How much bandwidth do you need?

The debate surrounding the state of broadband in South Africa is ongoing, with consumers begging for higher speeds and lower data costs from operators.  While consumers may be unreasonable at times, they have a strong case that local broadband services are not up to speed when it comes to international standards.

The minimum requirements to use the Internet and various online services are increasing all the time, and unless an individual or organization meets these minimum requirements they basically sits on the wrong side of the digital divide.  But what are these requirements?

International wireless technology research firm Rysavy Research recently shed some light on the matter in a report released at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.  In the report they gave the minimum requirements for basic to high speed online activity.

Based on these recommendations the majority of ADSL broadband users in South Africa do not have access to sufficient line capacity to achieve “minimum speed for responsive browsing”.  Most Telkom’s ADSL users are signed up to either 384kbps or 512kbps packages which, in terms of this study, do not provide sufficient capacity to support the listed online applications.

Telkom’s 4Mbps offering sits considerably higher up on the scale and is offering speeds which are almost equivalent to that of ‘High Speed internet’. The company’s recent announcement that it is trialing 8Mbps and 12Mbps ADSL services with plans to upgrade its 4Mbps customers to the higher speeds would also see local fixed line connections entering the realm of ‘enhanced High Speed internet’.

South African mobile broadband customers are arguably in a better position with regards to these recommendations. Both iBurst and Neotel currently offer line capacities of between 1Mbps and 3.1Mbps while MTN, Vodacom and Tekom are all supporting downlink speeds of up to 7.2 Mbps on their HSDPA offerings. 

How much bandwidth do you need?