ADSL network congestion concerns

Numerous industry players are complaining about congested ADSL exchanges which results in poor service levels for ADSL users. These complaints are nothing new, but the outcry from industry players is growing louder.

As far back as 2010, reports from Internet Service Providers (ISPs) on congestion at Telkom’s ADSL exchanges have made headlines, with providers saying that it impacts their subscribers’ service quality.

Fresh complaints about congested ADSL exchanges

Former MWEB CEO, Rudi Jansen, said that the recent wholesale ADSL price reduction is great news because it will allow ISPs to boost their networks, but warned that congestion on the Telkom network may negate the value of the ISP network upgrades.

“There is still some significant congestion on the Telkom network and one has to wonder if the capacity bought will get to the end user because of the congestion. Telkom has improved their backhaul but we know there are some problems with the build out at the moment,” said Jansen.

O-Tel Telecoms CEO, Mohammad Patel, said that the unpredictability of Telkom’s ADSL network became so bad that he is moving his clients away from ADSL to wireless solutions like Wi-Fi and WiMax.

According to Patel, the quality of Telkom’s ADSL network is simply not good enough to support voice-over-IP (VoIP) services.

A bonded ADSL service provider, who spoke to MyBroadband on the condition of anonymity, said that some exchanges are so congested that they struggle to provide a 16Mbps solution to clients. He explained that while their own ADSL bandwidth allocation is more than enough, speeds are severely limited by congestion on Telkom’s network.

Telkom was asked for feedback about their alleged ADSL network congestion, but the company did not respond by the time of publication.

Telkom previously said that traffic profiles on the backhaul bandwidth between the DSLAM and the ESR are continuously monitored and any subsequent congestion is addressed accordingly in line with the product specification of their three offerings.

At the time Telkom would neither confirm nor deny whether there is congestion on their ADSL network, instead explaining that congestion can happen in many places on the network.

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