If you go back to Seacom's original pricing posts;
Nowhere did their pricing say per gigabyte, their pricing is for the size of the pipe over a period of time;
Yeah... but I think the original idea behind capping is not to pay for the backhaul but to limit usage.
The REAL question is:
Will the subscribers still subscribe to a congested service?
The answer it seems is a resounding YES, simply because:
EVERY OTHER ISP WITHIN PRICE RANGE IS DELIVERING A SERVICE AS CONGESTED
Well, maybe not. It's my understanding that those ISPs offering uncapped are all using the slow-as-molasses IS [satellite] backbone, wheras if you remain on a capped service you continue to use their Telkom (or whatever)-based fibre lines
Somehow MWEB have managed to congest Telkom Internet (SAIX) and the IS and the Verison backbone, which pretty much leaves nowhere to turn.
Maybe not, but I'd be interested to see some comprehensive comparison tests between uncapped and capped services, from the same and different ISPs. For my part, remaining on a capped-with-topup service, I've not noticed any degradation in line speeds since uncapped started sweeping the country.
BTW, M-Web have not been connected to Verizon for years, and as far as I know their connection to SAIX is only so that you the end-user can get onto the M-Web network; they are using MTN as their backhaul these days. At least, any traceroute I ever do from an M-Web ADSL account always shows a series of MTN routers before hopping onto the target's network.
I just had a conversation with a small 3rd-tier ISP who refuses to offer uncapped - he has had several customers switch to M-Web uncapped and after a week come back to him saying they found the service unusable. OK, take it from where it comes but I have dealt with him for a couple of years now and he appears to be completely ethical, and I doubt he'd spread false rumours without some sort of backup - gossip tends to some back to you, especially in a relatively small market like we have in SA.
There's also a caveat which no-one seems to be mentioning:
M-Web's cheap uncapped offering is limited to private consumers i.e. if you use it for a business they will cut you off (exactly how they find you out I don't know - but they do!)
