ICASA getting involved

Yesterday was one of the more important days for the broadband community in South Africa.

Telkom, the monopoly in South Africa providing communication services will soon be grabbed by the neck for taking advantage of it's position as the only provider in the company and will soon have to adhere to the regulations set forth by ICASA(The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa).

Yesterday the first ADSL Draft Regulations was drawn up which encompasses the following:

14-day Installation period IF in a ADSL enabled area

No resets of Ip address every 24 hours

Once off connectivity charge

No monthly ADSL line rental just normal monthly telephone line rental

Maximum upload speed of 384 kbps

A cap of 10GB instead of the current 3

Local bandwidth shall not be included in the cap, which at the moment is

No port prioritization

It looks like things will start moving now, but like all things to do with government, I reckon we will only see the effect of this in a about a year or so.

Check ICASA's site for the official government gazette publication.
MyADSL post and discussion.