Backhaul bandwidth costs

dont telkom claim the have laid enough fibre to go round the world 10 times or something? cant they use that fibre, since they own it?
 
So why does every other country in the world have faster broadband to the home at much cheaper costs? what are they doing right that we arent? I dont accept nonsense like geographical location because you cant tell me a place like the UK doesnt have widespread users.
 
I don't understand why some company like DFA doesn't just build a fibre link from CPT to JHB and sell bandwidth on it to the whole of South Africa for next to nothing. If they get enough people to use it (and I guarantee this won't be a problem) they'll definitely make their money back 10x over. Imagine how cool it would be to actually have a real link between branches! Then the next step is to hook up Durban to the same system, link the whole thing up to seacom and voila!
 
PeterCH said:
Exactly. These articles just highlight the BS we've been fed about lack of int'l connectivity in the past as reason for the high prices/low caps we have. The industry is lying constantly and consumers and pundits just take this hogwash in.
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Now there I agree with you. Take one Major 10 year long excuse away (thanks to Seacom) then a miriad of other worms get exposed to justify the high cost of telecoms in this country. The f_government is unwilling to do anything to these corporate thieves as their own lined backpockets are at stake.

I like the reference to their bussiness model (DFA) and not to the real costs. The fact is that all of these "Thieves" just learned from Telkom. Charge the initial cost of fibre infrastructure over and over for the next fifty years as Telkom did with the copper. Thank GOD that a different kind of thieve gets their own back by stealing the copper..
 
we are particularly not interested in the backhaul pricing, the end user just wants cheaper internet access. All these articles seem to be an excuse/justification of the high prices.

Why is internet access so cheap in other parts of the world? What are they doing right that we not..... oh yeah I forgot, we got Zuma.
 
jannievdberg said:
Im so tired of all these crap articles...why do people still read it?!! When I saw the topic, I did not even bother. I will only read when one day it says "Broadband costs slashed by 50%". SA is so lame, everyone has a different story! I cant wait for Lightscribe to open up his NPO ISP. MyBB used to have exciting articles, but this crap shouldnt even have been posted....quite frankly I dont care what the real cost of backhaul is.
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If you do not even care to read, please spare us then your uninformed complaints... :(
 
Aren't they forgetten contention ratio's in the ISP example of R 776. At a 30:1 ratio that should translate into R 25.87 per user for 5.17 Mbps (155 Mbps / 30).
 
ruan567 said:
I don't understand why some company like DFA doesn't just build a fibre link from CPT to JHB and sell bandwidth on it to the whole of South Africa for next to nothing. If they get enough people to use it (and I guarantee this won't be a problem) they'll definitely make their money back 10x over. Imagine how cool it would be to actually have a real link between branches! Then the next step is to hook up Durban to the same system, link the whole thing up to seacom and voila!
Click to expand...

It would be great if everything were so simple, but it's not.

For a start, you'd need at least three completely separate routes between Jo'burg and Cape Town to achieve the kind of reliability that users expect. A single fibre break can take down a single route for many hours - maybe fine for some users, but not for lots of them, or for businesses - the economy would grind to a halt the way it did when Eskom failed for hours.

It would cost DFA around R500 per metre (their prices) to build one route. Even taking the shortest route, this amounts to around R750m. Three would cost R2.25bn. It doesn't take much to work out just how many users or how much each would have to pay to get a return on this investment. Since there are already two national networks connecting these cities (Telkom and Neotel), and more being built (MTN/Vodacom), it's difficult to see what bank or brave shareholders would lend DFA that kind of money, if their business plan is to offer services at "next to nothing".

Just linking up to SEACOM will certainly provide international connectivity, but it's also just a single, linear cable route (with issues as above), and the better option would be to get global Internet connectivity with multiple routes. The entry level cost for capacity multiple cable routes is also significant, even though the per unit cost has plummeted with SEACOM's entry.

Finally, for real connectivity, there are lots of other factors to take into account, not least of which is connectivity to all the local ISPs. Whilst some of these are quite friendly, there are a few (like SAIX) who have market power and wield it to keep prices high.
 
I am Penguin said:
Now there I agree with you. Take one Major 10 year long excuse away (thanks to Seacom) then a miriad of other worms get exposed to justify the high cost of telecoms in this country. The f_government is unwilling to do anything to these corporate thieves as their own lined backpockets are at stake.

I like the reference to their bussiness model (DFA) and not to the real costs. The fact is that all of these "Thieves" just learned from Telkom. Charge the initial cost of fibre infrastructure over and over for the next fifty years as Telkom did with the copper. Thank GOD that a different kind of thieve gets their own back by stealing the copper..
Click to expand...

your f_government is the cause of the problem in the first place!!! (and the biggest thief of all, in your terms)
 
As asked at the beginning of the thread, if the local backhaul is the expensive part, why is 'local only' bandwidth so cheap? If a gig of local can be sold at R20 and a gig of international at R70, then my understanding would be that the international (ie SAT3) portion must be in that R50 difference (with allowance for margins of course). So why are we hearing yet another damned excuse instead of seeing the move from SAT3 to SEACOM international bandwidth leading to some heavy discounting of that R50!?

Since day 1 of these forums (must be what, 7-8 years ago?) we've been fed one lame-ass excuse after another as to why we get robbed for every gig of data. Will it ever stop or will our grandkids be listening to ever more creative excuses!?
 
pofadder said:
If I were company X (DFA) and I have been raking in, say, 3000% profits for the last couple of years, WHY would I suddenly be bothered to reduce my profit margin for the "poor little consumer", who makes me rich in the first place?
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Conventional wisdom would say "yes"... Take what you can for as long as your can... That is usually what happens when you have shareholders (Specially if you are listed).

Now if you read guys like Seth Godin and Malcolm Gladwell... They say "No" and claim to have helped many of the companies in the USA (most multi-nationals), you know, FortuneXXX.

Now using my particular brand of thinking... (Which isn't unique at all)
Drop that margin... Not by much. Put pressure on that market as a whole. It becomes more difficult for competitors to enter or take from your customer base. You can also gain new customers, because you are now "priced right" for them...

If you do it right... You keep customers (The cheapest beusiness), you get new customers (The nicest kind of business) and you leave Telkom no choice but to cling like hell to the 'Local Loop" until it kills them...

Now it will take a some time to kill Telkom... But While keeping current business and getting new business, on he grand scale of things, in the long run you will make more money...
 
Flint said:
As asked at the beginning of the thread, if the local backhaul is the expensive part, why is 'local only' bandwidth so cheap? If a gig of local can be sold at R20 and a gig of international at R70, then my understanding would be that the international (ie SAT3) portion must be in that R50 difference (with allowance for margins of course). So why are we hearing yet another damned excuse instead of seeing the move from SAT3 to SEACOM international bandwidth leading to some heavy discounting of that R50!?

Since day 1 of these forums (must be what, 7-8 years ago?) we've been fed one lame-ass excuse after another as to why we get robbed for every gig of data. Will it ever stop or will our grandkids be listening to ever more creative excuses!?
Click to expand...

Because if they make int'l caps bigger, their LOUSY local infrastructure will crumble from overload and people will complain and... they'll have to use some of those profits for upgrades. That's all.
 
Flint said:
As asked at the beginning of the thread, if the local backhaul is the expensive part, why is 'local only' bandwidth so cheap? If a gig of local can be sold at R20 and a gig of international at R70, then my understanding would be that the international (ie SAT3) portion must be in that R50 difference (with allowance for margins of course). So why are we hearing yet another damned excuse instead of seeing the move from SAT3 to SEACOM international bandwidth leading to some heavy discounting of that R50!?

Since day 1 of these forums (must be what, 7-8 years ago?) we've been fed one lame-ass excuse after another as to why we get robbed for every gig of data. Will it ever stop or will our grandkids be listening to ever more creative excuses!?
Click to expand...

+1

You don't have to go back far to find more than one article stating that the International portion of the price of 'bandwidth' is 25% of the total cost...

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/Broadband/8974.html
According to MacRobert international bandwidth - the only area where SEACOM has a direct impact - constitutes between 20% to 25% of the cost of providing a broadband service. This means that a reduction in international bandwidth tariffs will influence the total cost of a broadband service by a small percentage.
Click to expand...

And that took me all of 20 Seconds to find and "Spoeg en plak"...

So, who isn't lying to us?
 
So, in conclusion... The existence of a broadband price break is an illusion. These articles are spaced in time skillfully to sow confusion and help those who are guilty of Wholesale broadband price collusion...

Right?

Or something like that... ;)
 
Complaining

PeterCH said:
Because if they make int'l caps bigger, their LOUSY local infrastructure will crumble from overload and people will complain and... they'll have to use some of those profits for upgrades. That's all.
Click to expand...

People have been complainng now for how long :confused:

and NOTHING gets done ( or will get done ):(

water off a ducks back:rolleyes:

Take to the streets toyi toy smash things throw rubbish around assualt management loot shops -- THEN maybe things will happen.;)

+1 -- CWU -- AMANDHLA -- aWHETU


MW
 
I'm tired of these companies in SA not being able to do anything in a cost effective way. Then they say this is how much it costs us so this is how much we are going to charge. Does someone here know what the backhaul bandwidth costs are overseas?
 
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