Unbundling? It’ll happen…
Sometimes, you can understand the position of the internet providers in SA. Sometimes, you can even feel quite sorry for them in fact. And it’s because we, as the South African internet consumer, are a very tough bunch to please.
Since the introduction of ADSL back in 2002, we’ve been crowing for two things. The reduction in the price of internet provision, and the abolishment of the draconian 3GB cap. Both are happening right now all around us, data providers are clamouring over themselves to deliver uncapped accounts at sub-R200 for the entry-level 384K package, and while Telkom’s price reductions were some time ago, their rates are down from what they were when the tech came in.
So now you can get a 384k line, which I know most will argue isn’t broadband, but although I agree the download rate isn’t ideal on this solution, it is always-on, always available connectivity, so it’s broadband. As for the speed, well 384K is still a darn sight faster than dial-up!
And yet, already the most hardcore among us is downright displeased. You see there is a third element we wanted, which we haven’t got as yet… the unbundling of the local loop.
Naturally, opening up that last-mile connection currently very effectively monopolised by the incumbent to competitive forces would eliminate, or at the very least drive down, the weird dual-service requirement for ADSL and therefore the base costs associated with having a DSL connection. Certainly a noble goal.
But can the fact that this hasn’t happened really still be blamed for the slow growth of broadband adoption in our country? Sure, the cellular data providers would appear to prove that it would, and interestingly have finally taken the bait from the fixed-line crowd and started plunging their mobile data prices back towards some level of parity.
Apart from unbundling, you’ll also find forums full of flamers laying-in to the cheap ISPs and their uncapped offerings, for a variety of reasons. Slow lines during the day thanks to high contention ratios, aggressive shaping on the part of pretty much all of these packages, some worse than others, to curb what they continue to term “abusive usage patterns”, and some fairly poor service cultures in particularly the youngest of these downstream ISPs.
The poor response during daytime is pretty much to be expected. Those that are running businesses for whom the Web is mission-critical but still want all the data they can consume monthly, can sign-up instead to one of the unshaped uncapped packages. Twice the price of uncapped but shaped, yes, but then you’ll have a business-ready service, specifically crafted for these usage models and with much lower contention.
Shaping is annoying, yes, but all but the most rabid pretty much keep the tightest shackles for the daytime only, and usually free hardcore torrenters up at night to get their full line speeds. My office has been on an uncapped, but shaped, DSL offering since they first appeared at decent rates last year, and although torrenting during the day has to be banned because of the tragic way any torrent stream causes the network to be locked-down, we still manage about 50GB a month worth of traffic, which isn’t bad.
The poor service, well, cannot really be excused. Certainly there are some operators out there who are clearly little better than pirates, and have leapt on the bandwagon with minimal capacity, resources, or know-how. But these will be weeded out in time through the natural selection of an open market, and we really can’t expect more than that, surely?
Naturally, dear readers, we must continue to fight for our data infrastructure to be improved, be made ever more affordable, and become an international-level system with widespread penetration and utility-like reliability, yes.
But how about we also, from time to time, relax a little and acknowledge that things are slowly moving in the direction we want. Sure it’s taken 8 years of arguing to get us this far, but we’re getting there. Take heart in that, even if the sector continues to be monopoly-dominated and economically savaged as a result. That too, in time, will be addressed.
Unbundling? It’ll happen << Discussion
Related links
ADSL and Local Loop Unbundling
Local Loop Unbundling vital for SA broadband
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