So much for limited bandwidth

No worries - teklom will just share the exisiting international and local bandwidth with the 580 000 new users. :mad:
Remeber - it's a best effit service. They're going to try their hardest to ef us.
 
Well 680000 users on a 20:1 contention ratio with, say, an average 512k package amounts to 680000/20 * 512k = 17Gb bandwidth and they own a huge chunk of the SAT-3/WASC & SAFE cables which combined are designed to provide an ultimate capacity of 250Gbps, so I think it's safe to say they can cope. Btw, I read somewhere, that as recently as 2003, MTN was complaining that Telkom only made 400mbps total bandwidth available to SA, so they probably have a lot more room to expand. Don't forget, though, that they are apparently routing international voice calls through the cable as well, and I'm not sure how much of the cable that uses.
 
They could buy a bigger portion of the SAT-3 cable if they're nice...

Garp, don't telkom only have 20GB/sec of the SAT-3 cable? or is that 20% of the cable....
 
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Telkom is part of a consortium that installed the cable and definitely own a percentage share of the actual cable (somewhere around 20%, I think). In theory I suppose that means that they effectively control 20% of its ultimate 250Gbps capacity - 50Gbps, although the members of the consortium have probably regularly agree on a quota per member. Information on the actual ownership and how the consortium works is hard to come by so if anyone knows more about this from reliable sources, please correct me on this.
 
Quoted here: http://free.financialmail.co.za/report/telkomcable/atelkom.htm

How quickly investment costs will be recouped will depend on usage. But for Telkom, the deal is sweet. "We have access to more than our proportionate share of our investment," says Nxasana. He says Telkom has invested 13% of the total costs but has access to almost 21% of the total capacity.
Click to expand...

And what's really shocking is that they ended up paying about $100m for their share of the cables, which, at current exchange rates they could have paid for at least 7 times over with only their latest years profit of R7.5bn. So they're essentially sitting on potentially over 50Gbps of bandwidth to europe and the far east combined, which is probably already paid for apart from their share of maintenance, and then whining that international bandwidth is so scarce, and reselling tiny amounts of it for a vast fortune. Of course they're also paying for bandwidth into the line from the major carriers at the overseas landing points, but I would bet that the per Gb charge is a miniscule fraction of the R59 per Gb they're selling it for.
 
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Abe said:
I just read on MyADSL that Telkom plans to have 680000 users by 2008.

http://www.mybroadband.co.za/nephp/?m=show&id=1185

Now, if they have the limited bandwidth as they claim, how would they be able to fit and additional 580000 users onto the current bandwidth? 2008 is far to early for the new cable.
Click to expand...

there is no bandwidth limit. they're just hoodwinkng us. don't believe what they say! ;)
 
I would love to know what Telecoms companies in the north charge for services as Telkom does at these high prices.

The price comparison of us going up the cable compared to the north coming down the cable.

It would make a interesting read.
 
sunsoffun said:
I would love to know what Telecoms companies in the north charge for services as Telkom does at these high prices.

The price comparison of us going up the cable compared to the north coming down the cable.

It would make a interesting read.
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Its the whole 1st vs. 3rd world thing. The US and Europe pay nothing to get to SA ... we pay both costs cause of our small size (i.e. Telkom is a paying customer of the large global carrier networks).

The 3rd world subsidises the access of the 1st world to them (not that the 1st world has a burning desire to access the 3rd world).
 
Roman4604 said:
Its the whole 1st vs. 3rd world thing. The US and Europe pay nothing to get to SA ... we pay both costs cause of our small size (i.e. Telkom is a paying customer of the large global carrier networks).

The 3rd world subsidises the access of the 1st world to them (not that the 1st world has a burning desire to access the 3rd world).
Click to expand...

...which intern we pay for.
 
The US and Europe pay nothing to get to SA
Click to expand...

There's not much to pay for. The ratio of traffic originating locally / remotely must be enormous.

But it depends on what their peering agreements are.
 
Roman4604 said:
Its the whole 1st vs. 3rd world thing. The US and Europe pay nothing to get to SA ... we pay both costs cause of our small size (i.e. Telkom is a paying customer of the large global carrier networks).

The 3rd world subsidises the access of the 1st world to them (not that the 1st world has a burning desire to access the 3rd world).
Click to expand...
And some of the profits that Telkom makes off us go back to the US shareholders. A double hit.

Cheers

Dean
 
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