Telkom's 'uncapped' accounts?

Xarog

Xarog

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I have serious issues with Telkom's double standards of not hard-capping their uses at their alloted totals, while forcing all other ISPs to do exactly that.

Considering the immense lag we've had over the past few days, this also makes me wonder how much this "free" bandwidth is costing everyone else who isn't with Telkom.

We really do deserve uncapped and unshaped bandwidth for what we pay. Telkom is supposedly currently only utilising 25% of their part of the SAT3 cable. But in the meantime, I think it's underhanded of Telkom to not hardcap their direct customers, even while subjecting everyone who uses their service to disgusting packet shaping policies.
 
PostmanPot said:
guess whose fault the hard-cap was..?
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Telkom. Right?

It wasn't DoC, ICASA, ISPA or some ISP ... None of them had any power over Telkom's capping.
 
Telkom is making less money because of not hardcapping their users. Every ISP has the option of doing exactly the same but I assume that economies of scale dictate that Telkom is probably the only ISP that can make it work.

(I am purposefully ignoring the fact that Telkom Internet don't really pay for their bandwidth as the money just gets shuffled over to fellow Telkom company SAIX)
 
I was under the impression that other ISPs are forcefully harcapped by SAIX if they reach their limit, forcing them to hardcap their users, and that Telkom was doing this to make their own package more attractive and thus trying to squeeze all other ISPs out of the market.
 
It's not only non-Telkom subscribers that have been experiencing the lag. I'm with TelkomISP and I also had horrendous lag :(.
 
Xarog said:
I was under the impression that other ISPs are forcefully harcapped by SAIX if they reach their limit, forcing them to hardcap their users, and that Telkom was doing this to make their own package more attractive and thus trying to squeeze all other ISPs out of the market.
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True.
 
Xarog said:
I was under the impression that other ISPs are forcefully harcapped by SAIX if they reach their limit, forcing them to hardcap their users, and that Telkom was doing this to make their own package more attractive and thus trying to squeeze all other ISPs out of the market.
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As pope24 mentioned - the ISPs have the option to do what telkomInternet does - ie bandwidth pooling - but the risks are probably too high for them as they would be financially responsible for any mismanagement.
 
Xarog said:
I was under the impression that other ISPs are forcefully harcapped by SAIX if they reach their limit, forcing them to hardcap their users, and that Telkom was doing this to make their own package more attractive and thus trying to squeeze all other ISPs out of the market.
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Not true for any ISP that does their own authentication

However they do have to pay for every gig consumed by their users - as does TelkomInternet in theory. TelkomInternet's big advantage is their large number of users and large percentage of users only utilising a small portion of their purchased gigs.
 
Xarog said:
I was under the impression that other ISPs are forcefully harcapped by SAIX if they reach their limit, forcing them to hardcap their users, and that Telkom was doing this to make their own package more attractive and thus trying to squeeze all other ISPs out of the market.
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No that is not true. SAIX sells bandwidth per GB to ISPs. These ISPs sell the bandwidth to their clients in 2 or 3GB chunks. If a client uses 1GB and pays for 3, then the ISP doesn't pay SAIX for the other two, which is money in the bank for the ISP.
Telkom Internet is choosing to let the heavier users use some of the bandwidth that their lighter users are not using. So if I use 10GB on a 3GB package I am effectively using 7GB that is being paid for by someone else.
TI have set a limit, after which everyone over their limit gets cut off.
To put this in context if TI sells 1000GB to its customers but on the average month (by hardcapping all users over the limit) the users would only consume 400GB of that, TI would be making pure profit on 600GB of that. As a value add to the heavier users TI decides that it only wants to make a profit on 400GB of this and so it allows its heavier users to use an extra 150GB, banking on the lighter users maybe going over by an extra 50GB.
So TI still makes profit off the rest of the unused GB but not as much as they would have made had they hardcapped all their users.
This only works if you have masses of subscribers, like TI do. Smaller ISPs just don't have the spare GBs to play with.
It may hurt the little ISPs, but it is good for the consumer. I do wonder, though, how many unused GB TI has left at the end of the month.
 
But TI is owned by telkom as is SAIX. What if it has a free hand to use all the bandwidth in the country, i.e. it doesn't actually transfer any money to telkom aside from the money it gets from subscribers?


It's not only non-Telkom subscribers that have been experiencing the lag. I'm with TelkomISP and I also had horrendous lag
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I know - I'm just concerned that TI/SAIX/Telkom is abusing their position as the t1 ISP for their own ends, and all the customers in the country are getting shafted because of it.
 
Officially, if it were ever proved that TI was running at a loss, or that SAIX was charging less to TI than to other ISPs, the Competition Commission would have them for breakfast. And no amount of expensive lawyers would be able to save them from that.
 
And how could one go about proving that? Do we have reasonable evidence that TI isn't running at a loss?
 
Xarog said:
And how could one go about proving that? Do we have reasonable evidence that TI isn't running at a loss?
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There's absolutely no reason for them to run it at a loss. The only requirement they have to meet is the 3gb purchased by the consumer (or whatever cap you want to use as each forms their own pool). As they publicly claim that their average user utilizes only 1.4gb it means there is a huge pool of unused bandwidth available.
 
There's absolutely no reason for them to run it at a loss.
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Doesn't prove they aren't running it at a loss. (Note, I never said they *are* running at a loss, I only asked if it's possible to check if they are.)

The only requirement they have to meet is the 3gb purchased by the consumer (or whatever cap you want to use as each forms their own pool). As they publicly claim that their average user utilizes only 1.4gb it means there is a huge pool of unused bandwidth available.
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And we know Telkom isn't lying because?
 
Telkom is lying - simple as that. They are using their monopolistic position to capitalize market share. They don't care about the Competition Commission because they know the Competition Commission is as useless as all other independent 'spit' watchdog authorities in South Africa.
 
Xarog said:
Doesn't prove they aren't running it at a loss. (Note, I never said they *are* running at a loss, I only asked if it's possible to check if they are.)
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and conversely it doesnt prove that they are. Still - I'm sure all the info is available in their annual reports - let us know what you find.
 
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