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This year could see true broadband.2012-01-30 According to Wikipedia, a 2006 Organisation for Business Co-operation and Development report outlined broadband as having download information transfer rates equivalent to or quicker than 256 kbps, while the U. S. Fed. Communications Commission as of 2010, outlined "Basic Broadband" as information transmission speeds of about four Mbps, downstream and one Mbps upstream. The South African state in its broadband policy document broadcast in Sep 2009 stated : "Broadband is an exceedingly broadly used term and the velocity at which a network connection is said to be a broadband Internet connection has different view points both domestically and worldwide. The ITU Standardisation sector outlines Broadband as a speed of 1,5 to two Mbps while the ITU development sector outlines Broadband to be 256 kbps." It eventually boils down to the actuality that broadband in S. A. is 256 kbps. At the time of the releasing of the Broadband Policy, the Dep. of Communication and the minister were heavily criticized for a document that alleges to claim a lot but essentially asserts little. The most important issue is that both industry and govt. have been justifying the state of local broadband by at first blaming the absence of world connectivity, and then after a few new submarine wires landed on our shores, the absence of local spine structure. With another submarine wire ( WACS ) coming into service in the following couple of months, assorted players have been building fibre networks to attach the landing station on the Cape West Coast with the hinterland. When that's finished there shouldn't be any more excuses as to the reasons why we won't get at least ten Mbps. But will we? Telkom has for a few years been promising to upgrade their four Mbps offering to ten Mbps and have done so in 1 or 2 selected areas. The remainder of us are waiting for their Metro Ethernet to be expanded which looks to be progressing awfully slowly, though lately 1 or 2 mobile suppliers increased their broadband offerings in selected areas. There's also the price issue. In SA broadband is dear and, though the costs have dropped during the last one or two years, we are some distance from competitive compared with most of the planet. Latterly it was rumored that by mid-2012 broadband will be supplied free however the rumor didn't include at what speed and who would be providing it. But is ten Mbps quick enough to enjoy movies in realtime? Not particularly. In several nations speeds up to 10 times or even more are typically offered. The technology is available, but naturally we have another good excuse : "frequency allocation". But there's hope! On fourteen December8194;2011 the Minister of Communications issued a demand for comment on 2 draft policies : A directive to the Independent Communications Authority of SA ( ICASA ) to fast track the finalisation of the technique for range and suitability standards in the 2500 2690 MHz ( 2,6 GHz ) bands. To think about the extent of the action to be taken at a state level to plug the efficient usage of the digital dividend range in the frequency bands 174 230 MHz and 470 790 MHz. |
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