ADSL 'will halve our Internet bill`

By Phillip de Wet for Telkom
Johannesburg, 16 Sep 2002

Three-man outfit IDXOnline received the first commercial installation of asymmetrical digital subscriber line (ADSL) Internet access in SA, and is more than happy with the result.

"We are fairly impressed with the speed and it is going to save us a bit of money," says IDX`s Bruce Bean.

IDX, an industrial communications and process automation firm, was using an ISDN line for its Internet connection like many small businesses across the country. Bean says none of the employees spent excessive time online but the monthly call charges on the line averaged R3 500.

The ADSL service, which carries no call charges, will cost the company a little over R1 100 a month in total, regardless of usage. The savings will cover the cost of both the installation fee and an ADSL modem within a month or two.

Price critics

Telkom has come in for severe criticism since it made ADSL available in selected areas on a commercial trial basis at the end of August. Users have slammed the pricing as excessive in comparison with what is offered elsewhere in the world and Internet service providers complain that they were not given the opportunity to prepare for the technology.

But Telkom says IDX`s experience is proof that its offering is hitting the spot.

"This is exactly why we said this is for discerning Internet users who understand what they spend on access in a month," says Christine Pretorius, Telkom senior manager for product development. "ADSL fills the gap between typical dial-up and leased-line products and there is a lot of value in it for small businesses."

Bean says the company, based in Fourways in Johannesburg, was lucky to not only fall into the initial roll-out area but to have fairly new copper telephone lines in excellent condition, a prerequisite for ADSL.

It did take some tweaking to get everything running at optimum speeds, he says. It took some time to track down a glitch that had some Web pages display only partially to the maximum transmission unit (MTU) setting, a physical packet size limit.

The MTU setting is important, confirms Telkom technology integration manager Adrian Smith. Although Windows XP "works beautifully" with ADSL, he says the more widely used Windows 98 and even Windows 2000 is by default optimised for dial-up type speeds.

Another tweak IDX found important is the TCP receive window size, a setting Smith says is even more important than the MTU.

Getting the local settings right can become fairly hairy for the non-technical, one reason Telkom cites for restricting the initial roll-out. But Smith reports a 30% to 40% improvement in data throughput after tweaking certain systems. "Everybody should be doing it," he says.

Smith says the 512Kbps Telkom is offering on ADSL should equate to an effective 420Kbps throughput and anyone achieving less than that has some system adjustments to do.

Ports available

Telkom says it is still two months or more away from filling the 1 700 ports it has available for the initial roll-out in Gauteng. Pretorius says a handful of applicants will be up and running this week but less than 300 feasible orders have been received to date, despite a flurry of excitement at the launch.

She is encouraging those outside the regions where ADSL is available to submit orders nonetheless. "Even if it is outside the footprint we will keep orders as a demand indicator and consider areas for future roll-out."

Resources for tweaking systems for ADSL are available at www.telkom.co.za/adsl and the company also recommends the www.dslreports.com Web site.