ICASA ADSL Draft Regulations

[antowan]

I for one cannot see distance making such a huge difference to Internet connectivity charges around the globe. At least not to the degree that we are being charged, vbtechie.

You have to remember that population density only really impacts initial installation costs and not running costs so much. Thus a South African ADSL customer might be 3 or 4 times more expensive to connect to the exchange than in South Korea, but after that initial cost providing the customer with the service should be roughly the same...

We are not talking 100's of thousands of Rands either, vbtechie. We are at most talking about a couple of hundred Rand here...

It is time to face the music mate. We are being SMOKED in this country. If Telkom charged so much because it cost them so much they would not have made half of BT's profits with the equivalent of 10 or 20% of BT's customers...(per share Telkom had a higher return per share than BT)

We are being RIPPED OFF! PERIOD!

 

[vbtechie]

I foresee a problem here in that Telkom has given all responsibility for everything to ISP's with regards to caps and the like.

Telkom will shrug this off - its too late, they have already made the changes to shift the responsibility from themselves to the ISP's.

Telkom will wash their hands and say "We can't control what the ISP's offer so it's unfair to ask us to do anything - its out of our control".

Ah, but the wholesale price of ADSL bandwidth can be "capped" by ICASA. Obviously not at less than Telkom's cost, but at cost plus a reasonable markup.

 

[ettubrute]

...at cost plus a reasonable markup.

Just a question: what percentage can be considered "reasonable"?

 

[bwana]

How about a new poll now that we've had a chance to throw some ideas around? Keep the old one so we can compare?

 

[vbtechie]

I think Anotwans suggestion of pricing based on an International Basket of comparable products is a very good idea. We should definitely push to have that included in the regulations. Potentially make this for wholesale bandwidth prices rather than ADSL explicitly, or Telkom will find some way to screw the ISPs. Consisting of places like South America, Australia, some other African countries, to be "demographically fair".

My favourite line in the document is:
"3.5 Subscribers that have entered into ADSL contracts prior to the promulgation of these regulations may have the option to substitute the existing contracts, at no cost to such subscribers, with the new contracts that comply with the new framework"

Be careful. There are other African countries, like Mauritius, where there are really screwed up semi-private monopolies, and there, bandwidth is also rather expensive to the consumer.

 

[noemfie]

Would be interesting to compare this draft against the draft that was published by the UK regulator . To see how much detail they went into .Wonder if it can be found somewhere

 

[doobiwan]

I agree with Riggs, less time not more, lets get this bugger moving!

The document is great, for me the only outstanding issue that needs to added in some way of form is for ICASA to be able to force Telkom to reduce prices.

My other question to clarify is:

"Installation Charge": Is it per physical line installed, or is it per account. For example if I buy a house which has ADSL, I shouldn't have to pay "Installation" just to have the account moved into my name.

 

[bwana]

Be careful. There are other African countries, like Mauritius, where there are really screwed up semi-private monopolies, and there, bandwidth is also rather expensive to the consumer.

Quick search and through Mauritius' Wanadoo - r339.59 for 512/128 uncapped and r1388.26 for the 1024/128 - we should be so lucky! http://www.telecomplus.net/adsl_tariffs_home.htm

 

[antowan]

If this DA press release is anything to go by, we are royally buggered!



STATEMENT BY DENE SMUTS MP
DEMOCRATIC ALLIANCE SPOKESPERSON ON COMMUNICATIONS

Icasa's independence wiped out by NCOP in a few hours - "the less citizens know about how laws and sausages are made, the better"

Release, immediate: Thursday December 1, 2005

The NCOP has changed the Icasa Amendment Bill back to the way the Minister of Communications wanted it, giving her the power of appointment of the Independent Communications Authority of SA councillors (Icasa). It has in fact made it even worse, giving her the power also to remove them. The National Assembly's Portfolio Committee on Communications refused to allow the National Assembly to be stripped of its powers of appointment and removal and spent gruelling hours achieving a compromise which preserved constitutionality and the independence of the regulator.

The NCOP's Select Committee on Labour and Public Enterprises achieved its feat of Parliamentary capitulation in a few hours, sitting with only the Department of Communications. On 16 November, the committee heard a briefing from the Department of Communications. On 17 November, the Department tabled a set of amendments purporting to be based on the Select Committee's discussions the previous day.

A reading of the proceedings (as reported by the Parliamentary Monitoring Group) reminds me of Bismarck's saying: 'the less citizens know about how laws and sausages are made, the better'.

Ms Ntwanambi (ANC) felt that the NCOP was being slighted when only the National Assembly was involved in the appointment. The Chairperson agreed and expressed disapproval of the perception that the NCOP was a rubber stamp. In a discussion that can only be described as confused, two members of Parliament were then added to the advisory panel the NA Portfolio Committee created to make recommendations which would ultimately be decided upon by the National Assembly. Icasa councillors have always been selected the way all Chapter Nine Constitutional Institutions are appointed: by nomination by a vote of the NA to the President, who performs the executive action of appointment.

After this brief discussion about the sidelining of one house of Parliament, Mr Gamede (ANC) suggested that the Minister should appoint the regulators and the Chair agreed, apparently missing the rich irony of the move.

The next day the Department trotted back with the exact provisions of its original Bill, rejected by the NA, now adding only the personae on the panel. The Department assured the NCOP that because the Minister now appointed, she should also remove, and in one fell swoop a further legal criterion for independence set by the Constitutional and every other court fell before the NCOP.

The executive has got what it always wanted, and it is impossible to believe that it did not engineer this outcome. The Department already behaved disgracefully during the NA deliberations on the Bill, trying to slip its own formulations past the Portfolio Committee against the declared positions of all MPs. The Committee threw them out.

Since this is a section 75 Bill the NCOP amendments must come back to the National Assembly, which can reverse them. I will suggest to our Portfolio Committee chairman that we invite the NCOP Select Committee to sit with us, so that we can discuss the fact that independence means that a body like Icasa must be beyond the control of government.

 

[allyoucaneat]

Wowweee!!!! What a happy day!

EDIT: These are 3 important pages.

 

[antowan]

Wowweee!!!! What a happy day!

EDIT: These are 3 important pages.

 

[vbtechie]

I for one cannot see distance making such a huge difference to Internet connectivity charges around the globe. At least not to the degree that we are being charged, vbtechie.

You have to remember that population density only really impacts initial installation costs and not running costs so much. Thus a South African ADSL customer might be 3 or 4 times more expensive to connect to the exchange than in South Korea, but after that initial cost providing the customer with the service should be roughly the same...

We are not talking 100's of thousands of Rands either, vbtechie. We are at most talking about a couple of hundred Rand here...

It is time to face the music mate. We are being SMOKED in this country. If Telkom charged so much because it cost them so much they would not have made half of BT's profits with the equivalent of 10 or 20% of BT's customers...(per share Telkom had a higher return per share than BT)

We are being RIPPED OFF! PERIOD!

I agree that we're being ripped off. It might cost 25% or even 50% more to provide international bandwidth in South Africa than it does in the U.K. but not 10 times as much.

However, we should not expect ICASA to set wholesale rates at below Telkom's actual cost price. It would be really helpful to know what that cost price really is. Maybe such a document could just fall out of the sky and land on one of our desks? (hint)

 

[raZer]

I definately think that ICASA needs to setup some parameters regarding the pricing of the bandwidth, since if the minimum is 10GB, they'll prob make that high or make 15GB extremely high so that it is unfeasable for everyone.

Good work everyone who helped make this happen, but there's still a long way to go!

 

[BillT]

Dismay -

- another invitation to discuss the options and nuances on how the foreplay should be approached. Any idea as to when we will actually get down to 'doing it'?

re the IP change - this does not make technical sense. Fixed IPs are assigned (indirectly) by ICANN, dynamic ones come from a pool that is managed by a DHCP server. As I read the document - you will have a DHCP assigned IP but with no forced reset, but you have no guarantee that the IP will not change. The seven day story is rather stupid. We could, of course, argue my interpretation ‘till the cows come home as to what is/was actually meant – this, in my opinion applies to the whole document.

Why not just say - ‘The IP addressing will be DHCP managed (per RFQxxxx) with no 'forced' reset permitted by the service provider’. And further – ‘The service provider shall be obliged to provide an ICANN fixed IP address if so requested, the service provider will be permitted to charge a reasonable fee for the provision of such an IP address.’

ICASA should have spelt out its intentions in a clear and unambiguous manner – and the arguing of the details, like what is meant by a ‘reasonable fee for the provision of such an IP address…’, can then be addressed.

BillT

 

[GavinMannion]

I for one am generally happy about the draft regulations.

My biggest gripe has always been the line rental fees which are completely unjustified.

I am a bit worried about the demand for the 10gb cap but I am pretty sure some clever ISP's will find away around that for the people like me who don't even need 3Gb.

If someone can offer me a 3Gb 512k ADSL including ISP for R400 p/m I will be smiling. These regulations make a lot of headway into that.

If you are going to comment to ICASA on this try remember that we want ICASA on our side so make your comments technical and not personal

 

[rsd]

Considering it's taken 19 weeks, you'd think they could actually release something that isn't totally vague.

Makes you wonder about the people working at ICASA - I'm 100% certain that a lot of the members of this forum could put together a better set of regulations that are reasonable and unambiguous in a fraction of the time.

Really though - if this is the best they can do after 19 weeks, I have no hope in ICASA or the future of telecomms in this country. We need a strong, clued up regulator; I don't see one.

 

[Kropotkin]

To get an idea of what this report should look like take a look at Review of the Wholesale Broadband Access Markets by OFCOM (The UK regulator). Bear in mind that this is simply a review of broadband in the UK. I would think actual regulations would have to be much more involved.

 

[rpm]

My opinion, is that these draft ADSL regs, have a lot of holes, which need to be removed, and the only way that is going to happen without an endless process of draft upon draft upon draft, is if our submission to ICASA [before 3rd January 2006] is a set of ADSL regulations to sure-up and replace what ICASA has published - we are going to have to write the ADSL regulations for ICASA - otherwise we will not get anywhere.

Hi IC

We will have to submit very solid feedback... We must ensure that all the possible problems are solved before the final version sees the light.

Regards,

RPM

 

[Karnaugh]

If these regulations take effect and is accepted in its current form by the relevant role players without litigation we should see mass uptake of broadband and the increased penetration needed to stimulate the local IT industry and the economy in general.

Lets just analyse how wrong that statement is

"we should see mass uptake of broadband and the increased penetration "
Yes, we'd see mass uptake of broadband - and subsequent reduction in service levels from SAIX to maintain the DSL cloud and international peering - why should they expand international links and local network capacity when they make no money off it?

"to stimulate the local IT industry and the economy in general."

Lets think, are offshore investors going to be happy about these regulations? No. Are they going to be interested in Telkom or any other telecommunications company that has these regulations forced on them? Unlikely because they drastically damage the profitability of these companies. How exactly is that good for our economy? Telkom loses profit, subsequently the state income is incredibly hurt and there is no increase in income or economy from elsewhere (still no competition.................).
How is that good for economy?

RPM? You think this is good for anything? I thought you were an educated person.

 

[ernstn]

Ah, but the wholesale price of ADSL bandwidth can be "capped" by ICASA. Obviously not at less than Telkom's cost, but at cost plus a reasonable markup.

Remember that Telkom determines the cost of the undersea cable and that is why even Sentech and Vodacom etc also have problems, because the root cost is being grossly inflated by Telkom