The Inconvenient truth about Fibre in "some" areas.

[Nerfherder]

No I mean socialism. That what you say, does not happen in SA with municipal rates and internet. Vumatel marks out special poorer areas that get cheaper fibre. Of course this means other richer areas prices are inflated.Its not only Vumatel doing this, and its not only for fibre. The same fibre connection in Mithells Plain is almost half the price that I pay for fibre.

Prove it.

 

[davyb]

No I mean socialism. That what you say, does not happen in SA with municipal rates and internet. Vumatel marks out special poorer areas that get cheaper fibre. Of course this means other richer areas prices are inflated.Its not only Vumatel doing this, and its not only for fibre. The same fibre connection in Mithells Plain is almost half the price that I pay for fibre.

Because if they used the same business model in Mitchell's Plain it would not be viable on economies of scale. Even with the lower prices uptake are probably at between 30 and 50%. I live in a Vuma Reach area and see how much homes are connected. Vumatel had to first run a proof of concept to see if it would work. Even Telkom has got packages tailor made for these markets.

 

[Benedict A55h0le]

Prove it.

Because if they used the same business model in Mitchell's Plain it would not be viable on economies of scale. Even with the lower prices uptake are probably at between 30 and 50%. I live in a Vuma Reach area and see how much homes are connected. Vumatel had to first run a proof of concept to see if it would work. Even Telkom has got packages tailor made for these markets.

 

[Kawak]

I have both vuma and OpenServe in my area, pricing difference is within R50 per month, one cannot compare vuma and vuma reach, it's different class of product, I do not know enough about vumareach, whether us on vumatel are being ripped off and therefore subsidizing the reach customers or maybe helping vumatel to reach these people. According to vumatel, the reach products are much more contended but believing them will be a true sign of low IQ.

 

[CxJx2011]

I have both vuma and OpenServe in my area, pricing difference is within R50 per month, one cannot compare vuma and vuma reach, it's different class of product, I do not know enough about vumareach, whether us on vumatel are being ripped off and therefore subsidizing the reach customers or maybe helping vumatel to reach these people. According to vumatel, the reach products are much more contended but believing them will be a true sign of low IQ.

Vuma Reach network design is has a much lower capacity (this can be changed in future but it will be at a certain cost). hence why it could be deployed at a much lower cost.

 

[chrisc]

Holy wall of text. Wtf is this about?

Money

 

[davyb]

No I am stating that even the product that we get is different due to the nature of the network and equipment used. I literally have only 2 options in speed and there is nothing I can do about it.

 

[Kyoto]

Exactly this. The FNO has to recoup costs from lower packages as well.

OP mentioned Hereotel. They are a closed FNO and you can only use them as an ISP.

They also do pole to pole rather than ground - which is a lot cheaper. You still get what you pay for. Their international bandwidth really leaves a lot to be desired. My parents on their R499 50MBit package and get 17-30Mbit to EU.

They also use EPON a technology that is dirt cheap, and only 1G UL 1G DL, so will battle if they get a high density of 100 meg customers.

 

[Bobbin]

I think it was the same with ADSL, except Telkom was the only infra provider so we had nothing to compare with except overseas. We all had to pay the line rental to Telkom over and above the ISP cost.

But yeah, it sucks. And I don't think it's realistic to have 3 or more fibres being dug out everywhere. Which is why when buying or renting anywhere, ask a lot of questions about Internet first

 

[JustAsk]

Correct. Lurie from Cybersmart came and explained exactly this to us when they were planning to trench in our area.

Thats why they have to gage the interest first. They have to get a loan to roll out to each area, so the bank looks at the response and how many households, average income etc.
They only grant the loan IF it makes business sense.

Amazing that Herotel's just roll 'em out, in towns nogal. No caring of interest...

 

[MEG101]

Amazing that Herotel's just roll 'em out, in towns nogal. No caring of interest...

Yes, Herotel is almost finished with the network rollout in my town (Mookgophong Limpopo) going live February/March. They have been calling people who have done pre signups offering a 50/50 package for R399 pm for first year. We also have Vuma fiber available as well as 40mbps PureDSL and MTN fixed LTE. Openserve fiber is on the cards, replacing the copper infrastructure. Pretty soon we will have 3 FNO available which is rather unlikely for a small town. Not that I am complaining!! The more options to choose from, the better.

 

[Happy Sloth]

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[netstrider]

Here are some examples. NOTE: THIS IS NOT THE ISPs I used in the original post. Obviously the person that gave me that info didn't want to go on record. These are some other examples I got for you to show you that yes there are better deals to be had. The more you search the more you find.


View attachment 1229570 View attachment 1229572 View attachment 1229574

Now i kept it as close as I could so we got a good idea what the cost are. But yea again the more you search the more you find so have a look around.


cheers

I understand you have limited and inconsistent income.

In my experience, with pretty much everything, including internet, is that you get what you pay for.

Any fibre would probably be better than ehichever alternative you have.

There are some exceptions. Jeans? If it fits and looks okay you can wear it. Shirt, same thing. That is choice.

Price is indicated by demand. I will wear a R20 T-shirt. Some won't wear anything costing less than R300.

Shoes? I need the good stuff. Others will happily buy plenty cheap ones.

Issue is, if you only get Adidas near you and your alternative is Nike, yet you are used to Tekkie Town specials, well, that isn't something you can fix with a courier.

You live with what you have or you wear sandals (LTE).

 

[supersunbird]

I was wondering why other places in South Africa got more affordable Fibre for less money. One would think that competition and all that stuff is GOOD and that prices will be competitive but it appears this is no longer true.

Pffft, if the prices were the same then people would be screaming "Collusion!" and "Cartel!" and similar, not "Yay competition!" and the prices will always be too high for some people. And if there is competition (more than one fibre network in an area) then naturally people will use the cheapest one (if it is stable), if they don't use the cheaper on it's on them.

Do you have 3 fibre providers now and you are moaning about the price?

 

[Happy Sloth]

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[EvotelZA]

A while ago we got two new Fibre infrastructures installed in our area. Now the second I know nothing about BUT the first one I found interesting.

I was wondering why other places in South Africa got more affordable Fibre for less money. One would think that competition and all that stuff is GOOD and that prices will be competitive but it appears this is no longer true.

I reached out to a few providers on email, asking questions like how other providers are so much cheaper then what we get? Well one answered back and bluntly stated it is infrastructure that contributes to the cost. They then pointed out in some areas they can give much better speeds for a lot less money BUT because we are stuck with the more expensive infrastructure we pay more.

Now how much more? Well There was no apples to apples comparison with the first and had to put a much better line for much cheaper against a line that was essentially much slower and still ended up being R251 MORE for the slower line provided by Evotel. and according to what i saw "metrofibre" was really scary because it was a apple to apple comparison and "metrofibre" demanded R311 more for the same speed line.

Now In other places "herotel" offered brilliant pricing that i personally feel is acceptable and you can have a look at them here herotel hero-fibre Then you can go to metrofibre and Evotel and look at their pricing for the same speeds.

So the question now is this? Do we legislate fibre pricing? Because clearly some entities demand more money for less and that rubs me the wrong way. Because if you look at job markets right now and compare contractor or "temp" jobs against "permanent employment" you will find that many many of us do not have a stable income. Thus committing to contracts is a scary deal for us, because there might be a time that we cannot pay and we all know how bad it gets when you owe money.

But here is the bigger thing. On another post Evotel responded saying this:



Well Evotel I am sorry to say but i did get a message from an ISP stating they can offer better pricing on other infrastructure just not yours. Sadly they didn't want to go on record.

But at this point I will leave this here. Clearly there is more to this that we don't get to see. But a simple search did show some surprising differences in price.

But yea when you see infrastructure being installed in your area ASK questions make sure it is to your community's benefit.


Be safe and take care.

Hi Angrydog

Again we are truly sorry that our pricing is viewed as expensive compared to the competitors.

We do however strongly believe we are competitive in price but our core value is customer service.

We will continuously try to add value to the communities we build in.

Regards,
The Evotel Team.

 

[EvotelZA]

I found something similar with Evotel. They have a list of ISP’s that deal directly with them then you have a service provider like Zoomfibre who serves as a bridge for other ISP’s to Evotel. Whats weird is Zoomfibre's ISP’s deals are better priced than the ISP’s that deal directly with the infrastructure owner. How? and why?

Hi Neptuner

ZoomFibre is a FNO themselves and are in no way affiliated to Evotel. We have our own ISPs and they have some of the same on their network.

Regards,
The Evotel Team.

 

[Happy Sloth]

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[Happy Sloth]

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[Rouxenator]

Thankfully I live in a large estate and they invited networks to put in proposals with regards to costs and other issues. Frogfoot won hands down and I am pretty happy with the service I get.