Telkom ISP pricing confusion

[woobydog]

Mabye i missed the big picture in the new per gig pricing structure from Telkom so hence my question.

I am on the 3gig advanced shaped package with no Telkom contract and was under the impression that this price would come down due to the new per gig
billing system.
This is not the case i am still paying the same R249.00 this month as i did last month.

Telkom brag about how the new per Gig pricing structure will be cheaper for those using less bandwidth...blaa...blaa... but i see no change so i guess Telkom can have there cake and eat it.

 

[Franna]

Telkom stated that the per-gig billing would benefit ISPs, allowing them to structure better packages (read more profit). This in turn would shift the blame for capping from Telkom to the ISPs.

Can still not believe ICASA have said nothing about the per-Gig billing.

 

[Spindrift]

Telkom's new pricing is only for ISPs, not for the general public. Its up to the ISP to revise their pricing. However, since they are now getting charged by telkom per gig, its likely that they'll rather choose to benefit from their customers who use less than 3gb. That's why most of the 3GB accounts offered by most ISPs didnt decrease in price at all.

 

[R4tt3xx]

It looks like any ISP that uses the SAIX radius server for authentication is in for a treat during the next few months. I am on an @lantic 3GB shaped account and have downloaded an astounding 15GB worth of data. I have still not been capped although the SAIX stats page says that I have been. Brilliant.

Telkom ISP is not using per GB billing, neither does @lantic. Can someone post info about the other ISPs like Mweb, SAOL etc. It will make for a lovely discrimination / uncompetitive case against Telkom/SAIX/TelkomInternet.

 

[TheRoDent]

The @lantic accounts are simply rebranded "saix" 3G accounts from memory. Also, keep in mind that @lantic has quite a large userbase. They could probably do the same thing Telkom does by averaging out 3G over their userbase.

 

[Spindrift]

Telkom ISP is not using per GB billing, neither does @lantic. Can someone post info about the other ISPs like Mweb, SAOL etc. It will make for a lovely discrimination / uncompetitive case against Telkom/SAIX/TelkomInternet.

Hardcapping and pergig billing aren't the only solution available to ISPs to manage their subscriber's bandwidth use. (ie make sure total subcribers usage dont go over what they collectively pay to use). There are many other solutions. I have posted this like dozens of times before.. here's one of the more recent post which I think explain the situation quite well.

Disclaimer: I do not work for Telkom

Telkom does not force ISPs to hard cap. They are charging them per Gigabytes they are free to distribute the bandwidth anyway they like.

As an analogy, consider a sushi restaurant. Fish are being sold to them per kilogram and they are free to split this up and sell individual portion or go for an all you eat route. The second option involved charging a price for what would be higher than an average person could eat in hope that there will be more people who eat less than this than those who will eat more. Of course, there are strategies you can use to make sure people dont eat too much. I have seen this first hand. At one such restaurant, the waitrons would start to take their time serving you when you have eaten a lot. Another example is the all you can eat ribs, where they only bring you half of the previous portion in twice the time, for each new order.

Are all you can eat sushi places anticompetitive with respect to those who sell per portion.. ie. 'hardcap' their sushi?