That's like buying a Ferrari and only getting a Fiesta engine in it... htf?

Telkom must

Telkom Gives 'Guaranteed' Minimum ADSL Speeds
By MyADSL, 31 January 2007

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Telkom recently started publishing minimum speeds associated with its ADSL offerings, assumable to fall in line with the ADSL regulations.


The Telkom website provides both the minimum and the maximum upstream and downstream speeds.

According to Telkom their DSL384 service has a minimum downstream speed of 256kbps and a maximum of 384kbps. On the upstream side it is 64kbps and 128kbps respectively.

Its DSL512 service carries a minimum downlink speed of 416kbps, a maximum of 512kbps and a minimum and maximum of 192kbps and 256kbps in the uplink department.

Its DSL Up to 4096Kbps trial has a maximum speed of 4096kbps and a minimum of 640kbps. There are however three other profiles in this trial, namely 3072kbps, 2048kbps and1024kbps.

ADSL Regulations

The ADSL regulations stipulate that Telkom, Neotel and ISPs must guarantee minimum speeds to ensure that the ADSL service does not lose its broadband characteristics which are defined as having a downlink speed of 256 Kbps.

This definition is however grossly inadequate as it does not clearly stipulate how the downlink speed must be measured, which means that it may well be interpreted as actual user experience from local and international servers, or even as the sync rate of the specific service.

As it is not in Telkom’s interest to guarantee either international or local throughput, the minimum and maximum speeds given on their website refer to sync speed rather than actual throughput.

The sync speed is not of much value to consumers who are looking for an indication of the ‘real-world’ performance of a broadband service.

Local and international bandwidth provisioning and contention ratios associated with this bandwidth allocation directly influence the actual throughput of their service and without this information the sync rate is of little value.

Telkom did give the local contention ratio, namely 20:1, but remains mum on their international contention ratios which influence the speed at which international websites and services are accessed.

Lack of clarity

The lack of clarity from ICASA regarding its ADSL regulations continue to influence the provisioning of ADSL and hence the level of transparency from Telkom regarding the characteristics of their ADSL service.

It is not surprising that organizations like ISPA, who have requested clarity from the ICASA on which elements of the access layer will be utilised in measuring a minimum broadband service, have been left in the dark.

Without clarity and an improved set of regulations from ICASA, Telkom will continue to run circles around the Authority and make a mockery of the regulations.