Confused - 1st November 2005

[lord_spaceman]

Hi everyone

I know that everyone doesn't 'really' know what is going to be happening on 1st November and I don't know much either. What we do know is that they will be charging per-gig @ +- R60.

How is it really going to work ? Like this :

1. Use as much as you want (therefore you can never be capped !), at the end of the month (or when the bill comes) your must pay for what you used. eg. You downloaded 6gig, now pay for 6 gigs !

or

2. There will still be 3gig accounts or 30gig accounts , just cheaper or more expensive (3gigs x R60 = R180 ) (30gigs x R60 = R1800 )

I am quite confused on the whole subject and if someone knows the answer, please reply.

Thanks
PS : Sorry if this has been discussed or brought up before !

 

[Moederloos]

Hi everyone

I know that everyone doesn't 'really' know what is going to be happening on 1st November and I don't know much either. What we do know is that they will be charging per-gig @ +- R60.

How is it really going to work ? Like this :

1. Use as much as you want (therefore you can never be capped !), at the end of the month (or when the bill comes) your must pay for what you used. eg. You downloaded 6gig, now pay for 6 gigs !

or

2. There will still be 3gig accounts or 30gig accounts , just cheaper or more expensive (3gigs x R60 = R180 ) (30gigs x R60 = R1800 )

I am quite confused on the whole subject and if someone knows the answer, please reply.

Thanks
PS : Sorry if this has been discussed or brought up before !

Option 3: You buy 3 (or 6 or 9...)GB, and you use that until you run out (even if it takes 6 months). Then you buy more.

EDIT: I don't think Option 1 is going to work. Firstly, there has been talk of a "hard cap" (no local after cap). Also, imagine the legal implications for Telkom if users get a worm en-masse and they refuse (or cannot) pay their bill for 100GB of usage.

 

[lord_spaceman]

Option 3: You buy 3 (or 6 or 9...)GB, and you use that until you run out (even if it takes 6 months). Then you buy more.

Is this a suggestion or IS THIS how it's gonna work ? If so, that sucks !

 

[AntiThesis]

Telkom would alas probably shrug something like that off.

"Clearly you were abusing the ADSL service if you got a worm. So it's your responsibility."

:/

This makes me want to cry all over again. Agh well.

 

[Vio]

Your prices are EXCLUDING VAT and markup. That is the wholesale price that Telkom is making ISP's pay. It’s sad though because you can pickup a 30 gig account for R200-300 atm and your local bandwidth does not get capped even when you exceed your limit.

But come November this is apparently changing too maximize their profits. I personaly am gonna haveto go back to using ISDN 128K with infinit call because I can get 18-25 gigs(40-50 if you consider uploading) per month for a price in the region of 1k.

 

[LethalChicken]

ANy chance of this being reverse psychology? That telkom will say on 1st Nov that the prices are going down and actually will be cheaper then now. They will still be expensive but we will feel like it's better because it's not R60+ per gig ?

 

[PostmanPot]

hopefully it's *much* less than R59 per gb..

 

[Maskie]

But come November this is apparently changing too maximize their profits. I personaly am gonna haveto go back to using ISDN 128K with infinit call because I can get 18-25 gigs(40-50 if you consider uploading) per month for a price in the region of 1k.

AFAIK you cannot get Infinit anymore -- if you got it you can keep it but nobody can get it anymore --- I have ADSL but did not cancel my infinit just in case I might need it again in future

 

[Vio]

AFAIK you cannot get Infinit anymore -- if you got it you can keep it but nobody can get it anymore --- I have ADSL but did not cancel my infinit just in case I might need it again in future

THAT is SUCH BS.

 

[Vio]

If this is true Telkom are dragging us back to the 1995 days...

 

[clubbe]

AFAIK you cannot get Infinit anymore -- if you got it you can keep it but nobody can get it anymore --- I have ADSL but did not cancel my infinit just in case I might need it again in future

This issue of INfinit Call has been discussed on this forum in depth..
Conclusion is YOU CAN STILL GET IT but you need to specifically ask for it. as it is not advertised

 

[Antonio]

Has any of this been confirmed? If I have to pay R2000+ for my 30G a month I better start looking for alternatives...

 

[mancombseepgood]

This WILL happen!

Also, imagine the legal implications for Telkom if users get a worm en-masse and they refuse (or cannot) pay their bill for 100GB of usage.

What happens is you re-install XP (and possibly SP2) and you forget to update Windows to the absolute latest. A post SP2 worm finds its way to your machine (and lets face it, thats what happens, you don't have to abuse the net to get a worm these days) and suddenly your machine is firing through the SMTP port at 30+k per second. A couple of days later you return from your holiday to find your usage over 100Gb...

As with my experience in the past, Telkom will say pay up or off to court... cant pay it? - we'll arrange easy payment terms over the next 6 months - and you can't use your line until it is paid. This happened to somneone I knew with an ISDN set up that dialled a 10 second call every minute on the minute... After a month a bill the size of a JHB directory arrived in the post wrapped in brown paper - R30-000 later and the client had to pay.
Can you imagine! Someone took the trouble to wrap up this HUGE bill and never thought to phone the client and say "I think you may have a problem with your system...". When the bill arrived in the post, another 10 or so days had passed with the problem...
ALL the calls on this bill were to the national 0860007249 SAIX number - billed at local rates. This must be the only country where you can chalk up a bill of R30 000 in a month on LOCAL calls only... It is cheaper to stay permanently connected to a trunk call all month!
SO.. point is... I believe that Telkom will DEFINATELY take the money in this situation... And I believe that MANY will be nailed because of Microsoft's poor security among other things...

 

[lord_spaceman]

As with my experience in the past, Telkom will say pay up or off to court... cant pay it? - we'll arrange easy payment terms over the next 6 months - and you can't use your line until it is paid. This happened to somneone I knew with an ISDN set up that dialled a 10 second call every minute on the minute... After a month a bill the size of a JHB directory arrived in the post wrapped in brown paper - R30-000 later and the client had to pay.

But remember guys, Telkom now phones YOU if your phone bill exceeds R2000. Didn't believe it until it happened to me !

 

[KillerX]

I can already see Telkom advertising this per gig billing as being much cheaper. A standard 3 gig account would set u back about +/- R300. Now, most of the public dont even know about 6, 9, 20 and 30 gig accounts being offered for as low as R199 (Thank You Webafrica). People are so uninformed about this - most of them just go for 3 gig accounts with telkom.

Telkom will introduce this as working out much cheaper than the standard 3 gig accounts(R60 per gig x 3 gigs = R180 - which gives the customer a saving of R120)

Most of the public will be like "wow, im saving money, thats great!" And thats how telkom will get away with it!!

 

[clubbe]

I can already see Telkom advertising this per gig billing as being much cheaper. A standard 3 gig account would set u back about +/- R300. Now, most of the public dont even know about 6, 9, 20 and 30 gig accounts being offered for as low as R199 (Thank You Webafrica). People are so uninformed about this - most of them just go for 3 gig accounts with telkom.

Telkom will introduce this as working out much cheaper than the standard 3 gig accounts(R60 per gig x 3 gigs = R180 - which gives the customer a saving of R120)

Most of the public will be like "wow, im saving money, thats great!" And thats how telkom will get away with it!!

BUT !!!! ( and there is always a but )

The R60 per GIG is THE WHOLSALE PRICE TI ISP EXCLUDING VAT AND THEIR (ISP) MARKUP.
So the least you can expect to pay for 3GB account is R180 + R25 (vat) + R 50 (markup) = R255
which if I am not mistaken is more then current TELKOM 3 Gb account of R240

regards
marek

 

[lord_spaceman]

Very true clubbe. I suppose no one knows whats really gonna happen and we will just have to wait and see what happens...

 

[DGremlin]

I like to stay informed, and so duly read the forums and read related articles as I come accross them, But trying to understand whats happening on this matter, especially after fudging through this thread, leaves everything as clear as quicksand ....

Personally I just put it down to Telkom being the number 1 reason to buy grandpa, disprin, novacaine, valium, lithium, drugs ....

 

[Nocturne]

Most of the public will be like "wow, im saving money, thats great!" And thats how telkom will get away with it!!

Well, I must say that's exactly how I saw it. I have a standard 3 gig account from Telkom - we rarely exceed the cap before the very last weekend of the month, and even more rarely do we use more than 4 gigs. I knew there was up to 9 gigs on offer, but at the time I signed up, these were only offered to businesses.

Then a couple of month's ago, DotCo internet introduced AllYouCanEat ADSL, but I didn't want to go for that because it would've worked out much more than I was paying at the time.

The only possibilities I knew of for individuals (i.e. not companys) were a 3gig account and DotCo's offering. Indeed, I asked a Telkom representative once was they thought of AllYouCanEat ADSL, and they said they didn't know what I was talking about.

In fact, I didn't know that individual customers could have caps of > 3 gig (Except for the unlimited offering mentioned above) until Saturday when I started reading these forums. Now it's too late for me to change; I'll have to wait until after November 1.

 

[wushutiger]

personally I think we should all just accept it, we are screwed. Now the only debate left is, how do we choose to be screwed, missionary? doggie style?................