Afrihost is a reseller so that's out of the question.
Anyway, IMHO, I think Afrihost initially used their marketing budget to subsidize bandwidth but have since become such a hit that they have been able to secure a better price from IS and therefore aren't really using the budget (which is why the awesome R29/2GB special keeps popping up). So Gian is probably spending countless hours with beancounters trying to see if subsidizing uncapped is plausible for the company. If that's true, I reckon Afrihost is even more awesome than initially thought. How many people, in a similar position, wouldn't take that marketing budget (which essentially is pure profit at this stage) and send it straight into their pocket?
Just my guestimation. Could be wrong.
Yeah, but afrihost buys bandwidth in large amounts which means it's cheaper per gig for them. Obviously as a business they need profits in order to pay their workers otherwise it's just unfair!
I'm sure if 1000 people spend 300 rand each, that equates to 300,000. If you think about how much an uncapped line costs for a GOOD speed, it's roughly 1500/2000 rand. If you multiply that by 1000 that's around 2,000,000 rand for all customers who want uncapped. I know this is very rough and there are MANY other factors to consider (ISCSA Tax and whatnot) but hypothetically if we had more than 1000 users sign up that would be super. Infact, you could get 50,000 if you advertise it properly. The issue is covering the deficeit.
The only limiting factor is the line speed + rental which you'll pay for seperately. As I've said countless times, I had 8mbit uncapped at home. I only downloaded 60-80GB's a month on average. I really don't get why people need to download over 250GB because that's just selfish and the reason why people get throttled/capped in the first place.
R413 for 4mbit + R152 for line rental = R565
Say we buy "uncapped" at afrihost for R300 which comes to a total of R865. A 4mbit "uncapped" line for that price is a deal and is something that will really turn faces in the ISP industry.
The trouble with getting affordable ADSL is that only 30% of the people in this country have a pc and 10% have the internet. It's about supply and demand really. If there is a high demand, this will ultimately lower the prices.
As someone said in another post, the internet in this country is seen as a commodity, not as a basic requirement like Europe and the USA.
) every month and I find myself running out of things to download after about a year of this set up!