Telkom attacks CCC authority, ADSL Regulations

[DOOMIE61]

Telkom argued that the complaint revolved around the measuring of local and international traffic which is counted towards a monthly cap, something which the company says falls within the legal requirements of the regulations.

The capping of local bandwidth was not explicitly addressed, but Telkom did submit that it plans to provide uncapped – but not free - local bandwidth on its ADSL service for which subscribers will be billed.

thing i dont understand is why there is international and local bandwidth???
every were else in the world we call it the internet and there is no such thing as international bandwidth and local bandwidth... so when your capped "internationally" you can only browse SA internet (known as local) that makes no sense to me, what servers are based in SA???? thanks to telkom there are a few good ones but come on! theres nothing

 

[proff]

Hmmm, I've been reading about this. It's Telskums version of Web2.0 - They apparently call it Web-Minus2.0 - and it only works in South Africa.

Proff

 

[gregmcc]

I can see the Telkom toilet paper now - 3 ply, the middle is section sandpaper. They're going to screw with us till the bitter end!

 

[Debbie]

Mr Maritz: "We are counting local towards the cap- but our contention is that we are entitled to do so".

 

[feo]

The capping of local bandwidth was not explicitly addressed, but Telkom did submit that it plans to provide uncapped – but not free - local bandwidth on its ADSL service for which subscribers will be billed.

It was mentioned on this forum ages ago that Telkom will pull a stunt like this, uncapped != free and sure as the Springboks are world champs, Telkom exploited it.

 

[The_Unbeliever]

Mr Maritz: "We are counting local towards the cap- but our contention is that we are entitled to do so".

Very well then.

We will fight you, but our contention is that we are entitled to do so.

 

[Ekhaatvensters]

Mr Maritz: "We are counting local towards the cap- but our contention is that we are entitled to do so".

No No No No, what a ****ing ****. How do you guys keep yourselves from throwing something at this guy?

Sigh, oh well, so they really stalled for an entire year to go back to their old system, except start charging for local. We've literally gone pretty damn far backwards in 3 years.

 

[ld13]

Telkom could charge Local usage at their standard International rates R70-79/GB. Everything would stay just about the same as it is at the moment
That would also mean that they are in compliance with the regulations.

 

[BTTB]

Mr Maritz: "We are counting local towards the cap- but our contention is that we are entitled to do so".

Hi Debbie2,

I hope Mr Maritz has several children at home that use ADSL and are giving him stick as we speak.

At the end of the day we all use these services including a man like Mr Maritz. He may only be doing his job as Telkom's Representative, then he shouldn't try and act dumb as to what the word "Cap" means.
Jeepers, Telkom invented or reinvented the word Cap. That is why many people call them Telcap and not Telkom.
Why do they have to ask for a definition? They know what it means.
It is tacitly implied in the Regulations and deemed as such that people who use ADSL would know what the word "Cap" means.

Stalling for time = profit.

 

[Nod]

Maybe Mr Maritz should read up the term:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/dict.asp?Word=cap

Or, what they use it for:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandwidth_cap

 

[Debbie]

Hi BTTB,

Telkom was at length to describe what the definition of "cap" is. At one stage they contended that in the absence of a legal definition for "cap" and "capping" in the ADSL Regulations, the CCC must accept the definition provided by Telkom, because <...breathe...> it would be unfair to Telkom not to do so.

Anyway, this is the 'definition' Telkom provided and continually pointed out during the hearing. It is taken from Telkom's website, and consitutes (according to Telkom) part of the contract the complainant agreed to when he signed up for ADSL:

To offer a fair service for all, TelkomInternet currently monitors and tracks all ADSL users' online usage which, when added up, constitutes you cap or usage. The usage is measured in Gigs.

* Capping ~ Please note we do not monitor what you do or where you go, but how much traffic you produce while on the Internet. Your ADSL usage is determined by all traffic generated by a given username and includes the upload (sending) and download (receiving), as well as network and protocol overheads. The same process applies to both the shaped and unshaped service. The accumulated data can be viewed at http//adsl.telkomsa.net and is updated each day after the forced network timeouts.
* What's a Gig? ~ In short, it is the amount of Bytes or size of a file or application on the Internet. A Gig is approximately 300 songs, 1500 average MS Word or MS Excel documents, or about 10,000 e-mails without attachments.
* Cap period ~ Capping is determined over a given period, normally a calendar month. As such, monthly usage is accumulated during the period and reset according to your service subscription. At the beginning of each period the usage tracker is reset and any restrictions that might have been imposed are lifted.
* What is a cap ~ A cap is the amount of traffic or Gigs per service a subscriber may use or consume over a given period, and is determined by the product you have subscribed to initially. An example would be 2, 3 or 4 Gig. Capping has no relation to the ADSL speed that you have chosen.

 

[ToxicBunny]

*mutter* useless damn legal department, but than that is also a legacy from SBC's tenure at Telkom i reckon.

The CCC needs to clarify the regulations, then impose a fine and retrospectively activate it from the date the ADSL regulations are published, preferrably in the region of R10m per day for non-compliance... that ought to hurt Telkom's bottom line a little bit.

 

[Nod]

I have a problem with the "Capping ~ Please note we do not monitor what you do ..." part. What is shaping then? Don't they monitor what you are doing, and then deciding if you have preference or not? Sure it's not somebody sitting there and looking at your data, but it's automated.

"What is a cap ~ A cap is the amount of traffic or Gigs per service a subscriber may use or consume over a given period"
This is basically what a cap is, so how do they not see that the local portion should be at least flat rated?

 

[The_Unbeliever]

"What is a cap ~ A cap is the amount of traffic or Gigs per service a subscriber may use or consume over a given period"
This is basically what a cap is, so how do they not see that the local portion should be at least flat rated?

There is no mention of local and international traffic, so therefore, by definition, it means all traffic.





--- did we at myadsl had the chance to review the regulations before they were passed?

 

[Oupoot]

Its clear that Mr Maritz is simply following standard legal procedures - all the lawyers on this site can attest to that. He will use all the "weapons" (systems, procedures, definitions, laws, etc) in the legal system to try and protect his client, which probably pays dearly for his highly expensive services. Its up the the panel, judge and the other players to show them up for what they really are - people that will stop at nothing to try and confuse us with fancy words and legalities while at the same moment robbing you blind - very much like a pick pocket. While clearly guilty in the public's eye, they will try to get off on some technicality. The many court cases brought against Telkom in the past shows that this is the case.

If they cannot win this fight, I am certain they will go to the next court to get it overturned or delay corrective actions.

 

[cyberbob1979]

There will be allot of legal wrangling to keep Telkoms profits soaring and service delivery pathetic.

My only worry is - If ICASA says "Fine, well rewrite the ADSL Regulations" can you smell another 2 years in the making? Would that be just in time for 2010 to get it all "Cleared up" ?

We all knew that nothing good can come of these hearings, the Toothless Wonder that is ICASA going up the Legal Might (akin to Microsoft) of Telkom puts the odds and the favour on Telkoms side. The losers in this whole debacle is not the high end users of the internet, its the everyday user, the businesses and the local sites that suffer. What are you supposed to surf locally? Looking for B&B's? Hah, there is not enough bandwidth to run local rich content sites, so its more fun watching the wallpaper than browsing local sites.

Local / International wasnt an issue before November 2005, now it is, now we are so used to having to deal with Local and International that we've lost sight of the fact that there should be no distinction, you pay for international and thats that, not local.

What will be interesting is if MTN does manage to acquire Telkom's infrastructure and assets, if they would change policies? If the didn't then thats a whole lot of flak coming their way!

 

[HosstheBoss]

One would think that the arguement of not having the word cap sufficiently defined would be a non event. Everyone who has to deal with these regulations should have no excuse as to being uncertain regarding the clarity of it wording. If they didn't understand something in the regulations, then they should have challenged ICASA immediately after the release of the regulations.
If you permit that form of arguing it will become a slippery slope where telkom can comback to a hearing every six months and ask for the next word to be defined!

I'm gonna go have a smoke now and then debate the exact meaning of the words "lung cancer"; maybe that will save my ass from pegging young!

Planks

 

[Debbie]

One would think that the arguement of not having the word cap sufficiently defined would be a non event. Everyone who has to deal with these regulations should have no excuse as to being uncertain regarding the clarity of it wording. If they didn't understand something in the regulations, then they should have challenged ICASA immediately after the release of the regulations.
If you permit that form of arguing it will become a slippery slope where telkom can comback to a hearing every six months and ask for the next word to be defined!

I'm gonna go have a smoke now and then debate the exact meaning of the words "lung cancer"; maybe that will save my ass from pegging young!

Planks

To the amusement of us all Telkom's lawyer had trouble getting to grips with the meaning of the word 'this', and tried to hold tommygun accountable for what was meant by the word 'this' as used in context on the charge sheet. The charge sheet was not even written by tommygun, and aside from that, it was quite clear to anyone paying attention what the word 'this' was referring to in the context of the paragraph in the charge sheet.

Correct, everyone (Telkom, consumers, ICASA) should have an understanding of the words used in the Regulations. ICASA should... yet by my count there were less than 5 people in the room who had also been present during the ADSL Regulation hearings, and none of them were on the CCC. The entire committee of people are relatively new to the organisation called ICASA. And of the two most senior people on the committee, neither came with a background in telecommunictions (I don't know about the others, they didn't say much). Telkom no doubt seized upon this as it is obvious that a committee can't rule against someone when they do not understand the facts and the implications of the issues under discussion.

It is easy to say that if a party "didn't understand something in the regulations, they should have challenged ICASA immediately", but a little bit more difficult for either (or any) party to do. The Regulations were issued as the final ADSL Regulations without consultation or discussion with stakeholders prior to their promulgation. No more correspondence on the issue was entered into by ICASA (remember the trouble we had firstly gettting ICASA to, er, explain what the heck those regulations were supposed to be; and why the Regulations looked nothing at all like the Draft Regulations. Chair Paris Mashile and Councillor-in-charge Mamodupi Mohlala did magical disappearing acts during this time). Telkom obviously has no reason to question ambiguous or poorly defined words in Regulations because these Regulations seek to restrict Telkom, and it is and remains in Telkom's best interest for such ambiguity to be maintained.

 

[feo]

--> this? <--

 

[mooK]

“Neither the Electronics Communications Act (ECA) nor the ICASA Act provides that non-compliance with the regulations made by ICASA will constitute an offence, nor does either Act stipulate any sanction for non-compliance with a regulation,” Telkom submitted in its official response to the CCC.

The hearing Chairman, retired Judge De Villiers, however pointed out that non-compliance of regulations made by ICASA is a contravention of the ICASA Act, something which Maritz said was an oversight from their side and which they accepted.

'non-compliance', 'contravention', 'offence'...
These are all synonyms in this context as far as I'm concerned.

Translation:

Maritz: But teh Actz don't stipulates that non-complianz is wrong or right and teh act dont say what penalty will be."

Judge: "Uhm, 'non-compliance' means 'contravention', dumbass."

Maritz: "Oh, ok then, so... do you maybe know what does cap mean?"