developing and developed, poor by OECD standards, and rich by African standards, it's not just a numbers game. Success for South Africa may well be a complex mix of different technologies, probably the more diverse the better, especially if we aim to ensure that our best is as good as the best in the world, and our most widespread reaches more of the population than in most countries. A simple percentage comparisons of technologies is a meaningless and fruitless exercise.

The real indictment is that we aren't keeping up with the world in technology terms (e.g. FTTH), not numerical terms, and that our current government policies promote mediocrity, rather than excellence. Operators (particularly Telkom, who are, after all, driven by government policy, in perception if not reality) feel obliged to deliver the same mediocre service to everyone, rather than offering the best to those who can afford it, unlike, for example, car dealers. As various commentators have pointed out, Telkom has even managed to convince themselves that mobile must be better than fixed if everyone wants one, so they're spending vast amounts of money to be just as mediocre as the mobile operators, rather than building on their (former) strength.
 
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i dont understand why people still want to go the wired way :wtf:.i have been using wireless for years and i must admit that it has it's downfalls but it is extremely usefull and convinient.wired is just so old news :p . we cant keep comparing ourselves with the rest of the world when it comes to broadband,why cant we set our own trends and let the rest follow?:D
 
ngwenyas said:
i dont understand why people still want to go the wired way
Click to expand...

My ADSL and wired phone have 99.99% up-time - the only negative being the stupidly low cap. My 3G connection is unreliable, both as a phone and as a data modem - calls are dropped, garbled and generally unreliable.

That's why i prefer wired connection.
 
ngwenyas said:
i dont understand why people still want to go the wired way :wtf:.i have been using wireless for years and i must admit that it has it's downfalls but it is extremely usefull and convinient.wired is just so old news :p . we cant keep comparing ourselves with the rest of the world when it comes to broadband,why cant we set our own trends and let the rest follow?:D
Click to expand...

we are now getting mobile wireless routers which work on a battery similar to cellphone battery with 5 hours browsing time. im trialing it and so far i'm impressed.:love:
 
@ads - great post, one of the best on the forum for quite some time!
 
Makes Sense to me!

ads said:
Why is it that no-one, particularly the writers (and apparently most readers) of articles like this just don't get the big picture? I think it has something to do with the fact that South Africans manage to think of almost anywhere else as better than us, whilst at the same time thinking that the South African way of seeing things is the only one. It's a strange mixture of inferiority and arrogance, but what's new?

There are two fundamental flaws in the assumptions that this writer is making.

Firstly, he's assuming that the OECD (and, basically, global) definition of broadband is the same one we get fed by media and operators here. It isn't. The marketing machines of the mobile operators here have managed to convince us that broadband includes "mobile broadband" (i.e. 3G, and some similar technologies, including a few other wireless technologies). In the OECD countries, this is absolutely not the case, and broadband, with very few exceptions, is defined as fixed, not mobile, and, with a few minor exceptions, is wireline, not wireless. Of course these countries have large 3G rollouts, but you won't find the numbers included in broadband, but in mobile stats. Hence, to draw any sort of sensible comparison with SA, you'd either have to include the OECD mobile figures, or exclude the SA mobile figures.

Secondly, he's assuming that it's sensible to compare broadband penetration in South Africa to the OECD. It probably isn't, much as we would like it to be. In global terms, and particularly in numerical terms, it makes much more sense to compare us to developing countries. There is most definitely a massive trend towards 3G being a workable substitute for true broadband (i.e. fixed wireline - and real broadband wireless - services) in developing countries, precisely because they don't have large old copper wire telephone networks that can be upgraded to broadband. By this measure, South Africa is very high on the list, and has nothing like the challenges of most developing countries, who have almost no wireline broadband, and even less hope of getting it. There is (obviously) a similar substitution trend in developed countries as well, but it's much smaller, and tends to affect the younger middle class, rather than the poor, since mobile broadband is typically more expensive than true broadband in such countries, and there aren't nearly as many poor people who don't actually own homes that could be wired. We have some of the lowest-priced 3G services in the world (per Mbps), so of course people think they're basic broadband, rather than a luxury high speed add-on.

The game changer in all of this is obviously optical fibre access. If we are going to get faster and more broadband in South Africa, there's little doubt that we need more access fibre rolled out. We just need to accept that we are a very diverse country, with large inequities, and that there is a place in South Africa for everything from fibre-based broadband at the high-end, right down to sub-broadband wireless access at the low-end. We can aim for some kind of minimum available to all, but not to have the high-end would be as logical as insisting that we shouldn't have expensive cars or expensive houses, because not everyone can afford them.

For South Africa, therefore, poised between developing and developed, poor by OECD standards, and rich by African standards, it's not just a numbers game. Success for South Africa may well be a complex mix of different technologies, probably the more diverse the better, especially if we aim to ensure that our best is as good as the best in the world, and our most widespread reaches more of the population than in most countries. A simple percentage comparisons of technologies is a meaningless and fruitless exercise.

The real indictment is that we aren't keeping up with the world in technology terms (e.g. FTTH), not numerical terms, and that our current government policies promote mediocrity, rather than excellence. Operators (particularly Telkom, who are, after all, driven by government policy, in perception if not reality) feel obliged to deliver the same mediocre service to everyone, rather than offering the best to those who can afford it, unlike, for example, car dealers. As various commentators have pointed out, Telkom has even managed to convince themselves that mobile must be better than fixed if everyone wants one, so they're spending vast amounts of money to be just as mediocre as the mobile operators, rather than building on their (former) strength.
Click to expand...

+1
 
ads said:
Why is it that no-one, particularly the writers (and apparently most readers) of articles like this just don't get the big picture? I think it has something to do with the fact that South Africans manage to think of almost anywhere else as better than us, whilst at the same time thinking that the South African way of seeing things is the only one. It's a strange mixture of inferiority and arrogance, but what's new?

There are two fundamental flaws in the assumptions that this writer is making.

Firstly, he's assuming that the OECD (and, basically, global) definition of broadband is the same one we get fed by media and operators here. It isn't. The marketing machines of the mobile operators here have managed to convince us that broadband includes "mobile broadband" (i.e. 3G, and some similar technologies, including a few other wireless technologies). In the OECD countries, this is absolutely not the case, and broadband, with very few exceptions, is defined as fixed, not mobile, and, with a few minor exceptions, is wireline, not wireless. Of course these countries have large 3G rollouts, but you won't find the numbers included in broadband, but in mobile stats. Hence, to draw any sort of sensible comparison with SA, you'd either have to include the OECD mobile figures, or exclude the SA mobile figures.

Secondly, he's assuming that it's sensible to compare broadband penetration in South Africa to the OECD. It probably isn't, much as we would like it to be. In global terms, and particularly in numerical terms, it makes much more sense to compare us to developing countries. There is most definitely a massive trend towards 3G being a workable substitute for true broadband (i.e. fixed wireline - and real broadband wireless - services) in developing countries, precisely because they don't have large old copper wire telephone networks that can be upgraded to broadband. By this measure, South Africa is very high on the list, and has nothing like the challenges of most developing countries, who have almost no wireline broadband, and even less hope of getting it. There is (obviously) a similar substitution trend in developed countries as well, but it's much smaller, and tends to affect the younger middle class, rather than the poor, since mobile broadband is typically more expensive than true broadband in such countries, and there aren't nearly as many poor people who don't actually own homes that could be wired. We have some of the lowest-priced 3G services in the world (per Mbps), so of course people think they're basic broadband, rather than a luxury high speed add-on.

The game changer in all of this is obviously optical fibre access. If we are going to get faster and more broadband in South Africa, there's little doubt that we need more access fibre rolled out. We just need to accept that we are a very diverse country, with large inequities, and that there is a place in South Africa for everything from fibre-based broadband at the high-end, right down to sub-broadband wireless access at the low-end. We can aim for some kind of minimum available to all, but not to have the high-end would be as logical as insisting that we shouldn't have expensive cars or expensive houses, because not everyone can afford them.

For South Africa, therefore, poised between developing and developed, poor by OECD standards, and rich by African standards, it's not just a numbers game. Success for South Africa may well be a complex mix of different technologies, probably the more diverse the better, especially if we aim to ensure that our best is as good as the best in the world, and our most widespread reaches more of the population than in most countries. A simple percentage comparisons of technologies is a meaningless and fruitless exercise.

The real indictment is that we aren't keeping up with the world in technology terms (e.g. FTTH), not numerical terms, and that our current government policies promote mediocrity, rather than excellence. Operators (particularly Telkom, who are, after all, driven by government policy, in perception if not reality) feel obliged to deliver the same mediocre service to everyone, rather than offering the best to those who can afford it, unlike, for example, car dealers. As various commentators have pointed out, Telkom has even managed to convince themselves that mobile must be better than fixed if everyone wants one, so they're spending vast amounts of money to be just as mediocre as the mobile operators, rather than building on their (former) strength.
Click to expand...

:D
 
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