Aggressive ADSL pricing from new player

Drunkard .. you're my hero!

I especially LOVE the Interconnection part.

But ... your shaping part is wrong. Instead it should say that shaping should be abolished in favour of a specific set of services serving the different requirements out there. Yes, some customers do actually have a real requirement for the WoW gaming traffic to have higher priority than HTTP, and others require that terminal services have higher priority than HTTP. This one shaped fits all is absolute baloney.

:D
 
The basic issue is, we have a second cable going live shortly, and on the face of it, the price for bandwidth is about ten times cheaper than SAT3/SAFE (despite Telkom's recent propaganda). If I was a smaller ISP I would be banging on Seacom's door and saying let me in!!!! Let me in!!! And then doing a bit of intelligent routing so I have fail-over across both cables, spending a 10th on SAT3 and the rest on Seacom to ensure a steady service. Surely this is not rocket science?

So, a challenge, and perhaps a new thread is required for this, up to the mods <again>:

A bit of transparency from the larger ISPs on what their pricing is going to be come Seacom and what the routing possibilities are between Seacom and SAT3 for failover.

A bit of feedback from the smaller ISPs as to their progress with negotiations with the Seacom resident ISPs. Folks your products are all gonna be pretty much the same. I think it is time we knew what you are going to offer as a result. Even if it is "the tits who own the Seacom bandwidth are colluding", because that would be a bloody good start, and can be taken somewhere.

As I understand it, ISPs have to purchase a pipe on Seacom, not as a month-to-month rental, but as a once off capital expense, spread over 3 years. Minimum outlay, R30m-R40m. That is more risk than most ISPs can afford to take on. And given the potential arrival over the next few years of several more undersea cables, buying a Seacom pipe is also something of a precarious gamble. No ISP will be prepared to present value their expected future savings and pass those on to their clients - in the future there may not be any savings - they may find they've seriously overpaid. Investors in SEACOM are going to want to cover their initial outlay as quickly as possible, so that savings trickling down to consumers are likely to be modest at best. Hopefully we will still see some better marginal pricing at higher usage levels. Then again, I might not understand it at all...
 
Last edited:
As I understand it, ISPs have to purchase a pipe on Seacom, not as a month-to-month rental, but as a once off capital expense, spread over 3 years. Minimum outlay, R30m-R40m. That is more risk than most ISPs can afford to take on. And given the potential arrival over the next few years of several more undersea cables, buying a Seacom pipe is also something of a precarious gamble. No ISP will be prepared to present value their expected future savings and pass those on to their clients - in the future there may not be any savings - they may find they've seriously overpaid. Investors in SEACOM are going to want to cover their initial outlay as quickly as possible, so that savings trickling down to consumers are likely to be modest at best. Hopefully we will still see some better marginal pricing at higher usage levels. Then again, I might not understand it at all...

Thanks so much for a very honest and intelligent answer to that query, it is the first one I have had, and probably spot on. How unfortunate, it would appear that the doldrums are not over yet.
 
Cheap internet = advanced users, lots of ecommerce and a growing economy

We shouldn't be paying per GB really. I mean, ISPs don't rent space on a per GB basis, therefore why are we charged per GB, that is something I never really understood. If it is to discourage over-usage then I'm afraid it doesn't work. I use my connection as much as I need to and want to and nothing more. I don't use a lot of bandwidth, and whether or not my connection were uncapped probably wouldn't affect me at this point in my life, but it still annoys me.

Its great that you use your connection as much as you want, I wonder if everyone does though?

There are unseen problems with charging per GB. Research done in the UK by the Centre for the Study of Media, Technology and Culture showed that when people move from dial up to broadband their behaviour changes and they become "advanced" internet users.

Because they were no longer paying by the minute they felt free to explore and experiment online, becoming more and more confident and eventually doing things like banking and shopping online, publishing blogs etc.

As more and more people become "advanced" users the economic impact of the internet expands exponentially. Online services improve, marketing costs decrease, more people have access to better information, consumers are empowered and more start up businesses are born as the cost of starting up is decreased because of the internet. There are even benefits to democracy and freedom of information.

They key to this is people feeling "restricted" when they are surfing, be it paying by the minute or paying by the GB. It wasn't the extra speed that broadband brought that made the difference as much as it was the way it was charged (internet isn't charged by GB in the UK)

So this whole pay per GB thing is another way that the SA's economic potential is being held back by poor internet provision.

The sooner the prices come down the sooner every South African will benefit
 
Drunkard .. you're my hero!

I especially LOVE the Interconnection part.

But ... your shaping part is wrong. Instead it should say that shaping should be abolished in favour of a specific set of services serving the different requirements out there. Yes, some customers do actually have a real requirement for the WoW gaming traffic to have higher priority than HTTP, and others require that terminal services have higher priority than HTTP. This one shaped fits all is absolute baloney.

:D

I see your point. If enough people take up each different package, then it'll work. I think it might be too complex for now; how many people know exactly what they want. For what it's worth, I think HTTP traffic is too highly prioritised anyway.

As I understand it, ISPs have to purchase a pipe on Seacom, not as a month-to-month rental, but as a once off capital expense, spread over 3 years. Minimum outlay, R30m-R40m. That is more risk than most ISPs can afford to take on. And given the potential arrival over the next few years of several more undersea cables, buying a Seacom pipe is also something of a precarious gamble. No ISP will be prepared to present value their expected future savings and pass those on to their clients - in the future there may not be any savings - they may find they've seriously overpaid. Investors in SEACOM are going to want to cover their initial outlay as quickly as possible, so that savings trickling down to consumers are likely to be modest at best. Hopefully we will still see some better marginal pricing at higher usage levels. Then again, I might not understand it at all...

I thought there was a "rental" option available as well. R150k pm for a STM-1 (155 Mbps). This is one area where a small ISP can out maneuver the big guys. While they're paying just R3 / GB, the big guys are pricing their offering based on the R 40 mil you mentioned. The big guy's auditors are going to write that cable investment off in 3 or so years, so when they price their offerings, they're going to be uncompetitive. If a small ISP has the guts to buy a STM 1 (or 4!), he can undercut Telkom, and he'll make a killing until Telkom has written off the cable in their books. But they can't. 'cause they can't sell 50 000 GB of data a month. So we're back where we started. No competition to light a fire under the big guy's asses, and the small guys are just too small to make a difference.
 
"Aggressive ADSL pricing"???

Were they like all agro and swearing and stuff when they announced this?
Like: "You'll just have to pay the fscking R57, or we'll fsck u up china!":mad::mad:
Duidelik?
 
"Aggressive ADSL pricing"???

Were they like all agro and swearing and stuff when they announced this?
Like: "You'll just have to pay the fscking R57, or we'll fsck u up china!":mad::mad:
Duidelik?

that was such an informative and interesting post, and contributed so much to this thread, so much so that we are deeply in your debt. please, continue...
 
Hey Idle - you are talking to a 10k post grandmaster... respect boet! Or we'll #$#$% you up china! Capisce? :D
 
Yes, I saw that when I made the post. And, I expect I am just a short stop away from being banned on this forum, still, I like my freedom of speech and expect I can find it elsewhere if necessary.

Also note how long I have been around and the others.
 
Last edited:
yeah excuse my ignorance but what is aggressive about this ADSL deal?
Capacity and pricing are same provision of service uses same infrastructure..so what is it that we are missing????

Oh yes new method of advertising... make a post with catchy title nice RPM... MyBB is officially turning into a whore house..
 
Last edited:
By supporting and benefiting from softcap, you sir are perpetuating a status quo !!!!

Say no to Telkom and challenge the status quo by boikoting all monopolistic institutions!!!!!


I like soft capping though because I benefit from it!
 
Yes, we all agree that more information should be provided on IS's role in this marketing piece.

The theory being that; if you knew that the profit margins were something like 5c per GB profit, then perhaps you could understand that the word aggressive is justified.

And, I for one understand your anger, as part of this community I also get a lot peeved when sensationalist wording is used as a marketing ploy.

P.S. Soft cap has been scrapped by Telkom, official from the 1 August 2009.
 
So far this is the only post in entire MyBB that makes sense..

Having said that.....

We have to wake up and realize that LLU is absolutely only key to making any difference on end consumers pocket and for that matter uptake in broadband.
As it stands right now... lets just say that R40 Mill is not and issue and there are many ISP queuing up to take on part and buy in the SEACOM.

Than what!? How does one deliver this expensive resource cheaply to end consumer???

Internally we only starting to see investments in self provisioning network infrastructures and those boys (MTN, BlackFiber, Voda etc) will want quick ROI of their own.... but even with that, short of wireless technologies there is no way to deliver to end consumer.

Remember the end consumer is defacto the economy of scale ingredient !!!!!!

All we hear from Neotel and all other providers is delivery to enterprise.. blah blah .... there is only so many businesses that have so much budget. And that wont work unless the prces are higer or returns are calculated over longer period of time.

So that leaves us with this. The company that taps in and goes after 40 Mill base of end consumers will win this race!

Ammen



As I understand it, ISPs have to purchase a pipe on Seacom, not as a month-to-month rental, but as a once off capital expense, spread over 3 years. Minimum outlay, R30m-R40m. That is more risk than most ISPs can afford to take on. And given the potential arrival over the next few years of several more undersea cables, buying a Seacom pipe is also something of a precarious gamble. No ISP will be prepared to present value their expected future savings and pass those on to their clients - in the future there may not be any savings - they may find they've seriously overpaid. Investors in SEACOM are going to want to cover their initial outlay as quickly as possible, so that savings trickling down to consumers are likely to be modest at best. Hopefully we will still see some better marginal pricing at higher usage levels. Then again, I might not understand it at all...
 
Last edited:
We have to wake up and realize that LLU is absolutely only key to making any difference on end consumers pocket and for that matter uptake in broadband.

+1 +1 +1

Thing is the average joe will not understand this - and none of the media reports / expose's I have seen do much for explaining this little detail*, playing right into the ANC Guavamint's hands. It's about time a little more detail on the Telkom monopoly be shed via the media IMO.

*Exclude Helkom / Mybb from that, but Mybb, please get more articles on this subject and perhaps help the tech challenged journo's out there to grasp this simple fact.
 
WTF?

:mad:

WTF?

57 1 Gig = 57
97 2 Gig = 48.5
164 3 Gig = 54.6
270 5 Gig = 54


97 + (55 * 3) = 262

Cheaper to get 2 gig??????????????????????????????????

:mad:
 
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X