Whats wrong with always-on dialup??

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fergus

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Here's a good question: Whats stopping Telkom from providing people with always-on dialup. (This is for people who just want to surf and email.) They already know which numbers are for ISPs (it shows up in a special section of your bill) so why can't they just make an new type of account for dialup where you pay a flat monthly rate and you can dialup and stay connected 24 / 7 if you like. It would cost them less than ADSL because there's no special equipment needed and they could even cap it if they liked (aarg - capped dialup :eek:).

Usual answer: money, greed, would conflict with their SurfLess packages, etc, etc.
 
fergus said:
Here's a good question: Whats stopping Telkom from providing people with always-on dialup. (This is for people who just want to surf and email.) They already know which numbers are for ISPs (it shows up in a special section of your bill) so why can't they just make an new type of account for dialup where you pay a flat monthly rate and you can dialup and stay connected 24 / 7 if you like. It would cost them less than ADSL because there's no special equipment needed and they could even cap it if they liked (aarg - capped dialup :eek:).

Usual answer: money, greed, would conflict with their SurfLess packages, etc, etc.
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Quite simple the answer is: They would make less money :mad:
 
Let me elaborate

A friend of mine has this type of service in the US (student there), she pays a monthly amount, close to what we pay for the line rental (R80) and all local calls are free, only pays for international and national. So that ofcourse includes dial-up. For quite a few years she used this to phone friends and family in SA over the internet. So it can be done.

But remember, should Telscum do this it would mean providing a better service and making less profit, which goes against their "How can we provide you with an excellent rip today" policy.
 
If you owned those 2 pieces of copper, would you let somebody use them for R 80.00 a month and then not but another Ferrari, or would you phone the Ferrari dealer and place the order ?

Like seriously, you are asking us to invent a cure for greed. :(
 
stoke said:
If you owned those 2 pieces of copper, would you let somebody use them for R 80.00 a month and then not but another Ferrari, or would you phone the Ferrari dealer and place the order ?

Like seriously, you are asking us to invent a cure for greed. :(
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Huh?? Dude you're starting to sound like killadoob!! What's Ferraris got to do with it? ;)
 
Well, ferraris aside, this could well be a saving grace for Telkom. If they do something like this they will get CRAPLOADS of people signing up, AND you cant really rape international connectivity with dial-up, so all the bases are covered (or belong to us).

Do this, Telkom, and i will stop urinating on our neighbourhood's Telkom boxes.
 
eye_suc said:
Do this, Telkom, and i will stop urinating on our neighbourhood's Telkom boxes.
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lol, I thought it was you I saw in Brighton Road last night :)
 
Dude, i have dial up, and you are welcome to "share" that trickle of information. But if you were recommending i share YOUR adsl line, that sounds good too!
 
mmm, well in that case when I hit my cap your trickle will beat my drip anyday. As for my ADSL line, well unfortunately it does not belong to me to share, but to the company I work for. (Then again it does'nt even belong to them seeing that we pay vast amounts every month to Telkom to "rent" it twice.) So sorry dude, that one aint gonna fly. :p
 
MFour said:
A friend of mine has this type of service in the US (student there), she pays a monthly amount, close to what we pay for the line rental (R80) and all local calls are free, only pays for international and national. So that ofcourse includes dial-up. For quite a few years she used this to phone friends and family in SA over the internet. So it can be done.
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Once again demonstrating the beaty of competition in the market. No chance this would have been the case if they had a "telkom" monopoly in the States :(
 
Well they already do that ... called a leased line.

My theory is that an exchange can only handle so many similtaneous connections and that they are always oversubscribed and thus cannot handle if more people than peak usage tries to make a call.

Perhaps one reason why callmore is offpeak from 7pm till 7am.
 
fergus said:
Here's a good question: Whats stopping Telkom from providing people with always-on dialup.
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:rolleyes: I think that as the ICASA report nears publication, Telskum are going to release a 64k ADSL product for about +-199/month just so that they can proclaim that internet is even more affordable and the prices for ADSL are dropping drastically. And, I wouldn't bet against them calling this progress either.
 
mak2000 said:
:rolleyes: I think that as the ICASA report nears publication, Telskum are going to release a 64k ADSL product for about +-199/month just so that they can proclaim that internet is even more affordable and the prices for ADSL are dropping drastically. And, I wouldn't bet against them calling this progress either.
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I'll say nothing.
 
fergus said:
Here's a good question: Whats stopping Telkom from providing people with always-on dialup
Click to expand...

I'm not defending Telkom here, but the answer is simple: dial-up modems use analog telephone lines. Analog telephone lines operate on a switching circuit. There are only so many physical telephone lines to go around, the assumption being that not all of Telkom's clients use their telephone lines all at the same time. However, if always-on dialup were allowed, then those specific physical telephone lines would be busy PERMANENTLY! This leaves fewer lines available for actual telephones/faxes etc.

Always on dialup is not the answer. Some form of ADSL is. This also operates on the physical telephone lines but uses different frequencies, thus allowing the 'normal' analog telephone portion of it to still be used by telephone or modem.

512k/bit ADSL should be our entry level super cheap always on broadband offering, but instead it's our "New and Improved Top o' the Range" offering... <sigh>
 
tibby.dude said:
Well they already do that ... called a leased line.

My theory is that an exchange can only handle so many similtaneous connections and that they are always oversubscribed and thus cannot handle if more people than peak usage tries to make a call.

Perhaps one reason why callmore is offpeak from 7pm till 7am.
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Oh, okay. My understanding was that this was just a normal telephone line, except that they don't charge for local calls... that would be nice... :)
 
mak2000 said:
:rolleyes: I think that as the ICASA report nears publication, Telskum are going to release a 64k ADSL product for about +-199/month just so that they can proclaim that internet is even more affordable and the prices for ADSL are dropping drastically. And, I wouldn't bet against them calling this progress either.
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Seeing that Telkom is so keen on supercharging rates (and profits), an affordable 64k ADSL service would be great - a lot of people would all of a sudden have internet access. There is no viable option but to concede that Telkom is a monopoly and does not intend to service the country.

It will need to be free so consumers can purchase 3G from their ISP's for R250 pm. Else it will be too expensive. Obviously, there needs to be a 1G deal at around R80 pm. This will be the obvious option for most housholds.

And worst of all: Telkom will make piles of money selling bandwidth at incredible rates to local ISP's as people start to slowly enjoy "Local is lekker".
 
kaspaas: your scenario is probably the only one that might happen. there is no other way with Telkom.

I dont care that they have a finite amount of lines available. If they dont offer anything cheap enough, then make a plan for Pete's (the Plank) sake.
 
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