Their introduction of uncapped I view as ordinary product development, but two other big players in recent years have been the prime culprits of this behaviour IMHO, to the detriment of the industry and to end users. One had to make a massive network change as well as throttle their uncapped and capped accounts, and operate at contentions MUCH higher than industry standard, for around 2 years while customers complained, and their remaining loyal customer base effectively paid for their new network. Why? Their own pricing actions relatively shortly before were responsible for this. Chase a higher top line at any cost to increase the value of your business for sale, and BS your customers thereafter for years while you claim to be fixing things, meanwhile there's nothing to actually fix at all because the only solution and the one you've planned, is finding a new provider on lower operational costs which takes ages, and you need a good 6 months to "sweat" your unprofitable heavy users from your network as they're the first to lose patience and leave. This works particularly well if you actually target these heavy users behind the scenes first so you get rid of them first while avoiding contending (and upsetting) low usage, profitable customers. This is why some customers even in the same areas, and on the same products, report having different experiences. We see this currently playing out with ISP#2 right now who initiated massive specials to increase the potential value of their business by upping the top line substantially. This only works if you either accept zero cash benefit from this and therefore accept a material short term loss, and recover by contending the network in a HUGE way intermittently in the following months/years in some cases, OR you fund this from equity or debt which offsets the balance sheet benefit. Either way, the consumer pays. In the last two rounds of race-to-the-bottom price drops, the consumer got a double-whammy, as it resulted in both a performance drop and an extended contention situation to pull finances into range. That additional benefit was liquidated and withdrawn by the shareholders when they sold a part of their business later on. It's no secret ISP#2 has for some time been trying to sell their business too.
So it's not always what meets the eye, and it's certainly not what the ISP reps say it is. That's above their paygrade. Consumers should want gradual price drops for their own benefit. Massive price drops without correlating input cost decreases usually means you'll simply pay for it later, unless of course your ISP is run with integrity and actual transparency, and is prepared to absorb the cost without clawing it back somehow. Occasional capacity issues creep into any network. But what we've seen over the last few years is nothing short of personal or business gain, and feeding the public BS through a propaganda team to mitigate against negative PR risk.
Telkom has been blamed for a number of incidents BTW where it in fact had nothing to do with them. And this is fundamentally the problem with the ISP industry in this country: there is no integrity in its leadership, nor in the businesses, by and large. They're prepared to feed BS to their customers and treat them like moneybag imbeciles for their own personal gain, and ironically these are the ones many consumers herald as consumer champions. When their profit taking cycle is over, they simply start afresh with big price drops and dupe the end user into believing that they're doing so for the consumer's benefit. Unfortunately that is nonsense, as already explained. What you want is an ISP that delivers consistent performance and who you can afford. Because the "cheapest" is never a true reflection of pricing. If you base your buying decision on such events/pricing, you're playing into the hands of those actively slowing down the positive evolution of the industry...
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