High-speed fibre prices - Ultimate showdown

[Bradley Prior]

High-speed fibre prices - Ultimate showdown

While fibre network operators (FNOs) Vumatel and Openserve dominate the South African market, smaller FNOs have been working on expanding their networks and connecting more homes.

 

[Joseph matane]

I don't know much but maybe in 2025/8 small FNO will be selling 1Gbps around R999 pm & R1199 pm and 50Mbps pm will be around R500, this means sub 50Mbps speed will be dropped in favor of 50Mbps
Reason being by then more secondary towns will be having FTTH and by then FTTH coverage might be at the same footprint % as DSL footprint during DSL peak years

 

[cueball]

sub 50Mbps speed will be dropped in favor of 50Mbps

Vumatel is already there. While they do offer a 25/25 product it is somehow separate from their main offerings. Its only available in a limited subset of the suburbs they serve, and if you sign up for it, you are warned that there is no upgrade path to 50/50 or higher speeds. If you wish to upgrade in future you cancel the 25/25 product and order a 50/50 product, subject to standard activation fees. Se essentially their minimum generally-available product is already 50/50.

 

[eddief1]

Where is herotel? 50 for R499

 

[Fango]

Yep, ever heard of Herotel?

 

[Johand]

I for one am very happy with my 500Mbps connection from Vumatel/Cool Ideas. A lot of money sure, but I think it is worth the price.

 

[Dick Durham]

At the moment Vuma users are still benefiting from the FNO's promotion that doubles their speeds for free, but I believe that they will revert back to normal in January. How many people will then contract in to get back to the speeds they have come to enjoy, and how many will realise that they don't actually need the speed bump?

 

[STORMERSFAN]

Vumatel is already there. While they do offer a 25/25 product it is somehow separate from their main offerings. Its only available in a limited subset of the suburbs they serve, and if you sign up for it, you are warned that there is no upgrade path to 50/50 or higher speeds. If you wish to upgrade in future you cancel the 25/25 product and order a 50/50 product, subject to standard activation fees. Se essentially their minimum generally-available product is already 50/50.

Where are u notified that there is no upgrade path.. I'm moving to the 25/25 on 1st Jan through RocketNet and am not aware of anything like that.. Just curious

 

[cueball]

At the moment Vuma users are still benefiting from the FNO's promotion that doubles their speeds for free, but I believe that they will revert back to normal in January. How many people will then contract in to get back to the speeds they have come to enjoy, and how many will realise that they don't actually need the speed bump?

You're misinformed. This started in June as a limited promo until the end of August. Shortly after it was extended until the end of January 2023. In October it was confirmed that the changes were permanent.

 

[cueball]

Where are u notified that there is no upgrade path.. I'm moving to the 25/25 on 1st Jan through RocketNet and am not aware of anything like that.. Just curious

This was communicated to my sister when she recently applied for the 25/25 promo. The guy went to great lengths to explain that they would not be able to upgrade. My sister told him that they were used to 2M ADSL, so 25/25 was already their upgrade.

 

[STORMERSFAN]

This was communicated to my sister when she recently applied for the 25/25 promo. The guy went to great lengths to explain that they would not be able to upgrade. My sister told him that they were used to 2M ADSL, so 25/25 was already their upgrade.

Thanks alot

 

[Pak Fa Fui]

I don't know much but maybe in 2025/8 small FNO will be selling 1Gbps around R999 pm & R1199 pm and 50Mbps pm will be around R500, this means sub 50Mbps speed will be dropped in favor of 50Mbps
Reason being by then more secondary towns will be having FTTH and by then FTTH coverage might be at the same footprint % as DSL footprint during DSL peak years

It should be
R99 - 25mbs
R149 - 50
R199 - 100
R299 - 200mbs
and so on

 

[cueball]

It should be
R99 - 25mbs
R149 - 50
R199 - 100
R299 - 200mbs
and so on

based on what? or is that just your personal pipe dream?

 

[Dick Durham]

You're misinformed. This started in June as a limited promo until the end of August. Shortly after it was extended until the end of January 2023. In October it was confirmed that the changes were permanent.

Thank you. I've received nothing from my ISP telling me this.

 

[Pak Fa Fui]

based on what? or is that just your personal pipe dream?

Based on cost of service
Having uncapped offers across the board and only pricing on speed is exploitative, 95% of subscribers use less than 250GB in a month
40% use less than 80Gb in a month
They are over paying

 

[Johand]

Based on cost of service
Having uncapped offers across the board and only pricing on speed is exploitative, 95% of subscribers use less than 250GB in a month
40% use less than 80Gb in a month
They are over paying

Huh?

The fibre cost money regardless of how much it is used. The cost of the service depends very little on how much data is used by customers.

 

[Pak Fa Fui]

Huh?

The fibre cost money regardless of how much it is used. The cost of the service depends very little on how much data is used by customers.

Therein lies the problem
Is the business model is flawed

 

[Dick Durham]

Based on cost of service
Having uncapped offers across the board and only pricing on speed is exploitative, 95% of subscribers use less than 250GB in a month
40% use less than 80Gb in a month
They are over paying

They are overbuying not overpaying. I'd say that 95% of subscribers buy more speed than they could possibly need. Who really 'needs' 500Mb/s in a house? I work with very large graphic images, often needing to transfer 10 Gig files. 100Mb/s is plenty for my needs.

 

[cueball]

Thank you. I've received nothing from my ISP telling me this.

Here is the email from my ISP on 13 October:

After extending our free double up speed offerings to all our Vumatel clients twice in a row, we have now made it permanent!

We had many requests from our clients asking to keep the free double up speeds forever and now we have done so.

This means all Vumatel line speeds now look as follows:

20/10Mbps is now 50/50Mbps
50/50Mbps is now 100/100Mbps
100/100Mbps is now 200/200Mbps
200/200Mbps is now 500/200Mbps
1000/200Mbps remains the same.

Thank you for your support and for being part of Buzybuy, enjoy the free double up speeds on us!

 

[Johand]

Therein lies the problem
Is the business model is flawed

No. If you want a low usage solution go wireless. The civil works for fibre is expensive and needs to be amortized over a reasonable period.

The cost of fibre is determined mostly by the civil works required, and civil works cost is based on meters per subscriber. The reason why Vumatel can have cheaper services through Vuma Reach is because they can spend a lot less money per customer on the civil works - mostly because the population density in those areas are higher. And they deploy fibre in the air and multiplex like crazy.

The actual bandwidth of fibre is almost as cheap as chips. The higher tier packages have a higher profit margin than the lower tier ones.