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Question of the Day: If you were buying a TV today, which brand would you choose?
Local ISPs: where to from here?
- Thread starter Tomo3000
- Start date
LazyLion
King of de Jungle
Greed is king. Good luck convincing anybody that there is money to be made elsewhere. Sorry to sound like a pessimist, you know me. But this is South Africa where it is the national pastime to rip people off.
Seems a little simplified...
last time I checked I wasnt seeing any benefit from all this new fibre and bandwidth (the size of my line) was still a big problem in getting all theses fancy services to me - so no iptv just yet.
last time I checked I wasnt seeing any benefit from all this new fibre and bandwidth (the size of my line) was still a big problem in getting all theses fancy services to me - so no iptv just yet.
Telkom did a good job of leading by example. But, yes, I pity the smaller ISP trying to make a living.
I think that Webafrica is trying to go down the road of adding value rather than just competing on price with their game server and news server accessible without using up bandwidth quota for their own subscribers. It's not IPTV, but it is a start that will make a few rands extra on the bandwidth acceptable to those who want these services.
porchrat
Honorary Master
Then don't give it up for the greater good. Give it up for market share.
LeSaint
Member
Everyone started off small at some point it is a pity those who started small and ended well off chose not to learn from the experience but instead chose to become that against which they struggled for so long (hmmm, i see a recurring theme).
I agree with Andrew sentiments but again, money talks.
I agree with Andrew sentiments but again, money talks.
The small ISPs need to start thinking outside the box. Most of them are still in the mindset of South African Internet 10 years ago.
There is so much opportunity out there... someone just need to take the risks
There is so much opportunity out there... someone just need to take the risks
Whereto indeed
Maybe some things must first change in the way that we pay for internet services in South Africa. This would allow ISP's to add value added services. For example why is national access billed as international access before a cap limit has been exceeded? Surely the public is paying too much seeing that a lot of content is available from jinx and cinx(locally - such as youtube,gmail and akamai conten). Maybe ISP's are not willing to peer? Is this maybe the reason that something like IPTV is not made available in South Africa. One obviously would sell more bandwith if everything is unicast instead of some content being delived via multicast. I think that the time has arrived for ISP's to unite and empower each other.
Maybe some things must first change in the way that we pay for internet services in South Africa. This would allow ISP's to add value added services. For example why is national access billed as international access before a cap limit has been exceeded? Surely the public is paying too much seeing that a lot of content is available from jinx and cinx(locally - such as youtube,gmail and akamai conten). Maybe ISP's are not willing to peer? Is this maybe the reason that something like IPTV is not made available in South Africa. One obviously would sell more bandwith if everything is unicast instead of some content being delived via multicast. I think that the time has arrived for ISP's to unite and empower each other.
tjunyat
Senior Member
For such a controversial article, I'm surprised there are so few comments.
I agree with you Andrew, and I think it's difficult for them to get out of the SA mentality which is to try screw the customer out of as much as possible for as long as possible.
We can only hope that mindset changes.
I agree with you Andrew, and I think it's difficult for them to get out of the SA mentality which is to try screw the customer out of as much as possible for as long as possible.
We can only hope that mindset changes.
The price of data and electricity are converging. In fact my electricity bill is slightly more than my data bill and growing. The article sounds a lot like the kind of thing we here in energy caucus meetings. On the one side is the community which believes energy is a human right and that all should have free and open access to the grid. On the other side are the technocrats, beaurocrats and kleptocrats who believe that energy provision is an opportunity to make huge profits. Why don' we lock in the consumer for the next ten years at x price? Or how do we fleece people for the next five years? These are the questions which are constantly asked. Yes we don't want to make the mistake of a bubble economy, but what exactly is the economy which has sprung up on the strange state monopoly called Telkom?
The parasitic economy that existed in the Telkom era will begin to disappear as the unbundling of the local loop opens up opportunities for new telcos to provide services.Yes, this should have happened ten years ago. We now sit with underdevelopment. Where is the R100 per family solution for every home? We have a large population which could afford service between R70 -R100 per home but ISPs continue to operate as if the only customer is a white-collar, salaried person who lives in a penthouse apartment. Where are the blue-collar ISPs? Where are the blue-collar Internet Solutions? Telkom will invariably be the company which dominates, but I don't see anybody rolling out a competitor, no we are in the midst of competition for the cream, the high-end market and therefore this article has absolutely no relevence to the ordinary consumer. Free Access and Fibre for Everybody. ZA-FREE
The parasitic economy that existed in the Telkom era will begin to disappear as the unbundling of the local loop opens up opportunities for new telcos to provide services.Yes, this should have happened ten years ago. We now sit with underdevelopment. Where is the R100 per family solution for every home? We have a large population which could afford service between R70 -R100 per home but ISPs continue to operate as if the only customer is a white-collar, salaried person who lives in a penthouse apartment. Where are the blue-collar ISPs? Where are the blue-collar Internet Solutions? Telkom will invariably be the company which dominates, but I don't see anybody rolling out a competitor, no we are in the midst of competition for the cream, the high-end market and therefore this article has absolutely no relevence to the ordinary consumer. Free Access and Fibre for Everybody. ZA-FREE
The price of data and electricity are converging. In fact my electricity bill is slightly more than my data bill and growing. The article sounds a lot like the kind of thing we here in energy caucus meetings. On the one side is the community which believes energy is a human right and that all should have free and open access to the grid. On the other side are the technocrats, beaurocrats and kleptocrats who believe that energy provision is an opportunity to make huge profits. Why don' we lock in the consumer for the next ten years at x price? Or how do we fleece people for the next five years? These are the questions which are constantly asked. Yes we don't want to make the mistake of a bubble economy, but what exactly is the economy which has sprung up on the strange state monopoly called Telkom?
The parasitic economy that existed in the Telkom era will begin to disappear as the unbundling of the local loop opens up opportunities for new telcos to provide services.Yes, this should have happened ten years ago. We now sit with underdevelopment. Where is the R100 per family solution for every home? We have a large population which could afford service between R70 -R100 per home but ISPs continue to operate as if the only customer is a white-collar, salaried person who lives in a penthouse apartment. Where are the blue-collar ISPs? Where are the blue-collar Internet Solutions? Telkom will invariably be the company which dominates, but I don't see anybody rolling out a competitor, no we are in the midst of competition for the cream, the high-end market and therefore this article has absolutely no relevence to the ordinary consumer. Free Access and Fibre for Everybody. ZA-FREE
The parasitic economy that existed in the Telkom era will begin to disappear as the unbundling of the local loop opens up opportunities for new telcos to provide services.Yes, this should have happened ten years ago. We now sit with underdevelopment. Where is the R100 per family solution for every home? We have a large population which could afford service between R70 -R100 per home but ISPs continue to operate as if the only customer is a white-collar, salaried person who lives in a penthouse apartment. Where are the blue-collar ISPs? Where are the blue-collar Internet Solutions? Telkom will invariably be the company which dominates, but I don't see anybody rolling out a competitor, no we are in the midst of competition for the cream, the high-end market and therefore this article has absolutely no relevence to the ordinary consumer. Free Access and Fibre for Everybody. ZA-FREE
AfricanTech
Honorary Master
Andrew is spot on with his analysis. This is probably the route the MWeb/Naspers/MultiChoice is trying to go down but the severe constraint is the fact we don't have bandwidth available at an affordable price - Telkom's control of the LL is the root cause of the inability by anyone to innovate in this area - it's just too expensive.