South Africa joined, more or less, the
broadband community last month with the introduction of ADSL
(Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line) technology - a cost
effective, always online solution pitched mainly for home
and SMME business users.
From a consumer perspective, ADSL is billed as an IT messiah
itching to unleash the virtual world on a bandwidth-starved
nation. As CUASA Chairman, Mike van den Bergh pointed out,
it's been a long time in coming, and should provide sufficient
bandwidth for its intended market for a few years to come.
 On
the client side, implementing ADSL seems simple enough. Consumers
will need to purchase an ADSL modem (around R2 000-00) that
makes use of high frequencies to transmit and receive data
through a standard telephone line cable. The solution provides
full-time connectivity while standard telephone calls can
still me made on the same line. Home users will need to pay
around R600-00 a month to Telkom for the use of the ADSL network
and a comparatively lower ISP fee starting from around R200-00
a month.
For all this, consumers have been told they will receive
download speeds as high as 512kb and upload speeds of 256kb.
But CUASA's representative from UUNET, Edwin Thompson, warns
that although ADSL will provide significant advantages over
the sluggish 56k modem, it's unlikely consumers will receive
anywhere near these bandwidth speeds. In addition, Thompson
said that pricing structures could once again be slanted in
favour of Telkom - effectively forcing ISPs to deliver bandwidth
at hugely discounted rates.
"Although the 512kb and 256kb speeds have been promoted
widely, it's important to note that Telkom will not guarantee
these speeds nor the uptime of the system," says Thompson.
Consumers may well benefit from massive bandwidth to their
local exchange, however many other factors will determine
their actual connectivity speed to the net.
Data that is transmitted to the local exchange through ADSL
is at the mercy of other technologies which carry the information
to the relevant ISP. In most cases, a DSLAM (DSL Access Module)
will feed an ATM transport network to a B-RAS with contention
ratios defined by Telkom and out of the control of the service
provider. From that point on, bandwidth speeds will be determined
by the size of the relevant ISP's connection to the B-RAS
using Telkom's ATM network.
"The ADSL consumer may well have massive connectivity
to their local exchange," explains Thompson, "but
that does not mean that the network transmitting from the
exchange to the B-RAS or from the B-RAS to the ISP is not
over-subscribed," he says. In short, if a number of ADSL
users are all making use of a 1mb link from their local exchange,
they will not receive anything near 512kb in download speeds.
And even if the line is not over-subscribed, the relevant
ISP's link to the ATM network could be, resulting in a similarly
reduced performance. In addition, Telkom has implemented a
3gig limit to the fixed price ADSL internet connectivity product.
Thompson warns that the apparent discrepancy between income
to Telkom as the ADSL provider and ISPs as bandwidth suppliers
could cause sever headaches for end users and industry players.
Telkom will obviously provide connectivity through ADSL to
their local exchange. They will then provide connectivity
from this exchange via their network to various ISP's including
their own, Telkom Internet. ISPs will not only need to pay
Telkom to connect to this infrastructure, but also for bulk
bandwidth needed by their subscribers. So consumers will pay
Telkom around R600-00 a month to connect to their local exchange.
The ISPs will then end up paying Telkom for the right to connect
their subscribers to their own network and then again for
actual internet connectivity. In short, ISPs will need to
pay for the bulk of the bandwidth from the thin side of the
revenue split.
Consumers could suffer from reduced connectivity speeds if
their ISP of choice is not able to purchase sufficient bandwidth
from Telkom to supply their needs. Thompson says that this
is likely to lead to structured packages from ISPs that deliver
additional bandwidth based on price.
The apparent catch is that Telkom Internet will also provide
access from about R200-00 a month. As they will be paying
their own company for connectivity, would it really matter
to them if pricing structures were so unfair that it would
make competition from other ISPs impossible?
Is it possible that Telkom Internet could increase its market
share because of an allegedly unreasonable pricing policy?
But isn't that a monopoly?
Then again, isn't Telkom a monopoly anyway?
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