8Mbps ADSL 'needs a bit more work'
It is common knowledge that Telkom has been trialing an 8Mbps ADSL service, but so far the fixed line operator has been tight lipped about the results of this trial. Speaking at the recent Broadband Summit held in Johannesburg, Telkom’s Kefilwe Madingoane, a specialist in xDSL and broadband assurance, shed some light on the developments in the ADSL space.
According to Madingoane, Telkom’s 8Mbps ADSL trial was "fairly successful", but a lack of adequate backhaul capacity proved problematic to ensure that the service performed as intended. Madingoane said that Telkom will need to "do some work" to improve the ADSL backhaul capacity to handle to additional load associated with an 8Mbps service.
There are, however, projects in progress to address the lack of backhaul capacity and to ensure that higher speeds will be possible in future. One of these developments is the roll out of ADSL2+.
Madingoane said that Telkom’s ADSL2+ rollout was progressing well and that the company has covered "a good range" of its network with ADSL2+ cards. These rollouts may involve fibre-to-the-curb, bringing fibre much closer to customers and hence shortening the local copper loop length. This is necessary for an ADSL2+ rollout with speeds exceeding 8Mbps.
Madingoane further said that Telkom’s Metro-Ethernet rollout was progressing well and would play an important role in providing adequate backhaul bandwidth to support the ADSL2+ rollout. It is understood that the rollout of ADSL2+ and Metro-Ethernet are closely linked, and that the launch of ADSL2+ will be closely linked to the Metro-Ethernet network readiness.
Despite the fact that backhaul constraints will most likely delay any launch of an 8Mbps ADSL service, it looks like it is still high on Telkom’s priority list with Madingoane commenting: "watch this space".
8 Mbps ADSL – give your views
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