Cabling the Indian Ocean

The effects are expected to be felt almost immediately in SA, with fresh bandwidth driving down costs.
Click to expand...

Omg, make up your mind :(
 
waynerau said:
600 million us Dallars
dont you think they going to want to see returns for that money before we will see any changes.
Click to expand...

Any serious investor* knows that ROI happens over extended periods. These extended periods and the rate of ROI will have been outlined in the pitch docs to the investors. What we don't know is the extended period that their ROI is supposed to happen in, and by how much... so we have to go on other known info:

SEACOM will have significant impact on market pricing. Because SEACOM is making massive new bandwidth available, prices will come down dramatically, opening up the possibility of developing new fields of economic activity in all the countries served.
Click to expand...
(emphasis mine) ref: http://www.seacom.mu/overview/objectives.html

We can, no, will put pressure on SEACOM, and all leeches should this promise not be fulfilled.

* These are serious investors, because we know who they are: http://www.seacom.mu/overview/shareholder.html
 
Seacom cannot come into the market at a cost higher than Telkom's SAT3 cable as they would never pay off their investment, and in order to lure business away from Telkom it is unlikely they would match Telkom's prices. They therefore have to come in at a rate lower than Telkom's SAT3 cable. They also have to establish significant presence in the market (especially with businesses) before any of the other planned cables go live.

What this means is that there will be price competition however small. Prices for base level bandwidth will definitely go down. We just don't know by how much.

My prediction is by at least 60% by the end of the year. :D
 
Garyvdh said:
Seacom cannot come into the market at a cost higher than Telkom's SAT3 cable as they would never pay off their investment, and in order to lure business away from Telkom it is unlikely they would match Telkom's prices. They therefore have to come in at a rate lower than Telkom's SAT3 cable. They also have to establish significant presence in the market (especially with businesses) before any of the other planned cables go live.

What this means is that there will be price competition however small. Prices for base level bandwidth will definitely go down. We just don't know by how much.

My prediction is by at least 60% by the end of the year. :D
Click to expand...

I agree with this. Another scenario that comes to mind is the likes of Vodacom and MTN - Both control pricing in the cell phone industry if I understand it correctly. (interconnection rates) - Hopefully such a situation won't happen with SeaCom.
 
To be entirely frank, undersea cables where always just an convenience excuse. We are acutely lacking sufficient distribution network on the ground to the consumer.

All those undersea cable investors are gunning for one event that will see them repay their investment.. Soccer World Cup that is the honey pot they are after..... all those TV broadcasts that will have to make their way out of Africa.... that is the big ching... nobody caes about consumer or the current overpricing....

Once the cup is over..they will hand over infrastructure to any party that will continue to exploit the consumer.

So stop dreaming...
 
You guys really think prices are going to come down? Has history in SA taught you nothing?
If anything prices may go up knowing how big business rape the customer here. i doubt we will see much change.
 
marine1 said:
You guys really think prices are going to come down? Has history in SA taught you nothing?
If anything prices may go up knowing how big business rape the customer here. i doubt we will see much change.
Click to expand...

That is why I say we should challenge these *******s. Keep putting pressure on your ISP to drop their prices.

For example, if your ISP does not simply resell SIAX or IS bandwidth but have their own IP Connect network, you can ask them why they don't drop their prices.

I don't suggest trying to get vodascum and telscum to drop prices, they are too large and think way too little of their hostages, or "customers".

But smaller ISPs like Openweb, Webafrica or Cybersmart can be forced. If they drop their prices the rest of the market has to follow suit.

But yes marine1, the large scum will do their best to take us for a ride. :mad:
 
Garyvdh said:
What this means is that there will be price competition however small. Prices for base level bandwidth will definitely go down. We just don't know by how much.

My prediction is by at least 60% by the end of the year. :D
Click to expand...

I agree with this too. I would like to see more, but I do think the "more" portion will happen in the 2010-2012 timeframe.
 
i could unerstand all the negativity if we were still sitting in the same situation as we were 10 years back with just Telkom and a few lowly players in the ISP field all restricted by rediculous telecom regulations but i think because of Neotels introduction and Altech's court case theres alot more room for other ISPs (axxess, webafrica ect) to make a stink regarding bandwidth prices. Im certain that if prices at least dont come down, caps will surely multiply
 
There are so many reasons why the prices will rise, not fall, but I am not going into that right now. Consider this :

If the prices will really drop, then big players like Telkom will know this and make a pre-emptive strike. They will begin to lower bandwidth cost way in advance to any event that will lead to competition getting the upper hand.

Now, Telkom is not doing this - so there you have your answer.
 
Rouxenator said:
There are so many reasons why the prices will rise, not fall, but I am not going into that right now. Consider this :

If the prices will really drop, then big players like Telkom will know this and make a pre-emptive strike. They will begin to lower bandwidth cost way in advance to any event that will lead to competition getting the upper hand.

Now, Telkom is not doing this - so there you have your answer.
Click to expand...

what was Telkom's pre-emtive strike to Neotel?
 
Exactly - how successful is Neotel ?! and it is how many years later ?

Telkom knew that and that is why they did f0k4ll. Which is exactly what they are doing now. So you know whats coming...
 
In the consumer market, yes, Neotel is sucking but that could have been seen a mile away: wireless tech + coverage issues + speed + latency + consumer apathy + the fact that cellophone networks got to everyone already who didnt have a land line.
The big money is in corporates and we've seen them taking a market share already. Telkom was defintely buttering up big clients leading up to neotels launch.

In the case of bandwidth i jst think the industry is in a bit a watching phase. We didnt see any cuts by telkom around August as in the years before and everyones watching Neotel at the moment. Theres no reason to start scrambling now, they not going to win that many new subscribers by going bonzaai so why attack you profits in this kinda market?
But when Seacom is up and running the pressure will be back on be it from public, ISPs, whoever. the hype is already there to warrant investigations into pricing.
 
Rouxenator said:
then big players like Telkom will know this and make a pre-emptive strike.
Click to expand...
I do not believe Telkom are pre-emptive in any way, more likely the SA-Business-Syndrome will prevail: skrew them from as much for as long as you can (otherwise known as "the greed factor.")

MTN and Vodacom did not drop prices until the last minute before Cell-C started ops. (sure they "gave" away starter sim cards... but call prices were, ARE still the same: bloody high.)

We are still 6-months away from SEACOM - SA Business Greed dictates that they still have 6-months to skrew us.

No pre-emptive anything. Pure greed.
 
just the same old bollocks, so now ISPs etc are crying "other costs" so dont expect much change, what about every other country, dont they have "other costs", so howcome they have 24MB/s for R250 uncapped, or 50MB/s for R350 or 4MB/s for R450, there really is no excuse.
 
South African companies will always find a excuse .... pitifull
 
rippedoff said:
just the same old bollocks, so now ISPs etc are crying "other costs" so dont expect much change, what about every other country, dont they have "other costs", so howcome they have 24MB/s for R250 uncapped, or 50MB/s for R350 or 4MB/s for R450, there really is no excuse.
Click to expand...

While this may sound like I'm defending our current pricing, I'm not.
However, other countries have much smaller land masses to cover and they have had the advantage of competition for much longer, also their governments have been MUCH more pro-active in deregulating and privatising for the good of the common person.

While SA may have some very new technology, bleeding edge even in some cases, we are way behind in mass infrastructure deployment due to being screwed by the monopol[y|ies] and government for so many years.

So basically, at the end of the day, once competition finally arrives (it hasn't yet, even though the process has started with Neotel and now the court decision on the ECA) it is going to take time to bring down the pricing to anywhere near what other liberalised countries are experiencing.

In my opinion, pricing will start dropping, almost as soon as SEACOM lands, but it's not going to be anywhere near what the consumer desires, but it's yet another small step in the right direction. Every small step is going to count and will eventually (we're working on African time here folks) get us to reasonable pricing and data caps (or lack of cap entirely)
 
The Wireless User Groups of south africa are the only progress that is being made in favour of cheaper communications.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X