Local Loop Unbundling: Please give your feedback

What form/s of Local Loop Unbundling do you realistically favour in SA?

  • Full local loop unbundling (full access)

    Votes: 570 90.5%

  • Sub-loop unbundling

    Votes: 247 39.2%

  • Line sharing (shared access to the local loop)

    Votes: 196 31.1%

  • Bitstream access (wholesale access)

    Votes: 216 34.3%
  • Total voters
    630
afrodeity said:
This is completely ridiculous. What we need are operators with the right to provide FIBRE TO THE DOOR. Unbundling the COPPER Local Loop is like announcing that Steam Powered Vehicles will no longer need a pedestrian to walk in front of the vehicle with a warning sign. Come on guys, we have had internal combustion engine for years and even this motor is now redundant. We living in the 21st Century not the 19th Century as TELKOM would like us to believe, SO NOT THANK YOU.

ZA-FREE
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although copper is old technology, one can still obtain speeds of up to 40mbps. Isnt this a start in the right direction for SA???
SA internet is crawling and this will allow it to walk. once this has been going for a bit , no doubt fibre will be around the corner.
 
What should have been done before allowing anyone to vote, is to explain the Pro's and Con's of each solution.
 
Bern said:
The UK rail and postal service is epic, so their model obviously works.
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In the case of the railway the private companies cut safety corners. Those problems are sorted out now, but left to themselves they would have no reason not to compromise safety as long as they know their customers have little choice. Privatisation requires close scrutiny and regulation. There's a perfect example we all see everyday in South Africa.

The South African rail network has been mismanaged, but that has nothing to with government vs private ownership.

The UK uses multiple unbundling options. Quite often it is still necessary to have a BT phone line to get broadband.

Tomtomtom said:
I thought they said R133 does not pay for the local loop? I agree monopoly power is the problem. I don't think someone else legislating a "fair price" is the solution. It just cannot be done well. Perhaps a better solution would be to split the company up so that the local loop is not owned by the same company the owns the upstream infrastructure. Upstream companies can then compete to offer the local-loop provider the best rates, and other providers can develop their own last-mile infrastructure if they see a benefit in doing so.
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It has to be regulated. One way or another you're likely to end up with a monopoly on the actual wire and whoever has that monopoly can set the price. This is why privatisation is not a simple matter of selling to private owners and suddenly you have competition. Setting prices through regulation can be done well. Perfectly, no, but then the market can't do it perfectly either.
 
Juice said:
Perhaps a little... :)

A mini DSLAM costs about a million, I've been told by Telkom when I asked why they don't have one in my area. You'll need quite a high population density to make that work, I'm afraid, and most of our leafy suburbs probably don't have enough subscribers per block.

I'd guess the answer lies with fibre.

Juice
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That's kinda why I think Telkom needs to let other people get in on the action.

For example.

I live in an area where there are many businesses. in an 3 or 4 square kilometer zone there are probably 20 or so business properties with surely more than 50 employees in each.
As well as many businesses from home... like mine. 5 employees-ish.

Closest exchange is 2.5km away. max speed on my line is 6Mbps... and my attenuation is one of the better ones.

That's just one area where a mini DSLAM is more than viable. If Telkom doesn't get involved... surely another operator might want to?


Ditch Telkom's IP Connect madness? give ISP's free access to each other and the network? Generate more data traffic and cut their overheads?
It's getting to a point where international bandwidth is cheaper than LOCAL at the moment!!!!

Hosting locally is out of the question for a small business... that is embarrassing!
 
quikdine said:
do not forgaot Vodascum was one Telkom Owned.

As far as charges are concerned a NGO should be created to control the LLU and they charge the service provides axxess for maintance cost ect. the NGO board should be made up from the service providers each SP has one vote to put a board member in place and there needs to be 7 or 13 none paid board members to run the NGO for the LL. No big SP then can control the charges and put a smaller SP out of business and all the SPs pay the same for axxess per users no discounts for larger SP that makes the playing feild level.
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This makes more sense to me.
We do not need everybody to go and build a network when there is one out there. There should be a fixed and regulated cost per network user(consumer) that the network owner charges. The SP's will be collecting this fixed cost on behalf of the network owner and sell bandwith to the consumer. All connections should be at max speed available so as to simplify the matter.
The network owner will be tasked to supply connections to those who apply and will also charge a fixed and regulated cost for this.
That's why the network owner must not be a profit based organisation as it will not be encouraged to upgrade to new technology. It's like the road system (just do not manage it the same way)
 
LLU should be extended to not only include the installed copper but to grant access to the installed Telkom sleeves to other operators. Obviously some rental model per meter has to be built for this. But this should be allowed in order for operators to install other alternative technologies (fibre)
 
It’s difficult to say which route would benefit the consumer AND Telkom AND ISP’s.
At the end of the day someone has to maintain the infrastructure, and someone has to foot the bill.

If an ISP were to be responsible for the maintenance of the last link from street level to your house (sub-loop unbundling), I bet they'd charge you a monthly fee, or a call-out fee if there was a problem. Then where is the saving? All you might get is better service for your money, but not likely at first as ISP's will have to invest in physical infrastructure and support.

If there was Line Sharing, we would still be paying Telkom for the maintenance of the copper infrastructure, but pay an ISP for ADSL access - how would this be much different from an ADSL complete package?
Telkom would still maintain the DSLAM’s too, so there would have to be a charge for that?

How would Bitstream benefit anyone? Many ISP’s have already joined MWeb and are using various INX peering points to bypass Telkom for national network coverage.

Maybe we need a consortium, of Telkom and ISP's, that will have to work together to maintain the infrastructure, share the costs and the responsibility so everyone wins. If people aren’t prepared to work together and all just do their own thing then it will just be a mess.

I think it would be great to leave things as they are, but assess the costs, and govern the costs; like how ICASA has governed the interconnect fees of the mobile operator. Companies have to make a profit, but consumers should get a fair deal, therefore profits should be governed. How much is Telkom really making from the R139 line rental and R413 4Mbps ADSL access per month??

At the end of the day the difference between what you want and what you get is all about what you are willing to pay!!
We need to find a balance where infrastructure is maintained, consumers get good service, and the price is fair. At the moment we have none of these things, and there are too many unanswered questions regarding LLU.
 
jackshiels said:
To the folks saying mini dslams cost a million: http://dsl-warehouse.com/product_info.php?products_id=186&language=1

1100 dollars!

:mad: makes me angry that Telkom spew such cr*p!
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Who knows how they got to that amount, but I'm sure it's not just the cost of the ahrdware we're talking about. There's quite a bit of infrastructure required to support the DSLAM; however, it's probably not as high as a million. Still, no-one at Telkom thought it commercially viable to put a mini-DSLAM in my area just because my area is in a exchange 'dead-zone', 4km from every exchange in Randbubrg...

Juice
 
Most people who uses Telkom lines and have had breakdowns cannot really blame the line itself for the problems.Do most problems not occur either at the exchanges or the boxes at the street corners and not the actual the copper in the ground?
 
jphegers said:
Most people who uses Telkom lines and have had breakdowns cannot really blame the line itself for the problems.Do most problems not occur either at the exchanges or the boxes at the street corners and not the actual the copper in the ground?
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My problem (only getting 2Mbps max) is directly related to the copper in the ground and the last mile. Or, as it is in my case, the last 3 miles.

Juice
 
GerhardL said:
LLU should be extended to not only include the installed copper but to grant access to the installed Telkom sleeves to other operators. Obviously some rental model per meter has to be built for this. But this should be allowed in order for operators to install other alternative technologies (fibre)
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Now you are talking! Rather than having access to a 20th century product, why not go the whole mile and make it cheap and viable to put in fibre?
 
I believe that there are not enough options. The last mile is a business issue of determining the best business model to maintain the copper infrastructure without forcing excessive "cross subsidising" ie DSL by voice and vica versa. In areas where there is no DSL requirement, voice will have to carry the major cost of maintenance and growth in that area. In many areas where there is great cell coverage subscribers move to mobile and copper becomes redundant.
Needs more thought.
 
Definitely Full local loop, telkom has been far too greedy with voice line rental and then ADSL line rental, can't see how that can ever be justified, and until the local loop is fully unbundled, they won't have to justify that to anyone.
 
/sees that many folks think that unbundling only refers to Telkom... see dominic's earlier post.

Local Loop refers to all access technologies deployed in the last mile (the final link to a customer) whether it be copper, optic fibre, wireless, etc. belonging to ALL network operators.

Hence LLU will impact not only Telkom but also Neotel, iBurst, Vodacom, MTN, Cell C, Sentech, Dark Fibre Africa, Altech, IS, Broadband Infraco, Metro's with their own networks, etc.

For example: Durban metro has a optic fibre network that is used to provide services to it's residents. Neotel (or any other operator) should be allowed to use that network as well.

Think bigger than Telkom's copper... let's exploit the existing optic fibre networks to get the service we really want: FTTH!!!
 
Damn straight....

ALL access networks should become open access.. and yes, I wants access to Durban fibre rings :D
 
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