Aggressive ADSL pricing from new player

If you are really serious about wanting cheap broadband, then you should allow Telkom to abuse it wholesale/network/ISP advantage.

Only problem is that most other ISP's will disappear.

And Telkom will be permanently hauled before the Competition Commission by ISP's with less than 1% market share!
 
This is definitely not "aggressive", but then again I can't say I expected better.
 
chutzpah44 said:
I think there is much dishonesty in this forum and most are hiding behind what they really do with the internet. I don't know anything about games so I cannot judge how much download is used but I cannot see what most are downloading. All I can think of is adult material. So if you hire a movie of that nature it about R50. At about R50 a gig you getting much more value then at Adult World.
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You are obviously not a programmer or one that keep up to date with programming. Just going to Channel 9 to download some ligit lecture/training/talks takes up all my bandwitdh. And then we not talking about the google weboptimiser channel. Oh and I am running boinc, which contributes quite significantly to bandwith usage. I'd be lucky if my 3 gig lasts me till the end of the month. I dont even visit youtube for fun :(
 
chutzpah44 said:
Excuse my ignorance and 90% of others I have no idea what OS ISO Win7 RC1and Beta are, nor did any of the ten people around me. Maybe its me? Am I the only non geek thats reads thses posts?
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An ISO, is a CD or DVD in file format, in order to download (See the below link for an example). There are also a lot of other things that are pretty big in size (game clients like WoW, Rappelz, etc), and other content like internet radio/video that will eat you cap the longer you use it.

If nobody around you knew about "OS ISO Win7 RC1beta", then you are not moving in the right circles. Try to include a few nerds in your circle of friends. They are generally nice people ;)

ftp://ftp.is.co.za/mirror/fedora.redhat.com/linux/releases/11/Fedora/x86_64/iso/
 
chutzpah44 said:
Excuse my ignorance and 90% of others I have no idea what OS ISO Win7 RC1and Beta are, nor did any of the ten people around me. Maybe its me? Am I the only non geek thats reads thses posts?
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er, yes. Though you don't need to be a rocket scientist to see that OS = operating system, or win7 beta refers to a trial copy of the upcoming microsoft windows 7 os(operating system :) )

I'm also glad we have a new isp charging competitive rates, even though the margins are low. I'll be staying with my current isp, as they have a proven service record with me. These are the things that count when the per gig pricing from different isps is similar.
 
Well done to Afrihost. Price drops and more competition is always welcome. Even if the differences are slight, ISPs have to then make sure there support / billing / call centers can compete with the rest. Otherwise they are going to lose customers.

Take WebAfrica for example. I will continue to keep my hosting accounts with them due to their excellent support, billing and call centre infrastructure, even though there are cheaper options out there. There are also right up there in terms of supporting the lastest technologies. I am considering getting ADSL from them as well.

Guys, stop complaining about everything. There is definitely something positive in this.
 
ToxicWazte said:
Take WebAfrica for example. I will continue to keep my hosting accounts with them due to their excellent support, billing and call centre infrastructure, even though there are cheaper options out there. There are also right up there in terms of supporting the lastest technologies. I am considering getting ADSL from them as well.
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And Webafrica is the CHEAPEST ISP for 10Gbps international shaped (at least for a package that can be used 24x7).
 
porchrat said:
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.
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i recently read in the news that China ISP's have reached a point where there networks are so congested due to all the porn downloads, that they now have No alternative but to start considering introducing Caps..
..so maybe in a way ..we are conditioned for this ?! .. ok bye going now as I know I'm about to get shot down..
 
IdlePhaedrus said:
China Population -> 1,331,800,000
ZA Population -> 48,697,000
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Its Japan not China

And you missed the point of my comment entirely. I am trying to say that on average the world wants uncapped and fast downloads for Porn and not for what our esteemed members above believe.
 
chutzpah44 said:
Its Japan not China

And you missed the point of my comment entirely. I am trying to say that on average the world wants uncapped and fast downloads for Porn and not for what our esteemed members above believe.
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Piracy (games and movies) more than porn IMO. But yeah, not everyone wants porn - my office (3 of us) use more than 10 gig international a month without trying and without actually hosting anything.

I'd for one like to host services without it costing an arm and a leg.
 
This whole piracy vs bandwidth issue has been going on and on for ages. The entire argument is spurious and probably fatuous as well. The simple fact of the matter is, it is generally considered that bandwidth=growth for any economy, so any drop in price, and any competition should always be welcome. So go Afrihost!
 
There are a few things that bug me about ISPs.

Blended accounts

OK, so they work fine for most users, but us higher bandwidth users really need to split our local and international usage. With local costing R4-5/GB, we only need to use 2 GB of local on our "blended" accounts to justify a 30 GB local only account. Some folks can split their traffic using Route Sentry, but if you're managing a LAN with multiple users (my situation) you need to implement a router based solution. Personally, I'd prefer my ISP to do the splitting for me. That would be a big selling point for me. Users should not have to learn the finer points of IP routing, just to avoid being ripped off.

Resellers

How many real ISPs are out there? Back in the day, an ISP had to negotiate connections to peer ISPs, connections between its POPs, international connectivity, banks of modems at every POP and their own servers. These days I suspect I can become an ISP without ever owning a PC. The upstream ISP handles everything including connections, modems, usage monitoring etc. Should ISPs really be whining if all they do is sign up a few subscribers? Not every ISP can afford a dedicated STM-1 to London, but as a customer I must ask "if you're not setting up your own connections, how does your being in business benefit the market?"

Local interconnectivity

This has got to the point where the government needs to step in because the free market has failed here. Force every ISP (real ISP - see above) to connect to a local peering point (and these peering points must be interconnected, so that a user in CT can transparently connect to a server in JHB). Data routed via London should not be cheaper the data traveling next door. Lock all the CEOs in a room without any food until they come up with a workable solution.

Telkom’s soft caps

Get rid of them. They benefited those who used them, but they didn't benefit the market. Price comparisons were skewed because Telkom’s 3GB account was really a 4.5GB account. Everyone knew this but journalists continued to compare apples with oranges. Why would an independent ISP lower their price when it was already prima facie lower than Telkom’s? Good riddance to soft caps.

Shaping

Yay for shaping. Yes I am being serious. Bandwidth (like electricity) is a scarce commodity that cannot be stored. So, you've got two choices here: 1. Build a network to cater for raw peak demand, and leave this expensive asset idle during off peak times, or 2. Encourage some traffic to use the network in off peak times. If you don't want to be shaped pay more for an unshaped account. Easy hey? That leads onto my next point.

Capping

Just look at the JINX usage graphs! 10pm to 8am! There's an absolute glut of bandwidth available but nobody's using it. Caps make sense if they discourage excessive usage. But when the network is idle, why enforce the cap? Shape usage in peak times, but in off peak times, stop shaping and capping. It will lead to more efficient use of your network.

Well, phew, that’s a long comment. Sorry. But I thought I should say something; this all seems so bloody obvious to me, but ISPs don't implement these things (I'm not the first to mention them). That gets to me. But then I realise why. There are maybe half a dozen real ISPs in the country, and there's no incentive for then to do anything about the cost of connectivity, and the other 10 000 "virtual" ISPs don't have the clout to do anything.

Now back on topic. A R2 saving is meaningless. But a revolution in broadband isn't going to be started by small ISPs. IMO the WISPs have more chance of kick starting a revolution. They've got their own "local loop" and their own networks. Good luck to them. The rest of the small ISPs in the country, Meh.
 
Drunkard #1 said:
There are a few things that bug me about ISPs....
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Agree, am going to repeat a bit of a post I sent a few days ago with a few mods:

Seacom. The way I understand it, the 'smaller' ISPs like OpenWeb and Axxess don't have direct access to the bandwidth, they have to purchase it through the larger ISPs like SAIX, Neotel, Verizon and IS etc.

None of the larger ISPs (besides Seacom itself) have made any comments about pricing come Seacom, not really, and none of the smaller ISPs have given any indication of what their pricing will be like after Seacom is operational, and this seems rather strange to me, as go live date is less than 20 days away. So what is really going on here?

I for one would appreciate it if the smaller ISPs would give some indication of what their relationship with Seacom is going to be, surely they must all be in negotiations with the bigger ISPs by now. I know I certainly would be if it gave me a bit of an edge, even if it was a small one.

We have had "pricing will drop dramatically come Seacom", we have had "pricing will probably not come down for a few months", we have had "pricing will probably not come down until more cables have landed", we have had "we cannot use Seacom because it is not 'SAFE'". Oh and don't forget the pirates.

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.
 
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