Response to Telkom’s Executive Product Development Mr. Steven White, media release.
a. ".. driven by a few customers who are dissatisfied with the service."
There cannot be a single Telkom subscriber who would be satisfied with a denial of service after reaching the CAP.
I would say that the level of disatisfaction with the ADSL service would be well over 99% on this issue alone.
b. "have no problems with ADSL and in fact experience the real value that ADSL brings, always available fast internet."
This statement should be verified with other ISPs.
c. "The service is not designed to offer bandwidth intensive communications such as peer-to-peer applications"
This is Telkom's own definition of ADSL. The majority of ISPs throughout the world offer ADSL specifically for bandwidth intensive communications.
d. "The service is designed to offer premium Internet surfing (HTTP), email (SMTP) and file transfer protocol applications"
Telkom appear to want to dictate to subscriber's and limit specific areas of internet access.
He should have written : We have modified ADSL to suit mainly ..
e. "has also created quite a bit of debate in the media but upon reflection it appears to come from those users for whom ADSL is not the ideal solution for their needs"
Based on Telkom's own design of ADSL, Mr. White might well be correct, however subscriber's select ADSL as a method of connection based on international standards and design. Subscribers in South Africa are well aware of the service that ADSL provides worldwide. I would add that 100% of all subscribers would want ADSL according to the design as it is applied internationally.
Of course one can understand, that given the "situation" in South Africa we cannot get the international design at international costs. We must pay a premium to accomodate the very limited link Telkom has internationally.
This really is the real problem.
f. "performance of international servers will also affect download speeds".
Technically this might be correct on a small percentage of international servers.
The suggestion that international servers might slow down Telkom's super fast ADSL connection could not be further from the truth.
g. "Telkom’s SAIX has prioritised surfing, email and file transfer protocols.
Bandwidth intensive protocols such as peer-to-peer applications (e.g fasttrack, gntella, napster, kazaa, e-donkey etc) are afforded a lower priority and as such will perform worse"
Oh dear, oh dear.. Telkom wants to dictate who goes where and at what speed.
There's a lot that could be written on this topic.
h. "The volume capping and prioritisation of the international pipe is done at the wholesale level to ensure that all ISP customers enjoy the ADSL experience of fast always-available Internet"
This is pure bollox.
j. "The 3 GByte cap is measured on total usage, both local and international users who exceed the cap are redirected to a more limited international pipe.
This will have the result that these users receive a slow international throughput"
This is the most amazing statement. What other provider on earth would want to have "a more limited international pipe" for its subscribers?
k. "Recent statistics show that very few customers reach their monthly cap"
Herein lies the solution - scrap the CAP.
If very few customers reach the CAP why have it at all?
Telkom's ADSL appears to solve a problem which does not exist.
It is so unfortunate that Telkom's version and implementation of ADSL
has been substantially modified from the model experienced and enjoyed by the rest of the world.
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