Telkom forces Internet Solutions to halt ADSL signups
In a statement released on Tuesday they said that ‘the links between ourselves and Telkom are approaching a level whereby we would no longer be able to provide a reliable service should we continue adding new users to our ADSL network’.
IS added that upgrades were requested over four months ago, but that Telkom has missed three previous deadlines which resulted in this regrettable situation.
“In November 2005 Internet Solutions had 2 x155 Mbps ATM IPC links deployed in order for IS to transit the Telkom ADSL backbone. …backbone links are upgraded prior to them reaching the maximum allowable operating utilisation in accordance with IS’ capacity management policy,” IS said.
“IS placed an order for a new (third) IPC link at the beginning of November 2005, 3 months prior to the forecasted due date of end January 2006, which is aligned with the maximum provisioning lead time offered by our supplier, Telkom. As a side note, Telkom typically provisions new capacity for the IPC links within a month,” they continued.
Telkom said that they were experiencing an infrastructure capacity shortage in early December which would cause a delay beyond 30 days. IS was able to secure an extra 69 Mbps of ATM IPC bandwidth in January 2006 as an intermediate quantum of bandwidth to the full 155 Mbps that we ordered.
At this point the fiber has been installed, but a major change to the ATM node is now required which is causing a delay. Technical work has been scheduled for the 18th of March during the early morning hours, but IS is hesitant to make any promises.
“Due to the inability of our supplier to meet previously offered deadlines, we are unable to provide a definite date for the upgrade to be operational,” IS said.
This situation has forced IS to halt all new ISDSL signups to protect their 10 000 strong user base.
“At this time almost all of IS’ IPC bandwidth is utilised, with our real concern that if any further load is placed on this infrastructure, latency and packet loss will spike and render the IS ADSL service unusable; hence our decision to suspend the roll out of any further IS ADSL accounts until the additional IPC bandwidth is installed,” IS said.
IS has apologized to customers for this problem. They said that they will still accept and process applications, but that these users will not ‘go live’ until the upgrade has been completed. They anticipate a two week delay.
It is unclear as to whether it is truly difficult circumstances, incompetence or dirty-tricks that have resulted in the delay upgrade, but what is certain is that Telkom has now effectively halted their only true competitor in the ADSL arena.
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