Fibre: Secunda Community

I can't say I'm surprised. I pointed this out and they denied it but now they are showing me to be correct. Their system wasn't set up correctly for Secunda which was both a small town and a large suburb so it managed to get ahead of other areas. Secunda should ideally have 1500 signups with 500 uptake and this is what they want. I wonder how much uptake they want from areas like Weltevredenpark which is just a suburb.

I only want them to start being transparent and openly decide the criteria upfront and tell us what's happening with the free and non-1Gbps local packages.
 
There must be other options out there if "Greencom" & "123net" isn't it for us in Secunda. If enough interest is shown (like we have) then there must be other companies that will be more than willing to provide fibre for Secunda area. Any ideas?
 
Vumatel? But they'll require 1500 signups and remember that everyone will have to take a paid option and their caps aren't that great.
 
Swa said:
Vumatel? But they'll require 1500 signups and remember that everyone will have to take a paid option and their caps aren't that great.
Click to expand...

Let's do some calculations quickly:

Trenching (only trenching) costs minimum R500/m, no matter whether you are Bulgarian or South African. There are no special trenching rates for non-South Africans.
Now go measure from yours to your neighbour's property. Now go measure the street, both sides. Now figure out what only the trenching costs are for that street.
Now realise not everyone on the street will be prepared to pay. So remove them from the equation and pass that buck on to the those willing to pay.

Trenching alone is around R15k inclusive (bare minimum) per house with just 20metres between them (small, relatively, given our house spacing in SA). If I charge you R3k, I have to fund R12k per installation (minimum). And I have to recover that cost over the course of the funding agreement terms, as well as somehow operate in a solvent state as a business. This all excludes CPE, installation into your property, business overheads, interest on finance, tax, depreciation, bandwidth, networking equipment, peering costs, human capital, and carrying networking infrastructure spares and maintenance.

Now do this on a risk model only (uncapped no FUP), and offer free internet on what is traditionally your high margin customers so no guarantee of capital recovery here.

If I put this in front of you as a business model and asked you to invest in my idea (because that's all that this currently is), would you really? Now ask why anyone else would, and if you really think anyone else has done so to date?

I'm not saying they haven't discovered a magical way to eliminate some of these costs, and well done if they have. But what's becoming apparent is that the promises made were unattainable, and a brand in its simplest form is a promise made and a promise kept.

I wish fibre proliferation would happen. It would be superb for the industry as a whole. I do see it slowly happening, but not using the model above...
 
DJ... said:
Let's do some calculations quickly:

Trenching (only trenching) costs minimum R500/m, no matter whether you are Bulgarian or South African. There are no special trenching rates for non-South Africans.
Now go measure from yours to your neighbour's property. Now go measure the street, both sides. Now figure out what only the trenching costs are for that street.
Now realise not everyone on the street will be prepared to pay. So remove them from the equation and pass that buck on to the those willing to pay.

Trenching alone is around R15k inclusive (bare minimum) per house with just 20metres between them (small, relatively, given our house spacing in SA). If I charge you R3k, I have to fund R12k per installation (minimum). And I have to recover that cost over the course of the funding agreement terms, as well as somehow operate in a solvent state as a business. This all excludes CPE, installation into your property, business overheads, interest on finance, tax, depreciation, bandwidth, networking equipment, peering costs, human capital, and carrying networking infrastructure spares and maintenance.

Now do this on a risk model only (uncapped no FUP), and offer free internet on what is traditionally your high margin customers so no guarantee of capital recovery here.

If I put this in front of you as a business model and asked you to invest in my idea (because that's all that this currently is), would you really? Now ask why anyone else would, and if you really think anyone else has done so to date?

I'm not saying they haven't discovered a magical way to eliminate some of these costs, and well done if they have. But what's becoming apparent is that the promises made were unattainable, and a brand in its simplest form is a promise made and a promise kept.

I wish fibre proliferation would happen. It would be superb for the industry as a whole. I do see it slowly happening, but not using the model above...
Click to expand...
They were prepared to dangle it like a carrot so imo should deliver to everyone that's put effort into this. Google btw uses the above model not because it's profitable but because it makes it profitable. Trenching costs vary depending on where and how it's done. Anybody who refers to "magical ways" to eliminate some costs tells me they don't really understand how the world works.
 
DJ... said:
Let's do some calculations quickly:

Trenching (only trenching) costs minimum R500/m, no matter whether you are Bulgarian or South African. There are no special trenching rates for non-South Africans.
Now go measure from yours to your neighbour's property. Now go measure the street, both sides. Now figure out what only the trenching costs are for that street.
Now realise not everyone on the street will be prepared to pay. So remove them from the equation and pass that buck on to the those willing to pay.

Trenching alone is around R15k inclusive (bare minimum) per house with just 20metres between them (small, relatively, given our house spacing in SA). If I charge you R3k, I have to fund R12k per installation (minimum). And I have to recover that cost over the course of the funding agreement terms, as well as somehow operate in a solvent state as a business. This all excludes CPE, installation into your property, business overheads, interest on finance, tax, depreciation, bandwidth, networking equipment, peering costs, human capital, and carrying networking infrastructure spares and maintenance.

Now do this on a risk model only (uncapped no FUP), and offer free internet on what is traditionally your high margin customers so no guarantee of capital recovery here.

If I put this in front of you as a business model and asked you to invest in my idea (because that's all that this currently is), would you really? Now ask why anyone else would, and if you really think anyone else has done so to date?

I'm not saying they haven't discovered a magical way to eliminate some of these costs, and well done if they have. But what's becoming apparent is that the promises made were unattainable, and a brand in its simplest form is a promise made and a promise kept.

I wish fibre proliferation would happen. It would be superb for the industry as a whole. I do see it slowly happening, but not using the model above...
Click to expand...

Well, the free model would help alleviate some of the costs as you would have to trench through that guys front yard anyways. Also, later one those users might think hey, that 5Mbps download is too slow, let's get a bit faster and have a better connection.
Of course, the problem is always the start-up capital, once you are established it's easy, to get there, not so much.
 
Maybe we should find a company that uses DFA's fibre cables that already exist in the town. Apparently there is an infrastructure of R16 million lying under our streets already
 
Is it just me or are ISP's not seeing this from a moneymaking point of view.

I present to you the DFA network connecting to different cities and towns across SA. where the green lines are LIVE already connected open access fibre infrastructure.

I included the approximate population numbers for each city/town that has the infrastructure already in place.
The open access fibre network was purposely built for businesses and ISPS <--- to lease and connect buisnesses and homes.
http://www.dfafrica.co.za/network/open_access

Hmmm.jpg

Now Here is our Town Secunda the lovely little place with around 40 thousand people earning relatively high income, thanks to Sasol being a National key point

DFA.jpg

If an ISP such as 123Net were to outsource and partner with DFA I believe that they could have already been raking in the big bucks because the demand is there and always has been.

If people can remember. this is the way Cell C arose. By partnering with other network providers that already had infrastructure. then after a good 5 years or so. started building their own infrastructure.

Not to mention Telkom the current monopoly being a total dumbass competing with DFA and not establishing partnerships in order to increase the bandwidth average for the entire south africa.

If Telkom were smart they could have fed their greed and helped the country at the same time.. but sadly this is not the case
 
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A lot of people are aware of the DFA network

Can you Imagine if an ISP announced that they have partnered with DFA and will be using the infrastructure to install FTTH and FTTB

My bet would be, that the bandwagon will shortly be full of bandwidth hungry people.
 
Alex$The$Alien said:
Not to mention Telkom the current monopoly being a total dumbass competing with DFA and not establishing partnerships in order to increase the bandwidth average for the entire south africa.

If Telkom were smart they could have fed their greed and helped the country at the same time.. but sadly this is not the case
Click to expand...
Telkom is one of DFA's biggest customers.
 
Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) said it would convert old Vans licences into new network and services licences. This will give hundreds of voice and data carriers the right to compete directly with Telkom and Neotel.

So you're saying that telkom is a customer of it's own competition?
 
Alex$The$Alien said:
Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) said it would convert old Vans licences into new network and services licences. This will give hundreds of voice and data carriers the right to compete directly with Telkom and Neotel.

So you're saying that telkom is a customer of it's own competition?
Click to expand...
Why not ask Gustav Smit? Give him a call...
 
MickeyD said:
Why not ask Gustav Smit? Give him a call...
Click to expand...

Why should I ask someone else for something you stated?

Why don't you just post a link ? because googling for telkom uses DFA yields aboslutely no results or credible hints that they are in fact partnered.
 
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