Telkom's ADSL best Broadband Service in SA.

Telkom's ADSL service has reaffirmed its status as the best broadband service in South Africa. In recent tests on South African broadband services conducted by MyADSL and the Department of BIT, University of Johannesburg, Telkom's four ADSL offerings proved superior to the other services.

This is the second set of results produced by the newly formed broadband laboratory run by the Department of Business Information Technology at the University of Johannesburg.

The study involved in-depth testing of Telkom's ADSL, Sentech's MyWireless, Vodacom's 3G, WBS's iBurst and MTN's 3G packages.

This study relied on data gathered from both the broadband laboratory and over 150 volunteer broadband testers to ensure accurate results. Over 50 000 diagnostic tests were performed gathering data about 60 different aspects of each service, including cost, reliability, speed and general service levels.

Telkom's DSL 384 performed consistently in all departments and emerged as the best service with a score of 76%. Telkom's other DSL offerings were not far behind.

DSL 192 was second at 75% while DSL 512 and DSL 1024 were tied in third position at 74% each. DSL 1024 produced the best performance in most departments (including speed, VOIP, latency and P2P), but its higher cost dragged it down in the rankings.

Sentech's MyWireless was again the cream of the crop when it came to the wireless broadband services with a percentage of 64%. While it was far superior to the other wireless offerings it was unable to compete favourably with Telkom's fixed line ADSL service.

WBS's iBurst finished sixth with 48%, Vodacom's 3G seventh with 31% and MTN's 3G last with 30%.

Rudolph Muller, from MyADSL and researcher at the broadband laboratory, said "This report is the most comprehensive evaluation ever of the broadband offerings in South Africa and will provide consumers and companies with accurate information about the broadband services available in the marketplace. Consumers can now make an informed decision when it comes to broadband offerings while the operators know which aspects of their service need attention".