ADSL Capping – Is it a real issue?
Reading some mail one gets the impression that capping of internet through-put is a major issue and stifles effective internet enjoyment. Let’s look at it objectively. Why do ISPs cap their services?
What seems to feel like way back when, Telkom introduced its first ADSL service with no capping. The company however soon realised that a few users would gobble up mega bandwidth at the expense of other users, so a 3Gbyte cap was introduced which created a major uproar amongst those who used mega bandwidth for applications for which ADSL was not designed. The cap satisfied most of its other customers.
Looking at statistics it is an interesting fact that most of Telkom’s customers never reach their 3 G cap. Soon after Telkom’s ADSL introduction, Sentech came with their wireless service and made some bold announcement that they would, unlike Telkom, not introduce a cap on their service. The same happened to Sentech; a few spoiled the broadband experience for most other users. Sentech had to eat humble pie and had to introduce what amounts to a cap. All Sentech current offerings are capped.
There have been various arguments about capping but it ultimately still comes down to the cost of the bandwidth. The only difference between then and now is that most ISP’s will sell additional bandwidth over the cap.
ICASA recently ruled that local bandwidth cannot be capped. But that is a problem too. Up to now it was not possible to separate local from international so all ISP’s can do is to cut off the international access when the combined local and international cap is reached. Not what was intended but that is what the current deployed technology can offer.
But times have changed …
While most users seldom reached their caps in the past, unless they are online gamers, the position is changing. Capping now becomes a problem as the internet experience is changing. With the availability of higher speeds on ADSL and even higher speeds on other product offerings, online video is taking off. Sites like YouTube are gaining popularity. These sites require higher speeds and greater bandwidth for the users frequently visiting these sites.
Capping is now becoming a big issue. Yes, you can buy additional bandwidth but how much can one afford every month. At current top-up prices it is still cheaper to support the cinema industry and experiences the block buster on the big screen. Where will this leave companies like Telkom Media? At the current cost of broadband and still having to pay for the online material it seems to me that the new experience we have been promised for some time is going to be limited to higher income groups, well that counts me out!
So capping is now a real big issue! How are the ISP’s going to respond? Can they afford to drop the cap and spend more on international bandwidth? With no cap on local bandwidth should they not be hosting more content locally? But where does that leave the ISP’s they still have to pay Telkom for local bandwidth? I guess during 2008 at lot of questions have to be asked and more importantly answered
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