afrihost and Axxess 8Mbps

[Avenue]

A few months ago Axxess and Afrihost were offering 8Mbps / 2Mbps Fibre lines for R499. I see that they now only have a 10mb for 650 (soon to be R680)
What happened to the customers that signed up for this promotion? were they forced to upgrade to the higher price, or are they still getting the same speed and price? It makes me worried to switch to fibre if I can suddenly be forced into a much higher price bracket in a few months time.
Also why was the 8mb speed dropped? that made it a little more affordable to the more casual user.

 

[IamNoone]

They will not be forced onto the higher package. Should the clients upgrade they will not be able to downgrade back to that package. They will however remain on that package and will be billed the same until the time comes that the client decides to change it.

 

[Avenue]

Okay. That's good to know. I wonder why they stopped offering it. The lowest you could get on Vumatel at the time or any other provider was 10mb, so they must have negotiated a special deal with them or something.

 

[IamNoone]

Vumatel provides a 10/2 line but the data portion is being limited by the ISP.

 

[cavedog]

Okay. That's good to know. I wonder why they stopped offering it. The lowest you could get on Vumatel at the time or any other provider was 10mb, so they must have negotiated a special deal with them or something.

So on Vumatel and Openserve the line speeds start at 10/5 for Openserve and 10/2 for Vumatel. Afrihost and Axxess saw an opportunity to offer a slightly slower speed for cheaper. So you will in fact get one of these lines but they will slow them on the ISP side to 8/5 and 8/2. This will save them some money on transit on Vumatel and IPC/Transit costs on Openserve.

This has not changed with Vumatel increasing line rental fees and Openserve revising the IP Connect model. With Openserve the IPC price will drop and raw line rental fees will go up. These packages are no longer feasible with the line rental increases and price increases to accommodate for the line increase will no longer make these packages appealing thus the scrapping of these packages and rather just offering the line speeds the cable providers provide and adjust pricing accordingly.