Broadband in SA: another scathing report

[purejimcn]

TJoker you equation is flawed. Vaseline is optional in fact Telkom and Govt prefer not using it

dont wanna imagine dat...

 

[grok]

Another rip-off

For broadband pricing, scale is a major factor. The more customers you have, more you can share/contend capacity/infrastructure without any negative impact to end-user experience. Thus the more customers you have the cheaper it becomes per user.

SA has roughly 650K ADSL lines, while the UK has about 13.9M lines. Unfortunately , we'll never reach their cost per user.

South Africa showed a compound mobile subscriber growth rate of 21.45% per annum from 2003 to 2007/2008, with a mobile penetration rate of 97.54% in 2008. This is well within world standards and compares favorably with most developed nations.

With such a high percentage of South Africans mobile enabled, why are our cellphone tariffs so high then?

 

[JerryMungo]

SA has roughly 650K ADSL lines, while the UK has about 13.9M lines. Unfortunately , we'll never reach their cost per user.

I'll give you three guesses why...
Hint - it has something to do with artificially inflated broadband prices... You know - too expensive means no users - I saw a housing project on Carte Blanche where one household (RDP) had DSTV. If they could afford broadband for that price - even slow broadband, I suspect you would see it in the average low to middle income household...
As it is, broadband is exclusively middle to upper income only.

 

[Roman4604]

I'll give you three guesses why...
Hint - it has something to do with artificially inflated broadband prices... You know - too expensive means no users

How low?

Basic DSL is already avaliable for < R200 p/m (excl tel service), good enough for 1st timers to sample the net.

What about the other financial/practical pre-requisites unrelated to the service pricing; formal dwelling, electricity, PC ownership, being in range of a DSL enable exchange?

Then there is infrastructure itself; at its peak Telkom only had just over 4M fixed line customers, but this has been steadily declining.

Lastly there is demand, I certainly dont believe there are these millions (hungry for broadband) waiting in the wings for DSL to drop to say < R100 p/m.

 

[Hectic]

South Africa only had 1.3 million fixed broadband subscribers in 2008

Where did they get this from?

According to Telkom's Mar 2009 results there were 548 015 active ADSL lines. So maybe now we're at 650K.

Don't know of any other fixed broadband technology avaliable in the country ???

I'm not that clued up on this subject, but maybe "subscribers" refers to accounts? In other words, subscribers that are registered at more than one ISP on the mentioned active adsl lines?

 

[Roman4604]

I'm not that clued up on this subject, but maybe "subscribers" refers to accounts? In other words, subscribers that are registered at more than one ISP on the mentioned active adsl lines?

No this particular figure relates to active DSLAM ports, subscriber numbers / access accounts are a different figure (which Telkom obfuscates by mixing DSL & dialup together).

 

[tjunyat]

Not a fair comparison.

For broadband pricing, scale is a major factor. The more customers you have, more you can share/contend capacity/infrastructure without any negative impact to end-user experience. Thus the more customers you have the cheaper it becomes per user.

SA has roughly 650K ADSL lines, while the UK has about 13.9M lines. Unfortunately , we'll never reach their cost per user.

Try get Telkom's thick head around that!
There was a radio interview with someone at Telkom (I forget who) about 3 years ago, who said they'd dropped the price and suddenly there was an increase in subscribers and they were amazed because when they first introduced DSL, there was minimal take-up of it. Well, no DUH! Really? Who would've thought?
And yet, they're still unwilling to drop it down to what is reasonable, they'd much rather screw the few that enable the many.

 

[Tns]

we the people have been this for years, not that anyone in power gives a hoot.
get rid of those fat lazy bastards in doc,gov and replace them with people that actually can work and know how to work.

 

[Rouxenator]

If you are really serious about it, like me, then you will not become a Telkom customer. I have used Virgin Mobile EDGE, then Vodacom 3G and for the last 18 months I have been with a fixed wireless provider that gives excellent speed and latency (2~3mbps). While I am paying more for my data (R89 per GB) I am luckily not a Telkom customer and my provider does not apply bandwidth apartheid - there is no local or international.

 

[zippy]

South Africa's problems go deeper than broadband affordability.

What about affordability of laptops and desktop ?

The average price of a laptop or desktop is not that far off international prices, but the average income in South Africa is much lower, so you arnt going to get any siginficant numbers which can allow broadband prices to come down while still delivering decent revenues due to high volume of subsribers. This will make international investors reluctanct to take the SA market seriously. Which is probably why some of them have already sold their interests. They did not see that there would be any significant growth in customers.

 

[zippy]

If you are really serious about it, like me, then you will not become a Telkom customer. I have used Virgin Mobile EDGE, then Vodacom 3G and for the last 18 months I have been with a fixed wireless provider that gives excellent speed and latency (2~3mbps). While I am paying more for my data (R89 per GB) I am luckily not a Telkom customer and my provider does not apply bandwidth apartheid - there is no local or international.

Edge and 3G suck bigtime. Its barely suitable for a mobile device. I can imagine the pain of using it in front of a pc.

btw, its so bad, that its free in the UK.