Vumatel and Openserve charge ISPs for downgrades

Jan

Jan

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These fibre networks punish ISPs when customers downgrade to cheaper packages

At least two of South Africa's major fibre network operators (FNOs) penalise Internet service providers (ISPs) when their fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) customers downgrade to slower packages.

The issue of fibre downgrade fees recently came to the fore after Frogfoot announced and Vumatel started implementing such penalties.
 
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Its a bit of a shame all consumers dont understand the model. ISP's are at the mercy of these FNO's.
Vumatel and DFA are the worst ones scraping the bottom of the barrel at the moment hurting ISP's the most with their downtime, high prices and poor support.
 
Ye @Jan Octo did not give feedback as they simply removed the downgrade option completely for ISP's who were forcefully upgraded to 50 I'm told, this leaving many in the poo poo
 
Yeah, any surprise there? So if I'm happy to pay R1000 a month for 100mbps, and you decide to up the linespeed to 150mbps, at the same price, then fine. But if I'm happy with 100mbps and want to keep it
at that, now for say R900, because that's what I wanted when I signed up, then it's on the ISP and the line supplier to ensure I stay at speed at no extra cost. Tiering the monthly payment and not the speed seems to be "the way" however.
 
Jan said:
These fibre networks punish ISPs when customers downgrade to cheaper packages

At least three of South Africa's major fibre network operators (FNOs) penalise Internet service providers (ISPs) when their fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) customers downgrade to slower packages.

The issue of fibre downgrade fees recently came to the fore after Frogfoot and Vumatel started implementing such penalties.
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Yar well, it ain't just fiber, Telkom also punishes LTE/LTE+ customers for "downgrading" - in my case I have an MWeb contract of Telkom's LTE and upgraded the cap from 70 + 70 GB (R399 pm, up from 1st May to R419 pm) to 120 + 120 GB (R249 pm, don't kow how much that has suddenly increased) and Telkom charges a one-time R403 + VAT "downgrade fee".

Which begs the question: the cap goes up but the monthly cost goes down, and therefor it is a "downgrade", and this is intuitively rational, go figure. And than they wonder why their business model sucks ... Worse still, they increase the cost of the older 70 + 70 offering whilst they offer the newer 120 +120 at a substantially lesser monthly amount ! And still they wonder why they get negative press.

I need psychiatric help.

(Mind you, I just noticed that I joined 27/03/2015, but I am a "New Member" ... I'm in a far worse mental state than I imagined - HELP)
 
Peter Kooiman said:
Yar well, it ain't just fiber, Telkom also punishes LTE/LTE+ customers for "downgrading" - in my case I have an MWeb contract of Telkom's LTE and upgraded the cap from 70 + 70 GB (R399 pm, up from 1st May to R419 pm) to 120 + 120 GB (R249 pm, don't kow how much that has suddenly increased) and Telkom charges a one-time R403 + VAT "downgrade fee".

Which begs the question: the cap goes up but the monthly cost goes down, and therefor it is a "downgrade", and this is intuitively rational, go figure. And than they wonder why their business model sucks ... Worse still, they increase the cost of the older 70 + 70 offering whilst they offer the newer 120 +120 at a substantially lesser monthly amount ! And still they wonder why they get negative press.

I need psychiatric help.

(Mind you, I just noticed that I joined 27/03/2015, but I am a "New Member" ... I'm in a far worse mental state than I imagined - HELP)
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it's your message count that counts
 
TTConnect charges and some FNO's even have 30 days cancellation terms.
 
And this is why I will probably stay on prepaid LTE as there's just too much crap in the FNO arena. Fibre has really done itself a disservice in SA. And let's not make any mistake here no ISP is absorbing the cost. They are all passing it on to consumers if not directly then through higher monthly charges. It's almost as bad as the so-called activation costs.
 
Swa said:
And this is why I will probably stay on prepaid LTE as there's just too much crap in the FNO arena. Fibre has really done itself a disservice in SA. And let's not make any mistake here no ISP is absorbing the cost. They are all passing it on to consumers if not directly then through higher monthly charges. It's almost as bad as the so-called activation costs.
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Perfectly happy for the last 2 years with my metrofibre/afrihost line and no extra charges:
1680598013432.png
 

Evotel​


Evotel general manager Bradley Bekker said it has never charged fees to downgrade a package. If the ISPs followed Evotel’s downgrade processes correctly, there would not be a situation in which fees could be accidentally charged.

“Downgrading has a financial impact, however, we believe that to be a successful FNO, it is more important to be very flexible to build and retain a happy client base for the long run.”



Not that smart evotel.... you guys already have hectic packages prices across all the ISP.

Just for example 20mbps going for about R800. How fair is that Bekker???
 
grantduke said:
it's your message count that counts
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As I mentioned, intuitively rational; what kind of metric is "message count" ? Thanks for clearing that up, however (and you didn't suggest that you provided an answer, just the metric), how that makes one a "New Member" ... I NEED HELP.
 
So theoretically, one could cancel their fibre package, and apply for a lower package immediately with the same ISP, bypassing the R575 downgrade fee?
 
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Canned Fibre Internet. That's all it is. And they all have the same business model so you can't escape it. ICASA is too lenient with these Isp's. There should be consequences for uncompetitive practices. Clawback is another questionable practice. They basically extort money from you if you want to quit them because of their bad service. The Minister of telecommunications and ICASA are to blame
 
I am not sure if this article is completely accurate. I am with metrofibre and using RSAweb. I also got doubled up on line speed. When I went back to them and said I want to remain on the lower package, I got smacked with a R500 downgrade fee. Between Metrofibre and RSAWEB, they blamed each other for this fee. I was forced to pay it. If anyone wants to see the invoice, please let me know, I will gladly share it
 
Openserve doubled everyone's speed over the holiday period then quietly removed the original speeds and raised their rates. The only way not to pay more was for me to downgrade.

Sorry if that hurt my ISPs bottom line but it's really not my problem. I was happy with my original speed.
 
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