MWEB refuses to pay for IP transit anymore

What if Telkom/MTN say "Stick it"
Considering the fact that they don't understand the point of peering according to the article, they may play ignorant and carry on as usual.
The reason: MultiChoice said that DStv on Demand online content will only be available to networks (hence ISPs) which agree to an open peering arrangement with MWEB. This is clearly an attempt to force the larger providers to peer with MWEB – something which has been challenging in the past.
That bit above would have been useful to quell the flame war that erupted after their launch of DStv on Demand. At the time, we all thought it was just them being greedy.
 
Big up to MWEB, I hope they achieve their goals through this action. Who knows, maybe they manage to wake Telkom the hell up.
 
Noob Q:

What does it mean if they no longer going to pay?

I am trying to figure out what this interconnect is all about, i also want to know what the consequences of "Stop paying" is going to be.

More so, what could the impact thereof be to the consumer
 
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Hopefully this doesn't backfire and deteriorate their service levels...
 
Excellent... high time the playground is shaken and stirred up from its lethargic snooze induced upon it by the Grim Poisonous Ivy Creeper
 
Don't you just love these little surpirses every now and then from MWEB?

I say well done to Rudi and MWEB. They definitely deserve their 2010 MyBB Awards:
- 2010 ISP of the Year: MWEB
- 2010 Broadband Maverick of the Year: MWEB

I have a feeling that MWEB have been planning this along, and have just got out of several peering contracts, and as of next month, they will not renew them on the same terms. I also have a feeling that we can expect bigger things from them in the months to come.

Exciting times these are! MWEB FTW!
 
Brave move Rudi, hope it doesn't backfire - one never know what Telkom, VodaCom, MTN and IS will do to protect their monopoly.
 
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Well done MWEB, it's refreshing to see a private company taking the initiative. The DoC and ICASA seems clueless as to what's necessary for growth & expansion in this industry.
 
Noob Q:

What does it mean if they no longer going to pay?

I am trying to figure out what this interconnect is all about, i also want to know what the consequences of "Stop paying" is going to be.

More so, what could the impact thereof be to the consumer
Basically companies like IS, Telkom, MTN etc, charge ISP's usually small ISPs,a fee usually per 64K in the old days (not sure nowadays) to access their network. Even in peering points like JINX some ISP's were wanting to charge for other ISP's to connect to them (ethically very wrong). They jusify this by saying our content on our network is worth more that your network and that they have to backhaul the bandwidth cost of you letting your users access their network.

Consequences example would be if IS and Mweb do no agree to free peering, then the links between them would stop operating and the traffic would go internationally effecting users speeds on either network accessing one another as well as putting pressure on both ISP international links. IS would then have to ask themselves are they willing to drop the revenue income for the cost as well as effect their users performance accessing Mweb's network and Mweb would only ask themselves can they effect their users performance as they are already willing to absorb the cost of local peering in order to make it cheap overall.

Its a hard question to answer if Mweb don't succeed because if MTN, Telkom, IS turn around and shut all peering off to Mweb, then Mweb users will be effected the most and so will their international links.
We will see. I will be surprised if those ISP's are willing to drop that source of revenue just like that as I can tell you some are making millions annually because of charging for peering.
 
But if the traffic can get here internationally, depending on speed, I can't see it affecting most users. Much local content is html. Exceptions include ftp and downloads and similar I guess... but imagine what that will do for the expensive local hosting accounts? Kind of pointless considering the number of users on Mweb's network who will be accessing it internationally anyhow.
 
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