Broadband users had the opportunity to be heard during public hearings into ADSL pricing this week, held by the Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA), and most took the opportunity to point fingers at Telkom.
Rudolph Muller, founder of MyADSL, an online forum with over 10 000 members, asked Telkom to deliver to users the services it advertises.
Using a Telkom advertisement, Muller showed Telkom has offered broadband users large downloads for everything from music, movies and online gaming in seconds, not minutes. The advertisement urges users to "get a life online", he noted.
Contrary to its advertisements, Telkom informed ICASA in its written submission that "Telkom`s ADSL service was never intended for bandwidth-hungry applications, such as gaming or online trading", said Muller.
Port prioritisation, capping
Two individual users, Mike Lawrie and Antowan Nothling, also addressed the issue of broadband promised by Telkom, as it relates to price capping and port prioritisation.
Telkom has previously recommended that users of data-hungry applications, such as online gaming, should rather purchase unshaped ADSL products. This would ensure they enjoy a quality ADSL experience without compromising the experience of the majority of ADSL users, it said.
However, Nothling and Muller noted that unshaped ADSL is even more exorbitantly priced than shaped ADSL. Nothling, who called for the abolition of port prioritisation, also argued that, once having been paid for broadband, the seller had no right to dictate how it should be used and to prejudice him if he used it for peer-to-peer communication.
Lawrie also suggested that ADSL capping be done away with. He noted there is no mechanism in place for the user to verify and query the usage figures from Telkom.
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