Broadband battle

[TBFK]

What's in a title

Maybe instead of fighting over who is the leading broadband provider, they should be more interested in their customers and aim for the title of "best and most affordable". I don't care how many customers they have as long as their service is good, and the price is affordable.

 

[Johand]

Well - Telkom might want to add their corporate accounts - but I think that the 384k DSL line should be removed from "broadband subscribers" list. It really isn't broadband. It would be interesting to see how many 1 or 4Mbps lines are out there compared to the cheap 384kbps lines.

 

[Drake2007]

While you may think 2GB spread out over 2 months constitutes broadband, it doesn't, not really.

Don't worry I have no such illusions.

 

[moosag]

Which ever way you look at it... there is no clear winner by any large margin. Whether Telkom or Vodacom. The pro's and con's of each service off set the latter.

What we need is a champion in the industry. I thought Neotel would go that route, but I was completely wrong. Between Telkom and Vodacom they pretty much screwing us. Without a champion in the industry the larger companies can keep the status qou. Things dont have to change until someone or some company forces them to change.

Government regulation and ICASA wont help at all because they are so easily disturbed and put off track by the larger companies. Either by legal battles or just snapping up staff. There probably bribery going on as well. As much as GVT wants things to change, they need to take a hard line stance against the larger companies. Without effective regulation and a hard line attitude, we all at the mercy of the larger corporates.

 

[demon angel]

This discussion isnt nearly as relevant as the title suggests.
The recent happenings with Hellkon's pricing suggests backward 'potatoe' growth,
And the poorest remain ignorant by being unable to afford bandwidth.
Cellphone broadband operators are in the best position to turn this around,yet very little has been done.
Rollover alone isnt nearly good enough!PRICE CUTS OR CAP INCREASE!

 

[Wogan]

Last I checked, we didn't vote Obama as president of SA.

It's unfair to expect that SA will match the standards of US & EU. Remember, we're in Africa, and we have far more pressing issues to deal with than broadband. Commercial potential or not.

That being said, Telkom can do more. ICASA can do more. In fact, far as 2010 is concerned, they HAVE to do more. We're still very behind on ADSL, and 2010 is fast approaching.

Vodacom's doing fine. 700k 3G users in a country of 40m == small segment, so expect prices to stay high while demand builds.

MTN, CellC, Virgin, I can't comment on, never having used them.

Bottom line: We're getting there.

If you want 20mbps uncapped fiber, move to the States.

 

[chubster]

Last I checked, we didn't vote Obama as president of SA.

It's unfair to expect that SA will match the standards of US & EU. Remember, we're in Africa, and we have far more pressing issues to deal with than broadband. Commercial potential or not.

That being said, Telkom can do more. ICASA can do more. In fact, far as 2010 is concerned, they HAVE to do more. We're still very behind on ADSL, and 2010 is fast approaching.

Vodacom's doing fine. 700k 3G users in a country of 40m == small segment, so expect prices to stay high while demand builds.

MTN, CellC, Virgin, I can't comment on, never having used them.

Bottom line: We're getting there.

If you want 20mbps uncapped fiber, move to the States.

Thank you for your insightful "don't care about us attitude" speech. There will always be somebody saying: "Lets change the perception, from International to our own continent. Thus the statistical figures shoots up. A Quick Fix to make the books look good. That is utter BS, and you know that 20 years ago, South Africa was on par with other international countries, OUTSIDE of Africa. In my opinion we should still be comparing our selves to them since we did benchmark our selves to them previously. If we don't, then we are saying that it is OK. Lets lower our standards, because we are a bunch of losers and we will accept any bone that they throw at us.

How come we could get 20GB a month 10 years ago on Telkom Call More. As soon as they introduced ADSL and took away Call More. Suddenly to get the same amount of bandwidth on ADSL, it would cost us price of 3GB x 6.67.

So they shoot up the prices sky high, and then bring it back closer to what it was 10 years ago! And we should to be thankful, because we are Africans. That is total BS!

 

[MFour]

I agree with chubster. Why should we not be entitled to the best that the world has to offer? I do not intend to settle for 3rd best just because people with an backwards attitude like Wogan are all too happy to sit back and take the thrashing.

If the rest of the so-called 1st world has uncapped, unshaped 20 mb/s broadband access, then why the hell should we not have it? We know South Africa is capable of great things, once we remove govermental obstacles and redtape.

 

[demon angel]

Thank you for your insightful "don't care about us attitude" speech. There will always be somebody saying: "Lets change the perception, from International to our own continent. Thus the statistical figures shoots up. A Quick Fix to make the books look good. That is utter BS, and you know that 20 years ago, South Africa was on par with other international countries, OUTSIDE of Africa. In my opinion we should still be comparing our selves to them since we did benchmark our selves to them previously. If we don't, then we are saying that it is OK. Lets lower our standards, because we are a bunch of losers and we will accept any bone that they throw at us.

How come we could get 20GB a month 10 years ago on Telkom Call More. As soon as they introduced ADSL and took away Call More. Suddenly to get the same amount of bandwidth on ADSL, it would cost us price of 3GB x 6.67.

So they shoot up the prices sky high, and then bring it back closer to what it was 10 years ago! And we should to be thankful, because we are Africans. That is total BS!

I agree on your sentiments.

We cannot just accept the situation and be happy with it,because there are more important issues in SA to deal with.

Telkom doesnt seem to wanna budge on pricing,and it puts our cellular broadband providers in a unique position.

Although our 3g is cheaper then many countries, we are in an unfortunate position to be left with 3g as a staple rather then being an on the go convenient alternative.

Granted South Africa needs to be benchmarked in terms of world standards,but saying that does not give our wireless competitors the right to pat themselves on the back thinking they are doing wonders for our broadband needs compared with world standards.

SA has unique needs in the short term and wireless providers need to up their game and be a hell of a lot more competitive if they want to entrench their dominance in the long run.

In this country, our wireless counterparts must act like true broadband providers and increase caps closer to world standards thus acting like a wired provider in terms of cost and be the necessity that it is for SA.[NOT SO MUCH THE WORLD]
It can be done with the upcoming cables and it can still be INCREDIBLY PROFITABLE!

What really pops my crispies is that we have to play a waiting game in a RECESSION,where everything is uber expensive and these guys could become heroes.....

The day this happens is the day i change my signiture and it must be soon!

 

[Tns]

If the rest of the so-called 1st world has uncapped, unshaped 20 mb/s broadband access, then why the hell should we not have it? We know South Africa is capable of great things, once we remove govermental obstacles and redtape.

it's because the government is greedy and lining their own pockets, they so called for the people (which ever race) is lot of bs.

 

[Vrotappel]

Sorry but not one of the choices actually provide true broadband services. True broadband in SA does not exist.

 

[The_Unbeliever]

Companies with the right attitude will survive in the years to come.

With that I mean rolling out your own networks, and trying to get things done to bypass a certain monopolistic service provider in order to lower your overheads.

Times are tough, and the economic climate will make it harder for companies to keep their customers.

Telkom only have one advantage - namely that they don't have to pay off on their network infrastructure - but said infrastructure is in a desperate need of overhaul, so they will have to upgrade sooner or later.

The rest are disadvantaged in the sense that they still either are dependent upon Telkom, or still have to install (and connect) their own networks, or they have to pay off the cost of installing their own networks.

And, of course, LLU is still the biggest obstacle there is - as long as it remain, there will be no incentive by some of the companies to start laying their own fixed-lines to customers premises.

On top of it all we have two Government departments who still have to show us which direction they'll want to go - but at this stage it doesn't look promising.

 

[GerhardL]

My biggest question is, what is the definition of leading? Does leading necessarily mean the amount of users, because if "leading" is only a numbers game, then the answer is simple it should be Vodacom. However if the same logic is applied that would make Shoprite South Africa's leading supermarket chain, which would be contradicted by Pick n Pay's award for being the leading supermarket in the world.

I personally think Vodacom should look at the ridiculous data rates they charge and Telkom should look at their poor service delivery (although may I add it has improved), instead of hunting for titles that means very little to the informed. It reminds me a bit of the American Way: Having a World Series for American Football when there isn't any other countries playing the sport.

I agree with rpm that competition is needed and has bettered connectivity, but also share the sentiment that it is a bit of a matter of in the land of the blind, the one-eyed is king.

 

[TheRoDent]

Dear Vodacom:

How many "GPRS" subscribers ?
How many "EDGE" subscribers ?
How many "HSDPA" subscribers ?

Or is your definition of "Broadband" anyone "with a data connection" ?

That would be the true statistic. I would venture that Telkom kicks your buttocks if we had to separate it out...

Sad, but most likely true....

 

[Deckert]

Internationally they are talking about increasing the line speeds to 20Mbps and beyond and here we are discussing increasing caps to 2Gb and possibly 7Mbps in 9 to 12 months! Come on!

Yep, that's what they're talking about internationally, but the reality is something different. My wife and I travel quite a bit and my wife has several overseas guests staying with us a few times a year and the broadband discussion always comes up.

In the US, in the state of South Carolina, a professor lives 30 minutes away from a fairly large university. The most she can get at her home is a 56k dial-up connection. A friend of hers, living close to Winnipeg in Canada is in the same boat. Their mobile networks are worth less than nothing when it comes to high speed access and have terrible coverage - only one of their networks even comes close to having national coverage like we do.

One of my friends staying in the province of Victoria in Australia within the Melbourne city limits has the choice of only one ISP and carrier. He can only get a 1Mbit link and has a 10GB cap for roughly the same price we pay for a 4Mbit link and a 5GB cap here.

Another friend of mine that lives in Stockholm in Sweden in the city center of Kista has had a 1Mbit link since 2000. He still has the same link, but doesn't have the option to upgrade. His friend, staying 10 minutes away in Sollentuna, have fiber into their apartment building.

It's easy to look for the fastest connections available in any one country, but one forgets that other countries have issues just like ours - flaky interconnects, overloaded exchanges and really old cabling systems are everywhere, not just in SA.

We do have some ways to go, and we'll only really see price decreases from SEACOM within about 2 to 3 years, but it's not all bad. Things are happening, they're not stagnating. Behind the scenes there are plenty of infrastructure being built, but these people are waiting for it to be completed so as not to create over-hyped expectation and let-down as we're seeing with SEACOM.

Wait for it, good things are coming.

--deckert

 

[jannievanzyl]

Dear Vodacom:

How many "GPRS" subscribers ?
How many "EDGE" subscribers ?
How many "HSDPA" subscribers ?

Or is your definition of "Broadband" anyone "with a data connection" ?

That would be the true statistic. I would venture that Telkom kicks your buttocks if we had to separate it out...

Sad, but most likely true....

"Anyone with a data connection" for VC is around 5 million active, unique users per month, as per the article.

 

[Wogan]

Thank you for your insightful "don't care about us attitude" speech.

I agree on your sentiments.

I agree with chubster. Why should we not be entitled to the best that the world has to offer?

There is a context to what I'm saying, through which it'll make sense (and not seem like I'm "sitting back and taking the thrashing"), but it goes so far outside the realm of broadband, I don't think myBB is the place to discuss it.

But you know, just like Trevor Manuel says, look at the numbers, let them do the talking.

According to the article, Telkom has 548 015 ADSL subscribers. Yay. Now look at that in context:

548 015 / 50 000 000 = 1.096% of South Africa has ADSL.

You know what that type of market segment is called? LAUGHABLY SMALL. It's about as niche as markets get!

Now look at USA:

shows that 63% of Americans now have broadband Internet connections in their homes

http://www.pcworld.com/article/166859/us_broadband_adoption_prices_both_on_the_rise.html

See the difference? 1% vs 63%.

There is such a thing as Supply and Demand, and quite frankly, there's not nearly enough demand in South Africa to justify vast quantities of supply. If there were let's say, 22.5m broadband customers, (making it 45% of the country), you can bet your left kidney Telkom and Vodacom would be hauling ass to make broadband as powerful and cheap as possible - because as the US so rightly pointed out, the more powerful it is, the more users are likely to spend on and through it.

But we're stuck with a measly 500k/1% subscribers. No wonder there are over 3 million still on dialup.

And we're stuck with low numbers like this because most South Africans obviously don't care about Youtube, World of Warcraft and Bittorrent. If they did, then despite the fact that it costs a few hundred a month to get connected, they would.

And that's why I say - if you want faster broadband, move elsewhere, because you'll be moving into a higher demand area.

 

[Sting]

Your estimate is flawed. You cannot divide subscribers by total population. If there are 4 people living in 1 house then all 4 have access to the internet connection.

 

[Wogan]

Your estimate is flawed. You cannot divide subscribers by total population. If there are 4 people living in 1 house then all 4 have access to the internet connection.

Yup. And if there are 300 people hogging a library's single 2mbit line during the course of the day (Bloemfontein public library, kthx), then the estimate's also flawed.

But these are the same numbers that technical and product directors and financial officers and all the people responsible for making decisions look at, which, for the purpose of this discussion, makes it pertinent.

At the end of the day, no matter how many people use a single ADSL line, that account only gets paid once, and that's what matters. So it's not about more users, it's about more subscribers.

 

[Abe]

No-one is deserving of this title in this broadband hellhole we live in.

That was my thoughts too. I voted other because they are all useless.