Wait and See

guest2013-1 · Jan 15, 2004

*slap* you silly beeches

Spar is an entity, and all the spar's in the whole country is little cells run by whoever wanted to start their own spar franchise, thats how a franchise works.

Because Spar buys bulk, and then "sells" that to their franchisees, they're able to keep prices low, thats why they're competitive, same with Shoprite or any other big chain.

Hence, why Sentech will get partners, offering different packages, Sentech is the big daddy provider, and all the little "cells" are the different isp's (or whoever) re-selling their product. the company that sells their product, earns commission per sale, which shifts the paperwork and package offerings away from Sentech themselves, and leaves them with the money to collect.

State owned or not, we're all getting fugged, if you're old enough to vote (16+) please vote ANY other party except ANC, I don't want to see another 10 years of corruption!

not that politics has anything to do with the crap service we're getting, or does it? [

]

ProAsm · Jan 15, 2004

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">ProAsm claims that they are a commercial enterprise<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">I did not say that, I said we operate AS A Commercial Enterprise which is 2 totally different things.

Regarding the outsourcing of the system, hehe.. find me a medium/small company who is prepared to buy 10,000 modems (just for starters) for a system most have never heard of or even tried out, not to mention the initial or long term investment.

Why some are so angry I cannot understand, and why look for support for a system that has not been launched yet.

I'm beginning to see the reason why Telkom staff stay 1000 miles away from forums.

Already Doomy has pulled out - keep it up [

!]

Anthen · Jan 15, 2004

ProAsm, the problem with sentech support is there is no communication. I have mentioned this to sentech management. One way of improving communication could be to appoint two support techs to an ISP. They then deal directly with those two around the clock. It would save time waiting for "someone" to call back. Another benefit is they start to know the client and the network setup, which make it easier for them to troubleshoot.

I would choose Sentech over telkom any day, even though I am still waiting. Today a month[

]

I'll find a small/medium-sized business that will pay upfront 10,000 modems, if you can find me a corporate company that has 10,000 clients of +R700p/m in a 5km radius.

We cannot try out 3G for a couple reasons. If you think about it you'll realise why and that brings me to another point...

I think it is unfair that Megawan had to close, but yet Sentech can do the exact same thing, telecommunication over public roads. This is definitely double standards. Is this ICASA's way to start a monopoly in wireless? I think 3G or Wifi licenses should be made available to small/medium-sized businesses in a determined area e.g. a city or 15km radius. This way wireless is not monopolised and small/medium-sized businesses can compete as it is stated in the Competition Act. Medium sized businesses most often provide the best service. They are small enough to be vulnerable to bad publicity, but also large enough to be competent at what they do. They are also more likely to be more open to suggestions. That is already enough to put a medium sized business in a competitive position. Private owned companies are also more customer satisfaction aware.

ProAsm, the level of support Sentech is providing on vsat and infosat products make people worry about mywireless. As I understood freakazoid, he was trying to look for support on his vsat not the product that has not been launched yet, though it will be the same company providing the support.

The opposite of war is not peace, It's creation
Jonathan Larson Rent

Anthen · Jan 15, 2004

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by mithrandi
 Users found doing that should be taking to a mental asylum. I'm certainly not letting any ADSL users tunnel through my connection, I'll be using the bandwidth myself; I can't imagine that the situation would be any different for anyone capable of setting up tunnels / proxies / whatever to achieve that.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

I can imagine many ADSL users capable of setting up a tunnel, that would love to do that, with or without permission. Besides, static ip no bandwidth limit... what stops nocap.co.za from getting a mywireless 512kb and selling that?

Although I am not a fan of the 3Gb cap, there is certain logic behind it. The only way Telkom can allow unlimited traffic on an 512kb ADSL is to sell leased lines (which happens to be from the DSL family) for R1000. Which means they will be losing out on R30 000 per month. And ADSL users think they are being ripped off.

Would a 10Gb cap with the option to buy more traffic not be appropriate for mywireless ?

The opposite of war is not peace, It's creation
Jonathan Larson Rent

Anthen · Jan 15, 2004

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by noone
Hence, why Sentech will get partners, offering different packages, Sentech is the big daddy provider, and all the little "cells" are the different isp's (or whoever) re-selling their product. the company that sells their product, earns commission per sale, which shifts the paperwork and package offerings away from Sentech themselves, and leaves them with the money to collect.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

It does not seem that they are interested. Been waiting for feedback since Nov. And besides, they allready choose to give the "partners" the finger by selling directly to the public, which eliminates the "big daddy" and "bulk" thing. Unless Sentech is going to franchise? Dont think so.

The opposite of war is not peace, It's creation
Jonathan Larson Rent

MOnk · Jan 15, 2004

MY FSKING WORD !!!!!!

Anthen, on a few ocasions I had to close my eyes while reading ur posts. I almost fell over when you ASKED for a cap to be placed on Mywireless and said cap on ADSL made sense by saying if there wasn't one it would take over from a Leased Line ... *recovers from initial shock* Firstly the ONLY reason why there is a cap on ADSL and why the service is so ****ty is because otherwise Telkom would lose a large portion of their Leased line clients to the much cheaper ADSL.

You sort out bandwidth problems by changing contentions ratio's not by placing caps on a service.

Also Sentech has not given anyone the "finger" as they are allowing ISP's to resell their product.

noone, as wit the issues with the spar

... I am not saying it's not a good idea to break sections up into smaller parts of a whole but having thounds of tiny independant sections is just counter productive. Don't you think ? Sorta like instead of having a large controling body (i.e Spar the Company) with lots of sections (Spar shops) you have thousands of independant quick spars, each having to purchase goods on their own and each having to fight the next quick spar for more customers. ...... I hope I make sense .... kick me if I don't

guest2013-1 · Jan 16, 2004

Well, dude, same thing goes with how many people sell PC's nowadays, but thats another story.

About megawan, megawan used a "grey area" in the ICASA rules and guidelines to send their signals, I'm not mentioning the frequency they did it at because I will be lying. They didn't get awarded with a license TO broadcast. (and they shut down because of bad debts, not because icasa said they should)

Sentech has a license to broadcast on a frequency that megawan never could (or could, but would be illegal without a license) If you're looking for a megawan type company, go ahead, I know of 3 that does the same thing, but comparing the prices of what you get and the range they broadcast, I'll wait for sentech (60 hours to go approx!)

About "buying 10000 modems upfront" (going back to the spar analysis) you don't have to, sentech could still provide the modem (as big daddy spar provides the apples to his little independant spars) no need for big capital layout and less worries about dealing with customers.

If you have 10 resellers (and you provide the modems and services) the client contacts his/her respective reseller, and then the reseller contacts sentech (for support for instance)

Then instead of dealing with 10000 customers, you deal with 10, thats why Virtual ISP's got so popular early 2000, they resold dialup accounts under their name etc, but didnt have to worry about buying bandwidth etc

My opinion and how I would have tried doing things till I learn more about the market and type of business I went in ;P

ProAsm · Jan 16, 2004

Noone I think you missing my point on the 10000 modems etc.
Once the system has been running for say a year and is pretty wide spread, then yes, the distribution across several vendors so to speak can and probably will happen.
But initially, 3 months before a system that no body understands is to be launched, someone, has to layout R30,000,000 to buy modems only so he can supply someone 10 as you say. Which wholesaler do you think will be prepared to do that.
Someone initially has to take that risk, like leaping off a cliff and hoping your unknown parachute is going to open

Anthen · Jan 16, 2004

Same as with ADSL, what is the point of reselling a product if the reseller will make R20-R30, not to mention valueadded items and services that need to be included to make the product lucrative.

I know of two ISP's in my area closing. They just cant compete against ADSL. Btw, there is a law against this, but hey its telkom, they are above the law.

Monk, that is what i was trying to say. I hate the cap and the dinamic ip, but with out that the service will be what others are paying R30k for. So we will all cancel our leased lines and get ADSL or myWireless.

In the end there will only be two ISP's/ASP's left, telkom and sentech. Why you guys are happy about this, I dont understand.

The opposite of war is not peace, It's creation
Jonathan Larson Rent

Anthen · Jan 16, 2004

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by MOnk
You sort out bandwidth problems by changing contentions ratio's not by placing caps on a service.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

Erm, R30000/R240 (average adsl price per 3Gb) = 125
1:125 uncapped bandwidth, contention ratio's just wont do it. The speed will be dreadfully slow. What I am saying is leased line prices should come down, not ADSL should be capped. Telkom charge R4.6k for a 512kb martis line, which happens to be DSL as well. Now why charge R4.6k for the same thing and label it as something else and sell it at R800?

Then the bandwidth issue, R240/3000Mb = 8cents per MB. While 512kb leased line capable of pulling 64Kb/s * 60sec * 60min * 24H = +-5.5Gb a day, that will never happen because of overheads and error checking, but never mind. So a leased line can consume 5.5Gb * 30days = 165Gb. R30000/165000 = 16cents per MB.

So telkom is selling bandwidth directly to the public for half the price it is selling to ISP's, and this is right? If your spar headquarters are selling products directly to the public for the half the price they sell to you (remember you have to sell this again) would you not also feel that they should burn in hell[

]

The opposite of war is not peace, It's creation
Jonathan Larson Rent

Anthen · Jan 16, 2004

And that does not take in consideration that ADSL has unlimit national traffic. I'll rather not work out what the price per MB would be on international only traffic, might just spoil my day[

]

The opposite of war is not peace, It's creation
Jonathan Larson Rent

Karnaugh · Jan 17, 2004

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">ProAsm, the problem with sentech support is there is no communication.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

You want support for a system that hasn’t been released yet, and that you aren’t even a customer of? Um. aye ok. can see that one making sense.

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">I think it is unfair that Megawan had to close<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

Very unfair seeing as they blatantly went against ICASA and the law without even attempting to acquire licenses etc, there by tainting the relationship between ICASA and other ISP's and completely demolishing their trust in other organisations?? As opposed to a company with a lot more experience and resources than MegaWan who are licensed to operate it. Yup... Seems unfair to me.

http://www.ispa.org.za/advisory8.htm - Read me.

On the issue of nocap.co.za, I'm sure there are clauses about reselling your MyWireless bandwidth. As well as the fact that you only have a 128K upstream (Upstream goes towards the ADSL user so they would only get 128k download? rather useless...) What stops them doing the same with 128K ISDN users? didnt think that plan out all the way exactly eh.

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">
and they shut down because of bad debts, not because icasa said they should<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
No, they shut down because ICASA said they should.

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">I think 3G or Wifi licenses should be made available to small/medium-sized businesses in a determined area e.g. a city or 15km radius. This way wireless is not monopolised and small/medium-sized businesses can compete as it is stated in the Competition Act. Medium sized businesses most often provide the best service<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

We could also point a 2GHZ wave guide between your legs and see how you enjoy it? There are reasons for regulation!

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Would a 10Gb cap with the option to buy more traffic not be appropriate for mywireless <hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

To be honest it probably would, but I would use the route taken by other countries who have experience in this. Namely the 1Gb/day idea. This would prevent people generating excess traffic, while not limiting them unreasonably

<hr noshade size="1">
"Since light travels faster than sound, people appear bright until you hear them speak."

NetLink Research

Karnaugh · Jan 17, 2004

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">So a leased line can consume 5.5Gb * 30days = 165Gb. R30000/165000 = 16cents per MB.

So telkom is selling bandwidth directly to the public for half the price it is selling to ISP's, and this is right?<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

Diginet is in general 0 contention when buying directly from Telkom (guranteed bandwidth depending on line usage), and costs alot more than R30000.

Telkom is selling contended bandwidth as ADSL. ISP's buy guranteed international and local bandwidth from Telkom and oversell it to make a profit (and it is a *very* good profit).

Seeing as Sentech are using IS as peering I doubt they will close, besides UUNet and IS have more customers than SAIX at the end of the day. I dont see MWeb or Tiscali closing any time soon. And there are many other new ISP's opening.

<hr noshade size="1">
"Since light travels faster than sound, people appear bright until you hear them speak."

NetLink Research

Anthen · Jan 19, 2004

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Karnaugh<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
 

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">
You want support for a system that hasn’t been released yet, and that you aren’t even a customer of? Um. aye ok. can see that one making sense.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

Erm, please read the post before replying.

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">
ProAsm, the level of support Sentech is providing on vsat and infosat products make people worry about mywireless. As I understood freakazoid, he was looking for support on his vsat not the product that has not been launched yet, though it will be the same company providing the support.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">
On the issue of nocap.co.za, I'm sure there are clauses about reselling your MyWireless bandwidth. As well as the fact that you only have a 128K upstream (Upstream goes towards the ADSL user so they would only get 128k download? rather useless...) What stops them doing the same with 128K ISDN users? didnt think that plan out all the way exactly eh.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

Erm, please read the post before replying.

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">
Another worrying thing about sentech is they are providing public ips to the mywireless clients. What is stopping adsl users tunneling through mywireless? This would kill the whole system. Users found doing this should be shot
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

ISDN is dynamicly assigned... didnt think that out all the way hey? And yea, 128kb is still pretty good if you compare that the a capped ADSL line. Anyway, the public ip will probably only be available on the 512kb option. Clauses on bandwidth? Yes and so are there for multiple user/pass for ADSL.

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">
We could also point a 2GHZ wave guide between your legs and see how you enjoy it? There are reasons for regulation!
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

Erm, please read the post before replying.

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">
I think 3G or Wifi LICENSES should be made available to small/medium-sized businesses in a determined area e.g. a city or 15km radius. This way wireless is not monopolised and small/medium-sized businesses can compete as it is stated in the Competition Act.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

I am against calling any human being stupid or an idiot, but you really tempt me. ICASA can make a lot more money doing it this way.
But please Karnaugh, dont reply on a post that you dont understand or have the maturtiy to try and understand.

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">
Diginet is in general 0 contention when buying directly from Telkom (guranteed bandwidth depending on line usage), and costs alot more than R30000.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

No, the post clearly states Megabyte per second. And yes CR is much more expensive which makes the crime worse, whats your point?

Yes, there are many new "Resellers" opening, that is about what they can do. Same with myWireless, they can only resell and not much to improve the service. If there are any technical issues with basestations or servers, the resellers can only sit and wait, meaning that there is no improvement on the service. While if they make a license available, private owned companies can provide the same, yet improved service.

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">
"Since light travels faster than sound, people appear bright until you hear them speak."
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

Everytime you quote this, you shoot yourself in the foot.

The opposite of war is not peace, It's creation
Jonathan Larson Rent

guest2013-1 · Jan 20, 2004

this just brightened up my day, thanks [

]

Karnaugh · Jan 20, 2004

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">ISDN is dynamicly assigned<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
Just like MyWireless, you can request static IP's for ISDN at a small extra charge.

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">128kb is still pretty good if you compare that the a capped ADSL line.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"> Between how many people?

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Erm, please read the post before replying.

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think 3G or Wifi LICENSES should be made available to small/medium-sized businesses in a determined area e.g. a city or 15km radius. This way wireless is not monopolised and small/medium-sized businesses can compete as it is stated in the Competition Act.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am against calling any human being stupid or an idiot, but you really tempt me. ICASA can make a lot more money doing it this way.
But please Karnaugh, dont reply on a post that you dont understand or have the maturtiy to try and understand.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

You clearly dont understand what I'm saying. Frequencies are regulated because if any joe could do what they like then it can be harmfull to others. I dont see anywhere in the past that said you couldnt apply for a license to ICASA? Whether they will give you one is another story.

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">No, the post clearly states Megabyte per second.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
I'm not sure I (or even you) know what you are talking about.

Personal insults aren't going to win your argument, experience in the ISP market might. Do you have any?

<hr noshade size="1">
"Since light travels faster than sound, people appear bright until you hear them speak."

NetLink Research

Anthen · Jan 20, 2004

License, yes there is. Sentech paid R800 000 for their licence. What I am saying is, average ISP's cant afford R800 000 just for the license to put up a national wireless network, so lets break it down to city/town and work from there. There are a lot more than 80 possible city/towns, times that by R10 000-R15 000 and you will see what I mean that they can actually make more money. Two years ago ICASA wanted 1.6mil for a similar licence. Rather break it down in smaller segments so we can see more competition in the market.

ISP experience, yes

The opposite of war is not peace, It's creation
Jonathan Larson Rent

guest2013-1 · Jan 20, 2004

JOU MA! [

)]

Chaz · Jan 20, 2004

Id like to reply to Karnaugh's comment on MegaWan - one specific point. I am not commenting on frequency usage, debt, management, Sentech or anything else.

This comment

"Very unfair seeing as they blatantly went against ICASA and the law without even attempting to acquire licenses etc, there by tainting the relationship between ICASA and other ISP's and completely demolishing their trust in other organisations?? As opposed to a company with a lot more experience and resources than MegaWan who are licensed to operate it. Yup... Seems unfair to me."

Most of Karnaugh's credible information about MegaWan comes from an ISPA advisory that was posted sometime ago. At the time, with my involvment with MegaWan (I was in the management team for a short while) we were made aware of this advisory. It was known as a very one sided commercially driven advisory that was very anti MegaWan, and very pro 'let someone else do this'.

Dude, and anyone else that wants to comment about MegaWan. If you dont know the facts, and I mean the 100% truth, then rather keep quiet.

If you knew the kind of information that was flowing between MegaWan and ICASA, you would be surprised. There was weekly contact, trying to legalise the business and trying to get all 3 the required licenses. Your comment is ill founded, unaccurate and a blatant lie.

MegaWan took a huge knock. One thing people forget is that they did a lot of ground work at a huge cost for others to follow in.

Good luck to Sentech - they have a strong product - but it will not be easy.

Karnaugh · Jan 21, 2004

If you say that my source is incorrect then I appologize and take it back.

To my knowledge it wouldn't be Ant to publish an article that was not based on some fact, but obviously there are 2 sides to every story. Fact remains, Megawan did not have a license yet were opperating a wireless network regardless.

<hr noshade size="1">
"Since light travels faster than sound, people appear bright until you hear them speak."

NetLink Research

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