Telkom may close many exchanges, replace copper with wireless services

Insint said:
yes, that's the way to do it Telkom.
Do not upgrade the exchanges to fibre which won't get stolen.
Click to expand...
replacing copper with fiber doesnt solve all the problems though... the geniuses who steal the copper cables, in many cases still cut the cables from the poles, and burn, only to see a heap of molten crap instead of copper.
even if they dont steal it, the damage is still done, need to wait for Telkom to come do repairs.
but i guess its lower replacement cost/time, when the usual thieves learn to see the diff between copper and fiber cables :)

they don't even have to offer LTE speeds (>10Mbps)... keep the speeds to 'standard' ADSL levels, but invest properly to make the connection as stable, and cheap, as ADSL
 
Last edited:
RaptorSA said:
That's what I'm thinking too.... :(
My guess is that announcement from the a few weeks ago that they're now done with the planned ADSL upgrades for now probably means it was the last bit of love we'll see on the existing infrastructure... so it's all either downhill from here, or it'll take them another few decades to move a handful of exchanges over to fibre, and only in "high profitable" areas.
Click to expand...

Yip. Pretty much where my thoughts were heading.

cavedog said:
This is kinda bad......

If LTE is launched yes that will be nice cause of the fast speeds and good latency. Thats all.

You will be locked to which ever provider provides LTE to you. The caps on LTE are low so Telkom should have some incentives like uncapped downloads between 00:00 and 4am or something like that. Then I can see LTE doing well. Other than that it will be bad.
Click to expand...

Personally if I could get a decent LTE connection with a reasonable cap and that came coupled with "uncapped" between 12am to 4/5am at a similar price to my current ADSL, I would be keen.
 
Just because the exchange itself is making a loss on the face of it doesn't mean that they're not recouping much of the money via the ADSL accounts of the users though, doubt they factored that in.
 
RichardG said:
I remember long time ago Telkom wanted to go CDMA route cause of copper theft happening frequently - perhaps those exchanges have frequent copper theft.. It's better to close them down.
Click to expand...

Yup, in other African countries, like the Congo, only wireless is used, as the cable theft made it impossible to provide a service.

Guess it was only a question of time for South Africa.
 
rumpledstiltskin said:
Just because the exchange itself is making a loss on the face of it doesn't mean that they're not recouping much of the money via the ADSL accounts of the users though, doubt they factored that in.
Click to expand...

:confused: the majority of the deep rural exchanges have zero ADSL subscribers... most subscribers are prepaid voice only.
 
Is there a list of exchanges that are getting the chop?

Also, I have been using an LTE router at home for a while now. Wish the price was better.

I went from getting about 400Kb/s to around 3.5Mb/s and my ping went from 400ms to 30ms

I Also now have decent stability (router has been on for over a week and my connection has not dropped once).

Vodacom btw, Telkom do not have any coverage in my area.
 
Paul Hjul said:
from a technology perspective Telkom should invest in research into adapting IPoAC for more indigenous purposes like IPoBovineCarrier and IPoOvineCarrier
Click to expand...

I had to COL*

Rickster said:
I honestly know 1 person that uses capped ADSL, the rest are uncapped.
Click to expand...

Yes, but for how many of them does it makes financial sense, or do they do it just so they do not have to watch their caps?

lexis said:
So I guess we are stuck with 4mb/p/s for life.
Click to expand...

Is that the same as 4 Mb/s?

*Chuckle Out Loud
 
MickeyD said:
From a technology perspective it makes sense. I would imagine that most of these exchanges are in rural or deep rural areas where copper theft is rife. The customer wants a link to the outside world... how he gets a link should not be important, whether it be via a copper cable or wireless via LTE, as a link is a link.
Click to expand...

Of course it matters how he gets his link when there's such a huge price difference between technologies!

Your example is from the perspective of the subsistance farmer needing a new tool, he phones the co-op and it gets delivered next day no problem. But what about the professional farmer who suddenly can't have his feed delivered via truck anymore? But hey the co-op recons they can send 80 Corsa bakkies filled to the brim, he'll still get his feed but it'll quadruple his delivery cost .. farmer goes out of business, cows go hungry, everybody loses.

Telkom will effectively be killing an industry as not everyone uses the internet just for facebook and posting on mybb you know ..

Sad that Telkom's monopoly was protected all those years - exactly so they could provide their services to everyone - yet this is the best that they can come up with?

I want my monopoly premium back :o
 
evilstebunny said:
Of course it matters how he gets his link when there's such a huge price difference between technologies!

Your example is from the perspective of the subsistance farmer needing a new tool, he phones the co-op and it gets delivered next day no problem. But what about the professional farmer who suddenly can't have his feed delivered via truck anymore? But hey the co-op recons they can send 80 Corsa bakkies filled to the brim, he'll still get his feed but it'll quadruple his delivery cost .. farmer goes out of business, cows go hungry, everybody loses.

Telkom will effectively be killing an industry as not everyone uses the internet just for facebook and posting on mybb you know ..

Sad that Telkom's monopoly was protected all those years - exactly so they could provide their services to everyone - yet this is the best that they can come up with?

I want my monopoly premium back :o
Click to expand...
You missed this post... :p
http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthr...s-services?p=12228944&viewfull=1#post12228944
 
those exchanges will probably be remote country ones.

Also, when you lose R1 billion to cable theft most years, it is not easy to operate I reckon. Govt needs to lock up these dealers in stolen copper for a l-o-n-g time. They killing the economy.
 
"Rather than offer to sell the loss making exchanges to competitors let's close them down and deny everyone access to the copper last mile from these exchanges. We don't want to risk having another operator turn some of the loss making exchanges into a profit."

They could at least offer to sell these exchanges and associated infrastructure to other operators. This will open up the opportunity for them to at least make some money from the sale, instead of incurring the cost associated with closing down the exchange site. If there is no interest from other parties then closing them down should be the last option.
 
Last edited:
WireFree said:
"Rather than offer to sell the loss making exchanges to competitors let's close them down and deny everyone access to the copper last mile from these exchanges. We don't want to risk having another operator turn some of the loss making exchanges into a profit."

They could at least offer to sell these exchanges and associated infrastructure to other operators. This will open up the opportunity for them to at least make some money from the sale, instead of incurring the cost associated with closing down the exchange site. If there is no interest from other parties then closing them down should be the last option.
Click to expand...
Remember in 2004... when people complained about the price of ADSL?... They threatened to terminate the ADSL products completely. This is just more of the same BS...
 
it this is going to cost me more then bye bye internet
 
MickeyD said:
From a technology perspective it makes sense. I would imagine that most of these exchanges are in rural or deep rural areas where copper theft is rife. The customer wants a link to the outside world... how he gets a link should not be important, whether it be via a copper cable or wireless via LTE, as a link is a link.
Click to expand...

Kido said:
I disagree because Douglasdale and Jukskei park was a victim of copper theft on Telkom as well
Click to expand...
Ja - doesn't look like Randburg (Bromhof exchange) is going to get any MSAN love in the next year either. Although I really can't imagine that it isn't one of the profitable exchanges...
 
WireFree said:
"Rather than offer to sell the loss making exchanges to competitors let's close them down and deny everyone access to the copper last mile from these exchanges. We don't want to risk having another operator turn some of the loss making exchanges into a profit."

They could at least offer to sell these exchanges and associated infrastructure to other operators. This will open up the opportunity for them to at least make some money from the sale, instead of incurring the cost associated with closing down the exchange site. If there is no interest from other parties then closing them down should be the last option.
Click to expand...

At the LLU workshop last month Telkom indicated that they were willing to look at this....
 
MickeyD said:
I would imagine that the same principle as the FLLA will apply - pricing is very similar.
Click to expand...

For voice FLLA is about the same but when it comes to data they really f you over with the do 3G pricing and there's no uncapped on that service. Imagine having to pay R1500 for 10GB of data :wtf: :sick: :D
 
Definitely a step backwards... like the rest of backwards Africa. Sigh... :(
 
quax said:
Price wise? I doubt it...
Click to expand...

Independent ISPs are going to lose a lot.
Time for independents to offer us fiber to the home.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X