{"id":24755,"date":"2012-10-29T10:07:33","date_gmt":"2012-10-29T08:07:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=24755"},"modified":"2012-10-29T11:26:07","modified_gmt":"2012-10-29T09:26:07","slug":"adsl-prices-and-wholesale-rates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/internet\/24755\/adsl-prices-and-wholesale-rates\/","title":{"rendered":"ADSL prices and wholesale rates"},"content":{"rendered":"

As part of South Africa\u2019s local loop unbundling (LLU) process, the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa<\/a>) has called on bitstream access to be introduced by 1 November 2012.<\/p>\n

However, the benefits of a bitstream service may be minimal, unless it results in a wholesale ADSL<\/a> price cut.<\/p>\n

MWeb<\/a> ISP CEO, Derek Hershaw<\/a> says that, based on the feedback the company has received so far, Telkom<\/a>\u2019s initial bitstream offering will have no commercial benefits over the existing IPConnect (IPC) product which is currently used for wholesale ADSL access.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe new bitstream service will also not enable us to [do] anything new in terms of product differentiation,\u201d said Hershaw.<\/p>\n

The MWeb ISP CEO said that he would like to see a reduction in costs for bitstream when compared to IPC.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlso, we\u2019d like to see an improvement in the service level agreement (SLA) for bitstream, compared to the \u2018best effort\u2019 SLA provided with IPC,\u201d Hershaw said.<\/p>\n

Hershaw continued, saying that if bitstream access does not offer any financial benefits over IPC, MWeb is unlikely to make use of it.<\/p>\n

Cybersmart<\/a> CEO, Laurie Fialkov<\/a> also called for lower wholesale ADSL prices from Telkom. \u201cThere will be no real cost advantage unless the price per Mbps for bitstream comes in below IPC,\u201d said Fialkov.<\/p>\n

The Cybersmart CEO also called for a naked ADSL service (an ADSL service without a bundled voice line service) to drive down costs.<\/p>\n

\"Douglas-Reed\"<\/a>

Douglas-Reed<\/p><\/div>\n

Vox Telecom<\/a> CEO, Douglas Reed<\/a> said that bitstream access will provide the company with more quality of service (QoS) control. It also technically simplifies the ADSL solutions and increases efficiencies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese benefits will spill over to our customers with better pricing and quality,\u201d said Reed.<\/p>\n

Reed also called for appropriate, market-related pricing and service levels to ensure that bitstream access adds value to ISPs.<\/p>\n

Web Africa<\/a> CTO, Rupert Bryant<\/a> said that “good pricing” is the main thing which the ISP would like to see from a bitstream service. \u201cIt will be pointless unless the price point is attractive against IPC,\u201d Bryant said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s doubtful that bitstream will help the affordability for the majority of consumers, but it all depends on what Telkom does with their pricing,\u201d said Bryant.<\/p>\n

True wholesale division needed: Neology CEO<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Roelf<\/a>

Roelf Diedericks<\/p><\/div>\n

Neology<\/a> CTO, Roelf Diedericks<\/a> said that he hopes, at the very least, that Telkom is forced to create a true wholesale division with its own presence and systems to deal with providers \u2013 similar to BT Wholesale in the UK.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think and hope that we\u2019re going to see a lot of replication of the BT Wholesale model \u2013 even Telkom\u2019s name for the product ‘IPStream’ matches BT\u2019s Wholesale product,\u201d said Diedericks.<\/p>\n

Diedericks said further that he expects a price reduction compared to IPC pricing, since bitstream is technologically simpler for Telkom to manage, and will reduce the load on their ESR\u2019s and authentication infrastructure.<\/p>\n

\u201cI fear however, that Telkom is going to over-complicate bitstream once again, in order to try and maintain an (anti)-competitive advantage,\u201d said Diedericks.<\/p>\n

Related articles<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cutting ADSL prices: ISPs say what needs to be done<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Naked ADSL will happen: MWEB ISP CEO<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Better ADSL in SA: Why is Telkom not listening?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

MWEB naked ADSL disappointment<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Boosting ADSL in South Africa<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are calling for further wholesale ADSL rate cuts to allow them to provide better value to their subscribers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16269,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9882],"tags":[79,435,2179,63,26,36,437,38,411,955,65,62,953],"class_list":["post-24755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-internet","tag-adsl","tag-cybersmart","tag-derek-hershaw","tag-douglas-reed","tag-headline","tag-icasa","tag-laurie-fialkov","tag-mweb","tag-roelf-diedericks","tag-rupert-bryant","tag-telkom","tag-vox-telecom","tag-web-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24755"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24912,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24755\/revisions\/24912"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}