New iBurst prepaid pricing

Madhawk said:
Current iBurst subscribers (including myself) pay:

R199 for 1GB (Top Up)

New Prepaid price is R200 for 900MB

Yah! What a saving...:rolleyes:

Still Epic Fail...:sick:
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oh that's clever business right there
 
rpm said:
Any voucher bundle purchased has a life span of 12 months before it will expire
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900MB will disappear in one week, no need for 12 months.

It's a great idea the new prepaid offering from iBurst, but the prices kill it.

I don't mind paying R999 for a modem, but R200 for 900MB, no thanks.

iBurstPrepaid.jpg


Neotel's USB modem costs R1499-00, so the iBurst modem is reasonable.

http://www.neotel.co.za/neotel/view/neotel/en/page84327
 
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I think that iburst is selling CRTs in an LCD/Plasma market.

Can someone please point out 1 single major benefit of iBurst over 3G that makes it worthwhile?

When iBurst launched, there was no 4Mbps DSL and 3G was still at 384kbps if i'm not mistaken. That makes their 1 Mbps peak speed attractive. But today, I can't see the appeal.
 
Those prices are just sadly out of touch with reality. They've merely gone from extremely ludicrous to very ludicrous.

I just hope when Jannie shortly tackles the contract OOB rates and the booster prices he will look around at the market and smell the roses.

Some 101 supply-demand economics might help, because current prices do not optimize iBurst's profitability. And it is sad to see absurd pricing ruin an otherwise viable product.
 
Gaz{M} said:
When iBurst launched, there was no 4Mbps DSL and 3G was still at 384kbps if i'm not mistaken. That makes their 1 Mbps peak speed attractive. But today, I can't see the appeal.
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Tell that to Telkom and the vast hordes of 384kbps ADSL users.
 
Gaz{M} said:
I think that iburst is selling CRTs in an LCD/Plasma market.

Can someone please point out 1 single major benefit of iBurst over 3G that makes it worthwhile?

When iBurst launched, there was no 4Mbps DSL and 3G was still at 384kbps if i'm not mistaken. That makes their 1 Mbps peak speed attractive. But today, I can't see the appeal.
Click to expand...

Agreed, if iBurst wanted to stay ahead of the trend they'd either offer faster speeds at no extra cost (constantly upgrading) or lower the price as they get more users online. That's how Telkom did it (and 3G)

Even with their bandwidth usage. Think about it. 9c/Mb. So for 160mb I'm paying R100. Where the cost per Mb might be 9c (less even now that pricing has gone down to about 4.5c but lets give them the benefit of the doubt and stick with 9c) to them (remember, they buy speed/capacity, they don't buy bundles of Mb's)

R14.40 per 160mb.

Is their profit markup on bandwidth insane? Or what... either that or their bandwidth provider is screwing them a new hole and they should genuinely consider someone else.
 
You can tell how out-of-reality/touch this pre-paid product is when Iburst lists the following as perks:

Software drives - hahhahaaaa
Free email account - hahahahaha
 
Gatecrasher said:
Tell that to Telkom and the vast hordes of 384kbps ADSL users.
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This is a market they could be all over if their top-up rates weren’t so ridiculous. At R500 for 3GB at 1mbps, surely that offer would look attractive next to Telkom’s 384kbps offering factoring phone line rental.

Of course the reliability of speed would be something a customer would have to look at. But to me those economics would make me at least have a serious look at it as an alternative.
 
Shred said:
Still darn expensive compared to HSDPA
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Yep.

freeek said:
price could of been a great great factor however its cheaper to plug your phone in to your computer and use its 3g/ hspda connection.

This price range is really an epic fail.
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That's exactly what I thought when I read the article.
Because that is exactly what I do.
And it's cheaper.
 
The real problem for iBurst, and to a large extent the cellular networks, is that they are building the fixed infrastructure costs into what should be variable cost packages.

In other words, instead of slamming you for a fixed rental (like Telkom does) to cover infrastructure costs and then charging you cost-related bandwidth rates (as ADSL ISPs do), iBurst and Cellular data customers keep having to pay the fixed cost over and over again as they use more and more data.

The model is fine if you only use a gig or two. But beyond that the pricing model fails dismally.
 
Hi Gatecrasher

The 'linear' pricing models we see in SA has long confused me. One explanation may be that the infrastructure is close to capacity which means that providers just don’t want more traffic on their networks, hence charging you an arm and a leg for high usage. If this is not the case shareholders should ask serious questions about why the excess capacity is not somehow used to generate revenue.
 
Gatecrasher - what is strange is that iBurst were much closer to that model initially and then decided to move to what you describe.
 
rpm said:
Hi Gatecrasher

The 'linear' pricing models we see in SA has long confused me. One explanation may be that the infrastructure is close to capacity which means that providers just don’t want more traffic on their networks, hence charging you an arm and a leg for high usage. If this is not the case shareholders should ask serious questions about why the excess capacity is not somehow used to generate revenue.
Click to expand...

I completely agree. The only reasonable conclusion one can come to with regards to wireless pricing is that these companies are actively trying to discourage high usage on their networks.
 
Gatecrasher said:
The real problem for iBurst, and to a large extent the cellular networks, is that they are building the fixed infrastructure costs into what should be variable cost packages.

In other words, instead of slamming you for a fixed rental (like Telkom does) to cover infrastructure costs and then charging you cost-related bandwidth rates (as ADSL ISPs do), iBurst and Cellular data customers keep having to pay the fixed cost over and over again as they use more and more data.

The model is fine if you only use a gig or two. But beyond that the pricing model fails dismally.
Click to expand...

South Africa is one of the only countries in the world though that creates this artificial separation between infrastructure and bandwidth costs. They should be one and the same.
 
rpm said:
One explanation may be that the infrastructure is close to capacity which means that providers just don’t want more traffic on their networks
Click to expand...
I think that is a fair observation. While most of the wireless operators have fairly mature access networks, their backhaul networks are generally pretty new and still being paid off. And in places where they don't have their own networks yet they continue to burn boatloads of opex on Telkom diginet lines.

Its a bit of a catch-22. The operators want to recover as much of their build out cost as soon as possible. That means that prices stay high in the short term. There is however an advantage to this business model: Once the infrastructure is almost fully paid off that prices are likely to fall through the floor :)
 
ambo said:
I think that is a fair observation. While most of the wireless operators have fairly mature access networks, their backhaul networks are generally pretty new and still being paid off. And in places where they don't have their own networks yet they continue to burn boatloads of opex on Telkom diginet lines.

Its a bit of a catch-22. The operators want to recover as much of their build out cost as soon as possible. That means that prices stay high in the short term. There is however an advantage to this business model: Once the infrastructure is almost fully paid off that prices are likely to fall through the floor :)
Click to expand...

If that were/is the case - one has to wonder how long it will take before they (the operators) reach a point where they have recouped costs on infrastucture and will consider dropping prices.
 
Logic would dictate that in the market space price wont drop drastically as they would continue to run at the maximum price the market will tolerate without being uncompetitive. This is where competition comes in, a new player is attracted to the high margins as capital is easier to obtain for these entities
 
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