South African ADSL costs: Why so high?

[rpm]

ADSL prices in South Africa: Why so high?

South Africa’s ADSL prices remain very high compared to global trends. What sits behind these high prices?

[boramk]

Ahhh trade unions, the bane of economic growth in South Africa

[copacetic]

“Telkom is committed to providing value to our customers by supplying cost-effective, affordable ADSL services,”

There is a big fat festering lie if I have ever seen one.

[StevenC]

Or maybe the main reason is not necessarily AA, BEE or even copper theft (although it may contribute to higher costs), but rather high staff costs and too many highly paid managers.

QFFT! When those bloody AA and BEE skelms stop pocketing a small country's ransom each year that we pay for, maybe we will get the service that we deserve. It's not racist, it's fact. I would love to see some tribunals and whatnot in to poor service delivery to the masses as it is the fatcats at the head of this beast that are starving the country of much needed progress.

[mika1000]

And constant strikes... Its time Cosatu goes on a fact finding mission somewhere, take the SACP along, and fligh into the ground, due to bad radar or something.

[crashdan]

employees felt that BEE and affirmative actions resulted in a less efficient organization and higher costs regarding network rollout and ADSL input costs.

...

[alt21]

LLU and Bye Telkom, no more need for high salaries.

[supersunbird]

384kbps lines may be be near cost price but that doesn't mean they can't bump it to 512 at least while still having the same price...

[ghostrider64]

corruption, corruption and more corruption its the anc way

[saffakanera]

This whole statement in the article seems like a political correct way of saying Black People are the cause for Telkom's poor service delivery.

[Thestealth]

It's another pathetic excuse from a pathetic company

[eltherza]

Throw away that stupid cost for a "phone line rental" and 384 is actually acceptable price for low end internet.

What I don get is how 384 is cheaper than 512 from telkom. It's the same line running to the same place, if anything it should only be more expensive at the ISPs side and not line rental?

[DarkStreet]

The Telkom representative further eluded to the fact that affirmative action requirements at Telkom means that the best person for the job is not always employed, reducing efficiency within the company.

This is the case with many companies in South Africa.

[suPerb0b]

What I don get is how 384 is cheaper than 512 from telkom. It's the same line running to the same place, if anything it should only be more expensive at the ISPs side and not line rental?

Your internet does not run just to the dslam and back does it? There are other costs to take into account.

[deweyzeph]

Your internet does not run just to the dslam and back does it? There are other costs to take into account.

Aaah, this old chestnut. There can be no justification for charging consumers more for a 512kbps or 4Mbps. Setup 2 pc's next to each other. Now run a network cable between them. Set the network cards up to run at 10Mbps. Transfer some data. Now set those same network cards up to run at 100Mbps. Transfer some data. Now...did that cost you more? Did your electricity bill go up? Where's the extra cost?

Data is not some finite resource that warrants being charged per gig. It doesn't cost any more to transfer 1 megabyte than it does to transfer 1 gigabyte. South African telecoms company have deluded the public for too long with their artificial per gig charging models.