There have been drastic price cuts following MWEB's surprise announcement last month. What do you think about this development and what improvements would you like to see in the service provision? Or do you simply require more information on the uncapped ADSL?

Your comments will be published on our website as an initiative to promote better service delivery that matches users' expectations.

Email us on: support@cyberconnect.co.za

The pre-Easter period was a particularly good one for internet users as we witnessed ISP after ISP announcing price cuts on their uncapped ADSL offerings. Finally, the country took tentative steps towards comforming to international trends characterised by basement pricing structures. Although the local tariffs are still unacceptably high, these price reversals are a harbinger of better times indeed.

Many small office/home office (SOHO)  and SME enterprises have had their business stifled by the high cost of internet bandwidth in South Africa. For those who could afford it there was the uncapped ADSL offering of the past but this was hugely expensive and slow, making that uncapped ADSL offering impractical for the majority of SOHO users.

Local internet users were previously shackled by what Hilton Tarrant, a Moneyweb columinst, refers to as "data metering". Because the users had to closesly monitor the amount of data they consumed in an attempt to make it last for the month, they could not derive optimal value from their internet connectivity as a consequence.

Large corporates with branches in different locations can set-up a cost-effective and secure wide area network using the Multi-protocol Label Switching (MPLS) standardised protocol.

What is MPLS?

MPLS is a standardised protocol that enables high performance IP networks. This protocol facilitates  efficient data transmission across a network by leveraging the "label switching" technology. This is much more superior solution than running a VPN over the Internet.

Sharp companies know that cost cutting is one of the key factors to survive the economic downturn. The real smart ones know that cutting down on staff only means you are worse off in the long run, and look to reduce costs in other areas.

I must confess that the Confederation Cup fever that is gripping the country at the present moment has not spared me. Being an ardent soccer fan and a bit player, I find the pull of big names players like Kaka, Torres, Fabregas et al irresistible. The country has proved a capable host of high profile games and I cannot wait to see the juicy clashes between the top 8 soccer nations showcase "sexy" soccer and incredible goals. That is what we fans enjoy most!

Channel bonding now allows businesses to channel multiple ADSL lines with other access technologies like diginet/leased lines and wireless connections, such as WiMax and 3g/hsdpa into a single large pipe for Internet access. The first generation of channel bonding only allowed for the bonding of similar broadband technologies but now it is possible to bond heterogenous WAN/Internet access technologies!

An ADSL question we frequently get asked is "Why does web browsing, you-tube video watching or software downloading grind to a halt when I am uploading?" This is a good question as  ADSL is, after all. a full duplex technology, which means that it should be able to upload and download at the same time, albeit at vastly different speeds. So why is it that when one is uploading to flickr or you-tube that you cannot get to your new site?

In the current economic climate many companies are downgrading from expensive diginet lines, with their low bandwidth and high cost, to bonded ADSL which allows up to 20Mbps download speeds and up to 2Mbps upload speed.  But bonded ADSL can also be used to cut costs by providing cheap and abundant bandwidth for a VOIP trunk for your IP-PBX, such as Asterisk, and not just to save mone