512mbps is a RIP OFF

[Drake2007]

Yes Telkom's 512kbps service doesn't make sense. It is priced wrong.

512/384 = 1.33
R326/R152 = 2.14

i.e. A 512kbps line is 1.33 times the speed of a 384kbps line, but 2.14 times the price! Definitely not worth it.

Alas, some people (like me) simply can't live with a slow 384k line, but our lines/exchange don't support 4mbps yet, so we would rather take a marginally faster 512k line, even though the cost-to-speed ratio doesn't make sense.

Yeah another way to look at it that proves they thumb sucked that price. Which proves Telkom is here for one reason only, and that is to rape consumers for as much as they can.

I can not see how they can justify the price on it other than, like in your case, based on users budget.
This just says that some employee at Telkom averaged out all their customers census data, came up with a price that looked good to their marketing bosses to screw the consumers over, same employee comes out smelling of roses and gets to keep their job.

We can also deduce that they are going to upgrade the 512kbps to 1024kbps for no additional fee and everyone is going to jump for joy at Telkom being so kind and generous.

 

[Nerfherder]

Its been like this for years... you choose now to complain, literally as they are about to upgrade us all ?

The reason they are doing the line speeds like this is the costing. However now that the network has been upgraded they can offer different rates but they have been too lazy.

 

[Drake2007]

I chose now to look at it since uncapped has been put in place, before it would have been almost impossible to compare Capped products even to each other. There would have been no point in the exercise back then. .

To stress the point further, if they'd a theoretical 704kb/s product based on the R326 price it would still come out a bit more expensive at R2.10 /GB
Average between the 356 and 1024 prices is R2.05 /GB

They based the price on costing?
So it costs more to run copper and a DSLAM at 512kbps. I think not, Telkom created this false market on ADSL in the first place, was 512kbps meant to subsidise the 384 or was it to offset the losses from ISDN. I don't really care what their reasons are, Telkom targeted that market segment to make the most out of South African consumers.

 

[Betonro]

512mbps would be awesome.

It's rather funny when a bunch of people jump in to correct the technical mistake of the original post, but then all of them get it wrong as well.

m = milli
M = mega

So, you want 512 millibit per second? That's going to be very difficult.

 

[Nerfherder]

They based the price on costing?
So it costs more to run copper and a DSLAM at 512kbps. I think not, Telkom created this false market on ADSL in the first place, was 512kbps meant to subsidise the 384 or was it to offset the losses from ISDN.

Its got more to do with network traffic.

Like if every one is on 384 then its ok but if everyone is on 512 then the network will be too congested. Obviously this was before the miles of fiber they laid.
The circuits are either 512 or 4 meg, so if you are on 384 then it means that they can give you 512 without going out and changing hardware. They are just costing 512 higher so that they can keep the traffic down.

Its rather frustrating as we all know that their network can support much more traffic now.

 

[Drake2007]

It's rather funny when a bunch of people jump in to correct the technical mistake of the original post, but then all of them get it wrong as well.

m = milli
M = mega

So, you want 512 millibit per second? That's going to be very difficult.

LOL, I was too pisssed off to even notice that

 

[Jabberwocky]

It's rather funny when a bunch of people jump in to correct the technical mistake of the original post, but then all of them get it wrong as well.

m = milli
M = mega

So, you want 512 millibit per second? That's going to be very difficult.

haha, thats 0.064 bytes per second

with that you could download 2,7 kilobytes per month

 

[Drake2007]

Its got more to do with network traffic.

Like if every one is on 384 then its ok but if everyone is on 512 then the network will be too congested. Obviously this was before the miles of fiber they laid.
The circuits are either 512 or 4 meg, so if you are on 384 then it means that they can give you 512 without going out and changing hardware. They are just costing 512 higher so that they can keep the traffic down.

Its rather frustrating as we all know that their network can support much more traffic now.

Frustrating indeed.

OK so we can we now assume that they are all geared up to run at 1024kb/s, yet the price point on 512kb/s remains. It's clear now why they marketed this all at Fast, Faster and Fastest.

 

[calvincoetzee]

@Drake2007 Soz man, I know it's just a typo, just had a frustrating morning, adsl line keeps dropping and then when it's up the ISP failed and was just a little short tempered.

You're right, the 512 kbps line is a complete ripoff, taking 384 kbps as a base, R200 more or so for 0.125mbit more bandwidth when opposed to R300 for an additional 3.6 mbit when subscribing to telkom 4096 kbps line.

 

[Nerfherder]

Frustrating indeed.

OK so we can we now assume that they are all geared up to run at 1024kb/s, yet the price point on 512kb/s remains. It's clear now why they marketed this all at Fast, Faster and Fastest.

Yes, my exchange only supports up to 512 meaning that to get 1 meg and faster that they have some sort of hardware upgrade. So I think that what they are trying to do is make you fund the upgrade if you want the 1 meg.

 

[calvincoetzee]

Yes, my exchange only supports up to 512 meaning that to get 1 meg and faster that they have some sort of hardware upgrade. So I think that what they are trying to do is make you fund the upgrade if you want the 1 meg.

afaik, telkom plans to role out adsl2+, this technology allows faster speeds at longer distances. Therefore I think if you can get 512 on your current line, with adsl2+ you may get much higher speeds.

Just read up about adsl2+, all I can tell you for sure is that I'm very close to my exchange, I can get a max of 10Mbps, but the max for adsl2+ quote

"ADSL2+ extends the capability of basic ADSL by doubling the number of downstream bits. The data rates can be as high as 24 Mbit/s downstream and up to 3.5 Mbit/s upstream depending on the distance from the DSLAM to the customer's home."

 

[Necuno]

It's rather funny when a bunch of people jump in to correct the technical mistake of the original post, but then all of them get it wrong as well.

m = milli
M = mega

So, you want 512 millibit per second? That's going to be very difficult.

afraid that you also got it wrong for a different point of view. in "loose internet slang/type" it is to type everything in lower case without giving much notice to case sensitivity / correctness so in a way we are correct to take Mbps as mpbs as it would read same in both ways, but that is as i stated "loose internet slang/type"...

...as i've done here without capitalizing my above sentences

 

[Drake2007]

@Drake2007 Soz man, I know it's just a typo, just had a frustrating morning, adsl line keeps dropping and then when it's up the ISP failed and was just a little short tempered.

You're right, the 512 kbps line is a complete ripoff, taking 384 kbps as a base, R200 more or so for 0.125mbit more bandwidth when opposed to R300 for an additional 3.6 mbit when subscribing to telkom 4096 kbps line.

No problem, I totally understand from how my blood used to boil when I was on Telkom dialup.