Bandwidth prices to plummet

can these damn stories just stop.
hot air is all it is.
we hear of prices coming down.
i am tired of hearing that.
i wanna see it before i believe anything
 
I believe that we won't see a price drop from a consumer point of view. However we will get more bandwidth for the same amount of money, which is a Good Thing (tm)
 
Great, so we get a nice new fiber optic line. Then what? We still need networks capable of carrying the data locally. My guess is that we wont see much of a price cut at first, but when networks expand to cater for the increase in traffic and penetration of broadband improves we could see some bang for our buck.
 
Gaz{M} said:
The general idea is that any large ISP will be able to buy bw at much cheaper rates than currently. So, if IS for example changes their accounts from R299 for 5GB to R299 for 20GB, then everyone else must follow suit.

The minumum price of broadband will stay roughly the same. A DSL connection will not go below +- R150 a month, but the GBs will gradually become dirt cheap. A 4 Meg DSL will still cost around R450 a month, but will become high/un-capped.

There are fixed input costs to any broadband connection. I would say around 30% of the cost is in actual national/international bw. The rest is hardware, support and maintenance. So SEACOM will be reducing that 30% cost by 50 times, not the full 100% price of broadband.
Click to expand...

As I was reading through this thread I was wondering if people who love to comment on these articles (i.e. nearly all the posts above Gaz's), actually follow the industry and attended the conference to actually listen to the speakers?

Most likely not.

Gaz (and the Rodent) are quite right. With all the extra capacity going in there will be a lot more bandwidth available. But the cost to deliver the services won't go down that much. In the current climate, it might even go up.

The numbers quoted by the industry players on Thursday all refer to the cost on the international links. Same with local fiber. And these are all new links with a need to see an ROI.

So while prices WILL drop, the most significant effect we should see is the growth on the caps we have today. A 1G cap will become a 5G cap, 3G will become 10G, 30G will become affordable and uncapped will become available at a decent price point.

Look at the laptop market as a crude analogy. While pricing have come down for the entry level machines, pricing for a 'typical' production laptop are still around the R10K mark and have been at this point for a long time. But the specs increase every year.

Same with data bundles, cost will stay about the same (or drop slightly), but the caps and speed will keep on improving. So the *effective* cost/MB will come down but not the total monthly cost.
 
Last edited:
Well said V3g - was thinking the same thing when I read the article, even the analogy of computer prices. :)
 
and vodacon will still be selling their out of bundle megs at 2 rand. Lol what trash
 
This will probably kick in around 2012, when Luke takes on Kenya with the Gironky's. SSDD
 
vodacom3g said:
So while prices WILL drop, the most significant effect we should see is the growth on the caps we have today. A 1G cap will become a 5G cap, 3G will become 10G, 30G will become affordable and uncapped will become available at a decent price point.
Click to expand...

After bandwidth prices fall by 80%, will we get a standard connection with a 20Gig usage limit for R500? If so that will finally put us on par with other over-priced countries. For heaven sake, our pricing is so ridiculously high, we'd 'kill' just to be ripped off a little more reasonably.
 
aadil said:
After bandwidth prices fall by 80%, will we get a standard connection with a 20Gig usage limit for R500? If so that will finally put us on par with other over-priced countries. For heaven sake, our pricing is so ridiculously high, we'd 'kill' just to be ripped off a little more reasonably.
Click to expand...


I agree 100%
 
The article is misleading. As long as companies will be out to make money off their voice services (a natural want for any company), bandwidth costs will be kept largely in check. At present, bandwidth costs are high - but significantly cheaper than standard fixed line calls, cellular calls and texting costs. If bandwidth is to become significantly cheaper (80% as the article claims), then people will be more likely to use voice over data services instead - thus undermining the core business of Vodacom, MTN, Cell C, Neotel and especially Telkom. As devices become more advanced (skype phones, VOX phones, Neotel handsets and the vast range of Java capable handsets), voice services over WiFi and 3G or other Internet connectivity methodologies are becoming increasingly more commonplace.

So, an equilibrium will be reached - the cost of bandwidth will be reduced as will voice call rates. But as long as voice is handled by these providers, the cost will not be passed on to the consumer entirely. Definitely not to the point where voice over data services replaces the current cash cow for the likes of MTN, Vodacom, Telkom, etc.
 
aadil said:
After bandwidth prices fall by 80%, will we get a standard connection with a 20Gig usage limit for R500? If so that will finally put us on par with other over-priced countries. For heaven sake, our pricing is so ridiculously high, we'd 'kill' just to be ripped off a little more reasonably.
Click to expand...

I think that would be the trend. First thing that should drop drastically are OOB rates.....;)
 
Last edited:
vodacom3g said:
Well, was going to suggest dropping OOB rates by 50%, but if you don't want it, I'll cancel the request.;)
Click to expand...

Ha ha ha. You're so funny. :rolleyes:

Was just trying to illustrate how mad it is paying R2000 a gig.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X