South Africa's boadband penetration rates: how do we compare?

With Telkom having it's own mobile division via 8ta, are they going to actually make use of the fixed line network at all? It makes me think that we need LLU not for price drops immediately but just to force an improvement in the service levels offered.
 
Telkom/Government should be embarrassed. 1.5% penetration rate? I mean REALLY?

Why don't they understand that affordable broadband is one of the main keys to economic growth?! Especially these days!
 
I actually think telkom is good at penetrating its customers :eek:
 
There is no use showing how we compare to developed economies, it will make more sense showing us how we compare to other developing countries like India and Brazil and even Nigeria, god I hope the Nijjas haven't over taken us in broadband
 
This is why I found the "100% broadband penetration by 20-whatever" HILARIOUS. These guys, when they open their mouth, spew the biggest loud of bull****. Even developed countries do not have anything CLOSE to 100%. And considering the fact that legislation/court cases etc have effectively placed us 10-15 years behind anyone in the world (considering that Telkom once had the BEST technology in the world), I very much doubt we'd be able to raise that number at all unless they blast us with microwave waves like there's no tomorrow.
 
r00igev@@r said:
So why is iBurst fixed wireless?
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iBurst is considered fixed wireless since you'll need LOS mostly (and sometimes a directional antennae) to get the best possible signal. In practice YES, you can drive around with it provided you have enough coverage, much like any cellphone connection these days. But the real-world *fact* in South Africa is, not enough coverage and LOS required kills that mobile dream...
 
mmmig said:
There is no use showing how we compare to developed economies, it will make more sense showing us how we compare to other developing countries like India and Brazil and even Nigeria, god I hope the Nijjas haven't over taken us in broadband
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I always love how we should be compared to other developing countries when it suits.. and then to first world when it suits (Soccer World Cup etc). Just very funny.

Goverment should have long ago made internet/adsl etc cheaper (by getting their fingers out of the pie/Telkom). So much more jobs could have been created (dev, outsourcing, call centres, startups etc...) but nope.. rather enrich themselves...
 
AcidRaZor said:
iBurst is considered fixed wireless since you'll need LOS mostly (and sometimes a directional antennae) to get the best possible signal. In practice YES, you can drive around with it provided you have enough coverage, much like any cellphone connection these days. But the real-world *fact* in South Africa is, not enough coverage and LOS required kills that mobile dream...
Click to expand...

Actually it's because iBurst was a fixed mobility technology from the start. HC-SDMA heavily relies on spatial multiplexing. Initially, the complexity of allowing the CPE to move and dynamically change the spatial beam-forming arrangement was too great. Obviously now that Kyocera has improved it, it can be classified as high-speed mobile. Problem is, there's a lot of red tape to that.
 
mmmig said:
There is no use showing how we compare to developed economies, it will make more sense showing us how we compare to other developing countries like India and Brazil and even Nigeria, god I hope the Nijjas haven't over taken us in broadband[/QUOTE
Ha Ha You clearly missed the point. South Africa had a developed network (first world standards)
. But that was before my time. On the other hand I agree, we should compare South Africa with other "developing" countries. And in another 20 years, it will be best to compare to the underdeveloped ones :D
Look at stupid Australia. For whatever reason their politicians decided to invest in a super fast internet network, while SA's politicians can't even legislate the maintenance of what was given to them!
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AcidRaZor said:
iBurst is considered fixed wireless since you'll need LOS mostly (and sometimes a directional antennae) to get the best possible signal. In practice YES, you can drive around with it provided you have enough coverage, much like any cellphone connection these days. But the real-world *fact* in South Africa is, not enough coverage and LOS required kills that mobile dream...
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So by your reasoning Vodacom, MTN, 8ta and CellC are also Fixed Wireless. You cannot use one metric for iBurst and another for the rest.
 
UnUnOctium said:
Actually it's because iBurst was a fixed mobility technology from the start. HC-SDMA heavily relies on spatial multiplexing. Initially, the complexity of allowing the CPE to move and dynamically change the spatial beam-forming arrangement was too great. Obviously now that Kyocera has improved it, it can be classified as high-speed mobile. Problem is, there's a lot of red tape to that.
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Mobile means the ability to do handovers between two towers. What is fixed mobility? Is that akin to Military Intelligence?
 
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r00igev@@r said:
Mobile means able to do handover between two towers. What is fixed mobility? Is that akin to Military Intelligence?
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LOL, it's more akin to SMS message :)

While yes, mobile does mean handover it also means that same handover has to happen within reasonable time. The first generation from Kyocera couldn't fit the latter criteria, hence every time a handover needed to happen, you would've timed out on your less tolerant connections. Obviously now with faster SDRs it can be done much quicker.

Mobility on its own is actually a difficult definition as the closest we can get to that is comparing BERs for different Doppler shift and spectra. There isn't really a strict definition of it except for whether "it works at x km/h" or not.
 
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