Simple truth about SA's broadband prices

It shows that South Africa’s monthly broadband cost is very high, even when compared to other African countries.
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How many of them? I see most of them as "0-1", which indicates that no data was collected.
 
In Sa everything is overpriced. Even SA's exported products cost less in other countries than in the country of origin.
In order to do a proper comparison use cost as a percentage of disposable income, or the Mac burger index or the amount of Coke you can buy with the money needed to pay.
In other countries many services are free whereas we must pay for them, ex health,education,tolls etc. If we did not have all these secondary expenses, then there is more cash to pay for other needs/wants
 
The only simple fact about the costs is that we're being screwed. **** you Vodacom, MTN, CELLC, Telkom and others
 
the figure they are using seems horribly wrong. At the moment entry level broadband in SA is 15USD a month
 
Keeper said:
Wrong.



We're 5th cheapest, actually.


There are many things to consider, and for that you need to look on this website
Go check it out an you will see that SA isn't really that expensive.
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The poor eat Mac'D and all(not understanding the basket that constitute the mapped data,pls excuse me)? As in the ~15 million grant recipients.Maybe I've got a warped perception.
 
Keeper said:
We're 5th cheapest, actually.
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Given current rates I'd imagine its closer to 10th. Though its close enough I guess.

Remember "cheapest" is affected by forex movements. I'd rather look at fastest earned for an approximation of *local* purchasing power.

These kinds of stats are pretty useless for SA though. 50 million people...5 mil of which are +- like you and I. Averaging it out just doesn't work.
 
The rest of southern Africa are leaving us behind.
 
For a 6MB Truly uncapped DSL line in Thailand, I used to pay around R216. This is with all line/data costs included. The graph says that thailand is more expensive than South Africa... Bollocks.
 
We're just having fibre installed into our house in zim, is 450USD installation and then 150USD a month for 10meg unshaped...

This is by a private company who is laying fibre all over town, if Telkom pulled finger and let people run their own networks it would be even cheaper to do this here as everyone is much closer together. Our line to the backbone is about 1km long and serves a grand total of 2 residential houses along that whole route!
 
ScottulusMaximus said:
We're just having fibre installed into our house in zim, is 450USD installation and then 150USD a month for 10meg unshaped...

This is by a private company who is laying fibre all over town, if Telkom pulled finger and let people run their own networks it would be even cheaper to do this here as everyone is much closer together. Our line to the backbone is about 1km long and serves a grand total of 2 residential houses along that whole route!
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The lack of FTTH solutions like this has nothing to do with Telkom. ECNS licence holders can already lay fibre and roll out "their own network"

The problem is:
[1] ICASA and their inability to actually fully implement the ECA - and that's before considering the fact that the ECA itself is a barrier to entry etc ...
[2] Municipalities who hold up, muck up and make the whole infrastructure development exercise a mess
[3] Thuggery and crime - there is a massive attempt to extort money/favours (usually "jobs") from anybody installing fibre
[4] Prospects of regulatory arbitrage - both the ever present idea that the legislation and regulatory approach can change to suit a particular enterprise and the amount of energy spent in steering that agenda
[5] Why invest in your own network if you can blame Telkom; and what is more if you can steer a free ride on LLU and continue to bleat that "taxpayers paid for the network" and other myths - including that Telkom doesn't allow other people to run their own network - in order to get a teat to suck on

At the end of the day there is a culture of bad management that has defined Telkom but the reason we don't have a decent competitive broadband landscape in South Africa has to be laid at the majority of their competitors feet and at government.
There are approaches Telkom could adopt that would unlock a heck of a lot more broadband potential in SA than what they are currently doing but their executive management and the board need to see the big picture and be brave enough to take the leap.
 
Paul Hjul said:
The lack of FTTH solutions like this has nothing to do with Telkom. ECNS licence holders can already lay fibre and roll out "their own network"

The problem is: [...]
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Actually the main problem currently is that it isn't economically feasible without the appetite to take a longterm view.
 
The problem naturally lies with the Gov, or more specifically the unfettered cANCer that is metastasizing our economy as a whole.

Yet at the same time I'm pissed at industry for taking advantage of this, and screwing the consumer at every opportunity: OOB sharks come to mind, WASPA 3rd party service / double opt-in fiasco, ridiculously high interconnection and call rates, ...

The problem with any of these reports is supporting data, for example: What is classified as Broadband, how they deal with comparisons where data volumes caps or cost/mb apply.

What however is certain we are being screwed, and if this was Europe: Vodacom, Telkom, and others would have had to shell out 10% of the revenue to penalties for their flagrant abuse of the system.

Aaah well I guess we get what 'we' vote for.
 
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