ADSL bitstream service will help, say ISPs
The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) said in November 2011 that it will engage with the telecoms industry to ensure a true bitstream product is introduced by 1 November 2012. This was part of ICASA’s local-loop unbundling (LLU) findings which were released at the time.
The Internet Service Providers’ Association (ISPA) previously said that the introduction of naked ADSL and bitstream access is essential to bring cheaper and better fixed line broadband access to South Africa.
ISPA argued in 2011 that Telkom is immediately able to release wholesale bitstream access services (IP Stream and Data Stream) as the services have already been trialled and are ready for implementation.
“These services would replace the largely broken current IPC model and their introduction should not be disruptive to Telkom,” said ISPA.
Derek Hershaw
MWEB ISP CEO Derek Hershaw explained that bitstream will give them greater functionality to manage and improve the end service to their customers.
“There’s a capital outlay that comes with bitstream, but that aside, if the operating costs and charges for bitstream are similar to what we pay for IPC then we would prefer to go the bitstream route,” said Hershaw.
Altech Technology Concepts former CEO Wayne de Nobrega said that the industry must be pushing for Telkom to provide a competitively priced bitstream service along with naked ADSL, but warned that this may take some time.
De Nobrega argued that lower IPConnect prices may be a better short term goal. “In the short term we have to drive down the pricing of the IPC as much as possible as this is currently our biggest cost in providing bandwidth for ADSL services,” said De Nobrega.
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