Your feedback needed to boost SA broadband

What I think needs to be done is that some how, Telkom must reduce their IPC cost be world average price or a bit over the world average price. Next, would be deal with all exchanges that have been congested, to allow better broadband speeds. Also, Telkom should be forced, or better allow, naked ADSL, a service where subscribers dont have to take out a voice line. I think if it was like that, then more people would want to get ADSL. Next thing would be that ISP's improve broadband speeds (no throttling, shaping or any of that funny business). Government should also work on rolling out ADSL in rural area's, ADSL seems to be the cheapest broadband option in the market. Then, it would be cool if they bump up the lowest ADSL speed to at least 6mbps, by 2015, the world will probably have 10mbps as the lowest broadband im guessing. Also, Fibre to home uncapped must be made affordable and at the same time offer really great speeds.
I think someone should also sort out the mobile networks, their data pricing is just over the roof.
 
Split up telkom in to two different companys, one for the data and one to control the lines. Telkom and and other isps then buy from that company that controls the lines.
 
Easy...move to a 1st world country...sorted ! It will never get sorted in this country !
 
Let Telkom sell it's network on a tender basis to other ISP's to take care of the LLU problem, or auction it per street/region? Why should other ISP's trunk right beside telkom and are not allowed to touch Telkom's trunking that is already in place? Who paid for telkom cabling the countryside?
 
For me the biggest problem at the moment is not so much price!

I wish instead for good quality service! At the moment I'm paying for 4meg line but 50% of the time I can't get it! It become irritating!I have no problem given telkom my money if they charge a reasonable price and give good quality products!

I guess we need higher theoretical speeds so that we can get good average speeds!
Price could come down a bit again!
Upgrade DSLAMs, I would like to see 8meg to 40meg as a standard!
 
Telkom should be forced to sell naked DSL. If a landline with prepaid voice can be offered for R120 per year, why force DSL customers to pay exorbitant monthly line rentals.
 
LLU must happen now. I want data and not voice, why should I pay for a voice line rental when I use it for data only.

Drop the price of ADSL line rentals to R100 per month (at most).

Finalise the allocation of LTE spectrum.

It is really that simple.
 
I read in a study a while ago that ADSL entry level cost in SA was the highest out of 5 countries surveyed In Africa and that the upper level Package matched was equivalent in cost but not better. This is not acceptable.

I suggest
1. Entry level adsl costs should NOT be higher than other African countries. This should be made a target instead of excuses be found which should not exists taking into account our economics of scale and size of economy.
2. 384k should NOT be declared broadband. A plan to scale out 512k within max of one year.
3. Reasons must be provided why wireless broadband is so much faster and cheaper than DSL where as worldwide the trend is reversed. A target must be set due to Telkom being afforded defacto monopoly status in fixed line adsl and due to the fact that the ministerial directive of 2007 of LLU has not been implemented that entry level adsl must by Nov 2012 be priced and speed upgraded to MATCH the equivalent wireless offerings. 8TA must be used as an example. Telkom is willing to make low margins on it 8TA but adsl they still want healthy profit.
4. Findings be done into Telkoms harmful impact on SAs economy and dramatic loss in shareholder value due to all the legal cases, Nigeria exit and satellite exit. Based on this to stop the slide emergency measures must be put in place for the benefit of South Africa to split Telkom into wholesale and commercial entities.
 
It's the same old story and we all know it already.
The industry needs to be opened up so that anybody can provide broadband related services and / or infrastructure. That is to say, bandwidth, lines, backhaul, fibre, whatever. Actual, real competition for Telkom on all fronts will increase quality and decrease prices. Of course, a large part of the solution to this is LLU.
But there are practical considerations as well.
We have a situation with most of the country(homes & businesses) being connected to Telkom. Are we going to let everybody and their dog lay cables all over the place as well? Then we'd end up with the same situation as the Cell phone networks. We pretty much have FOUR cell towers covering the same areas, one for each company, in each location! What a waste.
Imagine we go full LLU, there'd be continuous digging up of roads and pavements to lay extra cables for years to come.
I suggest something like: removing the current physical infrastructure from Telkom. It's all virtually stolen anyway. They paid for it with Apartheid money and subsequently with the ridiculous profits they made from being in a government sanctioned monopolistic position. It's time for the free ride to end. That infrastructure belongs to the country, not to Telkom.
Give control of it to ISPA or ICASA or create a new body to do it. The ISP's can all pay a reasonable fee for access, then they don't need to lay their own cables, unless they're going to do an upgrade. And if upgraded infrastructure also becomes part of the main system, then we'll have upgrades happening as and where there's demand, with a central body controlling it all so there's no redundant work being done. It's win-win for everyone, except Telkom.
And it's high time they started paying SA back for all the money they've stolen over the decades!
 
Nationalize Telkom and use taxpayers money to build a network. Then lease it for cheaply to competitors.
 
Also needs to be put into law that any complex with more than x units needs to have an adsl enabled dslam.
 
Please post your comments in the threads in the articles - Ellipsis may not monitor this thread.
 
Let the market do its thing. There is a huge demand for broadband so only put government oversight in place to limit monopoly/oligopoly and let the market make up the supply for the demand and let competition do its thing. Bring tax cuts for broadband initiatives and allow better credit funding for them, stimulate competition.

The only viable way to bring Internet connection in rural areas is through wireless networks. Reserve some white space exclusive rural use.

National Planning Commission must play an integral role in this.
Look at development model used in South Korea.
Replace copper with fiber.
Education- !! with need more people in this sector, train matriculates etc to help upgrade South African network.
ICASA - Restructure; bring in foreign experts and raise salary to hire more people.

There is not much to do in short term except for forcing companies to lower prices. In the long run, more infrastructure and more competition.
Also South Africa as a whole needs to lower unemployment and poverty etc. People struggling to make a living have no need for broadband when food is more important. More middle class = more demand for broadband = more bandwidth supply = more broadband. :D
 
Erect a statue of a naked Zuma with 'poor broadband penetration' stenciled on the president's penis.
 
There is one sure way of getting the broadband boost which consumers are so desperately clambering for, and that is with competition. True competition that is, and not some work-around which will ensure that the white elephant in the room (Telkom) retains most of it's inept and greedy hands on infrastructure that impedes other companies from competing as they should.

This can be done with the complete unbundling of Local Loop, without restriction. A prime example would be where the British government did the exact same thing, they opened up BT to other companies, and let those companies use BT's lines to provide broadband to the consumers. This is the answer to our woes. The infrastructure is already in place, there is no need to quadruple the infrastructure and adding wasteful costs by letting other companies pay for the opportunity to coexist with Telkoms infrastructure, or to lay down their own.

If you start at the top, everything will funnel down, competition will increase, prices will drop even further, consumer demand will increase, which would only spur on more competition by companies innovating, either on price, packages, speed, etc.

What is happening here in South Africa is not unheard of. It has happened before in the United Kingdom. We are but a mirror of the troubles that they have had when it comes to ICT.

There is only so much that anyone can innovate around a set of rules that are in place to protect a single entity. It is counter productive, and will continue to impede our growth in the ICT sector.
 
Get the DOC to finalize policy, once and for all
Give ICASA more teeth
Get committed councillors
Take on all the network providers to provide value for money services
Remove all political interference
Up minimum line speeds to world class standards
 
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