Fibre: Secunda Community

[Ice2Cool]

Hi Kalin,

(Sorry to hijack the thread guys). Ive tried signing up on your webpage (twice now in fact), for my house in Umhlanga which is about 1km down the road from your durban offices. Over a week now and still no contact from anyone. I see my area looks to be covered (Im opposite somerset park). Its in an estate and my old man is on the body corporate so we would welcome a presentation from you to fibre up the estate and we can try our best to facilitate the residents signing up.

Cheers

 

[Kalin Bogatzevski]

Hi Kalin,

(Sorry to hijack the thread guys). Ive tried signing up on your webpage (twice now in fact), for my house in Umhlanga which is about 1km down the road from your durban offices. Over a week now and still no contact from anyone. I see my area looks to be covered (Im opposite somerset park). Its in an estate and my old man is on the body corporate so we would welcome a presentation from you to fibre up the estate and we can try our best to facilitate the residents signing up.

Cheers

Hi. We sent a newsletter with a form few days ago. Haven't you get it? Please send me a pvt message with your email to check. Thanks

 

[Alex$The$Alien]

And if you know the lotto numbers after 2 years - please share.

Why didn't I think of this

 

[Henry.de.kock]

One more day closer to fibre heaven...

 

[Alex$The$Alien]

Can't wait for it honestly

 

[Swa]

@Alex$The$Alien: I wasn't sure if I should reply again or even check in, but PM's in support changed my mind. If you're going to continue spreading fud and claiming things I didn't say or even eluded to I'll tell you to just GTFO.

I asked a simple question which wasn't answered no matter how much you claim that the facts are there. Instead I got a wildly different analogy and other things instead of an answer to the question.

With that out of the way I didn't say scam so don't put words into my mouth, those are your words, but while on that subject copying pages is something scammers do quite often. Somebody else mentioned how the whole operation is almost a replica of the same named company in the U.S. and another how they aren't in good standing with Afrinic. It all just starts to add up the more questions are asked. I do think the whole thing is being rather unprofessionally run without having done the research before hand.

You refer to Google's 7 year guarantee but there's a difference of 5 between 7 and 2. I'm not asking for anybody to tell the future but not knowing if it will be viable after 2 years is a good sign of not having done the research. Market researchers do try to see the future you know.

If you've been here for a while you'd have seen most of my comments are rather optimistic. Where they are pessimistic it's where optimism would be unwarranted and in those cases the pessimism usually pans out. I've been here are few years, even before registering, and know the local situation well enough to make quite accurate calls. I wasn't the one trying to make people negative or spread disinterest. If you followed this from the start you'd have seen it's the exact opposite and that it's your attitude that's now spreading disinterest so get off that high horse of yours.

Maybe instead of coming up with sarcastic comments you should think of solutions and tell me how I should get people to sign up when they stop and become disinterested at the 2 year clause no?

@Kalin: In Brakpan

 

[Alex$The$Alien]

In Brakpan

I rest my case

Excuse me for the sarcasm, but sometimes it's a necessary response towards people who do not grasp the simplest of things.

Multiple people have responded to your question and you still seem to be obdurate and refractory

"I asked a simple question which wasn't answered"
"I didn't say scam so don't put words into my mouth"

1.This is because time travel hasn't been invented yet or remains an impossiblity due to the limitations on our technology, How can you expect an answer to a question demanding information regarding the future? it simply deserves a sarcastic response..

2.You didn't say it but you Implied it thus i stated "are you implying"

I'm not asking for anybody to tell the future but not knowing if it will be viable after 2 years

Let me stop you right here... you're contradicting yourself by asking if something will be viable after 2 years.. which is literally asking the market researchers to tell the future.

when they stop and become disinterested at the 2 year clause

Maybe be cause people like you are trying to prove a point by asking a question that cannot in any way be answered which instills doubtful thoughts of what if. the question is like a virus..

If you ask a pregnant woman what if her new born baby is disfigured or has a disease?. how do you think her mind would psychologically proceed? with more what ifs..


"What consumes your thoughts, Controls your eyes"

 

[Swa]

I rest my case

Excuse me for the sarcasm, but sometimes it's a necessary response towards people who do not grasp the simplest of things.

Multiple people have responded to your question and you still seem to be obdurate and refractory

Listen bud, you are new here so it seems this needs to be said to you. You are exhibiting the same syndrome as some other people here thinking that all issues have an exclusively right or wrong side and that you are automatically the one in the right. I am just repeating some stuff other people have also said and some people are with you here while others are not.

1.This is because time travel hasn't been invented yet or remains an impossiblity due to the limitations on our technology, How can you expect an answer to a question demanding information regarding the future? it simply deserves a sarcastic response..

2.You didn't say it but you Implied it thus i stated "are you implying"

I didn't imply it, but while we are on the subject there are many forms of scamming. While not exactly what we think of when we say scam plenty of people have been scammed by companies with all the correct legal requirements. If you don't believe that just read the complaints on Vodacom. People were told by salespeople their contracts won't increase during the length of the agreement then a few months later that's exactly what happened. My father got scammed by Autopage with their "you've been selected for a free phone" garbage and then had his bank account credited every month and so did a lot of other people. So sorry, but like any reasonable consumer I prefer to have all important points in writing with a valid agreement.

As I already said this isn't about telling the future. It's about researching your market and making likely predictions based on real data. If that was fortune telling then all insurance companies would be out of business already. Clue here, some of them are over a century old.

Let me stop you right here... you're contradicting yourself by asking if something will be viable after 2 years.. which is literally asking the market researchers to tell the future.

No let me stop you right here... it is not telling the future, not in the way you are implying. It is inspecting real data to make predictions we can be relatively confident in. To illustrate this to you, if I made a prediction and said that in 2025 we would have at least 10 times the number of neighborhoods connected to fibre than what is connected/planned now would I be telling the future? No, I would simply be making a prediction I could be relatively confident in based on the trend of the number of plans over the last year and the demand for it.

Maybe be cause people like you are trying to prove a point by asking a question that cannot in any way be answered which instills doubtful thoughts of what if. the question is like a virus..

If you ask a pregnant woman what if her new born baby is disfigured or has a disease?. how do you think her mind would psychologically proceed? with more what ifs..


"What consumes your thoughts, Controls your eyes"

Or maybe we are just realistic consumers knowing what to expect in our country while your judgment is clouded by your excitement of being connected in a few months so you're not asking the questions the rest of us are.

 

[Alex$The$Alien]

Or maybe we are just "PESSIMISTIC" consumers knowing what to expect in our country(nothing good)

^

It is inspecting real data to make predictions.

Quantic put it to you

Reason for this is that they are using the 2 years as a test phase to asses and change this offering if needed after 2 years

and

What are you on about? As per all new business models they have to test and see what works.

Listen bud, you are new here.

Forum troll with a title belt detected. Pay no mind from here on

 

[Swa]

^

Altering my posts now?

Quantic put it to you

Indeed. Problem with that is that consumers don't take too kindly to being used as guinea pigs and neither should we. There's no free lunch. What that means is that unless you don't have to offer anything in return nothing is really free.

 

[Alex$The$Alien]

Altering my posts now?


Indeed. Problem with that is that consumers don't take too kindly to being used as guinea pigs and neither should we. There's no free lunch. What that means is that unless you don't have to offer anything in return nothing is really free.

I altered it how it is read with common sense..

The realist and the pessimist are arguing whether the glass of water is half full or half empty. Meanwhile the oppertunist drinks the glass of water ..

Then don't be a guinea pig. You're not obligated to do anything. But I will gladly try it out. To me there is nothing to lose

Nothing is free.. technically you pay for the fibre equipment and the people putting it in need to get paid too.. if you want to look at it technically. You pay off the fibre for R150pm and the 5/1mb costs R150 for 12 months then after 12 months the 5/1 is free. Would it help if they changed the wording? or change the plan to R1500 for the construction and R150 for 5/1 permanently ? Because either way you get what you pay for.

Should they take away the guarantee and make it a month to month basis thing? Like no contract . You pay the R1500 after they put in the fibre. Then you pay R150pm for as long as you want the service?

 

[Swa]

I altered it how it is read with common sense..

The realist and the pessimist are arguing whether the glass of water is half full or half empty. Meanwhile the oppertunist drinks the glass of water ..

Then don't be a guinea pig. You're not obligated to do anything. But I will gladly try it out. To me there is nothing to lose

Nothing is free.. technically you pay for the fibre equipment and the people putting it in need to get paid too.. if you want to look at it technically. You pay off the fibre for R150pm and the 5/1mb costs R150 for 12 months then after 12 months the 5/1 is free. Would it help if they changed the wording? or change the plan to R1500 for the construction and R150 for 5/1 permanently ? Because either way you get what you pay for.

Should they take away the guarantee and make it a month to month basis thing? Like no contract . You pay the R1500 after they put in the fibre. Then you pay R150pm for as long as you want the service?

You see that is where you are wrong. You are paying for a service and what if you don't get it? What is the contention with the technically "free" service? What if there's congestion will the "paying" users get priority? How much does construction cost in any case when 300 people in an area take up the service?

I've made this clear before, I'll happily pay a fair amount for a service with some guarantee. If this doesn't perform you've paid for it and the next option is R799. On Vumatel for instance there is also a free line and you pay R300-R400 for the isp. If the service doesn't perform there's no risk of paying for something that doesn't work.

Btw if you alter text the etiquette is to indicate that it's not the original.

 

[Alex$The$Alien]

You see that is where you are wrong. You are paying for a service and what if you don't get it? What is the contention with the technically "free" service? What if there's congestion will the "paying" users get priority? How much does construction cost in any case when 300 people in an area take up the service?

I've made this clear before, I'll happily pay a fair amount for a service with some guarantee. If this doesn't perform you've paid for it and the next option is R799. On Vumatel for instance there is also a free line and you pay R300-R400 for the isp. If the service doesn't perform there's no risk of paying for something that doesn't work.

Btw if you alter text the etiquette is to indicate that it's not the original.

I did indicate it "^"

All I see are more what ifs. What if this what if that. I did as you suggested and tried to suggest a solution which was completely disregarded btw. You're being unbearably obdurate. I'm over it now..

 

[Henry.de.kock]

@Swa. Seriously dude you are nitpicking. Telling someone that they are new to the forums just indicates to the rest that you have zero clue of what you are talking about and are busy searching for things to troll on about.

We told you plenty of times that nothing can be guaranteed and it is a gamble that we ALL are taking. You bring up congestion now what shows me that you are just trolling. The reason for the only current congestion in our country is Telkom aka uselesskom that is unwilling to spend money to upgrade their equipment. It also is a direct result of uselesskom holding the monopoly for so long that if you wanted internet you had no choice but to take them, and they just took your money and crammed you in somewhere.

Fibre is different then copper. You can connect far more ppl and for a far greater distance than with copper. Now on vumatel.... ok go ask them for the great deal you are telling us about (i will go and look it up after i post this). Let me tell you what they are gonna say : "sorry we have no plans of extending to your location currently" . Even with them you need to get your community to sign up.

You have 2 choices bud.. take it (and live the dream) or dont take it ( and wait for vumatel or telkom or who else ever wants to cover their pockets.. oops sorry i meant southafrica in fibre). You are more then welcome to come here and tell us told you so if things doesnt pan out the way it is supposed to.

Another piece of advise is dont hold your breath for fibre any time soon from the other players. They are currently only focussed on rich neighbourhoods to bring the prices down for the rest.

I am done trying to convince you that there is Zero downside to this, you are just to stubborn to listen. From now on I will skip all your posts since it is just trolling anyway.

Good luck with your future applications for internet service and may the force be with you.

Kind regards.
also a new member to the forums!

 

[quantic]

Guys .... lets try to be formal as much as possible pointless bickering is pointless , Swa can speak to Kalin directly here that is the point of him being here they can resolve this dispute in private no point in arguing over this here , in my opinion the fibre should improve my internet experience and I will be paying less for it even if the "free service" changes it should still be cheaper / better than what I currently have and pay that is what I am hoping for , and after meeting Kalin I have only good feelings going forward.

Swa please understand that you are living in Jhb there is a lot more providers showing interest in your area and alternative ways of connecting , Secunda is small Town and our options are very limited and I do not see any other provider showing interest any time soon thus some of us will defend our only option to great lengths. You open yourself up to this hate/flame by posting in this specific thread that was meant for Secunda users to share the excitement of fibre in our little town and post some of the progression of the network being laid and some question and feedback once connected and to share this with the rest of my broadband , I would have expected from you since you are here for a while that you should have kept this matter to private messages or post your concerns in the previous thread but still kept on posting here knowing full well how destructive forums can be . As you all basically killed this thread / ruined the feeling of it all for me , I will rather just move on away from this and wait for my fibre

 

[Alex$The$Alien]

As you all basically killed this thread / ruined the feeling of it all for me , I will rather just move on away from this and wait for my fibre

Agreed I am also partly to blame for losing my composure... let's be formal shall we.

 

[Swa]

I did indicate it "^"

All I see are more what ifs. What if this what if that. I did as you suggested and tried to suggest a solution which was completely disregarded btw. You're being unbearably obdurate. I'm over it now..

"^" is not an indication and you didn't suggest a solution. You just suggested to ignore it.

@Swa. Seriously dude you are nitpicking. Telling someone that they are new to the forums just indicates to the rest that you have zero clue of what you are talking about and are busy searching for things to troll on about.

Seriously man, it seems you don't know what the issue is. If it's nitpicking then a lot of people on this forum are nitpicking. As for my comment, perfectly valid in light of the response. You'll notice it was based on his attitude and not being new to the forum. I asked a simple question which was met with less simple "answers" and a lot of trying to make this personal.

Fibre is different then copper. You can connect far more ppl and for a far greater distance than with copper. Now on vumatel.... ok go ask them for the great deal you are telling us about (i will go and look it up after i post this). Let me tell you what they are gonna say : "sorry we have no plans of extending to your location currently" . Even with them you need to get your community to sign up.

And what do you think the time frame is here? If it's going to be 6 months per area, their original plans excluded, things are not going to be moving quickly. Vumatel doesn't seem to be doing so badly then. As a matter of interest there have been a few drive projects each with multiple providers tendering. It was up to the communities to do the selection so don't be so quick to discount Vumatel as being unwilling.

You have 2 choices bud.. take it (and live the dream) or dont take it ( and wait for vumatel or telkom or who else ever wants to cover their pockets.. oops sorry i meant southafrica in fibre). You are more then welcome to come here and tell us told you so if things doesnt pan out the way it is supposed to.

Another piece of advise is dont hold your breath for fibre any time soon from the other players. They are currently only focussed on rich neighbourhoods to bring the prices down for the rest.

Tip: don't hold your breath for any provider. It's going to be a long time before any of them get to your area unless you are in Secunda.

Swa please understand that you are living in Jhb there is a lot more providers showing interest in your area and alternative ways of connecting , Secunda is small Town and our options are very limited and I do not see any other provider showing interest any time soon thus some of us will defend our only option to great lengths. You open yourself up to this hate/flame by posting in this specific thread that was meant for Secunda users to share the excitement of fibre in our little town and post some of the progression of the network being laid and some question and feedback once connected and to share this with the rest of my broadband , I would have expected from you since you are here for a while that you should have kept this matter to private messages or post your concerns in the previous thread but still kept on posting here knowing full well how destructive forums can be . As you all basically killed this thread / ruined the feeling of it all for me , I will rather just move on away from this and wait for my fibre

Quantic, that is my point. You and some others don't have many other options now. I can understand you would be defending it but as I stated you don't need to in order to get your internet. For the rest of us we have all reason to be wary and go for other options. Alex seems to think we don't have other options but we do.

The whole reason I posted in this thread was because the question was also ignored in the other thread. I understand Alex feels protective over the thread but the whole outburst just seems unwarranted. This is a forum where relevant subjects can be discussed. If there's a more relevant thread to discuss it then by all means I don't have a problem with it but it wasn't discussed so I came to where there was more activity expecting a clear answer but instead 2 pages further I'm still being told I don't have a valid question. Even though I'm being PM'd by people that are now more wary because of the ducking and diving which kinda nullifies that argument.

 

[Alex$The$Alien]

and you didn't suggest a solution. You just suggested to ignore it

V

Would it help if they changed the wording? or change the plan to R1500 for the construction and R150 for 5/1 permanently ? Because either way you get what you pay for.

Should they take away the guarantee and make it a month to month basis thing? Like no contract . You pay the R1500 after they put in the fibre. Then you pay R150pm for as long as you want the service?

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Alex seems to think we don't have other options but we do

yes. Mobile Data, Telkom, Wireless solutions.. which are all slow and expensive.

The whole reason I posted in this thread was because the question was also ignored in the other thread

This is because your question is Rhetorical and cannot be answered with accurate or guaranteed information.

here is your/other's question

So the question people keep asking me, and rather legitimately considering our country, is what happens after 2 years?

These were the responses

Noone can guarantee what might happen in or after 2 years. Can you? I don't understand your concern about a free Internet product. What can we set as terms to make people happy? Free Internet Forever? No problem, but then you will ask what happens if we, for some reason, stop our operations. We have to set a limit and then renew it for another 2 years. South Africa is not USA. There a relatively the same service is guaranteed for at least 7 years. Maybe the Americans are also asking "what happens after 7 years"? Well, on our website that is described with "Includes free service guaranteed for at least 2 years per address". "AT LEAST", is not "FOR".

6. They can not giving you an answer because they can not , yes your question is valid , no they are not ignoring you.

7. Reason for this is that they are using the 2 years as a test phase to asses and change this offering if needed after 2 years.

9. After 2 years they change this offering ? now you are sad ? okay "life is hard" look at their new offering compare it with other offerings, like they said its an open fibre network , you should be able to use a different ISP after 2 years as you will have no obligation to 123 net?

I'm being PM'd by people that are now more wary because of the ducking and diving

May I ask why people PM you instead of just asking their questions or opinions in the thread?

Please understand that we are not ducking and diving the question. If we could answer it we would have. but there is no logical way to determine what will happen. The best we can do is to sign up. get the service. test it to it's limits. then post our findings

 

[Kalin Bogatzevski]

@Swa maybe you should call your friends from Vuma and ask them to answer my email sent over a month ago. I asked them to send me their requirements for a vISP. Virtual ISP.

Again. Now serious: 123Net welcomes any competition in Secunda, Durban or elsewhere. We are fine with it. We want to have it.

I don't really care of bad PR. You keep talking about us, thanks. Although I don't get your point in the end. You are unhappy with the Free Internet Option. Ok. Anyway, we cannot provide it to your area now. So you still have no problem with us. Or do you plan to move to Secunda? Or Durban?

Come on! I invite you to have a beer. Then we can talk. What do you say? Let's invite Vumatel. We have to find a way to get your country from the stone ages of the Internet. You know my opinion for it. South Africa is at least 15 years behind almost the whole rest of the World talking about Internet. Maybe Cuba and North Korea are worse only

Are we that bad trying to accomplish something that can make many people (even you) happy? Oh, maybe because I am not South African and this makes you angry? Sorry.

Now, guys.. quantic is right. Useless loss of time for me too. Got a work to do.

 

[Swa]

V



^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Ok fair enough. That is up to them. What I asked for was clarity which wasn't provided.

yes. Mobile Data, Telkom, Wireless solutions.. which are all slow and expensive.

And which so far hasn't been the worst. You frown on Telkom yet for 2 years their service suited me best. Before that and now it was Cell C. During this time fibre wasn't even available. At the current rate when someone like 123Net is available there will be better and more options as well.


I don't know how I should explain this better to you. The very questions you claim are not answerable are related to market research. Any provider who has done proper research would be able to answer with something other than "we don't know." If you followed the Parkhurst process you'll know there were a number of providers each with proposals. Vumatel's was posted on this forum. There are no speculatives, ifs, maybes, or "we don't know"s. Only a clear plan and expectations for moving forward.

That's as simple as it gets. Market research, and they'll frown on your use of the term telling the future. That's all I have left to say on the topic. I can understand why you and the rest of your community are so eager for this but please in the same vein try to understand why some of us are skeptical and would rather look for other options as well.