Telkom plans faster upload

By Candice Jones for Telkom
Johannesburg, 11 Feb 2008

Telkom is testing upload speeds of 4 096kbps on its Fastest DSL offering. The pilot started at the beginning of February and customers with the ADSL 1 024kbps product will have access to the new upload rates.

"This allowed customers to synchronise to a maximum downstream bit rate of 4 096kbps, depending on line lengths and copper quality, with a minimum downstream synch rate of 640kbps," says Marius Mostert, group executive for national infrastructure provisioning at Telkom.

Mostert says the pilot seeks to increase the upload synch rate from 256kbps to 384kbps uplink, to around 256kbps to 640kbps. "The continued upgrade of these services will be managed based on the results obtained, and by gradually increasing the footprint over time in order to control the effects expected."

The pilot will continue until the end of March.

Last month, MTN and Vodacom introduced faster download speeds on their broadband offerings, at 3.6Mbps HSDPA service. Both companies also suggested that an HSDPA 7.2Mbps offering would soon be available.

MTN says it has already gone live with 7.2Mbps at various sites in Cape Town. The company plans to upgrade several HSDPA sites to 7.2Mbps; however, it will only go live when there is enough capacity to support the high speeds, it says.

Vodacom has reportedly upgraded to the high-speed product on several towers in SA's larger cities.