Openserve increasing its fibre prices

Jan

Jan

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Openserve hiking fibre prices

Fibre network operator (FNO) Openserve is increasing the wholesale prices of its fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) packages from 1 April 2024.

MyBroadband first learnt of the price hikes after Internet service provider (ISP) Axxess sent customers emails notifying them of price changes on their Openserve packages.
 
Consumers have to refuse these prices increases. The FNO's think they have everybody over a barrel now, almost like they believe we can't do without uncapped data....well we can, time for some consumer activism in light that the rest of the world is seeing speed increases and price drops....this is still a third world country, why is corporate South Africa allowed to be so brazenly exploitative?
 
Slckrck said:
Consumers have to refuse these prices increases. The FNO's think they have everybody over a barrel now, almost like they believe we can't do without uncapped data....well we can, time for some consumer activism in light that the rest of the world is seeing speed increases and price drops....this is still a third world country, why is corporate South Africa allowed to be so brazenly exploitative?
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@Jan - Who's gonna register MyFNO.co.za ? ;)
 
quovadis said:
I much prefer the "we're doubling your speed for 10% more" approach. They could've at least added a 1gbit option.
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It's their mindset that needs changing, they will sell us the lowest possible speeds at the highest possible prices because we allow it. It's not like their network outlays are that much more expensive compared to Europe or the US.... it's not like we don't currently pay top dollar prices per mb compared to the US fibre providers. The US can get 300mbps for under R600 (and that's not even accounting for the higher end 2.5Gbps and higher packages they have access to)

Nah I will be moving to 5G at a reasonable price, fibre is great as an idea, but not worth it because of the FNO'S price gouging....they care more about investor institutions than their long-term prosperity or their customers.
 
Jan said:
Openserve hiking fibre prices

Fibre network operator (FNO) Openserve is increasing the wholesale prices of its fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) packages from 1 April 2024.

MyBroadband first learnt of the price hikes after Internet service provider (ISP) Axxess sent customers emails notifying them of price changes on their Openserve packages.
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Ftfy

Telkom
 
Octotel did the same. I cancelled my service and moved to a local wireless solution for a few hundred bucks a month less.
I dont need 75/75mbps being the minimum speed I can subscribe to for R849 a month.
there is no need for the entry package to be that highly priced.
 
Slckrck said:
It's their mindset that needs changing, they will sell us the lowest possible speeds at the highest possible prices because we allow it. It's not like their network outlays are that much more expensive compared to Europe or the US.... it's not like we don't currently pay top dollar prices per mb compared to the US fibre providers. The US can get 300mbps for under R600 (and that's not even accounting for the higher end 2.5Gbps and higher packages they have access to)

Nah I will be moving to 5G at a reasonable price, fibre is great as an idea, but not worth it because of the FNO'S price gouging....they care more about investor institutions than their long-term prosperity or their customers.
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The internet experience and pricing varies greatly in the US - we're in some ways better and in some ways worse. I do think though that consolidation of FNOs has resulted in a bit of stagnation of late.
 
It seems like 5G somehow is challenging the FTTH market, Openserve 50/25 and Rainone 30/? Is the same price
But with FTTH DL/UL improves yearly while 5G speed doesn't change that often
Maybe rain needs to double its 5G footprint nationally
 
quovadis said:
The internet experience and pricing varies greatly in the US - we're in some ways better and in some ways worse. I do think though that consolidation of FNOs has resulted in a bit of stagnation of late.
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He is right. Fibre is still way overpriced for what we're getting.
 
Swa said:
He is right. Fibre is still way overpriced for what we're getting.
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Chances are you’re gonna pay $20-25 plus taxes and a variety of creative fees for a basic assymetrical service in the US - that’s not that far off from us?
 
quovadis said:
The internet experience and pricing varies greatly in the US - we're in some ways better and in some ways worse. I do think though that consolidation of FNOs has resulted in a bit of stagnation of late.
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Idk even with the variations in pricing in the US, their minimum speeds on specifically fibre but mostly cable as well are far faster than ours, yet we pay the equivalent prices. And I'm not counting small providers like Sonic (who offers ridiculous speeds for $60 in some areas). What we get for $30 Vs what they get for $30 is like we're in the stone age. Their typography is worse than ours in many cases, so we can't blame it on difficult landscapes, we can't blame it on government sanctioned area monopolies like they suffer. So all that we can conclude is these FNOs are either greedy as hell or extremely badly run. Either way they don't deserve our customer loyalty.
 
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quovadis said:
Chances are you’re gonna pay $20-25 plus taxes and a variety of creative fees for a basic assymetrical service in the US - that’s not that far off from us?
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Even with those inflated prices, like rental fees and annual negotiations, they still get a better product than we do for the same price.

It's not the only area we are getting the short end, we generally pay dollar prices but we live in a developing nations economy....other countries on our level don't. For the example smartphone that costs R6.5k in Indonesia we get to pay R12k.... shipping and taxes can't be that bad surely.

It's pretty obvious we are being taken advantage of left right and center.
 
Slckrck said:
Even with those inflated prices, like rental fees and annual negotiations, they still get a better product than we do for the same price.

It's not the only area we are getting the short end, we generally pay dollar prices but we live in a developing nations economy....other countries on our level don't. For the example smartphone that costs R6.5k in Indonesia we get to pay R12k.... shipping and taxes can't be that bad surely.

It's pretty obvious we are being taken advantage of left right and center.
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Out of interest what do you think is the margin CISP makes on a typical 100Mbps Openserve customer in Gauteng?
 
Slckrck said:
It's their mindset that needs changing, they will sell us the lowest possible speeds at the highest possible prices because we allow it. It's not like their network outlays are that much more expensive compared to Europe or the US.... it's not like we don't currently pay top dollar prices per mb compared to the US fibre providers. The US can get 300mbps for under R600 (and that's not even accounting for the higher end 2.5Gbps and higher packages they have access to)

Nah I will be moving to 5G at a reasonable price, fibre is great as an idea, but not worth it because of the FNO'S price gouging....they care more about investor institutions than their long-term prosperity or their customers.
Click to expand...
I'm not saying that I agree with all of the increases, and I definitely don't agree with the entry level packages being as expensive as they are now on some networks. But we do need to look at everything in context, and running a network in SA is not easy. To draw comparisons to the US market is not an accurate representation - The US doesn't suffer from constant power outages, ridiculous annual licensing fees due to ICASA (0.15% - 0.35% for ALF and 0.2% for USAF on annual turnover), extensive theft and damage to infrastructure, devaluing of the Rand, shortage of skilled workers, the list goes on.

The US gov also provides subsidies on certain connectivity to allow "access to all". It's difficult to draw a direct comparison when the economic environments are completely different. Sure, there are some aspects that are shared, but at the end of the day it does cost a fair bit of money to build a network and operate it.

The FNO and ISP market needs to consolidate at some point. We're all scared of another Telkom but its the only way to leverage economies of scale, which is mostly what the US has at the moment. They only have a handful of operators who run the fixed line networks, which are mostly copper cable infrastructure - they're only now starting to see a large roll out of fibre thanks to some smaller operators entering the market.

We can't blame government for everything, but they have a huge role to play in allowing affordable access to broadband in SA through better policy and reducing the fees and "taxes" that both FNOs and ISPs need to fork out, which has no real benefit for the industry or the consumer. Let's not even talk about the millions required to get a national license...
 
Delingr said:
I'm not saying that I agree with all of the increases, and I definitely don't agree with the entry level packages being as expensive as they are now on some networks. But we do need to look at everything in context, and running a network in SA is not easy. To draw comparisons to the US market is not an accurate representation - The US doesn't suffer from constant power outages, ridiculous annual licensing fees due to ICASA (0.15% - 0.35% for ALF and 0.2% for USAF on annual turnover), extensive theft and damage to infrastructure, devaluing of the Rand, shortage of skilled workers, the list goes on.

The US gov also provides subsidies on certain connectivity to allow "access to all". It's difficult to draw a direct comparison when the economic environments are completely different. Sure, there are some aspects that are shared, but at the end of the day it does cost a fair bit of money to build a network and operate it.

The FNO and ISP market needs to consolidate at some point. We're all scared of another Telkom but its the only way to leverage economies of scale, which is mostly what the US has at the moment. They only have a handful of operators who run the fixed line networks, which are mostly copper cable infrastructure - they're only now starting to see a large roll out of fibre thanks to some smaller operators entering the market.

We can't blame government for everything, but they have a huge role to play in allowing affordable access to broadband in SA through better policy and reducing the fees and "taxes" that both FNOs and ISPs need to fork out, which has no real benefit for the industry or the consumer. Let's not even talk about the millions required to get a national license...
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That sounds like a whole lot of convenient excuses for an industry that apparently is incapable of innovation and cost rationalisations..... I'm pretty much at the end of letting myself get exploited, all the excuses they use to hide behind like the disfunctional government, the weak volatile currency, the vandalism, the crime, the need to subsidise the poor, the rain, the sun.....the freaking windy....I'm over it. No more me just taking it, either they start making me compelling offers or I will spend my money elsewhere, even if it means I'd have to sacrifice stability of a fibre connection for that of a wireless one. Cellular networks are far more expensive to maintain than fibre networks but they seem to manage cheaper pricing..... guess we can't have nice things like the rest of the world.
 
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