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South Africa's Broadband Industry in Turmoil
Gldm writes from South Africa that "things are heading towards all-out war down here. Our regulatory board ICASA (think FCC) finally woke up and publihsed the results of hearings on 446 complaints about monopoly broadband provider Telkom, which was deregulated back in Febuary, and proposed new regulations to take effect in four weeks. ICASA demands the 3GB monthly traffic cap be removed, port shaping removed, minimum speed requirements be enforced, and that Telkom stop double-charging customers." Read on for the rest; it sounds like (for once!) broadband customers in the U.S. can be grateful for relatively good broadband, instead of envious of South Korea's ubiquitous high-speed access.
"Currently we pay exorbitant rates: a monthly fee for the physical line of R87, then Telkom charges a fee of R270 to R477 depending on line speed 192-512kbps, and THEN the standard ISP fee, which is typically another R300-500 or more. This means a total monthly DSL cost of around R1000 or about US $160 for a 512k line with 3GB of traffic before you get cut off, and all ports but 80 useless internationally. ICASA says Telkom should charge a fixed fee to cover the line cost when it is installed like every other country, not a monthly fee.
Telkom's response is that ICASA doesn't know how to run a network and this would make the network "unsustainable" and prevent them from recovering R1bn in investments. They've threatened to not only to stop investing in new infrastructure, but also shut down all DSL service in the country, bringing business to a standstill.
Local politcal group the Inkatha Freedom Party has sided with ICASA and is saying Telkom must not be allowed to hold the country hostage. They're calling for the Minister of Communications to step in, but so far no official word from high up in the government."
"Currently we pay exorbitant rates: a monthly fee for the physical line of R87, then Telkom charges a fee of R270 to R477 depending on line speed 192-512kbps, and THEN the standard ISP fee, which is typically another R300-500 or more. This means a total monthly DSL cost of around R1000 or about US $160 for a 512k line with 3GB of traffic before you get cut off, and all ports but 80 useless internationally. ICASA says Telkom should charge a fixed fee to cover the line cost when it is installed like every other country, not a monthly fee.
Telkom's response is that ICASA doesn't know how to run a network and this would make the network "unsustainable" and prevent them from recovering R1bn in investments. They've threatened to not only to stop investing in new infrastructure, but also shut down all DSL service in the country, bringing business to a standstill.
Local politcal group the Inkatha Freedom Party has sided with ICASA and is saying Telkom must not be allowed to hold the country hostage. They're calling for the Minister of Communications to step in, but so far no official word from high up in the government."
I thought that was a random troll , till i noticed it was a reply . ,Egypt , South Africa and Somalia .
Checked on the parent post and what do you know .
Your 100% right , he is a bit ignorant indeed.
Why do people continually think of Africa as a single nation , Its an entire continent with many wide and diverse cultures . Taking three extremes
Its like saying the USA , Mexico and Lithuania and basically the same country.
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
The site that initiated the complaints is www.myadsl.co.za, a forum for users of ADSL in South Africa that got fed up with the shoddy service and lodged the complaint with the regulator. Thanks to Telkom South Africa is still in the Dark Ages when it comes to internet access. Hopefully with recent developments we'll have better service soon!
We've got a nice IRC channel for people who don't believe SA has internet. Also our own server, irc.ac.za (though your ping to it will probably suck), and for the clientless, http://www.ircd.co.za/ for a java client to it. Or if you just like forums, http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/
I would have submitted this sooner, but it seems that any time I'm at work, if I try to post a comment on slashdot, it gives me "You can't post to this page." Yet it works fine at home on another ISP. I've tried asking what's going on, if it's some kind of domain ban, but nobody ever replied.
Introducing the new Occam Fusion! Now with sqrt(-1) fewer blades!