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Telkom SA (News - Alert), touted to be Africa's largest integrated communications company, is looking to ramp up broadband offerings in that region. In doing so, it hopes to be able to meet customer demand for greater bandwidth and speed.

For starters, Telkom SA is upgrading its ADSL so that it can effectively increase the value to entry-level broadband users, said officials. The first leg of the upgrade process has begun and on completion, consumers of ADSL should expect a boost to connection speeds.

ADSL is a type digital subscriber line communications technology that allows users to connect to the Internet and also allow more content to be sent over existing copper telephone lines, when compared to traditional modem lines.

According to Telkom, ADSL lines offering a download speed of up to 384 kbps will be increased to 1Mbs and the one Mbps lines will be upgraded to a speed of two Mbps. The first upgrade cycle is expected to continue for approximately six weeks and during that time Telkom expects to cover the national base.

By instituting the upgrade in a phased manner from August to September, Telkom SA will have taken a huge step forward to gradually provide entry-level broadband customers, in various areas, with differentiated offerings, accelerating the pace at which broadband is evolving in the country.

This ADSL upgrade announcement comes on the heels of the launch of the high-capacity West African Cable System (Wacs), which links southern Africa and Europe and takes Telkom one step closer to its goal of consolidating its position as the premier provider of fixed broadband.

Telkom noted that it with the upgrade it would be well positioned to create new products and services that allow customers to run multiple bandwidth-hungry applications simultaneously, and at faster speeds.

Residential customers will have access to newer broadband offerings and small and medium businesses will now have access to a wider range of business utilities. Some price adjustments may be in the offing.

Telkom SA, regarded as one of the largest integrated communications companies in Africa, selected Alcatel-Lucent’s (News - Alert) ISAM product family to improve the availability of superfast broadband services to subscribers throughout South Africa. Alcatel-Lucent will provide the network equipment to facilitate this network transformation.

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