When will 384 / 512 be upgraded ?

As far as I'm concerned this "Up to 10mb" is a load of BS. Why should people who can only sync at 2mbps or 3mbps or whatever pay the same as somebody who is closer to an exchange and therefore get 9/10mbps? There should be an incremental system of 1mbps. The lowest package should be 512kbps and then from there you have a 1mbps package, the 2mbps, 3mbps, 4mbps and so on up to 10mbps so that you pay for what you receive and the pricing should be reasonable, say for instance:
512kbps - R150
1mbps - R200
2mbps - R250
3mbps - R300
4mbps - R350
5mbps - R400
6mbps - R450
7mbps - R500
8mbps - R550
9mbps - R600
10mbps - R650

R50 per increment of 1mbps and if you sync at 3.5mbps (or anywhere in between) you decide whether it is worth it to pay for the higher package to have access to that 0.5mbps or stick to 3mbps and pay less.

This for me would be the fairest for all ADSL users, but then again Telkom has never played fair and I don't see that changing in my lifetime.
 
Prophet112 said:
As far as I'm concerned this "Up to 10mb" is a load of BS. Why should people who can only sync at 2mbps or 3mbps or whatever pay the same as somebody who is closer to an exchange and therefore get 9/10mbps? There should be an incremental system of 1mbps. The lowest package should be 512kbps and then from there you have a 1mbps package, the 2mbps, 3mbps, 4mbps and so on up to 10mbps so that you pay for what you receive and the pricing should be reasonable, say for instance:
512kbps - R150
1mbps - R200
2mbps - R250
3mbps - R300
4mbps - R350
5mbps - R400
6mbps - R450
7mbps - R500
8mbps - R550
9mbps - R600
10mbps - R650

R50 per increment of 1mbps and if you sync at 3.5mbps (or anywhere in between) you decide whether it is worth it to pay for the higher package to have access to that 0.5mbps or stick to 3mbps and pay less.

This for me would be the fairest for all ADSL users, but then again Telkom has never played fair and I don't see that changing in my lifetime.
Click to expand...

We can but dream - I'd sign up for that.
 
Another Pricing scheme that would be more realistic to the common man(not Telkom) would be something like:
384kbps - R80
1mbps - R150
4mbps - R300
10mbps - R450
 
With Telkom stating on numerous occasions that the 384kbps service is borderline profitable, how can we expect price decreases or line speed increases?
 
Colin62 said:
I usually try not to argue with the type of people who attack the person, and not the argument, but I'll make an exception in your case, but just to point out that the cost of bandwidth need not be dependant on the speed of your line if you are using capped, so ignoring the cost of the bandwidth is perfectly valid. Many (even most) of us are still on capped accounts, and would not double our usage if our speed doubled, so could happily remain on that same account if the line speed was increased. I suspect that anyone would rather have a 1 M line than a 384 K line even if they had the same cap, as the browsing and downloading experience would be that much better. I know it's a subtle point, but that only affects it's understandability, not it's validity.
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Not quite accurate. Because of the nature of our Internet environment, there are a myriad of "hybrid" products out there. For example, I'm on what you could call, "partial uncapped". It's a capped account, but has uncapped during certain times. Were I to increase line speed, I'd be charged for the more expensive version of this product, a substantial additional cost over and above the R90.
There are several ISP's currently offering these types of hybrid solutions, so this issue would affect many people on these boards. Hence, the point that one can't only consider the R90 price difference.
 
stevenv said:
No need to get personal.

I simply don't agree that the comment that having a line that is 8x faster only costs you an additional R90 per month. This might be technically correct from Telkom's billing perspective but if you have that much more throughput, you cannot tell me you'll still use the same amount of data. If you spend 10 minutes browsing the web on a 512k line, you'll probably spend a lot more time waiting for pages to load than on a 4mb line and as a result visit more pages in that time and so move more data over your connection. If your data usage on a 512k line results in 1gb of data used in a month (small-time home user), you'll hit that 1gb a lot sooner with a 4mb line and so you'll need more data on that line and so it will cost more than R90. Also consider this: if you have a 512k line you're probably not watching much streaming video or visiting other high-bandwidth sites but with your fancy new 4mb line you probably will and once again, require more data to visit those sites. If you can honestly say that you have a 512k line, upgrade to 4mb for R90 and never use more than the same amount of data you did with the slower line then I concede my argument.
Click to expand...

And furthermore, what's the point of getting a 4meg line if you don't plan on using high bandwidth services? If you're not gonna stream vids, use video Skype etc. then save yourself the 90bucks and use 512. If you're bothering to upgrade to 4meg, you obviously plan to use services which would benefit from the higher speeds. It's highly unlikely you'll do that and still retain the same cap.
 
Sting said:
With Telkom stating on numerous occasions that the 384kbps service is borderline profitable, how can we expect price decreases or line speed increases?
Click to expand...

Then why upgrade 4mbps to 10mpbs for free?
They should do away with the 512kbps and replaced it with 4mbps (at the 512kbps price).

ATM we only have a starter package(384kbps) and a High End Package(up to 10mbps*), there is no real middle middle package (the 512kbps pricing is so idiotic).

* when the upgrades are finished
 
Prophet112 said:
Then why upgrade 4mbps to 10mpbs for free?
Click to expand...

Marketing purposes? They can point to the pitifully small percentage of users running at 10M and say that they offer it, which means that they can claim that their third-world, bubblegum and string network is actually world class, while the vast majority of their users struggle on with no improvement in sight.
 
K3NS31 said:
Not quite accurate. Because of the nature of our Internet environment, there are a myriad of "hybrid" products out there. For example, I'm on what you could call, "partial uncapped". It's a capped account, but has uncapped during certain times. Were I to increase line speed, I'd be charged for the more expensive version of this product, a substantial additional cost over and above the R90.
There are several ISP's currently offering these types of hybrid solutions, so this issue would affect many people on these boards. Hence, the point that one can't only consider the R90 price difference.
Click to expand...

I take your point, and that of stevenv that it is unlikely that you will end up only paying R90 extra, but the pedant in me insists that I point out that it is still possible. :)
 
Colin62 said:
Marketing purposes? They can point to the pitifully small percentage of users running at 10M and say that they offer it, which means that they can claim that their third-world, bubblegum and string network is actually world class, while the vast majority of their users struggle on with no improvement in sight.
Click to expand...

I agree with what you said 100%
I was just asking Sting that if the 384k package is not that profitable, how is upgrading all the 4mbps users to 10mbps at no cost more profitable for Telkom, other than the positive publicity of appearing to be World Class (which is deceitful IMHO).

Sting said:
To entice more of the 630 000 (384k) users onto the more profitable higher end package?
Click to expand...

Okay and let's say all 630 000 384k users had to upgrade to 10mb, it would bring Telkom to it's knee's and I'm pretty sure they would have to increase the price of the 10mbps because it wouldn't be sustainable because like it or not the 384k and 512k users are subsidizing the upgrades for the 4mbps users, otherwise there wouldn't be such a Price/speed discrepancy between the 3 current packages available.
 
Prophet112 said:
Okay and let's say all 630 000 384k users had to upgrade to 10mb, it would bring Telkom to it's knee's and I'm pretty sure they would have to increase the price of the 10mbps because it wouldn't be sustainable because like it or not the 384k and 512k users are subsidizing the upgrades for the 4mbps users, otherwise there wouldn't be such a Price/speed discrepancy between the 3 current packages available.
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Damn Straight!
Telkom's pricing is insane, and the 10Mbps "free" upgrade just made it certifiable.

I made a little picture here http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php/247329-New-Internet-Solutions-uncapped-ADSL-Pricing-and-other-details?p=4283283&highlight=#post4283283

(The linode ref is to contrast the consistent pricing scheme, and not to push Linode, although I would happily endorse them anyhow ;)
 
Actually just getting rid of 512k and replacing it with an up to 1Mb for R270 would be a good middle ground package.
 
One MB

Just make One Mb the starting point and up the base price with about R20.00 or so

I would definitely be happy with that.
 
Last edited:
@MidnightWizard

Im so with that! Would be awesome p_________p But we know that wont happen anytime soon if ever lol ;_;
 
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