Local Loop Unbundling
Because a copper network has been built up over 100 years +- it is very difficult for an opposing company to build a rival network. British Telecom split into 2 companies for this reason. All the copper wires going from the homes & businesses to the exchanges is called the last mile and all the exchanges are connected together with fibre optic and this is called the core network, hence one company is in control of the last mile and another the core network. The last mile company can lease out its infrastructure to who ever is paying.
In South Africa, the ADSL you get from service providers is pretty much artificial as Telkom sells this wholesale to them and everything goes through Telkom. With LLUL it is like MWEB putting their own equipment in Telkom exchanges and accessing the copper network directly and by-passing Telkom altogether. Now this is exactly what NEOTEL are going to be doing, their equipment will be unbundled in Telkom exchanges and will access the customers directly. This equipment will then be linked to Neotel’s own core network. NOW WHY ONLY NEOTEL. In England any Tom **** and Harry can unbundle in BT exchanges. Don’t believe the whole chaos, stability excuse. The copper network will still be owned and maintained by Telkom (their copper network sucks anyway), and if MWEB gives crap ADSL go to the next ISP. PSTN (normal Telkom phone lines) is pretty much dead anyway, switched network calls are very in efficient, (BT is coming out with the 21CN network which is IP based). There is such cut throat competition that you can pretty much get free 2Mbs broadband bundled with a cell phone contract or cable/sat tv package, you can also get 8Mbs, 16Mb/s unlimited broadband. As far as I can remember Telkom can get 8Mbs out of their equipment, but they software limit it to the slow 512kbs etc speeds.
What a lot of people are doing is having a WiFi ADSL router, and have Skype phones that connect directly to the modem without needing a computer, in fact the Nokia E61 is WiFi enabled and you can do VIOP calls bypassing not only Telkom, but the even more expensive Cell phone operators. By paying a fee, you can get a VOIP number that people can access from any phone
The only problem is the international bottleneck, but I think this is also crap, Telkom is just fleecing you guys for ever penny, and it is not their fault, this is the governments fault.
Also in England you can have a fibre optic link put in by BT and you can put whatever equipment on either side, the bandwidth you have will only be limited by the budget you have for the hardware which is relatively cheap. With Telkom they provide the equipment and charge ridiculous fees the bigger the bandwidth. It is simple reasons like this that South Africa are still on the back foot. We are technically advanced, and trust me Telkom has the gear (I used to work there), but we are marching on with 10 tonne balls chained around our legs with every cent sucked out.
I can go on, but tired, sorry for rushed spelling error post, but couldn’t help myself telling South Africa my 2c. To all the experts, I’m bound to have made one or 2 errors technically, but it is a basic picture
Because a copper network has been built up over 100 years +- it is very difficult for an opposing company to build a rival network. British Telecom split into 2 companies for this reason. All the copper wires going from the homes & businesses to the exchanges is called the last mile and all the exchanges are connected together with fibre optic and this is called the core network, hence one company is in control of the last mile and another the core network. The last mile company can lease out its infrastructure to who ever is paying.
In South Africa, the ADSL you get from service providers is pretty much artificial as Telkom sells this wholesale to them and everything goes through Telkom. With LLUL it is like MWEB putting their own equipment in Telkom exchanges and accessing the copper network directly and by-passing Telkom altogether. Now this is exactly what NEOTEL are going to be doing, their equipment will be unbundled in Telkom exchanges and will access the customers directly. This equipment will then be linked to Neotel’s own core network. NOW WHY ONLY NEOTEL. In England any Tom **** and Harry can unbundle in BT exchanges. Don’t believe the whole chaos, stability excuse. The copper network will still be owned and maintained by Telkom (their copper network sucks anyway), and if MWEB gives crap ADSL go to the next ISP. PSTN (normal Telkom phone lines) is pretty much dead anyway, switched network calls are very in efficient, (BT is coming out with the 21CN network which is IP based). There is such cut throat competition that you can pretty much get free 2Mbs broadband bundled with a cell phone contract or cable/sat tv package, you can also get 8Mbs, 16Mb/s unlimited broadband. As far as I can remember Telkom can get 8Mbs out of their equipment, but they software limit it to the slow 512kbs etc speeds.
What a lot of people are doing is having a WiFi ADSL router, and have Skype phones that connect directly to the modem without needing a computer, in fact the Nokia E61 is WiFi enabled and you can do VIOP calls bypassing not only Telkom, but the even more expensive Cell phone operators. By paying a fee, you can get a VOIP number that people can access from any phone
The only problem is the international bottleneck, but I think this is also crap, Telkom is just fleecing you guys for ever penny, and it is not their fault, this is the governments fault.
Also in England you can have a fibre optic link put in by BT and you can put whatever equipment on either side, the bandwidth you have will only be limited by the budget you have for the hardware which is relatively cheap. With Telkom they provide the equipment and charge ridiculous fees the bigger the bandwidth. It is simple reasons like this that South Africa are still on the back foot. We are technically advanced, and trust me Telkom has the gear (I used to work there), but we are marching on with 10 tonne balls chained around our legs with every cent sucked out.
I can go on, but tired, sorry for rushed spelling error post, but couldn’t help myself telling South Africa my 2c. To all the experts, I’m bound to have made one or 2 errors technically, but it is a basic picture