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Question of the Day: What's the most interesting small town you've visited in South Africa?
vodacom data bundles
- Thread starter Toitjie
- Start date
R189 for 500mb, R289 for 1gig. It is quite alot. But then again u don't pay ADSL line rentals and Normal Telephone line rentals.
Wich is R145 for 384K DSL line rental, and R110 for normal phone line (That alone is R255) ,excluding any cap.
Wich is R145 for 384K DSL line rental, and R110 for normal phone line (That alone is R255) ,excluding any cap.
For a more accurate comparison you have to compare 3G HSDPA 3.6 (paid for once the trial is over) with Telkom 4096 with 1GB. Things would look as follows:
Telkom (Line+Service+1GB from Axxess): R111.90+R413+R59 = R583.90
Vodacom (1GB+3.6 Service): R289+R49 = R338
Granted there are cheaper ways to get the ADSL service from other ISPs, but I have used the pricing as is from Telkom. Can also be noted that if you go prepaid then there are various way to save by buying discounted airtime.
It's once you start going over 3GB a month that 3G HSDPA starts getting a lot more expensive than ADSL. But the bonus is you are mobile!
Telkom (Line+Service+1GB from Axxess): R111.90+R413+R59 = R583.90
Vodacom (1GB+3.6 Service): R289+R49 = R338
Granted there are cheaper ways to get the ADSL service from other ISPs, but I have used the pricing as is from Telkom. Can also be noted that if you go prepaid then there are various way to save by buying discounted airtime.
It's once you start going over 3GB a month that 3G HSDPA starts getting a lot more expensive than ADSL. But the bonus is you are mobile!
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thats like the only nice thing, but hey if ur using a pc thats not really mobile then no point in having a mobile internet service
jannievdberg
Well-Known Member
All the above price comparisons are fare enough, but why are the add-on bundles so expensive? Getting 1Gb from an ADSL ISP will only cost you R70. I am sure that Vodacom's infastructure has been paid off over and over with all the money that they are receiving? When you use only 1Gig its cheaper than ADSL 4MB, but from there onwards its very expensive. Maybe V3G can explain to us why exactly the add-on budles are so expensive....we dont know about all the costs that are involved.
Dolby
Honorary Master
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The only flaw with that is that real life speeds are still only 120kB/sec max (under 1Mbit) while the 4096 offering from Telkom offers quite nice speeds. On average I'm looking at 50-60kB/sec which is 50% faster - but that's comparing my 384 line to my current 3.6 line which is apparantly almost 900% faster?
Yes - one can do the Vodacom speedtest and occasionally see 2.2Mbit etc but real life seem pretty dismal to me and not worth the cost. I've tried to to download from HTML at various sites (local, international) and peer-to-peer. If I got near to or over 1Mbit constantly, I'd be a happy man.
Don't get me wong - I really do like my 3G and I'm not antiVodacom at all, I just think a realistic 3.6 (or 1Mbit tbh) is pretty slim.
PS Hope my kB, Kb, KB, kb etc are all correct
LandyMan
Honorary Master
The only flaw with that is that real life speeds are still only 120kB/sec max (under 1Mbit) while the 4096 offering from Telkom offers quite nice speeds. On average I'm looking at 50-60kB/sec which is 50% faster - but that's comparing my 384 line to my current 3.6 line which is apparantly almost 900% faster?
Yes - one can do the Vodacom speedtest and occasionally see 2.2Mbit etc but real life seem pretty dismal to me and not worth the cost. I've tried to to download from HTML at various sites (local, international) and peer-to-peer. If I got near to or over 1Mbit constantly, I'd be a happy man.
Don't get me wong - I really do like my 3G and I'm not antiVodacom at all, I just think a realistic 3.6 (or 1Mbit tbh) is pretty slim.
PS Hope my kB, Kb, KB, kb etc are all correct
If you don't see 1mbps something's wrong ... I consistently get between 1.5mbps and 2.8mbps, even on a 3/5 strong signal
My downloads come down at about 250/300KB/s consistently
vodacom3g
Vodacom Representative
These calculations are easy to do but quite complex to come up with a number everyone agrees with.
- You can do it the beanie way; Take your cost to deliver (capex and opex) together with expected usage and calculate a number per MB. We did it this way for GPRS a few years ago and it came to R40/MB. If we had to do it for the new 3G network + the much higher transmission costs, it would be some really silly number, probably a few hundred rand per MB.
- You can price at industry numbers and hope the technology lasts long enough to actually pay for itself or you subsidise it. Problem is in SA people tend to compare HSDPA to ADSL which is a local anomaly due to the problems with fixed line costing and availability.
- You can do some combination. Question is how do you balance it and this becomes the complex bit, trying to balance cost-effectiveness with actual costs while not having a high barrier to entry, etc.
Obviously the beanies did some combination and that's the numbers we have today. The IB / OOB prices are balanced to try and get the best value for everyone.
Don't get me wong - I really do like my 3G and I'm not antiVodacom at all, I just think a realistic 3.6 (or 1Mbit tbh) is pretty slim.
PS Hope my kB, Kb, KB, kb etc are all correct
From websites I get very good download speeds on average. If you are using the internet APN P2P is going to be slow (but that's a whole different discussion).
jannievdberg
Well-Known Member
These calculations are easy to do but quite complex to come up with a number everyone agrees with.
- You can do it the beanie way; Take your cost to deliver (capex and opex) together with expected usage and calculate a number per MB. We did it this way for GPRS a few years ago and it came to R40/MB. If we had to do it for the new 3G network + the much higher transmission costs, it would be some really silly number, probably a few hundred rand per MB.
- You can price at industry numbers and hope the technology lasts long enough to actually pay for itself or you subsidise it. Problem is in SA people tend to compare HSDPA to ADSL which is a local anomaly due to the problems with fixed line costing and availability.
- You can do some combination. Question is how do you balance it and this becomes the complex bit, trying to balance cost-effectiveness with actual costs while not having a high barrier to entry, etc.
Obviously the beanies did some combination and that's the numbers we have today. The IB / OOB prices are balanced to try and get the best value for everyone.
Thank for the explanantion, I know it must be a huge task to calculate all the prices. Its really not fair to compare the 2 technologies actually, because of all the input costs of 3G. THe answer is actually simple = TELKOM sucks!
Dolby
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Do you have a website I could try? I tried www.mxit.co.za (local) and received 90kb/sec. Others have been just as 'slow'. The fastest actually seems to be P2P at about 120kb/sec ...
All I'd like is 1 or 2 HTTP sites that I can test my real life speeds so that I can also see this 200-300kb/sec
With regards to problems, what problems could there be that could be rectified by me? I'd guess it's either my location or an overcrowded tower.
I am in Randpark Ridge and my light is light blue indicating HSDPA, but I don't seem to be hitting those speeds.
Do you have a website I could try? I tried www.mxit.co.za (local) and received 90kb/sec. Others have been just as 'slow'. The fastest actually seems to be P2P at about 120kb/sec ...
All I'd like is 1 or 2 HTTP sites that I can test my real life speeds so that I can also see this 200-300kb/sec
With regards to problems, what problems could there be that could be rectified by me? I'd guess it's either my location or an overcrowded tower.
I am in Randpark Ridge and my light is light blue indicating HSDPA, but I don't seem to be hitting those speeds.
I've seen some good speeds (where I recall) downloading a iphone video clip from apple and winamp (screenshot here: http://mybroadband.co.za/photos/showphoto.php?photo=2411). The best way to test is to queue up a few large files in a download manager (there is a nice one called downthemall for FireFox) from sites you know have good throughput and start them all at the same time. I know rpm used local mirrors of linux iso's as part of his testing a while ago. You should be able to find them at ftp.saix.net and ftp.is.co.za
vodacom3g
Vodacom Representative
Yes, we're beginning to see the radio-link not being the bottle neck anymore. Total throughput is always limited by the biggest bottleneck along the end-to-end path but now that we're beginning to approach multi-megabit speeds on the radio (3.6+) other limitations pop up.
We see it when trying to max 7.2 (and sometimes 3.6). A single download does not work anymore. Only when you've got 5 or 10 concurrent downloads running, do your see the rev counter hitting the red.
But there are still many 'local' limitations on throughput, often in the copper interconnecting the network.
rabbiddog
Expert Member
Do you have a website I could try? I tried www.mxit.co.za (local) and received 90kb/sec. Others have been just as 'slow'. The fastest actually seems to be P2P at about 120kb/sec ...
All I'd like is 1 or 2 HTTP sites that I can test my real life speeds so that I can also see this 200-300kb/sec
With regards to problems, what problems could there be that could be rectified by me? I'd guess it's either my location or an overcrowded tower.
I am in Randpark Ridge and my light is light blue indicating HSDPA, but I don't seem to be hitting those speeds.
There are a lot of users in the Randpark Ridge area, and the speeds can vary during the day but should not be too bad.
Here is my current connection speed (with 3 computers connected and using the net)
Download Speed: 862 kbps (107.8 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 292 kbps (36.5 KB/sec transfer rate)
vodacom3g
Vodacom Representative
/Completely OT:/
We're busy sorting out that website issue for you.
/Back OT - before ic sees this/
