Sentech punts wireless broadband

Crumbs, Sentech are as bad as Telkom. What a bunch of cr@p. Sentech is damn expensive and their service sucks. Thats why they have seen a mass exodus from their service. In the beginning I had hoped they would be true competition for Telkom, but they threw that opportunity away.

I will never trust that company and will therefore never give them my business.
 
The Truth About Wireless Broadband

Here is the original press release:

While the Telecoms market is awash with news of regulatory issues, new technology and a mountain of advertising, the most important message for the consumer has been obscured – that wireless broadband Internet is generally the cheapest connectivity option on the market.

Winston Smith, Sentech Portfolio Manager: Broadband Wireless, says of the three choices of connectivity (dial-up, wireless and ADSL), wireless broadband Internet access provides the best service at the cheapest price for the average consumer.

“Consumers need to realise that dial-up is dead. It’s just too expensive and the speed of connectivity is very slow. Consumers need to look to faster, cheaper options in the market. ADSL is significantly more expensive for consumers who don’t require large amounts of bandwidth.

“Consumers therefore need to look at wireless broadband Internet access, which allows consumers to simply pay for what they use. A pay-per-use scenario saves the average consumer in the region of R200 a month,” he says.

Dial-up vs. Broadband

Consumers need to understand that dial-up is no longer a viable option and that the price charged by the Internet service provider is not the real cost of using dial-up.

“The average dial-up connection costs R80 a month. Add to that the rental costs of R100 a month. Consumers who use a landline for Internet access only therefore pay R180 a month before they even connect to the Internet. In addition, they pay for the time they are connected to the Internet, even if they are not downloading anything,” Smith says.
Many consumers therefore find that due to the high cost per minute for online charges, using a dial-up for a minimum of 20 minutes per day, pushes their phone bill to more than R200 per month , making their effective Internet access bill a minimum of R400. Any additional usage spent online increases this monthly costs.

Added to the issue of price, broadband (fixed line or wireless) provides a much faster connection, which makes the experience far more usable and the connection is permanent. Emails can therefore be pushed to the user directly instead of them having to dial-up to retrieve them.

Wireless broadband vs. ADSL:

There are two main differences between wireless broadband and ADSL, says Smith. Firstly, wireless broadband has the obvious advantage of giving mobility / portability to consumers. However, from a cost perspective, Smith says a wireless broadband service provides consumers to choose a smaller data package and pay for additional data if needed, unlike ADSL, which requires consumers to take a gigabyte (GB) package or more and has hidden costs.

“Examining the pricing of the major ADSL providers, consumers will find that they will pay a Telkom line rental fee of R100, an ADSL line rental fee of
R245 and between R100 and R150 on an entry level bandwidth package of one GB. This means consumers will actually pay a minimum of R500 on average a month for an ADSL service,” Smith says.

However, even consumers who send emails every day with average sized attachments and browse at a couple of web pages a day will only use about half a GB of data or even less per month, Smith says. (Should they be downloading content like music then their usage will obviously increase
dramatically.)

“Consumers and businessmen working in a small/home office environment probably won’t need a GB of data. The MyWireless Flexi package with 200 megabytes (MB) or 500 MB of data would suffice, costing them R299 or R399 respectively, including the wireless modem. This means an average saving of around R200 ever month depending on usage,” Smith says.

It is therefore a simple message to the consumer: wireless broadband services are the cheapest, fastest connection for the average Internet users. Consumers need to look hard at a connectivity package that suites them and not be swayed by all the marketing material that is pushed at them, Smith concludes.
 
You can't even update windows with 200MB, let alone surf the net. Maybe my mother, who is terrified of computers, might be able to make do on 200MB, but she is hardly the target market.
 
R100(analog line rental)+R245(ADSL line)+R70(webafrica, not even cheapest 1GB) = R415

R16 for twice the amount of MB usage, and much stabler than wireless? We gave a winner!

Ok, it does take 20 to 30 days for Telkom to install it, if your lucky...
 
table should read:

-------------------|--MyWireless-|-DSL---------|-DAILUP-
DISCONECTIONS---|-YES---------|-Not so much-|--YES--
BAD THROUGHPUT--|-YES--------|-Not so much-|--------
CRAPPY DRIVERS---|-YES--------|--------------|---------
CRAPPY MODEMS---|-YES--------|--------------|-- Some
EXPENSIVE SETUP -|-YES--------|-MODERATE--|---------

;)
 
“Consumers need to realise that dial-up is dead. It’s just too expensive and the speed of connectivity is very slow,” says Winston Smith, Sentech Portfolio Manager: Broadband Wireless.
Click to expand...
Hi there Winston. You, my friend, are an idiot. :cool:

10GB transfer (up & down) for a month on 56k will cost you approximately R450 (used to be R400, but Telkom decided to screw the people on Infinitcall). Whilst it may be slow (although I've heard some things about MyWireless), it offers an uncapped & unshaped service.

A similar offering from your company costs R2000 and the ADSL version costs R850 (as per table - actually more, since the one in the table is probably for a shaped account). Now, do you really think dial-up is dead?

As soon as anybody in this country can provide a minimum of 15GB transfer (preferably counting downloads only) for around R450 pm, I'll start thinking about getting some form of broadband.
 
some more Winston BS said:
However, from a cost perspective, Smith says a wireless broadband service provides consumers to choose a smaller data package and pay for additional data if needed,
Click to expand...
Choose a small package ? Why don't you mention the other choice and the cost ? Why would I want SMALLER data packages with a BROADBAND service ? I got more data down while on dialup. So go compete in the dialup arena, NOT broadband :mad:

Fully agree with Rootknir's first sentence :D
 
I found that GRPRS/3G/HSDPA on a cel phone is the cheapest "low usage" option.

200 megabytes (MB) or 500 MB of data would suffice, costing them R299 or R399
Click to expand...

50c a meg from VM (R100 for 200mb)

or even R220 for 350mb of data on MTN

Granted; my cel contract costs me R135pm, but who doesn't have a cel phone these days? (This includes a Sony Ericsson w900i)
 
This has probably been done already but maybe...

Assume 30 days/month avg. 86400 seconds per day, 2592000 seconds per month.

Take 1x 10GB cap on an alleged broadband service. 10737418240 bytes per month. 8 bits in a byte = 85899345920 bits.

Speed = data/time so let's drag out the calculator. 85899345920/2592000 = 33140.17975 or thereabouts. Divide that by 1024 to get kbit/sec and we have *TADAAA* 32kbit/sec, being the allocated amount of "bandwidth" that you get for your hard-earned cash.

A 3GB cap is obviously somewhere around 30% of that so... yeah, you're looking at a whopping great big chunk of around 10kbit/s for your moola. Slightly better than a 9600bps modem, perhaps around a 14400bps modem on a really crappy day.

Wow. Colour me impressed. Is this supposed to be broadband?

- Trybble
 
You know, all these price comparisons are great and all but u know what, consumers are still not so sophisticated.

I was with a client that needed a website last nite. He wanted to know how to connect to the internet and i explained the options pretty much as detailed in the article.

After a while he said,

'good, now whats a MEGABYTE' ?

The point is that the service providers are aware of this and, right now, it is all about who talks about internet/broadband the most just when the consumer is about to make a decision to get an internet connection.
 
Another thing, Sentech can not be allowed to punt their Flexi option as broadband, since Flexi runs at 256. So Winston, since you killed the ONLY broadband solution you had, either bump your average option, offering small packages for average users, up to 512 speeds, or change your statement :mad:
MyADSL said:
The full definition given in the ICASA ADSL Regulations is as follows: “Broadband means an always-on data connection that is able to support various interactive services, and has the ability of a minimum download speed of 256 Kilo bits per second.”
Click to expand...
MyADSL said:
Sentech MyWireless Flexi may also be disqualified as broadband if it continues to only provide speeds of up to 256 Kbps, but it is likely that the broadband provider will at least bump their subscribers up to 512 Kbps to ensure they can advertise their offerings as broadband.
Click to expand...
 
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Dialup isn't the best option anymore,isdn is lowest to go for these days.On both these telkom does dissconect you at random intervals.(yup they do)
Wireless is overpriced and there is no point in getting it if you don't have coverage ne?

The connection you want depends on the amount of data you need to move.An email here or there then good old dialup might be ok,since you already have a phoneline or if you on contract cellphone then grps/3g is just as good (faster even) can't download so much tho.Slightly more than this isdn will do just as good, then you have a phone line and a internet line all at once.

If you start downloading lot's 'stuff' then adsl or wireless starts becoming a better option.wireless depends on signal strengh and adsl depends on your exchange.
 
quote honestly, its clear Sentech is run by Idiots - I would discourage anybody choosing to sign on with them!.
 
I found a couple of surprises in the comparison table:
1. MTN which is the best connection (the better connection eh?) according to the MyAdsl survey is the also the most expensive across all ranges.
2. Vodacom and MTN charge R 1179-00 & R 1497-00 for a 3 gig account. Am I smoking something or are they INSANE!!!

Thank God I went for IBurst, they have their flaws but they are the best wireless option out there - provided you have VERY GOOD signal and a quiet base station :)
 
between sentech (stateowned) and iburst i'll go for the latter
 
I will stay with Iburst and i got good signal and good speeds (can get up to 120KB/s) and i am on the G9 option and also soft cap and "unshaped".

When sentech tested my signal where i live they told me that i cant use sentech and i tried Iburst and i had good results with Iburst and even beter when they installed a new tower near where i live
 
Prices are not right

The prices quoted are not right:

ADSL384 MyWireless iBurst Vodacom 3G MTN 3G/HSDPA
500 MB 295-00 299-00 299-00 280-00 350-00
1 GB 304-00 449-00 469-00 399-00 499-00
3 GB 424-00 699-00 599-00 1179-00 1497-00
10 GB 844-00 1999-00 1238-00 3900-00 4990-00

The ADSL firstly doesnt include line rental etc. Vodacom contracts include modems where Iburst and Sentech doesnt.
 
IT Web reports on this at http://www.itweb.co.za/sections/internet/2006/0609291037.asp?A=SME&S=SME&O=FPIN

as follows:

"However, Telkom argues that dial-up Internet, which accounts for 80% of the total Internet market, is still the cheapest way for consumers to enter the Internet market.

Subscribers who plan to spend longer periods of time using the Internet can take up a calling plan, such as Telkom Closer, to make surfing more affordable, says Telkom spokesperson Lulu Letlape.

Telkom Closer gives the consumer the option of adding an Internet subscription that offers 150 hours of surfing during off-peak time, at only R150 per month, she says. This works out to a rate of only R1 per hour of dial-up surfing, she says."


The truth is that for many even R2/MB GPRS is much more cost effective than dial-up. One can buy quite a bit of bandwidth for R80 - the average montly dial-up fee.

The biggest problem is the conceptual abilities of low end internet users. They tend to find it difficult to comprehend a cellphone acting as a modem as well. And even worse, these people believe cellphone costs are high, and therefore it must be expensive to use it for connecting to the internet...
 
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