This is why your broadband sucks in SA

Interesting... obviously agree with the history but there are also other reasons why our broadband sucks.

Firstly, do not throw away LLU so easily. It's all fine and well that some new operators are rolling out FTTH but this is extremely limited as they are cherrypicking their small footprints. LLU will throw a real curve ball into the market. What's the latest with the proposed Bitstream offerings? What's the latest on facilities leasing?

Then we get to other operators... my pet subject! If Telkom has no access deficit as most operators and ISPs allege, then why have they not built their own networks? And I'm not referring to the cherrypicked little areas per above. If not their own cable networks then why not more POPs around the country? Why must everyone be channeled to Joburg, Cape Town or Durban? Why must we only rely on Telkom to do all the upgrades?
 
The thing I wonder is whether South Africa would be better off without Telkom, or worse off.

You just have to look at the ISP threads to see that there isn't a single local ISP that isn't criticised by its users for poor customer care or service delivery (frequently both), so I don't think if we could privatize all of Telkom's infrastructure we'd necessarily see an immediate improvement.
 
Telkom's exclusivity wasn't extended to the internet yet they were given a monopoly on it. How does that work?
 
MickeyD said:
Then we get to other operators... my pet subject! If Telkom has no access deficit as most operators and ISPs allege, then why have they not built their own networks? And I'm not referring to the cherrypicked little areas per above. If not their own cable networks then why not more POPs around the country? Why must everyone be channeled to Joburg, Cape Town or Durban? Why must we only rely on Telkom to do all the upgrades?
Click to expand...

Is it still the case that Telkom offers a ridiculously small discount on setting up more local POPs to make this unfeasible? i.e. 95% of the IPConnect cost is in the last mile and a bit extra, and only 5% in hauling from one side of the country to the other?

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/broadband/35888-mweb-ipc-adsl-costs-laid-bare.html
 
km2 said:
Is it still the case that Telkom offers a ridiculously small discount on setting up more local POPs to make this unfeasible? i.e. 95% of the IPConnect cost is in the last mile and a bit extra, and only 5% in hauling from one side of the country to the other?

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/broadband/35888-mweb-ipc-adsl-costs-laid-bare.html
Click to expand...
Unfortunately most of the cost is in the last mile...

And herein lies my argument - the ISP creating the additional POPs do not have to use Telkom's backbone to carry their traffic. There are now other options.
 
MickeyD said:
Unfortunately most of the cost is in the last mile...

And herein lies my argument - the ISP creating the additional POPs do not have to use Telkom's backbone to carry their traffic. There are now other options.
Click to expand...

There's a much longer pattern of Telkom behaviour that shows them yanking up the price of components that are at the time legally or technically difficult to replace, and then making all the other pieces of it cheap so there's no incentive to roll your own infrastructure even in the areas that you're able to do so. That's the problem, they make the parts that an ISP can replace utterly not worth replacing, and then price the parts they aren't able to replace ridiculously expensive.

When Seacom arrived there was a massive drop in international data prices, despite Telkom pretending before "oh it's all so expensive to run a cable internationally". Suddenly they figure out how to slash prices and at the same time lock ISPs into long term contracts. It's not based on input costs, it's based on the areas that Telkom has you over a barrel.

You don't fight this hard to keep a monopoly on an aspect of a business that has no supposed financial upside. I want to see Telkom step back from the legal challenges and go "please, why don't you try, maybe if you do it cheaply we can buy it from you?" before I buy the baloney that it's all just ISP whining.
 
I don't think the problem lies entirely with Telkom right at this moment.
I have seen several ISPs have issues with bandwidth overseas. CrystalWeb, and then, more recently, Afrihost.
It had nothing to do with Telkom as far as I could see...

I don't know what the problem is, I would love to know what the problem is, but its a STATE SECRET. The ISPs have taken me aside and told me they cannot tell me why it is, but it will take "a month or two" to resolve.

Call me a tin-foil-hatter but I suspect that there is a massive spying appliance in this country controlled by the NSA and the thing needs upgrading again and hence we all sit with crap internet.
 
km2 said:
I want to see Telkom step back from the legal challenges and go "please, why don't you try, maybe if you do it cheaply we can buy it from you?" before I buy the baloney that it's all just ISP whining.
Click to expand...

Cannot disagree too much with you except for this part... There is nothing preventing any licensed operator from doing this. As it is, Telkom leases links from DFA!
 
Pfffft. It's now the least of my worries. I'm busy preparing for a total nation-destroying blackout.
 
DarkSpectre said:
Pfffft. It's now the least of my worries. I'm busy preparing for a total nation-destroying blackout.
Click to expand...

see how many thinks its still a joke till they are either the ones doing the killing or being killed for survival.
 
MickeyD said:
They were?
Click to expand...
Up until the new licenses were awarded yes. Before that ISPs had to go to court just for the right to self provision. For all intents and purposes besides for the few areas with fibre deployments that I see you also like to refer to they still have a functional monopoly.

km2 said:
When Seacom arrived there was a massive drop in international data prices, despite Telkom pretending before "oh it's all so expensive to run a cable internationally". Suddenly they figure out how to slash prices and at the same time lock ISPs into long term contracts. It's not based on input costs, it's based on the areas that Telkom has you over a barrel.
Click to expand...
Also it being reported at the time how cheap access was for foreign ISPs versus local ones.
 
Swa said:
Up until the new licenses were awarded yes. Before that ISPs had to go to court just for the right to self provision. For all intents and purposes besides for the few areas with fibre deployments that I see you also like to refer to they still have a functional monopoly.
Click to expand...

Hang on... you are mixing up some things here. You said that Telkom had a monopoly on the INTERNET. That is not true else there would not have been any ISPs.
 
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