Unsatisfactory, Broadly Speaking

[allyoucaneat]

@Myrrdin, nice post!

 

[mccrack]

@Myrrdin, i agree, nice points.

Would like 2 see Ant Brooks rebuttal

 

[allyoucaneat]

@Myrrdin, if I interpret that part of your post correctly, you are basically expressing your frustration with what you believe might further delay the implementation of ADSL Regulations by ICASA, correct?

No, he is said "Hogwash". "Unsatisfactory, Broadly Speaking".

 

[Myrrdin]

@Myrrdin, if I interpret that part of your post correctly, you are basically expressing your frustration with what you believe might further delay the implementation of ADSL Regulations by ICASA, correct?

If so, its frustration that all forumites using ADSL feel - myself included [and I've only been using ADSL for a relatively short time period compared to most] - 2 years down the line after the original official MyADSL complaint was lodged with ICASA, and ICASA has not yet taken action against Telkodemonopolies to rectify the very unfair situation we all find ourselves in.

But, there is a frustratingly laborious process [not including the delays from ICASA in actually creating/releasing the draft regs] that ICASA is following according to whatever it says in the existing ICASA Act about procedures to follow, and public feedback is clearly essential - including the ISPA's own submission as far as the regulations will affect the ability of ISPs to compete with TelkodemonopoliesHindernet/SAIX in the retail market. If the ISPA had not submitted any comments at all on the draft regs, the result [when ICASA finally gets its act together] could be that ISPs go out of business due to being unable to comply with ICASA's regulations - that would mean practically zero competition to TelkodemonopoliesHindernet, and where would that leave us consumers? - with a monopoly ADSL ISP in the form of TelkodemonopoliesHindernet.

IMO ICASA's draft regs are 'well intentioned' but I do have to agree that there are some serious flaws that need ironing out - not to say that there might not be future revisions/amendments to ADSL Regulations v1.0.0.0 - I'm sure the regs will evolve over time as & when/if true competition exists & increases...

Let's rather get ICASA to get it right the first time - as much as possible at this stage...

That may be so but give me one single regulation that Telkom and the ISPA agrees with.

You dont win a war by shooting all the enemies at the same time.

This is a draft so select the regulations that have no technical difficulties or require no more or no less specification and implement them. I bet you you wont find a single one according to Telkom and the ISPA. One must remember as I have stated that there is no perfect regulations of nirvana in the future to be hammered out in stone. Telkom and now the ISPA seem to have thrown in with Telkom, do NOT want the current state of telecoms in this country to change at all. I for one am 100% behind ICASA. Get these regulations in and then we discuss it from there. To now go into another round of meetings backwards and forwards about semantics et al would be a disaster for ADSL consumers and growth in South Africa. We are already way behind the rest of the world.

If that leaves a few ISP's floating in our wake I am sorry for them.

 

[Myrrdin]

LOL @ allyoucaneat

 

[allyoucaneat]

... ISPA seem to have thrown in with Telkom, do NOT want the current state of telecoms in this country to change at all. I for one am 100% behind ICASA. Get these regulations in and then we discuss it from there. To now go into another round of meetings backwards and forwards about semantics et al would be a disaster for ADSL consumers and growth in South Africa. We are already way behind the rest of the world.

@Myrrdin, well said!

We are 2nd last, according to Dr Tim Kelly (and he should know, he is the expert!).

EDIT: Lets aim for 3rd last! Maybe we are lucky and get to be 4th last. Don't aim for the top. Just aim upwards.

 

[RichardP]

when I called the ISPA a cartel, I was flamed, now I see the same things again. the ISPA exists to make MONEY, nothing else. No buisness exists to be a charity and the ISPA is not exempt from that principle... OK, they did re-structure the JINX charges but that was 'cos of public and small ISP's getting vocal.

If I can sell sweets at R1 a packet an no-one complains, why should I drop the price to 50 cents and offer value for money? The motor industry in SA has just been fined for the same offence...

collusion

• (noun) secret cooperation in order to cheat or deceive.

 

[Ant_Brooks]

Hogwash. What you are trying to set up here is me the consumer having to have two or more accounts if I want to use all of the "capabilities" the internet offers. I for one dont use my adsl exclusively for one thing so why would I buy an account that browse and one that plays games and one that receives HDTV. Broadbrand is broadbrand and I dont know many people that plays BF2 while surfing so to have two accounts to accomplish this at the same time would be pure exploitation. I want maximum troughput in whichever task I am currently busy with. If I do want to run two internet tasks simultaniously the limit should only be my line speed. You can either let the response times balance themselves out or use some software locally to prioritise your tasks. Who gives you the ISP the right to decide when and how fast I can accomplish any given task on my equipment. You have been listening to what Telkom spews about port prioritisation too long.

Hi Myrrdin, thanks (I think ) for the feedback.

I agree with you totally that a situation where consumers have to buy multiple ADSL accounts to do different things would be absolutely dreadful. Let me make it crystal clear: That is absolutely not the intention of ISPA's submission to ICASA. I also agree that for you, and probably for many other forumites, it might be a good thing for ICASA to insist that ISPs do no port-shaping at all. (Bet you didn't expect me to say that!) Speaking as a consumer, I also want an ADSL account without any sort of traffic-shaping whatsoever. (Although right now, I'd settle for just having my ADSL line installed, but that's a completely different discussion...)

But I don't agree that your needs, or my needs, or the needs of most of the MyADSL forumites are the only needs that ICASA should be considering. Believe it or not, there are some users out there who want to use their ADSL for different things to the rest of us. ISPs should not be prevented from providing those customers with what they want.

Let's take the example of a small business that wants to stop supporting Telkom as much as possible, and instead wants to give its voice-traffic business to a competing VoIP provider. This small business orders an ADSL line (from Telkom, because it has to), and obtains Internet access and a VoIP service from an ISP. This small business doesn't want to use the ADSL connection for TV, they don't want to use it to play games. All they want to use the connection for is for voice traffic (and possibly email and web traffic). So this particular customer does want traffic shaping. They want their ISP to prioritise the heck out of their voice traffic so they can do VoIP properly.

So I'm going to turn your question around: Why should gives you (or anybody) the right to stop an ISP from giving this customer the service that they want?

(Having said that, I feel obliged to add that the fact that we even need to be having a discussion about the pros and cons of traffic-shaping or port-prioritisation reflects the sorry state of underlying communications services in SA. In an ideal world (or, say, in South Korea), bandwidth would be so cheap that the hassle of doing any shaping at all would seriously outweigh the cost of just installing a bigger pipe. In such a situation, there would be no need for ICASA to even be considering regulating traffic-shaping, because ISPs just would not need to be conserving capacity for specific services. But unfortunately, we don't live in that ideal world (except the South Koreans!), and until the underlying problems with communications costs are addressed, traffic-shaping will continue to be something that some customers want, and that some ISPs want to be able to do.)

Agreed we dont want that but realistically until there is true competition for landing rights and bandwidth access to all on the sat3 cable we have to force SAIX to provide wholesale accounts at reasonable prices. Telkominternet must then be forced to purchase accounts at the same price. I didn't see this in the regulations anyway so it is a mute point

It is right there at the top of page 7 of the draft regulations: "Service providers shall purchase bandwidth from network operators at a wholesale rate agreed between the parties and any benefits derived there from shall be equitably shared with the subscribers."

Let's take a step back and look at how ADSL is currently provided to consumers. There are (broadly speaking) two options:

1. ISPs buy wholesale ADSL accounts from Telkom (SAIX) and resell them to their customers. Ultimately, Telkom is the company providing Internet access to all consumers in this situation, because all of the traffic is going over Telkom's SAIX network.

2. ISPs buy wholesale ADSL account from someone other than Telkom. Currently the alternative options are (and I stand to be corrected on this) DataPro, MTN NS, Internet Solutions and Verizon Business. These ISPs make use of the IPConnect service to connect to Telkom's ADSL infrastructure. In this case, Telkom is not providing the Internet access service at all. A competing ISP is. This is a good thing, in my opinion.

Now go back and read that clause of the draft regulations again, bearing in mind that "network operator" usually (but not always) means someone with a PSTS licence, i.e. Telkom or the SNO. Depending on how ICASA chooses to interpret this clause, it could force all ISPs to only buy SAIX ADSL accounts from Telkom. It could prevent the ISPs that are trying very, very hard to compete directly with SAIX in the wholesale ADSL market from continuing to operate. This would be a very bad thing, in my opinion, and I hope you'll forgive those ISPs (and their downstream resellers) from being gravely concerned about this clause.

Ok so on the one hand you complain about the regulations being too specific and on the other hand you complain about the regulations not being specific enough.

Actually, my view is that that particular clause isn't too specific or not specific enough. It is just plain broken. As written, it simply doesn't make any sense at all. And for regulations as critical as these ones are, a clause that makes no sense at all is really worrying.

Rome was not built in one day or one set of regulations. Agree that this is not the holy grail of regulations but only a small step. Implement them and then we can work from there. The ISP's and Telkom contend every statement because the longer the status quo remains in place the longer the consumer suffers and the longer they make huge profits. And before you say that ISP's dont make money let me not call you a liar. As you have stated any business is in it to make money and if there was no money to be made in being an ISP we wont have any.

Heh heh. You certainly won't find me claiming that ISPs aren't trying to make money. Of course they are. You also won't find me saying that ICASA shouldn't be trying to deal with the mess that constitutes ADSL services in South Africa. Of course they should.

But I don't think that passing regulations that have some really serious flaws will necessarily be good for consumers.

 

[Ant_Brooks]

This is a draft so select the regulations that have no technical difficulties or require no more or no less specification and implement them. I bet you you wont find a single one according to Telkom and the ISPA.

Actually, nobody who helped draft the ISPA submission had a problem with clause 3.7: "The network operators shall install the ADSL service within fourteen days of receipt of an application if the applicant resides within a ADSL enabled area."

 

[Myrrdin]

Hi Myrrdin, thanks (I think ) for the feedback.

I agree with you totally that a situation where consumers have to buy multiple ADSL accounts to do different things would be absolutely dreadful. Let me make it crystal clear: That is absolutely not the intention of ISPA's submission to ICASA. I also agree that for you, and probably for many other forumites, it might be a good thing for ICASA to insist that ISPs do no port-shaping at all. (Bet you didn't expect me to say that!) Speaking as a consumer, I also want an ADSL account without any sort of traffic-shaping whatsoever. (Although right now, I'd settle for just having my ADSL line installed, but that's a completely different discussion...)

I might have come down a little harshly but it is as constructive as I can be, I promise. There may be a lot of errors in the draft but I think the ISPA needs to be very clear on every statement it makes, I can already see Telkom saying "Look, even the ISPA supports us".

Whether anyone likes it or not this situation has almost gone beyond mediation. In people's minds there are only two camps those for Telkom and those against Telkom. There is no longer a middle road. Every company or regulatory body which shows any support for a statement (irrespective of the validity) which is not Anti-Telkom is running the risk of finding themselves on the wrong side of a very nasty catfight. I guarantee you that dotco's action against Telkom has put them firmly in the lead as far as ISP's in general are concerned.

I can see why you supported clause 3.7

But I don't agree that your needs, or my needs, or the needs of most of the MyADSL forumites are the only needs that ICASA should be considering. Believe it or not, there are some users out there who want to use their ADSL for different things to the rest of us. ISPs should not be prevented from providing those customers with what they want.

Let's take the example of a small business that wants to stop supporting Telkom as much as possible, and instead wants to give its voice-traffic business to a competing VoIP provider. This small business orders an ADSL line (from Telkom, because it has to), and obtains Internet access and a VoIP service from an ISP. This small business doesn't want to use the ADSL connection for TV, they don't want to use it to play games. All they want to use the connection for is for voice traffic (and possibly email and web traffic). So this particular customer does want traffic shaping. They want their ISP to prioritise the heck out of their voice traffic so they can do VoIP properly.

So I'm going to turn your question around: Why should gives you (or anybody) the right to stop an ISP from giving this customer the service that they want?

Okay so let me turn that around. I am trying to think if there will be a Voip provider that won't put the server on site, I cant.
1. I most certainly wouldnt want to use precious internet bandwidth to call inside the company.
2. Performance issues regarding an offsite server.
3. Losing company telephony services when my ADSL line goes down.
Are but a few.
Any company that is small enough not to warrant a server on site would not realistically require any port prioritisation or a Voip service provider.
But heres the kicker. If I want to use my ADSL connection for company wide synchronisation after hours I would run straight into your port prioritisation. My ADSL line would become useless for anything other than Voip.

What it boils down to is choice isn't it. Which is what we dont have at the moment.

(Having said that, I feel obliged to add that the fact that we even need to be having a discussion about the pros and cons of traffic-shaping or port-prioritisation reflects the sorry state of underlying communications services in SA. In an ideal world (or, say, in South Korea), bandwidth would be so cheap that the hassle of doing any shaping at all would seriously outweigh the cost of just installing a bigger pipe. In such a situation, there would be no need for ICASA to even be considering regulating traffic-shaping, because ISPs just would not need to be conserving capacity for specific services. But unfortunately, we don't live in that ideal world (except the South Koreans!), and until the underlying problems with communications costs are addressed, traffic-shaping will continue to be something that some customers want, and that some ISPs want to be able to do.)

Cant agree more.

It is right there at the top of page 7 of the draft regulations: "Service providers shall purchase bandwidth from network operators at a wholesale rate agreed between the parties and any benefits derived there from shall be equitably shared with the subscribers."

Let's take a step back and look at how ADSL is currently provided to consumers. There are (broadly speaking) two options:

1. ISPs buy wholesale ADSL accounts from Telkom (SAIX) and resell them to their customers. Ultimately, Telkom is the company providing Internet access to all consumers in this situation, because all of the traffic is going over Telkom's SAIX network.

2. ISPs buy wholesale ADSL account from someone other than Telkom. Currently the alternative options are (and I stand to be corrected on this) DataPro, MTN NS, Internet Solutions and Verizon Business. These ISPs make use of the IPConnect service to connect to Telkom's ADSL infrastructure. In this case, Telkom is not providing the Internet access service at all. A competing ISP is. This is a good thing, in my opinion.

Now go back and read that clause of the draft regulations again, bearing in mind that "network operator" usually (but not always) means someone with a PSTS licence, i.e. Telkom or the SNO. Depending on how ICASA chooses to interpret this clause, it could force all ISPs to only buy SAIX ADSL accounts from Telkom. It could prevent the ISPs that are trying very, very hard to compete directly with SAIX in the wholesale ADSL market from continuing to operate. This would be a very bad thing, in my opinion, and I hope you'll forgive those ISPs (and their downstream resellers) from being gravely concerned about this clause.

I thought DataPro, MTN NS, Internet Solutions and Verizon Business are using satelite and only excess bandwidth is routed via the peering link between IS and SAIX (the whole fight about that is another matter) so in effect DataPro, MTN NS, Internet Solutions and Verizon Business are trying to be both network operators AND service providers (cough cough look its Telkominternet called ISinternet .....) What I said was that until such time as a network operator can purchase bandwidth on the sat3 cable or land their own undersea cable SAIX needs to be forced to supply all ISP's wholesale ADSL accounts at a reasonable price. I think thats what I read into the clause you quoted as well. IS being mostly satelite anyway lets not confuse landbased network with any other method of delivery. Any data that DataPro, MTN NS, Internet Solutions and Verizon Business supply that is landbased HAS to come via SAIX right now anyway so this wouldn't change much.

Actually, my view is that that particular clause isn't too specific or not specific enough. It is just plain broken. As written, it simply doesn't make any sense at all. And for regulations as critical as these ones are, a clause that makes no sense at all is really worrying.

Agreed, that its not the best clause I have ever read either but I am saying dont throw out the rest because of one clause. As with anything else I am sure for now the consumers would accept this clause as it stands as long as some of the other regulations get passed as well. Whether this is actually delivered as stated or not. I am sure as a community we could then submit a proposal to have it changed to reflect a more sane statement.

Heh heh. You certainly won't find me claiming that ISPs aren't trying to make money. Of course they are. You also won't find me saying that ICASA shouldn't be trying to deal with the mess that constitutes ADSL services in South Africa. Of course they should.

But I don't think that passing regulations that have some really serious flaws will necessarily be good for consumers.

As I said before "You dont win a war by shooting all the enemies at the same time." so lets fire the first shot.

 

[orange]

<SNIP>
As I said before "You dont win a war by shooting all the enemies at the same time." so lets fire the first shot.

My training as a soldier (many moons ago in the SADF) taught me that every bullet counts and that you must know exactly where every bullet goes.
YMWTVYM (You May Want To Vary Your Mileage)

 

[Ant_Brooks]

I thought DataPro, MTN NS, Internet Solutions and Verizon Business are using satelite and only excess bandwidth is routed via the peering link between IS and SAIX (the whole fight about that is another matter) so in effect DataPro, MTN NS, Internet Solutions and Verizon Business are trying to be both network operators AND service providers (cough cough look its Telkominternet called ISinternet .....) What I said was that until such time as a network operator can purchase bandwidth on the sat3 cable or land their own undersea cable SAIX needs to be forced to supply all ISP's wholesale ADSL accounts at a reasonable price. I think thats what I read into the clause you quoted as well. IS being mostly satelite anyway lets not confuse landbased network with any other method of delivery. Any data that DataPro, MTN NS, Internet Solutions and Verizon Business supply that is landbased HAS to come via SAIX right now anyway so this wouldn't change much.

Although the networks competing with Telkom in the provision of wholesale ADSL accounts do have peering connections to SAIX (just as SAIX can be said to have peering connections to those networks), they do not make use of the SAIX network. They have their own pipes directly into Telkom's ADSL cloud precisely because they do not want to use SAIX infrastructure. And the connections from those networks to the rest of the Internet are also not via SAIX. They are managed by competing ISPs.

So the way you read the clause is exactly why is it so worrying.

It might be the intention of the clause to force SAIX to supply wholesale ADSL at reasonable prices (which is a good idea), but because the regulations completely ignore the other mechanism for providing ADSL, the nett effect is that the clause could also obliges all ISPs to buy wholesale ADSL accounts from Telkom. Which would prevent those companies currently competing with Telkom on the wholesale level from operating. That's definitely not a good unintended side-effect of any regulation, even a well-meaning one.

Agreed, that its not the best clause I have ever read either but I am saying dont throw out the rest because of one clause. As with anything else I am sure for now the consumers would accept this clause as it stands as long as some of the other regulations get passed as well. Whether this is actually delivered as stated or not. I am sure as a community we could then submit a proposal to have it changed to reflect a more sane statement.

Myrrdin, I share your concerns about possible delays in getting ADSL regulations finalised. ICASA should have been putting regulations in place when Telkom first launched ADSL, not three years after the fact.

But the whole purpose of the draft regulations was to solicit comments from interested parties. Since ICASA asked for submissions, it made sense for ISPA (as well as other parties) to give as much comment as possible on the problem areas that existed in the draft regulations. Let's just hope that ICASA put all of the comments they received to good use, and that they can develop final regulations that deal with some of the problem areas.

And quickly!