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Capped ADSL making a comeback

Some Internet Service Providers reported growth in their capped ADSL products, which may show a comeback of capped ADSL
 
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well if you make uncapped suck donkey's balls, we the clients have no choice but to head back to capped during the day at least.
 
Uncapped was what people wanted at the time, because the sentiment back then was that too much was being paid by the consumer for the amount of bandwidth they were getting. To a person having to sit within the constraints of 3-10GB, having a sudden "unlimited for a similar price" offering is too good to pass up. This coupled with the fact that in most cases the uncapped offerings worked just as well (maybe slightly worse, but not significantly) than their capped offerings, meant that the value proposition to the end user was skewed completely towards uncapped.

However, over time the quality of uncapped has eroded so much and the cap levels have risen to become more competitive given the uncapped landscape (if you consider pre-uncapped you were looking at between 3-10GB on average while now you're looking at 30-300GB at similar prices), and a LOT of the downsides (predominantly cap size) have been greatly reduced, that to the "discerning user" the more "premium offering" that capped is now being painted as has become more attractive. Clearly owing to the "resurgence" seen in capped uptake.

This is not to say however that capped is not without its problems, especially on the low end. It would behoove ISPs to not fool themselves into believing that "capped" is necessarily what people want and we then end up going back to the status quo of pre-uncapped. Ultimately consumers are looking for a QUALITY product at a price they can justify for that quality.
 
I agree mostly with what Tharaxis said. I've always maintained that a high cap value at a decent price will be a very good competitor for uncapped. And AfriHosts price changes towards the end of last year proved that.

Once you realise that you won't actually be able to "install" all the "HD Linux distros" that you've downloaded this month, and that you can space them out over 2 or 3 months, you get to the point where a certain limit of bandwidth per month is generally enough (in my case that appeared to be ~50GB). So when AfriHost's 50GB package was set at the same price of 1M uncapped, it made sense (for me at least) to switch from uncapped to capped. I've never had to look back. I also just signed up for WebAfrica's 60+60 account (after some excessive downloads for work basically depleted my AH account), and I must say I'm very happy with that as well.

Uncapped will always have a place, especially in businesses. But high-cap packages at good prices will probably benefit most end users (basically home users) more. It allows ISPs to plan more accurately for network usage and potentially upgrade infrastructure at more appropriate times as the need arises.
 
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I have said it before. I would prefer a capped product of 120GB for about R199, than an uncapped account for R199. This is starting to become possible.

AH has roughly 18 days left to come to the party or they will loose a lot of clients to Web Africa.
 
I have said it before. I would prefer a capped product of 120GB for about R199, than an uncapped account for R199. This is starting to become possible.

AH has roughly 18 days left to come to the party or they will loose a lot of clients to Web Africa.

I'd prefer for 60GBs for ~R100, but it needs to be anytime data. My usage seems to be declining. Last year I used 140GB's per month on average. In December I only used 77GB's and January only 65GB's. So far for Feb I've used less than 8GB's.

I think the biggest reason for the decline is that I now game online instead of downloading all the time.
 
Uncapped ADSL also has the added benefit of not having to manage a data cap or watch your usage.

IF... Derek said that then he deserves a straight up PK ASAP. :mad:
 
MWEB ISP CEO Derek Hershaw said that while some capped products are more affordable for some of the market, uncapped ADSL still offers the best overall value.

Uncapped ADSL also has the added benefit of not having to manage a data cap or watch your usage.
Can't believe I'm reading this, straight up lies from Hershaw :sick:
 
I reckon at R3 per gb capped data starts becoming a viable alternative to an uncapped account.

If prices drop as low as R1.00-R2.00 per gb you may very well see the end of uncapped accounts.
 
I have said it before. I would prefer a capped product of 120GB for about R199, than an uncapped account for R199. This is starting to become possible.

AH has roughly 18 days left to come to the party or they will loose a lot of clients to Web Africa.

I am also waiting for AH to respond. after hours will serve me well. there was a post about this on there facebook page but it was deleted very fast....
 
MWEB ISP CEO Derek Hershaw said that while some capped products are more affordable for some of the market, uncapped ADSL still offers the best overall value.

Can't believe I'm reading this, straight up lies from Hershaw :sick:

Hahahaha yeah never mind throttling....don't worry about that....
 
When you know how much you need and there are packages out there that provide that and a bit extra just in case then capped is magical. For my purposes the equivalent of 3GB a day is more than enough since most days I use less than 1GB.

Average montly usage: Somewhere around 70GB.

Loving the speed of Afrihost 100GB Gold @10mbps
 
1) I also think a capped solution is the answer for the future, but without any shaping, throttling, rate-limiting or any other name the ISP call it (eg WebAfrica with traffic prioritisation).

2) All capped accounts should have extra/unlimited offpeak bandwidth from midnight to 6am. (Directed at AfriHost and Axxess. Kudos to TI and WA).
 
I've never had a problem with caps. I only had a problem with how ridiculously small and expensive they are.
 
i wish my ADSL line would make a comeback.
previously disadvantaged countrymen stole the cables in our street... 2 weeks now, telkom hasn't done ***** yet :(

i'm on capped adsl, would love to go mobile... but need about 40Gb pm.... still too big price diff between adsl and HSPA... but at least mobile is faster, and doesnt dissapear 3weeks at a time
 
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Caps will likely become more popular once vdsl takes off. Obviously in time things like online backups and 4k will drive us back to uncapped, but cheap and fast uncapped vdsl is still years away.
 
"Afrihost CEO Gian Visser added that many clients enjoy choosing their cap based on their average monthly usage – especially when they know their speeds will always be constant, unshaped and fast, no matter the time of day or night."

Not to sure about this one....I am currently downloading an ISO from MSDN. It started at 700kb's then I logged of my remote session. Came back an hour later to find it sitting at 70kb's. Open google.co.za and news24.co.za and for some reason it starts to climb again...Already at 300kb's....mmmm......on 240GB capped
 
"Afrihost CEO Gian Visser added that many clients enjoy choosing their cap based on their average monthly usage – especially when they know their speeds will always be constant, unshaped and fast, no matter the time of day or night."

Not to sure about this one....I am currently downloading an ISO from MSDN. It started at 700kb's then I logged of my remote session. Came back an hour later to find it sitting at 70kb's. Open google.co.za and news24.co.za and for some reason it starts to climb again...Already at 300kb's....mmmm......on 240GB capped

Not saying it's the case currently with what you're experiencing, but sometimes people forget that there are occasionally other links in the chain as well. Quite often the drop in speed is at the server side.

I've had plenty of situations where one download would be chugging along at ~10kbps, but starting a second download for something else from another server would use full line speed while absolutely nothing speed related really happens with the first download.

That being said, I've also had times where downloading something to my desktop would not pass double digits kbps, but downloading the same file from the same server to my VPS in the UK would come in at several 100 Mbps. Syncing from my VPS to desktop would then be full line speed again. So either someone somewhere limits those connections, or the direct link takes a slow path somewhere.

All I'm saying, more than one place for things to lose speed.
 
well if you make uncapped suck donkey's balls, we the clients have no choice but to head back to capped during the day at least.


+1

I must really stop drinking my damn coffee while ready these forums!!!!

Post of the Day :D
 
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