Telkom home fibre launch date set

Craighall Park... so close... so close!
 
What I'm still waiting for is the costs, or did I miss an article stating them?
 
Segg said:
What I'm still waiting for is the costs, or did I miss an article stating them?
Click to expand...

You're still waiting... And if you're keeping your fingers crossed for an uncapped product, you're most likely going to be disappointed.
 
Standing outside, on the pavement, in the rain, with my own roll of fibre, under my arm. Waiting.
Please connect me.
Thunder in the distance.
Waiting.
It's gonna be a hot, fibre-less summer.
 
If the commercial launch of FTTH doesn’t work in those areas, Armstrong said they would have to relook at their approach to home fibre in South Africa.
Click to expand...

Well kids, you better not ruin it for the rest of the class.

I hope they don't have unrealistic expectations + bad marketing that will end up leaving the same bad taste for them as the initial disappointing VDSL rollout.
 
I know they said 26 suburbs, but I'd like to know what % their clients that constitutes. I'd also like to know what percentage of their clients are able to subscribe to >20Mbps and >40Mbps services. Not how many are, but how many *could*.

I have a feeling that it's the same tip of the iceberg that keeps nudging forward and those of us not at the tip are pretty stagnant.

Don't misunderstand me, I'm happy that we have these services from Telkom, I'm just rather annoyed that they never ever seem to reach me even though I live in a pretty good suburb. This makes me question when something constitutes a "public" service. In fact, at the moment there is so much Telkom news on Mybroadband that Telkom might as well be the mythical hero that none of us will ever meet.
 
StNick said:
You're still waiting... And if you're keeping your fingers crossed for an uncapped product, you're most likely going to be disappointed.
Click to expand...

I'm honestly anticipating "rental" fees in excess of R700, my fear is since Telkom are going to measure the success based on uptake, if the prices are too high for households the uptake will be too low and the project probably won't be expanded
 
Segg said:
I'm honestly anticipating "rental" fees in excess of R700, my fear is since Telkom are going to measure the success based on uptake, if the prices are too high for households the uptake will be too low and the project probably won't be expanded
Click to expand...

Exactly,if uptake isn't good then they should first try dropping the pricing to affordable levels and see uptake then before deciding its not a product in demand.
 
Segg said:
I'm honestly anticipating "rental" fees in excess of R700, my fear is since Telkom are going to measure the success based on uptake, if the prices are too high for households the uptake will be too low and the project probably won't be expanded
Click to expand...
You need to read this with the other article about Telkom's FTTH...

Us as residential users will not be able to get a fibre connection directly from Telkom Wholesale (like we can do with ADSL/VDSL).

TW will offer the product to all ISPs (including Telkom Internet) and the ISPs will determine the total price we have to pay.
 
If the commercial launch of FTTH doesn’t work in those areas, Armstrong said they would have to relook at their approach to home fibre in South Africa
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I suppose if they have tested it since 2012, technically they know it will work. Are they talking about whether it will work commercially? Because if prices start at R1000 or more, it probably won't work.
 
MickeyD said:
Us as residential users will not be able to get a fibre connection directly from Telkom Wholesale (like we can do with ADSL/VDSL).
Click to expand...

Will the fibre rental not be from Telkom? As I understood it, you get your voice "analogue line" through the fibre as well. Doesn't that mean that Telkom will offer the FTTH product with your internet access still supplied by the ISP? Or will you still have copper from telkom for analogue line and fibre for data?
 
MickeyD said:
You need to read this with the other article about Telkom's FTTH...

Us as residential users will not be able to get a fibre connection directly from Telkom Wholesale (like we can do with ADSL/VDSL).

TW will offer the product to all ISPs (including Telkom Internet) and the ISPs will determine the total price we have to pay.
Click to expand...

Yes that part I understand, it's going to be similar to how DSL is offered, what I'm saying is when all the costs are added together, will it be affordable enough to have a good enough uptake to be deemed a success
 
Segg said:
I'm honestly anticipating "rental" fees in excess of R700, my fear is since Telkom are going to measure the success based on uptake, if the prices are too high for households the uptake will be too low and the project probably won't be expanded
Click to expand...

The pricing for these kinds of services is really hard, because there does come a point with Internet speed where it's "good enough" and pointless to pay extra. I have a friend who's quite technical and lives in Korea, and was paying somewhere around R100 a month for 50Mbps. Even though he could get 100Mbps for R200 p/m he just can't justify (any) extra cost for the speed. With 40 Mbps VDSL you're already able to run 4+ simultaneous streams of HDX Netflix, and that is more than enough for almost any family.

Similarly to the way it was with very limited capped packages a few years ago, it was easy to think that there was never going to be a cap big enough to fully satisfy ones needs. And progressively as the caps get higher and cheaper you reach that point where you've just run out of stuff to download.

So there is real risk here especially as they struggled to persuade people to pay the R600+ 40Mbps VDSL prices before.
 
recre8 said:
Will the fibre rental not be from Telkom? As I understood it, you get your voice "analogue line" through the fibre as well. Doesn't that mean that Telkom will offer the FTTH product with your internet access still supplied by the ISP? Or will you still have copper from telkom for analogue line and fibre for data?
Click to expand...

No. It will be an open access model.
 
km2 said:
The pricing for these kinds of services is really hard, because there does come a point with Internet speed where it's "good enough" and pointless to pay extra. I have a friend who's quite technical and lives in Korea, and was paying somewhere around R100 a month for 50Mbps. Even though he could get 100Mbps for R200 p/m he just can't justify (any) extra cost for the speed. With 40 Mbps VDSL you're already able to run 4+ simultaneous streams of HDX Netflix, and that is more than enough for almost any family.

Similarly to the way it was with very limited capped packages a few years ago, it was easy to think that there was never going to be a cap big enough to fully satisfy ones needs. And progressively as the caps get higher and cheaper you reach that point where you've just run out of stuff to download.

So there is real risk here especially as they struggled to persuade people to pay the R600+ 40Mbps VDSL prices before.
Click to expand...

100% agree, people want fiber not 100 Mbps, even if the speed is a stable 10Mbps most or some people will be happy with such instead of 100Mbps at a higher cost.
 
Dlamaqhinga said:
100% agree, people want fiber not 100 Mbps, even if the speed is a stable 10Mbps most or some people will be happy with such instead of 100Mbps at a higher cost.
Click to expand...

+1

DSL is problematic compared to Fibre

It has attenuation issues over relatively short distances
It's copper is often stolen
To name a few off the top of my head
 
Dlamaqhinga said:
100% agree, people want fiber not 100 Mbps, even if the speed is a stable 10Mbps most or some people will be happy with such instead of 100Mbps at a higher cost.
Click to expand...

It will be great to have actual 10Mbps/40Mbps/100Mbps instead of the whole "up to 40Mbps" deal due to the variability of copper lines.

One other thing that does worry me with the fibre connection being effectively locked to a single ISP... will the increased reliability of the connection between my house and the exchange outweigh the inability to switch ISPs when my ISP is having problems. I have frequently been able to solve intermittent poor internet performance by switching to a different ADSL account on another ISP, and that happens far more often for me than physical line issues. I'm sure it's different for others, but for me personally that could make me think twice about switching.
 
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