How to get cheaper bandwidth/call rates

[mjwilkinson]

Having seen the differences between South African, American and European call and bandwidth costs, there does seem to be a ridiculous discrepancy in value for money...

Examples on Unlimited/Unshaped bandwidth:

20MB product:
£27.99 a month for BT Broadband
£9.49 a month line rental (BT telephone line)
Wireless BT Home Hub (worth £89.99)
£37.48 (R 425.01)

http://www.productsandservices.bt.c...ayCategory.do?categoryId=CON-TOTAL-BB-R1#tab5

20MB product:
£10.00 a month for O2 Broadband
£9.49 a month line rental (BT telephone line)
Wireless O2 (worth not defined)
£19.49 (R 221.01)

https://www.o2broadband.o2.co.uk/packageDetails.do?productId=131

4MB product:
R1999 to MWEB for your uncapped unshaped data
R413 to Telkom for your ADSL line rental
A Broadband ADSL modem or router (Available from MWEB for only R599)
R2412 Total (£ 212.88)

http://www.mweb.co.za/adsl/?p=unshaped (choose 4MB

This equates to at least 11x difference in price for 16MB LESS bandwidth!

Right, so now that we know what we're dealing with, the question comes in:

How do we get cheaper bandwidth?

By boycotting the entire industry! Now before you start going "oh, yeah, like that's gonna help", think about it for a few seconds... The New South Africa was forged by mass action. People standing together with their neighbours in unison for a common cause. The world outside of South Africa joined forces and imposed trade embargo's and sanctions in general to create pressure. Few years later, South Africa became a free nation!

There's nothing stopping the "average Joe or Jane" from standing together for cheaper bandwidth (and for that matter phone and mobile calls)

So here's the way forward:

1. Stop all phone calls
2. Stop all dialup
3. Stop all broadband
4. Stop all internet cafe's
5. Stop all cellphone calls

Do the above for 1 week - 1 day is not enough to create the required effect. If it doesn't work, try another week.

Reason for this, is to hit the corporates where it hurts the most: their bottom line! Most consumers complain how little bandwidth they get and the two most common phrases on a mobile phone is "can you hear me now?" "and now?", so being without the technology that doesn't seem to afford any use, shouldn't be much different than having the "service" available on a usual day.

If people in this amazing country actually WANTED a better service, they would band together, and get it!!

But alas, I completely understand that all my ramblings will fall on deaf ears, as it's the South African way to stand idly by while the mega corporations take you up the pooper!!

 

[Rosaudio]

You think this could work?

 

[mjwilkinson]

It worked for Gandhi. He simply got masses of people to do nothing (but herein lies the key - no violence!). And it worked!

 

[mjwilkinson]

There's no requirement for marches or loads of people congregating or converging en mass on the doorsteps of parliament. No need for posters or placards. No need for violence or intimidation. Simply switch your phone off. Simply don't dial up. Simply don't make use of the local Internet Cafe. Simply let your phone ring. i.e. DO NOTHING. It takes no effort at all - none. And by doing nothing, you can make the industry pay attention. The CEO of <insert company here> will be laughing for a few hours about "they will never get enough support" - up to the point where the phones in the call center go quiet, aside from the panicked phone call from a stock analyst... and the eerie understanding dawns on them, that South Africans have had enough of being fleeced, and they are serious about change.

It will never change with words. Complaining about how bad things are, simply makes them rich - even this post cost money to send/read, which the fat-cats know!! It can only change with action (or inaction, whichever way you look at it).

 

[iCubed.Saajid]

The biggest problem in South Africa is government, and the general population. If 70% of an entire nation can still vote for a political party that is bringing our beloved country into ruins, there is not much else you can do to effect mass change, in any industry/area of South Africa. Not without lots of patience (Ghandi style) and effort.

I like your idea of mass action - stop all communications for a week. Sure this will hurt corporates and big business, but there is not much else they can do about bringing pricing down. Government and the DoC have no interest in bringing the cost of communications down, although we hear a lot of political mouths running on and on about it. Mere lip service. Government is not interested in opening up the industry to competition and liberation. In fact, they have shown that they will do everything to prevent it, and maintain a stranglehold on as much as they can. Just reading the headlines over the last few years related to the following companies and initiatives is evidence enough of this fact: Eskom, Telkom, SABC, SAA, Infraco, SNO, SAT 3, call termination rates, landing of submarine cables, ADSL regulations, etc. The only government department/initiative that is operating efficiently and profitable is, quite ironically, SARS.

Government is too greedy, and full of corrupt officials, who know they can get away with almost anything. They want all their fingers in all the pies, and don't give a rat's ass about Joe Public.

So government is where the big problem lies. But the biggest problem is that Joe Public will still vote for the same government party that is doing absolutely nothing for him, stealing his tax money, wasting billions on unncessary expenses and poorly thought out and poorly planned projects, while an elite few profit from bribery, corruption and white collar crime.

What we need to do is effect a mass change in the thinking of the mass population. An impossible task, if you ask me.

That said, I do think and in fact can see that things are getting better, albeit very slowly. In 15 years time, South Africa will be a completely different country to what it is now. Let's hope that this difference will fall on the right side of the fence, known as the Great African Divide.

 

[AchmatK]

A proposal as you suggest would simply not work. As much as it would affect the big corporates it would also evenutually filter down to the man on the street. I work for myself and cannot earn anything without having a cellphone and internet access. As much as I hate the fact that it costs so much, I cannot do anything about it besides voicing my issues on a forum such as MyBB or complaining directly to my ISP and even maybe taking certain issues up with ICASA.

 

[Shake&Bake]

A proposal as you suggest would simply not work. As much as it would affect the big corporates it would also evenutually filter down to the man on the street. I work for myself and cannot earn anything without having a cellphone and internet access. As much as I hate the fact that it costs so much, I cannot do anything about it besides voicing my issues on a forum such as MyBB or complaining directly to my ISP and even maybe taking certain issues up with ICASA.

This is the greatest stumbling block, when it comes to a proposed mass action.
Sure we could ditch the social aspect of not making calls, but for those in business (me not being one of them), it's critical to be in contact with the communicative tools we have at our disposal.
As mentioned in an earlier post - the problem is with the goverment and more specifically the DoC and ICASA (even though they're meant to be independent).

If only we had a communications minister with zeal for the telcomms industry and for the liberation of it - then we'd start making progress.

 

[Jonny Two Shoes]

I think a more viable alternative maybe would be a weekend and evening thing.

If absolutely necessary people can make their plans on email and social networks or a bit of skype or mxit but no calls after 6pm and on weekends at all. Especially for the ladies who tend to talk for 2 hours about goodness knows what

I can't see this sort of thing not getting any attention.

 

[Jonny Two Shoes]

To get something like this rolling you need to send a short yet highly informative message around. I am certain the majority of Safricans don't realize the reality of the situation and still think Telkom is a good company.

Then you could also host or create a link to a short online petition to give a good indication of how many people are signing up to do this. Sort of like a commitment thing and hopefully they will stick with it.

 

[Keeper]

Just because you want to download more porn at a faster speed doesn't mean we can all just quit, even for a day nevermind a week.
We aren't all hippies, some of us actually use the internet for work purposes, even at home.

PS: not using the internet would be silly anyway, the ISP's still get their money - all you are doing is clearing their network for the ones that DO use it in that time.


and stopping phone calls? are you nuts man? this is 2010 we need phones

 

[Keeper]

Here's what you do.

we can't stop using the internet, or phone calls. that would be like boycotting eskom - it would never work as people need it, and will flop. plan ruined.


What you need to do is support the lowest bidder. ok, so CellC is giving good prices I see - lets support them. sooner or later they grow, bigger, faster and stronger - vodacom take notice, and hey, guess what? they lower their prices to COMPETE.

Boycotting all of them doesn't do anything, and won't work as people can't do it anyway........BUT, Everybody moving to ONE of them, will.

Boycotting all of them:
- Undoable, people need these services.
- All ISPs lose money, for a little bit, until everybody flops.
- No competition (hey, all of them are mostly in line with prices right? why drop prices?)

BUT


Everybody moving to ONE of them:
- Doable, people can still call/etc.
- Makes other ISPs REALLY lose money here - this is not a day or week boycott, this is a customer leaving for LIFE possibly.
- Forces Competition - quickly.

 

[Greenis]

Most people have moved to Mweb since Uncapped, and yet Telkom has changed to uncapped, just free 4 more gigs for 5gig accounts. Big WoW for 4gigs compared to 50 gigs a month >.<