so the EASSy cable is live.

S

Siar

Active Member
Joined
May 7, 2010
Messages
70
Reaction score
0
Any word on which ISP's will be/have purchased bandwidth on the line? I'd like to see some redundancy plans from current ISP's *cough MWEB*

Also it might be coincidence but the day it went live (16th of July) I suddenly had fantastic speeds. But now (19th) its like someone snapped out of their meddling break and came back to put my line on **** speeds again.
 
*sigh.

Its like this... They go live, then they test it, then they try and sell to skeptical ISP's, then the ISP's connect and test the bandwidth.... THEN you you might be using it.

Not before.
 
Siar said:
Any word on which ISP's will be/have purchased bandwidth on the line? I'd like to see some redundancy plans from current ISP's *cough MWEB*
Click to expand...

are you prepared to pay double the price for you uncapped account to pay for that redundancy?
 
Are you prepared to either answer the question or gtfo? Apparently not.

But a redundancy plan should be fundamental in any case for these types of services and included in the "Affordable" fee, i dont see why you even question it.

Edit: @Nerfherder- I was under the impression that testing had been on going for a few weeks already and that it was now live in the sense that it was ready for commercial use. Correct me if I'm wrong and a source would be nice too.
 
Last edited:
These things are slow. Yes, testing has been going on for some time now, on Eassy's side. Once they complete testing, the ISP's who are interested in purchasing bandwidth from them will begin to test. Once they have finished testing, they'll start using the broadband and come up with packages to sell to consumers.

Look at Seacom. It arrived a year ago. How long did it take until we really saw any benefit from it? As far as I can tell, until Mweb launched they're uncapped offering. Sure there were some price drops before that, but nothing mind blowing and industry changing.

I am hoping that we won't have to wait very long to see Eassy being used. Hopefully we'll see something in the next couple of months.
 
Siar said:
Are you prepared to either answer the question or gtfo? Apparently not.
Click to expand...

i answered your question with a valid question of my own.

But a redundancy plan should be fundamental in any case for these types of services and included in the "Affordable" fee, i dont see why you even question it.
Click to expand...

i question it because i know the costs involved. redundancy exists in abundance if you're prepared to pay for premium products, but you can't want to pay "affordable" uncapped prices, and then think that the ISP is gonna run at a loss in order to provide redundancy on them. to be honest, full redundancy will almost double the cost of our current consumer uncapped products... Hence my question!
 
racer said:
i answered your question with a valid question of my own.



i question it because i know the costs involved. redundancy exists in abundance if you're prepared to pay for premium products, but you can't want to pay "affordable" uncapped prices, and then think that the ISP is gonna run at a loss in order to provide redundancy on them. to be honest, full redundancy will almost double the cost of our current consumer uncapped products... Hence my question!
Click to expand...

But remember the new cable also brings new competition so price on wholesale bandwidth should come down a lot. This means they might be able to afford redundancy.
 
racer said:
are you prepared to pay double the price for you uncapped account to pay for that redundancy?
Click to expand...

Sigh. Why is there this general opinion that redundancy costs double? That's absolute nonsense.

Even in an environment where SAT-3 is the only alternative (of which prices have also come down dramatically in recent years), you can still negotiate options for backup bandwidth that you only pay for if and when you use it for a reasonable additional fee (closer to 20%).

Even if you assume a more naive approach and buy 50% of your requirement from Seacom and the other 50% on SAT-3, then you would still only be paying 150% (not double) if we assume SAT-3 prices are twice that of Seacom.

Now enter EASSy, with pricing on par with Seacom. So, now if you buy half your bandwidth requirements from each supplier you don't pay anything extra. Sure, you will have degraded performance in the case of failure, but you will have redundancy for free. Mahala. You'll probably even be able to negotiate full backup capacity on the remaining cable (again paid for only when you need it) for very little extra overhead (where the option is a minimal overhead paid for like an insurance policy).

We really need to stop making excuses for our ISPs, they don't have it so hard.
 
Last edited:
cool, but now we have what 3 cables, which are used at a fraction of their capacity, prices are still horrendously overpriced, if it wasnt for mweb taking that first step,(im not with mweb) it would still be exactly the same as it was before seacom arrived.
 
EASSY should have a positive effect on redundancy and pricing overall
First off it should be able to provide a shorter route to America and even to the UK
If I have to guess I would say that MWEB and the other ISP’s is probably already in negotiation with them to provide at least some of the bandwith their users need.
And they are also pushing for lower pricing

I think that when EASSY starts being used that the connections is going to be the same cost maybe even slightly lower but with overall better international experience and proper backups in place
 
As far as redundancy goes, the best solution would be if the cable providers made up an agreement whereby each would provide backup to the other in the event of a major failure. this need not be a large cost as it would cover all providers equally and provide protection the the providers clients.

The more participants the less the impact to an indidual provider.
 
Anyone with a SAIX account gonna do a tracert?
Since Telkom and MTN are shareholders in the cable, maybe Telkom is already using the cable and routing some traffic over it?
 
ive got a feeling that we are about to be bombarded with reasons why having three cables doesnt improve the price, and that this that and the next thing are now required for better pricing and service
 
Makarov said:
ive got a feeling that we are about to be bombarded with reasons why having three cables doesnt improve the price, and that this that and the next thing are now required for better pricing and service
Click to expand...

You are correct. Something else is needed, and it can't be supplied by international cables no matter how much they drop in pricing. Even if international bandwidth was free, you still need to pay Telkom's IPC fees. Until either this drops by a LARGE margin, or LLU is actually implemented by DoC and ICASA, I don't see a major drop in prices or less contention (directly related to shaping). More cables will give the ISP's more options, especially for redundancy.
 
dudewotevr said:
Sorry what's that? You answered a question with a question? Logic FAIL.
Click to expand...

i think not.... think about it for a few seconds. providing redundancy on isp level, means they have to buy/rent double the amount of bandwidth they intend to sell. Ie Mweb currently buys x-amount from seacom for ~R1. to provide redundancy, they will need to hire the same amount from Eassy. Double costs for them, which means somebody(like us) will have to foot the bill.
 
CodeMaster said:
Anyone with a SAIX account gonna do a tracert?
Since Telkom and MTN are shareholders in the cable, maybe Telkom is already using the cable and routing some traffic over it?
Click to expand...

Tracing route to facebook.com [69.63.181.12]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms 1 ms <1 ms login.router [10.5.3.99]
2 8 ms 8 ms 9 ms dsl-xxxxxxx.telkomadsl.co.za
3 * * * Request timed out.
4 * * * Request timed out.
5 10 ms 9 ms 9 ms 196.43.10.130
6 9 ms 8 ms 9 ms 196.43.33.5
7 388 ms 387 ms 387 ms lon-ip-dir-telecity-gig-4-0-1025.telkom-ipnet.co
.za [196.43.18.121]
8 425 ms 425 ms 425 ms ldn-tch-i1-link.telia.net [213.155.141.153]
9 427 ms 424 ms 425 ms ldn-tch-i2-link.telia.net [80.91.250.218]
10 443 ms 424 ms 424 ms ldn-b3-link.telia.net [80.91.250.213]
11 426 ms 425 ms 424 ms facebook-ic-137170-ldn-b3.c.telia.net [213.248.104.22]
12 497 ms 515 ms 498 ms xe-x-x-x.br01.ash1.tfbnw.net [204.15.22.245]
13 499 ms 526 ms 584 ms xe-4-2-0.bb01.iad2.tfbnw.net [204.15.21.146]
14 577 ms 577 ms 577 ms ae10.bb01.iad2.tfbnw.net [74.119.78.18]
15 574 ms 574 ms 574 ms ae4.br02.snc1.tfbnw.net [74.119.76.26]
16 575 ms 574 ms 575 ms eth-18-1.csw01a.snc2.tfbnw.net [204.15.21.35]
17 576 ms 576 ms 576 ms facebook.com [69.63.181.12]
 
Neo_X said:
i think not.... think about it for a few seconds. providing redundancy on isp level, means they have to buy/rent double the amount of bandwidth they intend to sell. Ie Mweb currently buys x-amount from seacom for ~R1. to provide redundancy, they will need to hire the same amount from Eassy. Double costs for them, which means somebody(like us) will have to foot the bill.
Click to expand...

Original question was asking about which ISP's are negotiating or have already invested in the new Cable, the redundancy thing was just myself expressing what I hope some isp's that have suffered under seacom being down are considering. Lots of interesting things posted about redundancy thus far, but only a few that actually answers the original question.
 
Makarov said:
ive got a feeling that we are about to be bombarded with reasons why having three cables doesnt improve the price, and that this that and the next thing are now required for better pricing and service
Click to expand...

By the time EASSY kicks in SEACOM's agreements (with telkom iirc) to not cut prices will have expired (23rd July). It would not suprise me if this was actually MWEB's strategy from the start. Offer uncapped accounts at what was possibly a loss to start with and turn it into a profit by negotiating lower prices (if they haven't already done so) with SEACOM to go into effect as soon as thier agreement with Telkom expires.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X