3 Gig not enough for modern users

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bb_matt

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It's clear to me, after 2 weeks with ADSL that 3gig is not even close to enough traffic for even a law abiding modern youthful user of the internet.

I'm clocking up 1.4gig on 09 of the month - IOW, my target of 100meg a day has been sorryfully kicked royally in the butt !

I've blocked adverts, used my smoothwall cache, exercised sheer restraint and have not downloaded anything either way big or illegal.

I have listened to streaming audio - I mean, who wouldn't ?
I've watched steaming news feeds - and heck, why not, they run great !
I've surfed photos, downloaded small shareware programs and software updates, open source apps and music samples.
I've sent and received a lot of email.

IOW, I've done what an average user of the internet does and 3gig is not enough.

The minumum cap considering the cost of internet access in this country, should be 5gig - that's a bare minimum entry level account.

3gig really is pathetic, given the sheer wealth of info on the net.
 
I feel for you bb_matt. I don't download anything illegal on my connection and I have a very hard time not reaching 3GB a month. I would love to listen to streaming audio but I can't because I know I would get capped before the end of the month. Something as simple as listening to my local radio station (which I can't get from my home office) is being denied to me by Telkom. Boy, why can't these guys pull their heads out of the sand and wake up!

Telkom would be more understanding of the average person's needs if only the guys making the decisions actually knew anything about the product. Most of them know absolutely nothing about the internet. If they did, they would realise 3GB simply is not enough for the average internet user.
 
Okay - Nobody will disagree except for Perdition and anybody else who has completely and utterly lost their minds. ;)
I still don't understand why we cannot just pay for what we use.
 
Ag well, I was just pointing things out with an explanation - I know that 3gig is not enough, it's just that ISP's would have us believe that it's more than enough.

I'm suprised at how easy it is to get through 3gig with relatively light usage - I never expected it to get chewed up so quick considering I'm not "abusing" my connection ! ;)
 
Geez guys i got adsl on Sunday its friday now and iv already used 1.5gig, I thaught adsl would have more freedom over 56k but i guess its the same. Fast but you cant use, I think iv posted something like this on another post someware.
 
Let's turn this thread around. The cost aside, how much do you feel would be enough for a monthly browsing?

I feel around 9gigs would be more than enough (around 300 megs a day). Maybe even 6gigs but to be restricted to 100 megs a day is way below average browsing.

Most sites with flash etc are around 1 - 2 megs, so for a "average" user to only visit 50 or so sites a day and not send any email and not download patches it becomes apparent how quickly a 3gig cap can be reached.
 
I personally can't manage with 3GB a month, that's why I signed up for 2 seperate accounts. Before getting my ADSL line I was doing around 90-120mb a night on a 56k dial up and that was simply updating the files I keep at home with what was at the office.

So now its a case of 1 account for work, local gaming, downloads and streaming and another for international surfing etc. Local account has now been capped by the 8th of every month for the last 4 months now(except this month, check complaints board for the story) and international I can usually make last until about the 20-25th. So no, to me 3GB is hopelessly too little.
 
Sometimes I need 5GB, and sometimes I use only 1 GB, and in extreme cases, sometimes I need 8 GB. Depends on the project that i'm working on.
And - 90% of this requirement is local.
 
3GB is probably enough for me....

...if all that 3GB was international. I just don't see why my local download and uploads and local mail retrieval counts towards this cap....grumble, bitch moan...
 
I believe I've made that point this point before. If the cap is in place due to the high cost of international bandwidth then only international bandwidth should contribute to it and only international usage affected by it. The real reason they have a 3 GB cap is so that you will purchase multiple accounts. At work we have 5 accounts and only HTTP goes over our ADSL line.
 
I would be very satisfied with 9 or 10GB per month. Although I still think if there has to be a cap, it should be 30GB per month. Funny how Telkom has beaten us into submission. We're all ready to settle for much less than we're paying for and should therefore be getting. Just about anything will be better than what we've got at the moment.

The majority of ISP's around the world who do enforce a cap, give their users at least 30GB.
 
I have 2 things to say, both of which I am sure have been said over and over again.

1: I believe that the primary reason for the having the CAP in place is merely that companies will stick to overpriced Diginet connections.

2: Its terrible that we debate over better "CAPS" when we should not be subjected to the at all.
 
Debating about the 3Gb cap thing has been on the go for ages now- on a daily basis.

None of the debating has forced a change within Telkom, and now we have the exact same struggle with WBS, not to mention soft-caps with Sentech :( !

February is looming on the horizon, and potentially more competition entering the market (legalised WISPs...?).

I suggest that we force the broadband brady bunch to be even more competitive- how? Easy: help define RPM's Broadband Rating System.

All we have to do is provide a quick & easy means of comparing one broadband service to another, things like 3Gb caps will hopefully be a thing of the past when the market is forced to compete on equal footings :)
 
It would be equal if ISP's were able to purchase international bandwidth at wholesale prices. Unfortunately while Telkom has a strangle hold on international bandwidth all players entering the market will just use it as an excuse to charge exorbitant prices.
 
Well, it's the same thing with our food and car prices.

It's been well reported that the car dealerships having been ripping us of for decades, but it's so difficult to now turn it all around - the industry would collapse.
The same applies to the high food prices - the huge increases we saw when the rand was so weak never reversed, so someone somewhere is making a lot of profit and the expense of the people. The shop keepers / franchisees can't afford to lower thier prices because the distributors aren't.

If Telkom dropped the price of bandwidth by 60% the fall-out would be huge.

The only thing that will change the situation is a telecom company that doesn't have to rely on any of the Telkom infrastructure, which is currently impossible.

Besides, the market for broadband services here is so tiny when compared with the USA/Europe/Asia - it's insignificant.

With a population of around 40million, most of whom are poor and illiterate, we're probably left with a figure under 1million who could afford to get broadband - and how many of those even give a damn about it ?
Nobody else in my family is really even slightly interested in the internet.

So we end up with a potential broadband market of maybe 300 000 people (probably way less than that in fact), in comparison, the states must have at least 40 million interested.

Do the math - supply and demand.

The way I see it, is the interested parties in the South African telecomms market want to take similar profits to areas where broadband is a widespread and competitive industry, so they charge exorbitant prices to counter-act the tiny market that exists here.

Anyone trying to compete is forced to charge similar costs, or thier business model would just fail.
 
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