Fibre networks explain wholesale price increases in South Africa

Metrofibre also increasing prices
 
and no one mentions economies of scale. if you start with 100 customers then increase to 1000 customers in the same suburb, your costs don't increase 10 times now does it? if anything, ROI is shorter. keep pushing your prices up, you'll be back to 100 customers and you will have to adopt eskomonomics of increasing prices because of low sales.

imho, this is more to do with appeasing the shareholder than anything else.
 
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Openserve did not increase prices. The raw line rental might have gone up but IPc has gone down a lot.

Ironically Openserve is now one of the lowest priced options. No installation fees and a 10/10 option below R600 mark. Pretty well priced comparing to the "biggest" FNO in SA.
 
Openserve did not increase prices. The raw line rental might have gone up but IPc has gone down a lot.

Ironically Openserve is now one of the lowest priced options. No installation fees and a 10/10 option below R600 mark. Pretty well priced comparing to the "biggest" FNO in SA.
i hope FNO's start competing in the same area, at the moment i only have vuma trenched or adsl (for how long?).
 
i hope FNO's start competing in the same area, at the moment i only have vuma trenched or adsl (for how long?).

That would be great for the consumer but I doubt. There is still a lot of areas that does not have fibre yet so there is plenty money to be made.

Saw it Richards bay, The FNOs were on it so quickly. FF first then Vodacom and SADV too. Once SADV went for a suburb FF pulled out and once Vodacom went for Meerensee FF pulled out there too.

So what I see is once one operator pushes the rest backs down unless it's a race midway through a build otherwise they just walk away and it makes sense. You ideally want the whole area. Their only option must be your fibre then you know it's money making time in a couple of years. If there is more than one FNO the time before you make money back on the investment gets extended.
 
That would be great for the consumer but I doubt. There is still a lot of areas that does not have fibre yet so there is plenty money to be made.

Saw it Richards bay, The FNOs were on it so quickly. FF first then Vodacom and SADV too. Once SADV went for a suburb FF pulled out and once Vodacom went for Meerensee FF pulled out there too.

So what I see is once one operator pushes the rest backs down unless it's a race midway through a build otherwise they just walk away and it makes sense. You ideally want the whole area. Their only option must be your fibre then you know it's money making time in a couple of years. If there is more than one FNO the time before you make money back on the investment gets extended.
or 2nd and 3rd fno can build a pop and offer wireless for cheaper? i would give it a try if i was pissed off after yet another price increase.
 
or 2nd and 3rd fno can build a pop and offer wireless for cheaper? i would give it a try if i was pissed off after yet another price increase.

That might be an interesting concept but not too sure if it's viable.

Very interesting even Openserve is making a push for JHB.

Vumatel 10/10 is about ~R749p/m and you likely have to pay at least R1500 or so installation fee.

Openserve 10/10 is about ~R597p/m with no install fee.

Which one would you go for if you have access to both? Once the most expensive now one of the cheapest.
 
or 2nd and 3rd fno can build a pop and offer wireless for cheaper? i would give it a try if i was pissed off after yet another price increase.
Wireless involves very expensive hardware, licenses as well as needing to rent out space for the towers, buy Wireless equipment that isn't 5GHz. Realistically Wireless isn't a replacement for Fibre. It will never be. To get 200Mbps is not that easy over wireless despite what people think.
 
That might be an interesting concept but not too sure if it's viable.

Very interesting even Openserve is making a push for JHB.

Vumatel 10/10 is about ~R749p/m and you likely have to pay at least R1500 or so installation fee.

Openserve 10/10 is about ~R597p/m with no install fee.

Which one would you go for if you have access to both? Once the most expensive now one of the cheapest.
exactly my point. :thumbsup: i'm a pissed off vuma customer waiting to drop kick them.
 
That might be an interesting concept but not too sure if it's viable.

Very interesting even Openserve is making a push for JHB.

Vumatel 10/10 is about ~R749p/m and you likely have to pay at least R1500 or so installation fee.

Openserve 10/10 is about ~R597p/m with no install fee.

Which one would you go for if you have access to both? Once the most expensive now one of the cheapest.
I'd still go Vumatel, the way their networks are set up is better in many ways with their trenched fibre. AE will always be better then PON.
 
Jip, it sounds like the investors are looking to drive up their stock price in the short term.

I suspect they are losing money on entry level packages and there are not enough higher end connections to subsidize it anymore.

The solution is to not subsidize across products and get rid of entry level packages.
 
Wireless involves very expensive hardware, licenses as well as needing to rent out space for the towers, buy Wireless equipment that isn't 5GHz. Realistically Wireless isn't a replacement for Fibre. It will never be. To get 200Mbps is not that easy over wireless despite what people think.
keep the tower on the same spot as the pop. restrict speed to 20mb or 50mb? i have 10mb at the moment, entry level stuff, for R750? i'm going to have to downgrade my life soon. dstv is already out. next will be electricity.
 
I'd still go Vumatel, the way their networks are set up is better in many ways with their trenched fibre. AE will always be better then PON.
and don't they know it, they definitely charge like they know it.
 
and no one mentions economies of scale. if you start with 100 customers then increase to 1000 customers in the same suburb, your costs don't increase 10 times now does it? if anything, ROI is shorter. keep pushing your prices up, you'll be back to 100 customers and you will have to adopt eskomonomics of increasing prices because of low sales.

imho, this is more to do with appeasing the shareholder than anything else.

They are all collectively taking advantage of covid-19 situation and use it as a cost increase driving force. You will see more companies who could not have been directly affected by covid-19 pushing for higher prices because covid-19 made them suffer and they need to recoup.
 
I'd still go Vumatel, the way their networks are set up is better in many ways with their trenched fibre. AE will always be better then PON.

They have a pretty big gpon network in JHB not to mention Vuma reach also gpon.
 
and no one mentions economies of scale. if you start with 100 customers then increase to 1000 customers in the same suburb, your costs don't increase 10 times now does it? if anything, ROI is shorter. keep pushing your prices up, you'll be back to 100 customers and you will have to adopt eskomonomics of increasing prices because of low sales.

imho, this is more to do with appeasing the shareholder than anything else.

Almost thought I was in the Crowd1 thread
 
@cavedog Vuma Trenched covers my area. A friend of mine then spoke about moving away from ADSL (due to Openserve decommissioning copper where they already have fibre), so I helped him look for an FNO that covers his area. I was quite surprised to note that the green shading of SADV covered my entire area as well - something that I never bothered to check on before since I've already been covered by Vuma.

Could this be because of the acquisition by Vuma? Or do they still operate independently?
 
Fibre is becoming like DSTV, every year it will go up and milk you some more.

Amazing how in other countries prices get pushed down and speeds get increased for free. Never in South Africa, not with Adsl or Fibre.

Don't tell me the labour cost in SA are higher than for example UK, France or Germany. But somehow the prices fall in those countries. Don't they also have input costs...
 
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