Telkom pushes ahead

ADSL South Africa (Broadband South Africa), 22 August 2007

Telkom is pushing ahead with their broadband plans. The growing of the company’s ADSL access network and the development of new voice-over-broadband and triple-play services form part of the company’s broadband plans.

ADSL expansion plans…

‘A recent presentation by Bashier Sallie, Telkom’s acting chief technical officer, pointed out that the company continues to pursue their DSL expansion plans and that the company had 594 000 ADSL ports installed at the end of March 2007’ (Telkom continues strong broadband focus, MyBroadband, 13 August 2007). Also, ‘Telkom plans to reach a 15-20% ADSL penetration of fixed access lines by 2011, which will give them around 800 000 to 900 000 broadband subscribers’ (Telkom continues strong broadband focus, MyBroadband, 13 August 2007).

In other words, Telkom is still pushing for huge growth in the number of ADSL subscribers.

WiMax coverage plans…

‘Telkom is also increasing its current WiMax coverage and they have set a target of erecting 57 new base stations’ (Telkom continues strong broadband focus, MyBroadband, 13 August 2007).

In other words, Telkom is hard set to bring wireless Internet access to more South Africans that are not able to access the Internet via ADSL.

Before we move on…

Despite the fact that Telkom is not renown for great customer service, we think wireless Internet access providers should take note of Telkom’s plans to expand its WiMax coverage. iBurst for one must shape up or lose out when Telkom’s WiMax rollout really picks up steam. It’s no secret that a growing number of iBurst subscribers are disgruntled by iBurst’s invoice errors, below promised Internet speeds, et cetera. It came therefore as no surprise that a platform of protest similar to Hellkom, HellBurst, has recently seen first light. We predict iBurst’s handling of the situation will make or break the wireless Internet access provider, since there’s no monopoly to fall back on. 

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