Web Africa's new ADSL pricing revealed

anyone else notice the sudden decline in posts in this thread? And I mean from 60 odd pages to 52? I guess wamatt phoned rpm and cried foul on some of the comments (personal or otherwise)

guess they couldn't take the heat :P
 
AcidRaZor said:
anyone else notice the sudden decline in posts in this thread? And I mean from 60 odd pages to 52? I guess wamatt phoned rpm and cried foul on some of the comments (personal or otherwise)

guess they couldn't take the heat :P
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Some comments were way over the top. I would probably have cut it back to around 20 pages if I was a moderator. Probably why I am not a mod, but still.
 
Abe said:
I am starting to wonder how many of the real complainers here are actually WA customers, and I am not referring to people with a 1GB prepaid that they carry for 6 months. I am talking about people who actually fit in the power use category and have an account with WA that fits the bill. Everyone is welcome to shop with their feet but I get the feeling it was a bunch of people who would be prepared to jump to the cheapest option on a moments notice anyway. Not the type of customers I would want if I were an ISP because you are likely to lose them at a moments notice and not being able to budget can have a serious impact. ISP's pay for Megs and sell GBs. Lose a whole lot of GBs because someone offers a below cost special after you have upped your lines and you could be in serious trouble. I was disappointed and personally will probably switch to another supplier as it means about R2500 per year saving but I am not going to switch our customers. WA has proven to be very reliable and for businesses thats a good thing. I can swap my accounts on a moments notice but I don't have the time or patience to be switching clients from one account to another when things get a bit dodgy on an account. Perhaps when some of the cheaper options have proven themselves in both reliability and in terms of fail over I will consider switching my clients.

People do seem to be going too far with facebook pages etc. If you are not happy with the price, switch. Why must people feel the need to go balistic. It's like they feel obligated to pull down someone who doesn't do what they want them to do.
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Many here are, I for one spend R 3,000 - R 5,000 with them per month, on multiple ADSL, ADSL pre-paid, and hosting accounts, and I've been with WA for at least the last 6 years, and personally I'm far from happy.
 
Abe said:
Some comments were way over the top. I would probably have cut it back to around 20 pages if I was a moderator. Probably why I am not a mod, but still.
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Fully agree. I made my feelings known in an earlier post. Some of the comments are simply outrageously childish and nothing more.
 
Why don't they resell the same IS accounts as Afrihost?

I would rather get some money that loose the amount of clients that have said they are leaving in this thread.

I love WA's DSL Group idea but I resell bw to my clients and can't justify paying R650 for 10GB instead of R290 for 10GB :-/

I was really hoping WA would show all the other ISP's how its done with yesterday's new prices, unfortunately it seems their current business model is geared towards new clients (DSL Complete) instead of their existing clients.

I assume one other reason for moving lines to them is in preparation for LLU (Sorry not exactly sure how things would work after LLU)

I do love WA's web management interface as well but again the price is just to high to justify moving all my accounts to them :-/
 
Just a quick thing, have you guys ever asked how much a 2nd 3rd tier ISP is billed per gig from IS or Saix? I know WA claims to be 1st tier, but lets forget that for a second. IS charge R55 a gig, no jokes, and that is 15% off normal pricing, Saix is more or less the same. How are Afrihost able to only bill R14.50 is beyond me, how they can keep up the sustainability for so many months, no idea. I know all about the backhauls, the new lines and so forth, but AFAIK, Afrihost are still most definitely running at a major loss with gig accounts which they have attested to be doing.

So in essence we have Afrihost in one corner selling a product which they are actually losing in revenue and in the other we have WA selling at a marginal price. My first reply obviously is go with the cheapest because its prepaid, and if it doesn't work out, no problem, just move. In WA's corner, they are keeping a marginally profitable *internet subscription* avenue alive because they promote after sale support. I wish both well because as they have attested, they have target markets.

So i think, let the wallets talk, thank Heaven we all have options :)
 
Grep said:
Just a quick thing, have you guys ever asked how much a 2nd 3rd tier ISP is billed per gig from IS or Saix? I know WA claims to be 1st tier, but lets forget that for a second. IS charge R55 a gig, no jokes, and that is 15% off normal pricing, Saix is more or less the same. How are Afrihost able to only bill R14.50 is beyond me, how they can keep up the sustainability for so many months, no idea. I know all about the backhauls, the new lines and so forth, but AFAIK, Afrihost are still most definitely running at a major loss with gig accounts which they have attested to be doing.

So in essence we have Afrihost in one corner selling a product which they are actually losing in revenue and in the other we have WA selling at a marginal price. My first reply obviously is go with the cheapest because its prepaid, and if it doesn't work out, no problem, just move. In WA's corner, they are keeping a marginally profitable *internet subscription* avenue alive because they promote after sale support. I wish both well because as they have attested, they have target markets.

So i think, let the wallets talk, thank Heaven we all have options :)
Click to expand...

I think that Afrihost actually have so many customers that they have got an even bigger discount from IS. Also They are maybe taped into SEACOM?
 
Abe said:
AFAIK, they have their own system which makes use of SAT3 but also resell IS accounts.
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They emailed me back and are currently only using their own system and the IS local from the satellite connection.

Is this own system WA is talking about from Seacom?
 
kiepie said:
They emailed me back and are currently only using their own system and the IS local from the satellite connection.

Is this own system WA is talking about from Seacom?
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No, they own their own network. There is SAIX(Telkom), IS and now WA.

Seacom is an international link, like SAT-3/SAFE
 
kiepie said:
They emailed me back and are currently only using their own system and the IS local from the satellite connection.

Is this own system WA is talking about from Seacom?
Click to expand...

They don't use SEACOM or didn't the last time wamatt posted about it. The problem with SEACOM is that there is no fail over for when the line goes down. SAT3 has the SAFE backup so they use that option.
 
czc said:
I think that Afrihost actually have so many customers that they have got an even bigger discount from IS. Also They are maybe taped into SEACOM?
Click to expand...

I have spoken with the account IS managers and they pay the same as 2nd/3rd tiers.
 
Grep said:
Just a quick thing, have you guys ever asked how much a 2nd 3rd tier ISP is billed per gig from IS or Saix? I know WA claims to be 1st tier, but lets forget that for a second. IS charge R55 a gig, no jokes, and that is 15% off normal pricing, Saix is more or less the same. How are Afrihost able to only bill R14.50 is beyond me, how they can keep up the sustainability for so many months, no idea. I know all about the backhauls, the new lines and so forth, but AFAIK, Afrihost are still most definitely running at a major loss with gig accounts which they have attested to be doing.

So in essence we have Afrihost in one corner selling a product which they are actually losing in revenue and in the other we have WA selling at a marginal price. My first reply obviously is go with the cheapest because its prepaid, and if it doesn't work out, no problem, just move. In WA's corner, they are keeping a marginally profitable *internet subscription* avenue alive because they promote after sale support. I wish both well because as they have attested, they have target markets.

So i think, let the wallets talk, thank Heaven we all have options :)
Click to expand...

so when do we get to see the price list ? ;)
 
Abe said:
They don't use SEACOM or didn't the last time wamatt posted about it. The problem with SEACOM is that there is no fail over for when the line goes down. SAT3 has the SAFE backup so they use that option.
Click to expand...

Why cant SAT3 be used as redundancy for Seacom by WA? Could WA not manage that on their side? I imagine it would involve some major costs to set up the infrastructure by WA though
 
JStrike said:
Why cant SAT3 be used as redundancy for Seacom by WA? Could WA not manage that on their side? I imagine it would involve some major costs to set up the infrastructure by WA though
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Because SAT3 and SAFE come from 1 supplier and SEACOM from another. They would need to pay both suppliers as neither would give them economies of scale if they didn't buy enough.
 
JStrike said:
No, they own their own network. There is SAIX(Telkom), IS and now WA.

Seacom is an international link, like SAT-3/SAFE
Click to expand...

There is Also Vodacom business and MTN. As far as I know WA use IPconnect from telkom to transit data from the ADSL router to them, from then onwards they can decide how to route to the rest of south africa/the world.

You need to be careful when say that WA own there own network, they haven't laid fiber to my house or business like neotel or DFA can, the copper lines my ADSL runs over still belongs to telkom. I don't even think WA has put any real long distance fiber anywher, why would they, when they can purchase such from other companies. Of course I stand to be corrected as I have no idea how the WA network is setup.
 
Necuno said:
so when do we get to see the price list ? ;)
Click to expand...

:) ... just know I am quoting directly from an account manager

I would just like to say everyone knocking WA, and even though I have never ever dealt with them, I can see where WA are coming from. They need to keep their business sustainable, end of. Like I have said previously, how AF keep offering these way off prices is beyond me. I wish them both kudo's to their product and wish them well. The only question I would present to you guys is what if this was your business, and what profitable margin would you rather keep alive? Would you mind losing say 1/2 a mill to gain clients in the hope of they maybe top up and then make an extra 3 or 5 bucks or keep a team that you know gels alright and maybe lose that clientele which is say at best 10% of us myBB users?
 
I must disagree. It makes no sense to sell a product at a loss. It is impossible for afrihost to keep doing that. They must be making a profit.

Grep said:
Just a quick thing, have you guys ever asked how much a 2nd 3rd tier ISP is billed per gig from IS or Saix? I know WA claims to be 1st tier, but lets forget that for a second. IS charge R55 a gig, no jokes, and that is 15% off normal pricing, Saix is more or less the same. How are Afrihost able to only bill R14.50 is beyond me, how they can keep up the sustainability for so many months, no idea. I know all about the backhauls, the new lines and so forth, but AFAIK, Afrihost are still most definitely running at a major loss with gig accounts which they have attested to be doing.

So in essence we have Afrihost in one corner selling a product which they are actually losing in revenue and in the other we have WA selling at a marginal price. My first reply obviously is go with the cheapest because its prepaid, and if it doesn't work out, no problem, just move. In WA's corner, they are keeping a marginally profitable *internet subscription* avenue alive because they promote after sale support. I wish both well because as they have attested, they have target markets.

So i think, let the wallets talk, thank Heaven we all have options :)
Click to expand...
 
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