Capacity cracks creep in

It's been a year since SA's new undersea cable lit up capacity and started providing us with much-needed international capacity relief.

It's hard to criticise something that has really made a difference to the industry, but there is no doubt that the cracks are starting to show.

In September last year, I was at a press conference where the company's CEO, Brian Herlihy, moaned that the buy-in to Seacom by South African companies was exceptionally disappointing. He explained that Kenyan companies had grasped the capacity with both hands and were already feeling the benefits.

Most companies were afraid to take up any significant chunk of Seacom, primarily because there is no redundancy on the cable. Telkom has always had the redundancy on its SAT3 cable through SAFE, making it a strong choice for many Internet providers.

The trouble was that Telkom's stranglehold on international capacity made it very expensive, and the introduction of Seacom, an open access cable, would severely bring down the price.

However, slowly but surely, local Internet providers started taking up capacity and more than six months after the landing, the cable really started to show muscle in the Internet space. This was proven by the broadband price war, which stunned the market earlier this year.

The price war led to the amazing concept of uncapped Internet, and although it has its faults, it has left little room for scepticism that SA's Internet space is far better off than it was last year.

So, in case you haven't noticed, Seacom has had a few oopsies over the last few months. At the end of April, many local businesses were plunged into Internet darkness for several days after supposedly routine maintenance turned into a PR nightmare.

My colleagues joked that it was my fault, since, on the day the Seacom line failed, I managed to file all my copy on time. There may be some truth in that, but I don't accept the blame!

Criticising the Internet providers for taking up Seacom is like lambasting Superman for rescuing that damsel in distress.

Candice Jones, telecoms editor, ITWeb

More seriously, the time it took to get the undersea cable back online cost many companies more than they can afford in terms of productivity. Again, last week, there was some trouble on the line, but luckily, it was only down for a few hours.

ITWeb's Internet access is provided by one of the larger service providers and not a week goes by without a problem with international Internet access.

The downtime should be unacceptable, but it has started to become the norm. What happened to the failover? Where is the redundancy and can we actually enforce our service level agreements when these failures happen?

Criticising the Internet providers for taking up Seacom is like lambasting Superman for rescuing that damsel in distress, because, to be honest, the ISPs are between a rock and a hard place.

When ISPs slowly started taking up capacity on Seacom, they did it grudgingly, and they were certainly conscious of the possibility of failure on the line. But without that access, there would be no fancy cheap uncapped offerings on the shelf for consumers.

All the Internet providers do have failover to the SAT3 cable, but many have limited that capacity, because of the cost. But with limited failover capacity, who do you service first?

So for ISPs, ITWeb's puny 100-staff Internet access is not a priority. Instead, these companies will failover the Nedbanks and the Anglos of the world, allowing those profiteers to keep doing business.

Does that mean small and medium businesses don't deserve a decent quality of service? Absolutely not.

The trouble is that these ISPs are still trying to find their feet when it comes to offering services off the Seacom cable. They must now evaluate whether they can provide a redundant service to all the customers they currently have.

If the answer is no, then don't offer services to the small and medium business. Perhaps, like the telcos, segment the market, with some companies focusing on the enterprise clients, and others looking at the SME market.

In the meantime, while there are definitely cracks showing, having access to my uncapped DSL at home is appreciated. It is possible that it's only a matter of time before the ISPs decide how to handle the market.

And until the dust settles in the wake of the broadband war, we'll be left wondering.