The broadband saga revisited
With the media hype around the new era of broadband when the Seacom sub-marine cable was switched on, South Africans have had high expectations that they would at last be liberated from constricted international pipes that allow one to make several cups of coffee while a large file is downloaded from an overseas website.
At the Seacom launch last month I was able to download a 43 MB video in less than three minutes. Impressive to say the least, but just adding to my frustration when I sat in front of my PC at home!
Somehow I am not surprised because internet service providers are in the game for business and to make money, so why give away more bandwidth at the current charges?
Telkom made some half-hearted offer by not increasing their price of ADSL and increasing the cap of its Do-broadband services. The cap of the high-end Do-broadband has been increased from 3 to 5 GB. If one calculates the additional bandwidth at the current rate charged when going over the cap, the bonus amounts to about R140. Of course the whole idea of capping raises another debate.
iBurst reduced some of its overpriced services by 25%. I guess we should be gratefull for small mercies.
So it appears that every supplier of broadband is waiting for the other one to make a move. For years there have been rumblings that Telkom was going to take the lead by doubling its 4 MB offering and dramatically increasing the cap, or even doing away with the cap. But rumblings remain rumblings; Telkom is not commenting. It appears that its backbone construction projects have not yet been completed. Maybe the new pipes will be reserved for the 2010 Fifa World Cup, and only after will they be considered for the man in the street.
There is perhaps some light on the horizon with Dark Fibre Africa completing its fibre pipe between Durban and Johannesburg (see page 46). I hope that an enterprising internet service provider will surprise the market with great offers. If the airline industry is anything to go by, the bargains will come from entrepreneurs who don’t mind taking the gap, and not from the established industry.
Over the past few years we have also seen great promises from powerline telecommunication (PLT) companies who boasted about incredible speeds. They did in fact demonstrate how video could be streamed using the pilot at Rooiwal power station village outside Tshwane. The only snag was that the PLT system wiped out most high frequency communication in the area. PLT has several other names such as power line communications, and the most popular one used in industry, broadband over powerline.
The International Special Committee on Radio Interference (CISPR) has not been able to come up with an acceptable standard. CISPR’s principal task is at the higher end of the frequency range, from 9 kHz upwards, preparing standards that offer radio reception protection from interference sources such as PLT.
With pressure from PLT companies, the Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) set about developing an interim standard that would ultimately be replaced by a CSIPR standard when the international body reaches finality on the matter.
Last year ICASA published an interim standard for public comment which resulted in public hearings in September. The outcome of the public hearings has not been published and no final standard has been approved. According to comments from internal ICASA sources, the board has not yet reviewed the final draft standard.
Those in the know believe that it is unlikely that CISPR will reach any agreement on a standard in the short term. As someone commented “CISPR is where it was when they started talking about a PLT interference standard some five years ago.”
I guess we are all playing the waiting game!
Broadband in SA – give your views
EngineerIT
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