71% ADSL Price Decrease Reasonable

bb_matt said:
Wow, I'm on my way back to SA - R50 000 per month ! :D

The big problem here is something that is related to getting the price to that level - massive uptake - as Telkom can't even handle a medium sized uptake of ADSL, how on earth could they cope with double or triple the numbers of new installations?

Well, easy I guess, unbundle the local loop ! :D
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lol ja i knew i'm poor but i'm way off from the avg south african then... *cries*
 
feo said:
And why don't we have unlimited local access in SA..I don't get it. We pay so much but still are limited with local bandwidth...
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cause smart asses takes the local access, set up a proxy for international access and voila unlimited international access ass well :)
 
EdRobinson said:
Someone invent some HUGE capacity storage device and sell the internet on a monthly subscription on high capacity drive. Delivered to your door...

Even one DVD would give us more than we get with the 3Gb Cap. All you have to do is sub to your fav sites...:D
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Some company has already created a "download the internet" drive/software app ... just can't remember the name ..... it basically allows you to download most of the stuff that are relevant(not sure how this is worked out) for particular categories ... but I think it only works for websites .... so leechers r probably out of luck :)
 
albert123 said:
cause smart asses takes the local access, set up a proxy for international access and voila unlimited international access ass well :)
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Yeah - but one way or another that smart arse is also paying for the international access part.
 
Read that article and one thing came to mind. Then read here and see most have got the same train of thought.

Telkom cant handle the current work load, or keep the current customers happy. HOW on earth are they going to be able to handle 2.6 million Households, when their current policy is to retrench more and more staff to increase profits.

It would not surprise me if this is part of Telkoms stratagy. They can pretend as much as the want to be ignorant, but I am pretty sure they know full and well that they will never be able to Control/Monitor/Maintain/Invoice a network this big with out destorying themselfs in a matter of weeks because then it would not be 100K people upset, it would be 2.599 million. A protest of that kind would surely be much worse to them than what they currently have to deal with
 
Kalvaer said:
Read that article and one thing came to mind. Then read here and see most have got the same train of thought.

Telkom cant handle the current work load, or keep the current customers happy. HOW on earth are they going to be able to handle 2.6 million Households, when their current policy is to retrench more and more staff to increase profits.

It would not surprise me if this is part of Telkoms stratagy. They can pretend as much as the want to be ignorant, but I am pretty sure they know full and well that they will never be able to Control/Monitor/Maintain/Invoice a network this big with out destorying themselfs in a matter of weeks because then it would not be 100K people upset, it would be 2.599 million. A protest of that kind would surely be much worse to them than what they currently have to deal with
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i'd rather be upset about my adsl being broken a day or two than paying R600pm every month :D
 
albert123 said:
i'd rather be upset about my adsl being broken a day or two than paying R600pm every month :D
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Lets say the average response time is 2 days, (we all know its closer to 3-4 days) On average I know I also personally have to phone Telkom once a month with a problem. Some are fixed in an hour, others are the "2 days"

Thats with say 100 k People using ADSL. Increase that to 2.6 Mill, and your looking at a turn around time of +/-52 days if your line goes down

editOh and never mind phoning the help desk. If we say its normally 15 min for them to anwser the phone (yeah right).. try 6.5 hours before you can even report a problem
 
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I wonder what the Big T would do if as a form of protest we got everyone in the country to apply for an adsl line. I think Papi and co would quite probably poo in their undergarments. I mean imagine it, they cant cope with a couple thousand installs a month, what are they gonna do if suddenly there are 15 odd million requests? sort of like a real life denial of service attack lol
 
friedpiggy said:
I mean imagine it, they cant cope with a couple thousand installs a month, what are they gonna do if suddenly there are 15 odd million requests? sort of like a real life denial of service attack lol
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There are only 5 million telephone lines in South Africa.
 
Truen predicts that a 71% drop in ADSL prices will lift the current demand for broadband by around 600%. An even more drastic price drop where ADSL prices fall below R 100-00, something witnessed in various other countries, will make ADSL affordable to 2.6 million households.
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As can be read over-and-over in this forum, everybody knows that Telkom simmply cannot cope with the demand for service delivery. Telkom is like a giant ostrich sticking it's head into the ground about the slow service concerning fault repair and delayed installations for ADSL. Currently Telkom laments on the go-slow and strike actions which is hampering service delivery (as previously predicted by all knowledgeable forumites I might add) and looking for excuses why they can't cope. This doesn't excuse the slow-delivery in the months preceding March 2006 wherein customers already suffered 2 to 3-month installations. Now 3-months at a minimum is becoming the norm for Telkom. A few exceptions will occur, but we can't all be friends with the Technical Manager in the Installations Dept :rolleyes:

I'm beginning to think that Telkom deliberately wants to keep the demand high, but penetration low so that they can continue to overcharge for under-valued services.

The flip side is that if by some miracle ADSL cost is reduced by 71% and uptake does increase to around 600% then Telkom won't need to retrench staff, but rather employ more to cope with the massively increased demand for installations, maintenance, etc.

Just look at the figures:
Assume 40% of ADSL lines are 512kbps (50% being 384kbps - 192kbps, and 10% being 1024kbps) so of an optimistic 170,000 ADSL users, we have 68,000 x (R477 + R92) = R38,692,000 per month.
Projected (after the 71% price decrease)
2,600,000 ADSL users x (R193 + R92) = R741,000,000 per month!
With that kind of monthly revenue, they can EASILY afford to employ enough staff, roll out new improved infrastructure and STILL keep the shareholders happy!

WAKE UP TELKOM / SNO-T. Service is important but PRICE is critical. Pull your collective heads out of the sand and become truly "Proudly South African".
 
LifelongGamer said:
2,600,000 ADSL users x (R193 + R92) = R741,000,000 per month!
With that kind of monthly revenue, they can EASILY afford to employ enough staff, roll out new improved infrastructure and STILL keep the shareholders happy!
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Think like telkom, Fire more staff, Drop prices, but start charging from the moment the client orders, rape them blind for 6 months, then activate thier line.. When in doubt.. Blame somebody else for any problems
 
tibby.dude said:
There are only 5 million telephone lines in South Africa.
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Exactly! If I were running a company that already had 5 million customers using my lines - I would want to maximise profit by getting as many - if not all of them to subscribe to a service that will grow revenue through value-added services.

5,000,000 lines all using ADSL as a basic service (i.e. read cheap and reliable that all 5 million can afford) gives me at a minimum 5,000,000 potential new value-added service subscribers for Triple-Play etc. Compare that with only 170,000 potential Triple-Play clients Telkom currently has.

If only 40% of clients take up Triple-Play:
Current: 170,000 / 40% = 68,000
68,000 x R150 (Triple-Play service, incl extra cap - just a guess) = R10,200,000 of additional revenue
Potential: 5,000,000 / 40% = 2,000,000 per month
2,000,000 x R150 = R300,000,000 per month - this can easily subsidise rollout of new infrastructure and the affordable basic ADSL service.

Enough money can be made for shareholders, employees and the SA economy without breaking the average consumer's bank-balance.
 
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Aaaand this is why the South African market game is so screwed in its head. People don't seem to realise maths like this can actually work...
 
I normally moan and gripe about strikes and stuff like any other person, but recently i've been thinking... What if ADSL users started rampaging through the streets like security workers?

That would be cool! I get to throw rocks at telkom staff and the govt might wake up long enough to notice :D
 
I came up with an idea. make a law that shareholders, directors and management of large corps cannot get subsidised products from their own company, ie. make govt and papi etc pay full price for their lines and then watch how long it takes to get prices to come down.

oh no wait, that wont work. all that will do is mean papi and the boys need to get an increase to afford the lines which means line prices need to be inccreased.

oh well. it was good in my mind at least.
 
Gru said:
I normally moan and gripe about strikes and stuff like any other person, but recently i've been thinking... What if ADSL users started rampaging through the streets like security workers?

That would be cool! I get to throw rocks at telkom staff and the govt might wake up long enough to notice :D
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That would be great! :) But I think we would only get results if we could stone the government officials in the DoC or the president (preferably the president) :D
 
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