SGS's stance on 1 Nov pricing and hardcap

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RoosTa

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Lets discuss this without the mud slings.

Some background on SAIX
SAIX's website said:
The South African Internet eXchange (SAIX) is Telkom's answer to Internet access in Southern Africa. SAIX is a wholesale provider of raw connectivity to the Internet for Southern African Internet Service Providers (who sell value-added services on top of the SAIX service to dial-up subscribers and dedicated customers).
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SGS = SAIX Games Service (http://games.saix.co.za)

"SGS poll" said:
Which of these do you use to play online?
ADSL 55.38 % (6524)
56k Analogue with R7 Plan 12.47 % (1469)
ISDN 64k with R7 Plan 10.85 % (1278)
56k Analogue 5.89 % (694)
ISDN 128K with R7 Plan 5.49 % (647)
Leased Line 4.41 % (519)
ISDN 64k 3.23 % (381)
ISDN 128K 2.28 % (268)
Total votes: 11780
Click to expand...

The facts are:
1) SGS is a free gaming service provided by SAIX which is a subdivision of Telkom.
2) SGS is run by one Telkom employee with the help of voluntary admins and they have to obide SAIX's policy.
3) In many threads and statements (SAIEE) made by Telkom representives, there has been lots of evidence that SAIX will be enforcing a local hardcap along with their per gig billing and ludicrous pricing per gig from 1 Nov.
4) More than 50% of gamers use ADSL and will be affected by this new pricing.

Has anyone from SGS raised any concern over the pricing and is there anything that SGS can do?

To the Public: Who will not be able to afford ADSL for gaming purposes when the pricing comes into "play"?
 
I play BF2 online and I will not be able to afford to play it as often as I currently do.

It uses a LOT of bandwidth (64 players on a server... blah blah blah).

I'm still undecided as to what to do. I may downgrade my adsl to 192k and throw in the towel on the gaming front. Waiting until November before I make any decisions.
 
I'll reply once I have the time to put my personal feelings down, but I promise I will reply.
 
Any prob if I ask the same question here that I posted in the Censorship thread ? If so, I'll "." it

What if :

Telkom (ISP), (In order to promote/save SGS) announces a special add-on gaming package effective from Nov 1, "showing their support for the local gaming market", consisting of the following :

VPN connection (or similiar) to SGS server(s) ONLY
Unlimited traffic/gaming over the VPN
for let's say R200 (just a number)

How many would buy ? This is in addition to a standard 1/2/3/x GB account at whatever ISP you use.
 
I've been an online gamer for over 6-7 years. Online gaming has become a big part of my life. BUT:

I will not be able to play as much as I used to even though I'll be paying the same amount for less "entertainment". So I've made a tough decision and I'd will rather cancel my ADSL to use that money for other means.
 
Luke7777: It should be a free value added service offered by Telkom that doesn't count towards your bandwidth allowance. I pay enough to be able to play games online, I will not pay more - I'd rather stop gaming.
 
superjuice said:
I'll reply once I have the time to put my personal feelings down, but I promise I will reply.
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Thank you, superjuice. I'm sure, everyone would appreciate it.
 
Personally I htink it could be along these lines:

SGS isn't a "guarenteed" service.
SGS was there when dialup users started. (I accept correction for this - I;m not 100% sure when they started)
When ADSL came out many users swapped to that and many more users got ADSL to play games online (be it at SGS or elsewhere).
If telkom up their pricing like they say they are I don't think theres anything the SGS admins can do about it. Telkom will probably take their hardline approach of "Well - you pay for what you use" with the "we used to cater for dialup users and now we're catering for ADSL - _so what_ if they all drop and become dialup users again" attitude.

I suppose what I'm getting at is telkom aren't making money off SGS Directly.

To stop an argument - yes, they are getting money from the line fee and the bytes being used but you Do Not have to pay to play on SGS servers. (For comparitive reasons they could make it like WoW - pay per month as IT IS a "additional service" (read service loosely there - nothing legal compelling them to provide it))
Then you'd be paying line fee, byte fee and game fee.

While gamers probably make up quite a bit of the home user ADSL market I think the majority will keep their connection no matter what happens and telkom won't care because they'll still be getting their money...

I know I couldn't give back my ADSL - too hooked - but I would definatly downgrade and still be paying telkom money.

Once the SNO comes out properly and start offering services then Telkom (SAIX) might take a second look at it and start offering SGS as a Service and benefit of signing with them instead of the SNO. Thats where they could get people back - by blocking access to SGS from the SNO's IP's and only allowing Telkom clients on SGS.

Until the SNO gets here I think we're stuck up the creek without a paddle ..
 
rsd: No argument there, but if local traffic and usage billing is an issue after Nov 1, what's the alternatives ? This kind of model could be used by the non-SAIX ISPs as well ?
 
LaRoosta and rsd - would you stop gaming altogether or go back to dialup?
If you'd still do the dialup thing that that the point I'm trying to get at - Telkom still makes their money on the call..
The only way I can see out is the SNO.. :(
 
Didn't Mweb try something like this when they first launched GameZone?
Wasn't it "Only for MWeb Subscribers" or something?
and I'm sure a couple of other ISP's ahd private servers for clients.
That would kill the community size you currently have at SGS ..
Bah..
 
LordyHaHa said:
LaRoosta and rsd - would you stop gaming altogether or go back to dialup?
If you'd still do the dialup thing that that the point I'm trying to get at - Telkom still makes their money on the call..
The only way I can see out is the SNO.. :(
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If I cancel, I will be cancelling everything that is Telkom. I will not give Telkom another cent, I might reconcider if they start listening to their customers.
 
stoke said:
Dunno - @ LaRoosTa - I currently pay R 300 for 30GB, what will the new pricing structure be exactly ?
Got any facts yet ?
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If (and I do mean IF) the rumours are true, we'd be looking at R60 (Excl Vat) per Gig. To put it in perspective: you can get a 30Gig account at axxess for R350. With the supposed price, 30 Gig will cost you R1800 (Excl Vat). There's a lot of IFs and SUPPOSEDs here. The best we can do is either wait and see what happens or stop your accounts now and get it over with.
 
LaRoosta and rsd - would you stop gaming altogether or go back to dialup?
Click to expand...

I might not stop gaming altogether but I will probably downgrade to 192k and play only less bandwidth-heavy games than bf2, or play it very seldom.

I wouldn't get rid of ADSL - I'm in IT and I really do need fast reliable internet access in order to stay current.
 
Luke7777 said:
LHH, possibly, but there was no financial benefit to the gamers to use it
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Not entirely true. I can tell you now, I wouldn't have ADSL if it wasn't for gaming. Beside games are now moving ADSL from "recommended" to "required".
 
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Nice post Roosta

I am getting a 192K ADSL connection later this month (If Telkom ever decides to put it in)

And to be totally honest I will be highly pissed of if Telkom gets the pay per GB system in place

Except if it is pay per GB and you only pay R5 or R6 per GIG

If that is the case I would not mind the pay per GIG system too much

However they still need to abolish the line rentals

And generally the quality of the service
 
Personally I think telkom keep SGS there for the "lure" factor.
If things ever start going "wrong" in some way - whats it to them if they pull the plug on it..
They haven't had to make any announcements about it.
They don't really support it (From what I understand - setting up servers, maintanance, admin, etc) besides Ely doing what he does.
So they don't have any "fixed links" to it.

How many people bought into ADSL to play games? (I know I did)
Now I'm hooked and don't reckon I could "unplug" so Telkom have me as a client
until the SNO comes along. I think I'm one of many becasue even with the speculated price raise and uncertainty there are still people ordering ADSL daily.

To answer your intial question LaRoosTa:
I unfortunatly don't thin they care a damn what we think :(

and I really hope it doesn't come down to you having to cancel your stuff..
 
LaRoosTa said:
Not entirely true. I can tell you now, I wouldn't have ADSL if it wasn't for gaming. Beside games are now moving ADSL from "recommended" to "required".
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:confused: I was talking about the Mweb Gamezone LHH mentioned. Your pocket didn't decide whether you played there or SGS or whereever which might be the case from Nov 1. Hence my original question
 
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