ADSL Prices, just a question?

D

Dtox

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OK not sure if this has been discussed yet.
The 3Gb ADSL from telkom costs about R200 a month.
This seem to compare reasonably with ADSL in the rest of the world. what makes the total package expensive is the aprox R800 a month for the ADSL line rental, and the further R150 a month for the analogue line you HAVE to take with it??

If we are lobbying for cheaper prices surely we should focus on the cost of these line rentals.

Does anyone know if the international ADSL offerings includes line rentals?
 
My experience of using 2 different service providers in the UK has shown that they dont charge for line rental. Your line gets ADSL "enabled" and all you pay is the ISP for the internet. Take a look at www.zenadsl.com. They are a great UK isp. Unlimited access, no 3 gb limits, no line rental charges in addition, just their monthly fee. Even the modems are dirt cheap if not free, minimum 1 month contract. From what I have seen lately they are starting to guarantee contentions and bandwidth.
 
Come to think of it, why are we paying ADSL line rental? Afterall, it's our normal telephone line which has been ADSL enabled. I'm interested to know what our R680 is actually used for. (Besides lining the pockets of the already rich Telkom bosses). Does anyone know?


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United we stand!
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Humm never thought of that u are very right , what is this line rental are we renting out the line tha already excisted its the same old line we just paying more for it ???? how the hell does that work, i sepose i am guessing its for the port maybe that we are renting at the exchange , thats about it ,but not the line itself couse if they put rent out port for a cheap price of only R680 a month , peaple will asl what the hell is the port but everybody knows what a line is , but the bottom line they just makeing bucks we must understand , this is a buissness and it is a monopley and they can make it R680 or R1000 they in controll and what we have to say dont matter becouse we have no choice but to stick with them , at this time . In this case in this Dark times.
 
I'd be interested to see how much one of those ADSL switches actually cost or rather what effectively a port costs. You have the copper that you cover in your phone rental. The bandwidth you have already bought with your ISP account - so whats left, the port thats it?

I think just by judging what Telkom employees are being charged around about R400 and I dont see them doing that at a loss so i'm guess at least R380 profit per line/pm.
 
DOnt we have any Telecoms guru's out there who would know what an ADSL switch would cost so we can see maybe why telcon charges such HUGE amounts for line rental?
 
I think we've just opened another can of worms here. And something doesn't smell right. At some stage it would be good if RPM could bring this point up with Telkom.

Sash, you're right about the price difference for employees. You can bet your bottom dollar they are still making a profit on employee accounts, therefore we can more-or-less work out how badly we're being ripped off.


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United we stand!
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Hi guys

I did raise this point in my latest communications with Telkom and with the media. I think this is one reason why the modem prices dropped. I focused on costs unrelated to location (international bandwidth). In the article in Rapport this issue was addressed shortly, and I hope the SACM and other articles delve a little deeper.

Regards,

RPM
[email protected]
 
A common misconception that I see that is coming out here is that you're paying R220/month for 3 gigabytes. People, you are paying R680 + R220 = R900/month for 3 Gigabytes. Remember, Telkom provides both the line and the bandwidth. So whether they charge you R800 for the line and R100 for the bandwidth or R1 for the line and R899 for the bandwidth it's all the same. In the end they are getting R900 and you are getting 3GB. You are already paying your usual telephone line rental (R70 or so) and it's the same copper...

The fact that they offer an additional 3GB for R220 is immaterial - at R1120 for 6GB they're still making a killing. Besides, with the frustration of port prioritisation and the otherwise slow speeds, how many of you actually bothered to get another account?
 
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by PierreLeRiche</i>
<br />I have it from a reliable source that the contention ratio for Telkom ADSL is 200:1.

Also, you're not paying R220 for your ADSL bandwidth, you're paying R680 + R220 = R900. Remember that you ALREADY pay for the telephone line (an additional R70 I think). There's no logical reason why you should pay R680 extra (above the R70) for an ADSL line, since there is no difference between between a regular phone line and a DSL line - the only difference is the equipment at either end.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

This is a very valid point here, most of us are paying Telkom R1000 for our internet connection. Why are we all arguing the R220 p/3gB where we should be getting almost 10gigs for the same price. WTF?
 
I agree with neo and pierre, the reason i raised this is that when you discuss pricing with telkom or other ISP's they will justify the price saying "R200 for your ADSL account is comparable with international prices" i beleive they are trying to hide the rest of the true cost as things like line rental.
When trying to enforce lower prices they could give us a 20% discount and change the ADSL account pice to 160 instead of 200 and they would probably feel they did us a favour, wheres the true price is hidden in these other costs.
Just imagine if they had only R70 for line rental and R800 for your account, then other ISPs like Mweb and Tiscali could also charge R800 for ADSL accounts. By splitting up the price into this Line rental, they are making sure they are skimming the cream off even other ISP's possible income.
 
Ahh.. when Telkom DSL "enables" your line, they take the normal copper wire from the exchange, plug it into a box called a DSLAM, and take the output from the DSLAM (Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer), and stick it back into the exchange:
House ------------------&gt;DSLAM-----------&gt;POTS exchange

The DSLAM strips off all the high frequency data signals, so that your normal phone line can continue to the normal pots exchange. That is why you retain your phone number when converting to ADSL.

The DSLAM is effectively the only expense that telkom has, unfortunately, it IS quite expensive. The most expensive that I've come across is about $6000 for a 48-port. I'm sure telkom got a better deal by buying bulk. Anyhow:

$6000 * (exhange rate=8) = R48 000
Divide this by the number of ports, and then we find that a port is
approximately R1000. If I can take an educated guess.. i think telkom got these ports for about R680 each. That means, that after the first month.. their making CLEAN profit.

I feel like buying my own DSLAM and setting up my own little dsl.
 
Um... Glad I'm helping some executive fill his tank up today.

I dont mind paying the prices we pay as long as it is substantiated. Telkom has not answered any of our questions. I'm sure this is the feelings of everyone else. Still waiting to find out how much our "international" bandwidth actually costs.
 
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