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Cape Town - A South African internet service provider is offering to guarantee customers that their internet speed won't be cut because of the content being downloaded.
On Monday, OpenWeb launched Download Heaven, which guarantees unshaped internet access.
"Our clients have already responded enthusiastically. We have had such a huge demand for a guaranteed unshaped window when clients can download at full speed," said OpenWeb CEO Keoma Wright.
While uncapped internet access has become a virtually standard offering among the country's ISPs, consumers complain that speeds are typically reduced (shaped) when downloading rich media content such as movies or even online gaming.
ISPs generally shape data networks to prevent heavy users from monopolising the service. ISPs usually reduce video data in favour of text based content such as websites or e-mail.
High speed data
Open Web said that the Download Heaven service would apply from 00:00 to 06:00.
The lack of high speed data services in SA continues to have a direct impact on the kind of internet services consumers can expect.
For cable broadband services, there are around 800 000 ADSL subscribers in the country, but the Draft National Broadband Policy has set 2020 as a goal for 100% broadband coverage.
"Although a large number of internet service providers can provide internet services over ADSL, their ability to differentiate their offerings and service levels is limited by that fact that there are only three points of interconnect on the Telkom network, which effectively makes them entirely dependent on Telkom for domestic networking," the document says.
While the government has advocated open access on Telkom's network, it remains unclear how this will be achieved in practice.
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