ICASA ADSL Hearings: Your Feedback Needed

[rpm]

Hi folks

As you know the ICASA ADSL Hearings will take place next week. MyADSL will make an oral presentation at these hearings, and as usual your feedback will be used in this presentation.

Can you please give your views on the ADSL arena and possible solutions to the problems? What do you expect from ICASA? What regulations would you like to see?

Regards,

RPM

 

[stix]

Make it cheaper !!!!! How many times do we have to ask ?

Rental needs to be less than R100-00 if not non exsistant.

 

[kilps]

Just a thought: Telkom often says that many users do not reach their cap - prehaps you should mention how with the addoption of live streaming of multimedia content it is important to have alot of bandwith avalible so that we, like our counterparts in other parts of the worl, might enjoy these services as well

Prehaps mention services such as last.fm and pandora - and if you want to bring up p2p mention how Bitorrent now makes up 35% of the worlds internet traffic and how usefull it is for content providers

And it wouldn't hurt to convince them that telkoms broadband prices are stifeling growth of internet (web2.0 anyone?) companies in south africa

 

[neio]

We must get service levels up and line speed as well.
Apparently dial up users have also experienced degraded KB/sec speeds.

 

[pope24]

There needs to be transparency on bandwidth pricing. How much is it costing SAIX to provide 1GB of data to an ISP.
And a real wholesale price for international bandwidth for the likes of IS.

 

[krycor]

ALSO ! we pay per Gb data so why the heck must they shape, i mean they already cache pages, we pay for local content etc shapping is like forcing people to buy more expensive options that really should not be the case with the current expense per gig. would be different if price was cheap per or it was truely a fixed price service.

Also that using lowest cost provider(isp) + little bandwith or even just 1Gb or the elusive 1.5Gb they claimed was avg, the rental comes to be just under 3/4 of the cost of ADSL in SA. That is sick considering they make money off isp's too. how much should maintenance cost per consumer, since from exchange its a shared cost and copper between exch and premises is covered by pots rental.

Also pls bring up local bandwidth charge again, its effects since nov last yr, and how the price per gig has to be cheaper if its to remain else people are paying alot for local access if they don't want to use IS, or need international access though they probably will just shrug this off and say its up to access provider

 

[kingmonty]

I would like ICASA to actually take a stand now, instead of just having more hearings and more talk with little or no action.

 

[kingmonty]

Also, lower prices on the bandwidth and higher cap. Speed is not an issue, and will never become an issue as long as the caps are so rediculous. What's the point of having a 1 Mbps or 2 Mbps connection when you have a ludicrous cap implemented? So you can hit the cap sooner? Id like to see the caps trebbled across the board and a significant decrease in bandwidth prices.

 

[Franna]

Like Krycor said - why shape when bandwidth is capped. You should be able to do what you want with your 3 Gigs.

Why the same price and specs for the home and business ADSL account. This just does not make sense. Make the business account a bit more expensive, but with no port shaping and a fixed IP address. And some sort of SLA might also be apreciated for businesses.

And also ask how Telkom feels that their best ADSL option is slower than the new 3G connections.

 

[reech]

Low price.
High cap.
No shaping.

 

[bwana]

Shaping, cap, and cost.

 

[Vio]

I think the main focus should be how they structured the market so that no-one can compete on a provision basis, that should be the first thing looked at followed by the line rental issue.

If the IP connect thing wasn't prices so stupidly the market would become more competitive in that area and Telkom should also pass on the "maintenance" charges to the providers not the customers of thows providers directly.

 

[Mask]

Not sure if this is relevant for these hearings, but it is currently a topical issue...

If Telkom offer a "best effort" service which, for me and others on a 192 line, has been consistent speeds over 30Kbps, how come they cannot now give us at least what we are paying for (24Kbps)? For the past month, my speeds have been between 16Kbps and just under 19Kbps. 24Kbps is well below what we know their "best effort" is.

Thanks again in advance for your involvement at these hearings RPM (and others involved).

 

[krycor]

Well the speed issue affects how they supply access to the exchange, obviously the internet/wan network does not live at the exch, ie the higher the speed you have to you premises, the greater the % of exch connection you using, hence the variance in pricing as you get a faster and faster connection thus 192kb/s will always be cheaper than 1Mb/s etc

Anyhoo, faster adsl speed = you need as greater potion of the connection hence your share of the maintenance cost is greater.

[remember everyone in your area can't make a phone call at the same time to a different area as everyone else since the lines going out are limited]
This is why they shape, to prevent people from using stuff like p2p which basically puts a load on your share of connection by keeping it busy but my argument is the restrict the amount of access you are granted/cap so you wont be using it indefinately.

 

[bekdik]

Repeat all that was said at the previous hearings ...

 

[AntiThesis]

Things to point out:
-------------------
> Still no reduction in prices as promised
> Still no transparency on prices/contention ratios
> Still on the per gig billing structure despite many, many complaints
> Still no delivery on anything from the last hearing...

Things to ask for:
-----------------
> Deliverable date for results of hearing
> Actions to be taken (and concrete date)
> Reasons for inaction (since we know that's what's going to happen)
> Everything from the last hearing...

Things we hope for:
-------------------
> An end to Telkom's childishness about bandwidth and pricing
> ICASA to be more than a name and actually an active org.
> rpm for president ^_^

I know it's fairly pointless to ask for definite dates since they will be ignored anyway but it's worth a shot. I wish we could get something in writing from both Telkom and ICASA that we could actually hold them to.

Alas, that's rather like asking Bush to sign a piece of paper that says "I won't bomb people". What on earth can you do if he breaks his word?

These are the things that I hope will happen (above) but I think it's a fairly common thing now that MyADSL members feel ICASA hearings are worth absolute bollocks.

 

[kaspaas]

A decent SLA including repair times and minimum speeds etc.

Penalty: If Telkom can't service existing clients against the SLA, it should be banned from new installations until it has proven to ICASA that it has indeed the ability to service its existing client base.

If they can't install, they make the backlog demand bigger and the opportunity for SNOT to deliver to more faster more attractive.

 

[reech]

...oh and static IP's.
..for businesses and those that need them for security/etc.

 

[nexushub]

Truth be told Telkom is doing what any business in their position would do... make as much money as they can. As much as we all moan about it, and as long as they have the ability to do so, they will. So my argument is not about ICASA enforcing the usual argument of speed and price, these are merely just the symptoms of the problem and not the cause.

The cause in my opinion is government, the very people who are meant to be regulating them have a R30billion stake in Telkom. This is why they cannot possibly force lower prices. Their investment would stand to loose a considerable amount. Would you do that to your money?

So simply getting the government to sell their stake in Telkom to the business sector of South Africa would inevitably allow the government to actually take a legitimate stand as far as regulations on the company.

Until this happens Telkom will continue to do what any other business strives for - make money.

 

[Zenabi]

What do I expect from ICASA? ROFL!

Ok, ok...I'll bite. A free Mercedes for all MyADSL members!
Silver!
Convertible!

And a petrol allowance for life!

Good luck rpm