Broadcasting, Telecoms Merge

[rpm]

http://www.mybroadband.co.za/nephp/?m=show&id=171

"Four hundred of Telkom's broadband clients will be contacted soon to be told they are part of a trial that will test high-quality television broadcasting across the Internet."

Please let us know if you have been selected! Their cap will also be lifted for this period...

 

[ic]

Does one have to own Telkomonopoly shares in addition to having ADSL to be selected?

...It will also need to ensure its DSL network is capable of the speeds necessary - typically 4 Mbit/s and up - to deliver uninterrupted, DVD-quality video transmissions into the home...

So that means the trial will only start in 2015 then?

 

[arf9999]

Telkom is evidently preparing to test VDSL. Got R10,000 per month anyone?

 

[kilps]

4mbps - thats cool, hang on - my walets empty

 

[ic]

I open my wallet, and am I surprised??? to see mini-$izwe in there shovelling my money into a mini-Telkomonopoly space shuttle...

 

[caroper]

I may be paranoit but compare the quotes:

Addressing a small Windhoek workshop of journalists also flown in to see the Namibian project (Digital Terrestrial Television), Van Eeden refers to two brief but successful technical trials conducted by signal providers Sentech and Orbicom in Johannesburg in 2001 and 2002.

These showed that the technology - what Windhoek's subscribers now have in new, exchanged decoders provided free of charge - would work in South Africa.

However, regulators refused to extend the trial runs to bring in commercial feasibility and customer receptiveness. Van Eeden chooses not to elaborate on why.

and then this one:

Telkom's former shareholder, US telecom giant SBC, is also testing the technology. It wants to use its telecom network, particularly new fibre-optic links it is installing, to deliver a triple-play bundle of TV, phone and broadband Internet services to consumers.

Is ICASA in the side of the consumers or "you know who"?