Telkom SDSL Etherlink arrives
Telkom’s ADSL offering is popular among businesses, offering an affordable high bandwidth alternative to Telkom’s leased line services.
There are however disadvantages when comparing ADSL to a leased line service like Diginet, including:
- ADSL is a contended service without guaranteed throughput
- ADSL has a poor Service Level Agreement when compared to Diginet
- ADSL is asymmetric which means that downlink speeds are much higher than uplink speeds
- ADSL is therefore suitable for certain non-critical business environments, but in other areas that require leased line type services and guaranteed bandwidth, ADSL is not a suitable replacement.
Good news is that Telkom’s Symmetric Digital Subscriber Line (SDSL) Etherlink service has become available, offering businesses symmetrical DSL services with speeds ranging between 64Kbps and 1.752Mbps.
The service runs over Telkom’s standard ADSL copper infrastructure, but despite the fact that it is not a dedicated service, Telkom will provide guaranteed bandwidth on its SDSL offerings.
The new SDSL Etherlink service is hence a point-to-cloud service which will provide guaranteed speeds through the ‘IP-cloud’.
One of the biggest advantages is that the service will provide an Ethernet interface on the client’s premises, making it much easier for companies to integrate this service into their existing Local Area Networks (LANs) and for ISPs to put their own services like voice offerings on top of this service.
It is understood that Telkom currently supports SDSL at 42 exchanges, but that this number will grow significantly in 2011.
Good news is that the service is already entering the retail market. Sainet MD Marius Oberholzer said that they will launch their new Etherlink SDSL service this week.
“Etherlink will be used to provide cost-effective, point-to-point connectivity that enables seamless upgrades,” said Oberholzer.
“The service offering will include point-to-point and Internet access. Sainet will also introduce dedicated, guaranteed Internet connectivity over SDSL to high-end business customers. The product will fit between the existing ADSL and Metro Fibre services,” concluded Oberholzer.
Telkom was asked for feedback about their new Etherlink SDSL service, but the company did not provide feedback by the time of publication.
Telkom SDSL Etherlink arrives << Comments and views
Loading ...