Telkom to comply with ADSL regulations

By Damaria Senne for Telkom
Johannesburg, 20 Nov 2006

Telkom expects to become fully compliant with the ADSL regulations, which went into effect in August, by March 2007.

Spokesman Lulu Letlape says the fixed-line operator has already complied with many of the provisions.

"We have also been engaged in dialogue with the Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) to ensure full compliance," she says.

One of the provisions of the ADSL regulations is that local bandwidth is uncapped.

"My understanding of the regulations is that ISPs can continue to charge for bandwidth on a usage-based fee; however, they may not set an upper limit (cap) on local bandwidth," says Greg Massel, co-chairman of the Internet Service Providers' Association.

However, ISPs were unable to comply with this regulation until Telkom was fully compliant, as they stood to suffer losses unless Telkom restructured the wholesale ADSL accounts of the South African Internet Exchange (SAIX).

Telkom's limited compliance, as well as the fact that ICASA does not seem to be taking action against the fixed-line operator, outraged many stakeholders, including members of the MyADSL Forum.

"How can an ISP be responsible to supply its clients with uncapped local bandwidth when the ISP is paying per gigabyte on that local realm account?" asked a member.

Ideally, Telkom should scrap the IP connect fee, thereby allowing ISPs to deliver their own bandwidth and structure their own packages, Massel has previously stated.

Telkom should engage the ISPs and allow them to give input about the structuring of SAIX service offerings, based on their clients' requests, he said.

Being fully compliant with ADSL regulations will also mean Telkom provides ADSL services within 30 days of application. Telkom has conceded a number of times that it has a backlog of ADSL orders.

However, CEO Papi Molotsane said - at the group's interim results presentation last week - that Telkom was making headway in reducing the ADSL lead times.