Thumbs down for Telkom

ADSL South Africa (Broadband South Africa), 26 February 2007

Telkom’s cheapest ADSL offering is according to the latest research done by research firm Point-Topic definitely not cheap.

‘Locally, Telkom’s DSL384 is the lowest priced ADSL offering on the market. This offering has a maximum speed of 384 Kbps and carries a monthly usage limit of 2 GB, the total cost for this service is R 544-00 per month, nearly three times the cost of a Fiber-To-Home connection internationally’ (Telkom’s DSL384 more expensive than FTTX, MyADSL, 20 February 2007). In other words, Telkom’s cheapest ADSL offering is definitely not cheap when compared to ‘the average international price for a Fiber-To-The-Premise (FTTX) connection’ (Telkom’s DSL384 more expensive than FTTX, MyADSL, 20 February 2007).

What about speed?

Fiber-To-The-Premise (FTTX) connections can deliver speeds ranging between 2 and 100 Mbps. This is very fast in comparison to Telkom’s DSL384 service and most ADSL broadband offerings available in South Africa.

No wonder the citizens of Japan and Korea are already giving up ADSL broadband in large numbers for fibre-based broadband connections. ‘This in effect means that South Africa is now two ‘technology generations’ – i.e. ADSL2+ and Fiber’ - behind these nations which can make it difficult for local Internet entrepreneurs and developers to compete with their international counterparts’ (Telkom’s DSL384 more expensive than FTTX, MyADSL, 20 February 2007).

Why is South Africa two ‘technology generations’ behind these nations?

Telkom among others are mainly to be blamed for the state of affairs.

Telkom’s ‘sadistic stranglehold’ on the fixed-line telecoms market in South Africa for one has done a lot of harm to our economy. Described as a ‘sadistic stranglehold’ because they seem to derive pleasure from inflicting pain on others. Economic pain because the high prices they charge for broadband and other telecoms services are clearly placing an unnecessary burden on businesses as well as individuals in South Africa.

ADSL South Africa (Broadband South Africa) trust that responsible players will get the ball rolling so that we can see the type of broadband we can only read about at this stage.