Fibre: Secunda Community

VEdeLange said:
Thereafter make it a month to month contract @ R300p/m If the subscriber doesn't reactivate their subscription after a set period of months reclaim your equipment. .
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That would actually make me rather look at the megabit 10 package for R100 extra
 
Alex$The$Alien said:
That would actually make me rather look at the megabit 10 package for R100 extra
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Hey Alex :)

Value wise, yes. double the speed for half of the price extra. (from 5mbps to 10mbps @ R150 extra) R450 for megabit 10.

But the R300 option serves as an easy obtainable low barrier cost entry level.
 
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Starting to think Telkom is their biggest investor, or their investors are just braindead. Things are looking worse by the moment. They dont mention half of what is needed for this fibre to become a reality. First it was signups (understandable) now they want a mistery number of contracts to be sent back. Next they want us to sacrifice a kitten on mount everest. Too many unknowns. Starting to side with Swa here.... just dont see it happening since there is bound to be more requirements in the future.
 
Henry.de.kock said:
Starting to think Telkom is their biggest investor, or their investors are just braindead. Things are looking worse by the moment. They dont mention half of what is needed for this fibre to become a reality. First it was signups (understandable) now they want a mistery number of contracts to be sent back. Next they want us to sacrifice a kitten on mount everest. Too many unknowns. Starting to side with Swa here.... just dont see it happening since there is bound to be more requirements in the future.
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Signups to gauge interest, contracts to know the actual interest. A company cannot proceed if it is uneconomical to do so.
 
I have send my contract in but i didn't receive feedback if you guys got it or not can you please atlease send a email out to all the people who send you their contracts so we know that you got our emails.
And just send another email out to the persons who registered on the site but have not send in their contracts yet.
 
Johnatan56 said:
Signups to gauge interest, contracts to know the actual interest. A company cannot proceed if it is uneconomical to do so.
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It is a double edged sword. You want people to start using your network and spread word of it. Nothing spreads faster then good news from a internet point of view. That wins you customers. Connect the 200 or so people that returned their contracts and they will do marketing for you. If that 200 is happy then in no time at all you will have 500. And it will win you signups at other locations around the country. It also gives them time to stabilise their network since a hiccup or two is expected.

It is a bit much to expect people to signup if there is absolute zero feedback of their network from customers and to add to that pay a construction fee and you cant use it since the network is crappy. That is what keeps the most people from sending the contract back, the unknown.

I am sure their network will be better then anything we have currently, so why not connect the people and let them do the marketing for you, for free. Yes the capital to start this fibre project must be regained, but it will only be regained if you have customers.
 
Henry.de.kock said:
It is a double edged sword. You want people to start using your network and spread word of it. Nothing spreads faster then good news from a internet point of view. That wins you customers. Connect the 200 or so people that returned their contracts and they will do marketing for you. If that 200 is happy then in no time at all you will have 500. And it will win you signups at other locations around the country. It also gives them time to stabilise their network since a hiccup or two is expected.

It is a bit much to expect people to signup if there is absolute zero feedback of their network from customers and to add to that pay a construction fee and you cant use it since the network is crappy. That is what keeps the most people from sending the contract back, the unknown.

I am sure their network will be better then anything we have currently, so why not connect the people and let them do the marketing for you, for free. Yes the capital to start this fibre project must be regained, but it will only be regained if you have customers.
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Agreed, they should already start rolling out to the most financially feasible (those close to the break-out point), this would allow people to rate the service and get others to sign up/be more willing. Nothing scares people like the unknown, especially if stuck in a two year contract.
 
Henry.de.kock said:
It is a double edged sword. You want people to start using your network and spread word of it. Nothing spreads faster then good news from a internet point of view. That wins you customers. Connect the 200 or so people that returned their contracts and they will do marketing for you. If that 200 is happy then in no time at all you will have 500. And it will win you signups at other locations around the country. It also gives them time to stabilise their network since a hiccup or two is expected.

It is a bit much to expect people to signup if there is absolute zero feedback of their network from customers and to add to that pay a construction fee and you cant use it since the network is crappy. That is what keeps the most people from sending the contract back, the unknown.

I am sure their network will be better then anything we have currently, so why not connect the people and let them do the marketing for you, for free. Yes the capital to start this fibre project must be regained, but it will only be regained if you have customers.
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He makes a good point. There is a lot of interest but also a bunch of concerns. I've said this before. If you connect the people that sent their contacts back they will market for you. On the other hand you cannot make people sign contacts then decide not to lay the network if enough people dont sign them. That feels a bit like extortion. That will surely be counter productive
 
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VEdeLange said:
From the weltevreden park thread:







I get the investors want to start seeing a return asap on their investment...and they can even on the 5/1 R300p/m contract. They should definitely put it back up on the website asap. Look just amend it a bit. (Currently you pay R300p/m for 12 months after that it is free)

Wouldn't it be better terms if It would only be free for 1 year... 12months x R300 = consrtuction, the internet is still free.

Thereafter make it a month to month contract @ R300p/m If the subscriber doesn't reactivate their subscription after a set period of months reclaim your equipment.

Just look at the current market. R300p/m for uncapped unshaped on a 5mbps line is internet heaven for the majority of South Africans. It can be win-win. Why give a free lunch when you don't need to? I am just looking to get an acceptable middle ground that benefits investor and customer alike.

People aren't going to take an expensive contract that they cannot afford just because they don't have a cheaper alternative. They will just make do with what service is within their budget.
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The way I see it is that the free option is essential to get installation done. It wouldn't benefit either party to remove that. They should get rid of that 10 Mbps local package and the 30 and 40 Mbps packages and replace them with a custom per Mbps package. Most people are opting for free simply because R799 is too expensive. They aren't taking advantage of a nice middle ground they can have. If there were R200pm options a lot of people will go for them but the free option would still be available for those that see no point in having internet.

I think their investor is the biggest problem. Wouldn't surprise me one single bit if it's the usual cartel. I really wish a proper international company like say Google who understands you must invest money to make money would enter our market. Sadly 123Net is still not it.
 
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Swa said:
The way I see it is that the free option is essential to get installation done. It wouldn't benefit either party to remove that. They should get rid of that 10 Mbps local package and the 30 and 40 Mbps packages and replace them with a custom per Mbps package. Most people are opting for free simply because R799 is too expensive. They aren't taking advantage of a nice middle ground they can have. If there were R200pm options a lot of people will go for them but the free option would still be available for those that see no point in having internet.

I think their investor is the biggest problem. Wouldn't surprise me one single bit if it's the usual cartel. I really wish a proper international company like say Google who understands you must invest money to make money would enter our market. Sadly 123Net is still not it.
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Yes, the free option is what is going to expand their network. I just don't think they will keep offering it once they have grown beyond a certain point. Can they sustain a free 5mbps offering to a large consumer base? My quess is not. The high maintenance costs wont make it feasible for long the term. I believe 123net is bargaining on people to upgrade from the free option.

For a R200 option to exist the 5mbps free option will have to remain. Their price indication on a 10mbps line is R450. Half that and you are looking at a 5mbps line for R225. I'm sure you know this but anyway... To compare WebAfrica is offering a 4mbps fibre line for R199 with a 20GB cap.

The current South African average for broadband is 2 Mbps download and 512 Kbps upload, makes the free option look real good.

The investors-you summed it up perfectly, you must invest money to make money. Surely they did market research other than gauging through signups... Such research would show an investor that its not a gamble. If they can offer what they claim-their success is a sure thing.
 
VEdeLange said:
Yes, the free option is what is going to expand their network. I just don't think they will keep offering it once they have grown beyond a certain point. Can they sustain a free 5mbps offering to a large consumer base? My quess is not. The high maintenance costs wont make it feasible for long the term. I believe 123net is bargaining on people to upgrade from the free option.
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What are the maintenance costs? It costs them roughly R3600 to install a new line if they can get enough people. A portion of that is for the customer's connection and a portion is for the backhaul which gets cheaper per installation the more there are. That is where the big cost is. The only maintenance cost is if a line gets damaged which shouldn't be that often. I don't know where the fibre providers get their figures of it costing between R200-R300 p/m. It's simply not something you can pin any real figure on. It sounds to me like Vodacom's Chinese maths when they called Cell C's pricing below cost when cost is directly related to how much data you sell and the period over which you want a return on your investment.

When it comes to the data it doesn't cost that much to provide 5 Mbps over a 2.5 Gbps connection on your own network. Can easily be subsidised by the paying users and from what I have gathered plenty of people are interested in the paid packages.
 
khumbulani said:
Service providers charged for the line speed. All charged the same
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I'm guessing what you said is that Web Africa don't have their own infrastructure? Hence they are expensive and limited... Kindly look at the entire post without nitpicking. The comparison was small in relation to the point that I made.
 
Would you count salaries and call Centre costs as maintenance fees? For me all costs in keeping 123net running is maintenance costs...Basically operating cost
 
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VEdeLange said:
Would you count salaries and call Centre costs as maintenance fees? For me all costs in keeping 123net running is maintenance costs...Basically operating cost
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Those are operational costs and yes if they are related to installation and repair they are maintenance costs. Still not much after a line is installed. So the question is still would the paying customers be enough to cover those costs? Seeing as it's mostly them having an impact of the network I think they would.
 
Henry.de.kock said:
Any numbers on the contracts yet?
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Roughly 180 contracts have been returned. The amount of signups is around 600. For Secunda, we need about 500 contracts to be returned.

Unfortunately we are unable to provide a live contract target feature as they are being received, processed and counted manually, as opposed to signups which are automatically received and processed into our database.
 
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