MWEB ADSL for R145-month

Antonio said:
right at the bottom of the ad there's a small print that says 'term and conditions apply'

EXTREMELY misleading ad IMO : 'surf all you want' - yeah right, surf all you want ........ 2 days later: ooops, you can't surf no more, sorry dude
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Please get a clue..

I doubt very much whether the AVERAGE (mweb's target market) South African internet user would SURF (yes, SURF, not download, stream, etc) away a gig in a month. And even when they do hit their cap, is that mweb's fault? NO. To sit here and moan and bitch because they're offering a package that is targeting dialup users is pathetic.

Mweb was one of the companies making presentations at the ICASA hearings. IMHO mweb has done a lot for the AVERAGE South African internet subscriber in terms of making the internet usable. I don't see ANY OTHER company (yes, even before mweb bought them) with as agressive an advertising strategy as mweb. This generated, at the very least, curiosity for the AVERAGE USERS out there. So they charge more.. big deal. If users see value in their products (which they obviously do), then what's the problem? They're not catering for us "leet" types, but were it not for them, the number of connected users today would be far less, and the number of people finding value in the internet, even less.
 
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Yip, I agree with Munwaal too, I think we need to be a bit careful in how we respond to these ADSL advertisements. Sure, most of the telecoms companies are ripping us off with their prices (mainly indirectly due to Telkom's own insane tariffs) but that doesn't mean we must thrash every single ad we see before we get the full facts, even if it seems suspicious.

So far, there doesn't seem to be enough info on this MWEB offering, so I think it would be best we get more info on it before we shoot it down.

Worse case scenario: MWEB's offering is a total ripoff and the new subscriber to that service might get mad about it. Which might mean an extra member for myadsl :)

Best case scenario: the offering might not be that bad for someone who's been used to DIAL-UP and would like to experiment with ADSL. Even in this case, this person might become a myadsl member because they believe things could be better.
 
R145 a gb from mweb or R75 from web africa.. lol, whoooo to choose:P
 
Well, R145 for 1GB is too expensive, I don't think many people will disagree with that. But relatively speaking (in comparison with other ISP's in SA), MWEB has tried to bundle this offer with "contents and services" which are listed on their site. These "extras" are obviously paid for in the R145 amount.

It would have been better if they also offered ADSL without these "extras", it would then have been interesting to see what excatly they charge for the ADSL connection per gig. Which would have made it easier to compare them to other ISPs.

I'm on dial-up but after seeing this offering... I guess I'll still remain on dial-up. Basically, a 192kbps connection will cost R415 (ISP+Line rental, excluding ADSL modem)... which I assume would be the package most dialup users would initially go for if they had to choose one. Unfortunately, that's way out of my financial reach for an internet connection.
 
Wiz, is that almost comparing apples to pears. To enable a proper comparison you would have to strip out all the other bits that MWEB offers and Web Africa and vice versa. Whether you find value in it is a different question, but they will certainly charge you for it.
 
w1z4rd said:
R145 a gb from mweb or R75 from web africa.. lol, whoooo to choose:P
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As far as I can see, the best you can get from WA is R199 for 3Gigs ... what if you only want 1Gig?

Even tho I'm on iBurst at home (1Gig which btw is just fine for me & my family), I still keep my Mweb account for ...

- email addr with some recognition
- free fax2email number
- free 300 min WiFi (used at airports)
 
i've always said they should provide an option without these value added services, when similar services can be found on the internet for free, yet they INSIST on providing it with no alternatives, as well as tying people into contracts. yes they are making people aware of internet, but at the same time they are exploiting these very unsuspecting people. call it what you want, i call that unfair business practice. the reason they can afford such aggressive advertising campaigns btw is because they have bought off the competition that could have competed on advertising. wait and see how long before they buy off Polka now, because of Polka's advertising campaigns
 
Polka IS MWeb. They stripped all the encarta etc value add cr@p in order to compete with the other low cost providers, but obviously can't brand that as Mweb.
 
ok my apologies, but thats not the real issue. the real issue is that mweb have effectively bought off anyone that could compete at the same levels of advertising. therefore i don't see how it can be stated what a wonderful job mweb is doing of making people aware of internet, yes they are making people aware but they're exploiting these very same people.
 
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Yes, that may be true.....but this is a very low margin business, so you would need to grow your subscriber base to reduce your fixed overhead costs etc. MWEB have decided to do this via acquisition.

Exploiting people.....I disagree!
 
ok i see your point. so we have to be in agreement then that all roads eventually lead to telkom. if VANS were allowed to self-provide or make use of the local loop, that might solve the problem of high fixed overheads. mweb would then be able to compete on a level playing field against other isp's
 
Agreed...take Telkom out of the loop and you may just have free market (as free as they are in SA) principles governing pricing. At the moment, to differentiate your offering you would have to add in all the bells and whistles, which don't come for free.
 
The fact is that you have a choice, whereas with telkom you don't. If you don't like mweb, don't use them - it's REALLY that simple. Some people, however, really like the fact that they aven't received a single spam message since mweb enabled spam assassin, or the fact that they can enable parental control through their service provider. There are many reasons why people would go to mweb - just because YOU don't like them or think that they're ripping people off or don't see value in their "premium" offerings, doesn't mean no one else does.

At the end of the day, these guys are running a business and, unlike the telkom scenario, you DO have a choice.
 
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I agree 100% with Munwaal, I think the rest of you are just whining for the sake of it.

Someone complained that Mweb should offer a no frills attached service for cheaper and when it was pointed out that is what Polka is the entire thing was ignored and another avenue was pushed.

Mweb are perfectly entitled to buy out competition, this is the free market you are all asking for. Decide what you want free-market or socialism.

I don't use Mweb but I wish I did choose them originally. Mine is cheaper but I cannot get people to fax quotes to me without them coming to the office.

Cheers,
Gavin

PS: Conrats RPM on meeting the Telkom CEO, hopefully they will see the light with the new boss
 
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