Broadband pricing and SEACOM

I also heard a rumor that current local SAIX bandwidth, costs' about R1.50 to the wholesalers. (Resellers do not qualify), and intl bandwidth goes for less than R15.

and I can believe it, I mean I'm getting INTL bandwidth from IS for R44/GB... well below the current market average.


So if my mark-up was 80 - 100%+, I wouldn't be in a hurry either!


For those of you who want +-R44/GB internet - have a look at companies, like medical aids - and banks, who use Branded Internet as their ISP.
 
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On a side note, being there today for the debate was great ... Although all we got was an idea that things should go better (Telkom's update to the existing cable should be finished by Spetember if I heard correctly), but things are not well now !!!
 
MacRobert predicted that there will be significant price reductions in 2011 when the WACS cable becomes operational and hence provides redundancy to the SEACOM system.
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Forgive my intrusion but why does SEACOM need to wait for WACS before it can offer redundancy? In the event of a break it can make use of the existing SAT3/SAFE combination, similarly to the way in which they can use SEACOM as redundancy.
 
When Moholi was asked about broadband price reductions, she said that pricing is coming down, but that the biggest issue is not tariffs but rather how much bandwidth is available at what cost. Moholi said that it should be remembered that Telkom is not the only broadband provider, and that the local broadband market can be seen as very competitive.
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Politician...
The missing follow-up question... "For whom is broadband becoming cheaper?"
Isn't she Telkom?

Ex-Vodacom CEO Alan Knott-Craig said that Telkom’s previous monopoly was to blame for the poor national broadband infrastructure and subsequent high costs and poor service levels. He added that it will take years for South Africa to catch up with the rest of the world. Knott-Craig noted that SA has a legacy of a fixed line monopoly which lasted over a decade, and that it will most likely take another decade to overcome the effects of this monopoly.
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So, even Mr Knott-Craig is blaming the previous regime for our current problems... Has he been visiting ICASA/ANC offices?

Knott-Craig further said that he does not believe that Infraco will lower telecoms costs and provide better broadband services. His advice was for Government to avoid becoming an industry player within the telecoms market and rather focus their energies on facilitating a more competitive market.
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Setting the stage for himself to blame ICASA later...

According to Knott-Craig a more competitive telecoms market can be created by handing out the available spectrum to operators who have the money and manpower to utilize it best, lowering interconnect rates and avoiding Government initiatives like Infraco.
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Yes, hand them over to the same people who have done nothing with those that have some of the other licenses... And Mr Knott-Craig does not ever illaborate on why it is that they, VoodooCom, (MTN, et al) have never self provided if Telkom (etc...) are such a problem...

The consensus at this year’s Internetix appears to be that there is no quick-fix for lowering broadband prices. Whatever measures are put in place now will take a fair amount of time to filter down to a consumer level where ordinary South Africans see the benefits.
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e tu Brutus...

Then to further insult the thinking man...
Which big business is going to be letting his/her/their staff watch HD youtube/TV or IP TV at work... Those are the things the readers and contributors here want...

EPIC fail...

Definitely the next iteration of "sat it enough times and they'll believe it."

I think I will pay the termination fee and by books made of trees...:confused:

EDIT: Oh AND am I the only one that saw them suggest that the BS they have been showering us with for the last year is still 10 years away???
 
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These articles are riddled with contradictions!
Stop screwing with our minds!
You might as well be as ignorant,because nobody is on our side.
Makes me so damn mad!
 
Ive said it before, and I'll say it again .... If no-one will provide us cheap broadband because they are linked to an old Telkom contract rate, then what stops Joe Public from starting a new ISP TODAY, and blowing all ISP's out of the water.

It doesnt have to be expensive to start an ISP, all we need is some tech savvy network people (MyBB must have hundreds) to put their heads together on a new forum thread and formulate a plan. Then start an ISP that has only Email Support, Tech savvy ISP customers can respond to tech emails for Gigs (ie - 50 email support responses = 1 month free or something) .. Start a bank account .. get commitment from X no of users who pay like a grand and get a share or something .. then pay normal monthly internet fees thereafter. Use the 50 000 1 grand deposits to buy equipment and set it up and pay the dudes who set it up.

Then 1 million users sign up because they can get 30 gigs for 130 rand (ie at local prices) .. and everyone smiles .. and you can give the man the finger over Broadband prices.

Pie in the sky .. only if you want it to be .... maybe I should just do it .. hmmmm ;)
 
Let me give you some quick fixes

How about unbundling the local loop by say.. 1 OCtober 2009????
How about making transparent the true cost of offering broadband as I am sure the so called 20% is international ***** is definitely BS.
How about allowing WUGs to also operate internet without licenses?

There are three options here that just came to my mind within 1 minute, now either the gov is corrupt or they are completely useless.
 
For us non-BComm people, lets say we're playing starcraft (i presume there are plenty of gamers here). On the one hand, we have one player as terran, the other as zerg. The terran player has only 6 scv's mining for the whole game, the zerg player mass produces drones early game and keeps on pumping units, and as such overlords.

Obviously the terran player's gonna see his ass, as his economy won't be able to support a large number of units or real teching. So a small army, thus few supply depots. Also, any addition of units to the army would undoubtedly put strain on the economy. Zerg on the other hand can scour the map looking for more resources for units and teching, and if the scouting units die, they dont care coz they could be easily replaced. Evidently the terran army aint too happy bout going to war in that scenario

so from this analogy, terran is Telkom, zerg is say south korea's main broadband supplier. Supply depots and overlords are the infrastructure of those telco's networks, and the armies are the broadband subscribers. Teching would be providing better technology, services, packaging, etc. (or something to those effects)

So from all this nonsense, the fact of the matter is that a small portion of the population are benefiting from our "broadband" infrastructure (obvious why " was used) hence the high costs that small portion pays. Telkom can tout that uneconomical-to-provide-service-in-certain-areas crap all day but if done that investment would much more often than not reap rewards and lower the overall costs for the general subscriber base. Ask any starcraft player which army he'd like to be in charge of:)

If you really wanna lower costs lobby the govt to force telkom (let's give neotel a chance to catchup in the meantime) to provide the technology in those overlooked places.

If you think im wrong, watch what kenya's gonna do now that seacom's on. In 10 years i wouldn't be surprised if kenyans bemoan our crap network if they visited
 
I think I'm missing something... maybe some educated person at Telkom / IS can fill in the blanks.

For years we've been hearing the 'we can't offer uncapped international' / 'reduce international bandwidth pricing' because Telkom has the monopoly on the SAT3/Safe cable, and charges huge prices. So, every month, I've hauled out approximately R70 per Gb of international traffic, and R20 per Gb of local traffic. (a 350% markup on local bandwidth)... I am using rough pricing here.

The cable lands here now, and these same people are telling me that the cost of International Bandwidth is only 20% of the total cost, citing things like peering and backhaul being more of a factor than we were previously led to believe.

I'm interested to know exactly what the other 80% is made up of.... And how much of that 80% is 'local' bandwidth. I understand things are not as cut and dried as that. I don't have enough detail here yet to start pointing fingers. Maybe you can fill me in.

To my mind the local loop, as its often referred to, is in place. Telkom obviously need to maintain it, so there's cost involved there, but for the most part if the copper is there, it doesn't cost Telkom anything (apart from peering costs perhaps) for traffic locally.

So, if international traffic is not more expensive than local traffic, why

a) doesn't the international portion of our bandwidth bill get reduced? even if its by 20%. I understand there still needs to be some infrastructure put in place etc. Some info on this would be great. i.e. which ISP's are planning to buy capacity on Seacom, and when they expect their infrastructure to be ready
b) if peering locally is so expensive, why don't we peer internationally (yes, latency, interconnects between telkom customers and everyone else)... why don't the isp's out there find some solution? Why doesn't government step in and intervene (instead of running their own telecoms company -- we know exactly how good they are at management)
c) why have we been led to believe for years that the reason for the high costs of international bandwidth has been the cost of data on SAT3/SAFE?

To me, it all smells a bit fishy. Somewhere, somehow, amidst furious statements to the contrary, all our friends at Big Telecom have sat down and decided on prices. This is a perfect job for the competition commission, but alas, we have a condoned monopoly in the form of Telkom, and it would look really silly if they were found guilty of being a monopoly, since, well, the Government itself owns a huge portion of the company in question.

To sum up, we're all f%^ed. I am going to go buy some Astraglide, and apply it to the well worn orifice Telco's are fond of using.

That is all.
 
Seamus6917 said:
So, even Mr Knott-Craig is blaming the previous regime for our current problems... Has he been visiting ICASA/ANC offices?
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Why are you deflecting a perfectly valid argument? Monopolies are known to be immovable beast set in their ways marred with bad service delivery coz they proclaim DILLIGAF!

Altho ANC been busy wit their closing-the-gap campaign (albeit with dubious results) they better get their crap together soon
 
tardomatic said:
I'm interested to know exactly what the other 80% is made up of....
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If you ask me heavily inflated maintenance and after service support pricing, after all monopolies can charge anything they want. Wouldn't be surprised if they milking you guys to broaden infrastructure and to better the tech, but seriously nothing is happening in that regard
 
You know what I've just realized - all these b*stards are in it together - black and white. Don't blame the "guvvermint" and "meeneestars" for theft; greed is a common factor amongst black (government) and white-owned companies. They have secretive meetings and decide on how best to screw the consumer even more. Then they decide how much to slip to ICASA or whatever 'regulatory' body there is - because there is always a greedy b*stard at the helm of all these bodies. Then you get this fin24 article which says that the south african public is 'apathetic' - well please enlighten me - who the HELL do we go complain to when we are screwed by Telkom, *****ed up the *ss by Eskom and stuffed around royally by 'guvvermint' bodies that splits rates/electricity/water and now we pay double our levies just to live in our own bleddy houses or apartments. I just wonder if there are any honest people left in power in this *****ing country. Sorry for the french, I am just so p*ssed off after seeing this article and my latest Eskom bill.
 
jetlee said:
Ive said it before, and I'll say it again .... If no-one will provide us cheap broadband because they are linked to an old Telkom contract rate, then what stops Joe Public from starting a new ISP TODAY, and blowing all ISP's out of the water.

It doesnt have to be expensive to start an ISP, all we need is some tech savvy network people (MyBB must have hundreds) to put their heads together on a new forum thread and formulate a plan. Then start an ISP that has only Email Support, Tech savvy ISP customers can respond to tech emails for Gigs (ie - 50 email support responses = 1 month free or something) .. Start a bank account .. get commitment from X no of users who pay like a grand and get a share or something .. then pay normal monthly internet fees thereafter. Use the 50 000 1 grand deposits to buy equipment and set it up and pay the dudes who set it up.

Then 1 million users sign up because they can get 30 gigs for 130 rand (ie at local prices) .. and everyone smiles .. and you can give the man the finger over Broadband prices.

Pie in the sky .. only if you want it to be .... maybe I should just do it .. hmmmm ;)
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This is a great idea, but some things would have to be researched 1st like...
  1. Will SEACOM sell this new ISP bandwidth?
  2. Will Telscum allow the new ISP use of the local loop?
  3. Will the ANC allow this to happen? (We'll be kicking shins, poking eyes & jabbing balls, after all)

If there's room to dance, I'm in for a few more than the R1K each that's been mentioned. ;)
 
but dont you guys love paying top price for **** speeds & bandwidth? i think it is amazing.



if you havent picked up on my sarcasm yet then you obviously agree with my above statement.
 
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