Sentech aims to be major player

The story is at http://www.bday.co.za/bday/content/direct/1,3523,1666612-49567117-0,00.html

>>>
<font face="Times New Roman">Since the entry-level MyWireless service costs R649 a month, its hopes of wooing 30% of SA's 3,5million internet users may prove unrealistic. Many internet users are price-sensitive, and many more are occasional surfers who do not need a fast or expensive connection.

A large proportion of SA users pay under R150 a month for internet access, plus the cost of their phone calls, while users of Telkom's high-speed service pay about R800 a month.

To cut its fees Sentech was exploring various ways to reduce its bandwidth costs, including juggling its use of cable and satellite transmissions, marketing executive Marcel Raath said.</font id="Times New Roman">&lt;&lt;&lt;

The www.nowire.co.za MyWirelessLite is for cash registers and transactions only. Why don't they have a <b>MyWirelessLite</b> version for Internet access?

At present the cheapest service is R499 but with a R3500+ outlay. If they have a R300 service that <b>only provides 56k/64k and decent software for the USB modem</b>, it may just work.

My favourite option would be to charge R400/month and provide 56k for the first 18 months, plus a free modem. By this time the cost of the modem is paid off (R3500/18=R195) and then users can either "upgrade" to the 128k option, or stay put at, say, R300/month.

I'm not sure if all the install CDs are as bad, but my Windows 98 software is buggy and unstable.

<font color="purple">Come on NoWire/Sentech, it's the right thing to do!</font id="purple">

Donn Edwards
http://privacy.4mg.com

Major Player?

That will take awhile for that to happen.

At least they are trying.

IMHO, Sentech is definitely a player, and most definitely NOT a contender

128K|21%|13SNL|66 Menlopark 2530

ya the 56k thing would work! ppl are looking for cheap 24/7 connectivity. Surfing and checking mail does not really need broadband.56k packages can block p2p to save bandwidth.With a 56k package its easiar to provide a good service.if uninet can offer it then i think Sentech and telkom should be able to. They don't need to have steep setup costs.

..- dot dot dash

This is a broadband forum....56k just don't cut it 128 just barely -- there's no point goin there.

The problem will still be that 56k will be the product name and not the available bandwidth.
Can you imagine :
Orc : uhhhh, sorry but your 0.25KB is within the acceptable range

Ow the pain. the really sad thing is that that would most likely happen. can you imagine trying to open a web page at 0.2 kb/sec? ill have to start taking valium and retilin just to keep up with the internet speed

Proud South african rip offs.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">If they have a R300 service that only provides 56k/64k and decent software for the USB modem, it may just work.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
I would go for it, but only if they can guarantee me a certain speed.

My 64k ISDN (with Telkom ISP) rocks, usually I get about 7kByte/sec on any download, day or nite. It seems Sentech will have to make some major changes/upgrades to get near this kind of performance.