Why no Wimax ISP's?

[Shayd]

Why are there no Wimax ISP's in SA that are competitive with ADSL. Yes yes I know Screamer exists but their pricing is a damn joke.

Iburst/Vodacom/Neotel and Telkom have Wimax licenses and yet none of them have a retail Wimax product. Is the retail market that unwanted?

 

[deweyzeph]

If you get Wimax from Telkom you can use any ISP's ADSL account with it. Their wimax is basically a naked service that you use a PPPOE connection with.

 

[kissingmybbgoodbye]

Yup wimax operates the same as ADSL when it comes to ISP level. I am using telkom wimax with my ISP of choice. (Would have loved it to be faster, but beggers can't be choosers seeing that they keep stealing the copper in my area)

 

[Slayeruser]

Maybe the question should have been why are there no retail wimax offerings. (the few there are are either unaffordable, or just not worth the effort)
There are almost countless complexes and houses that do not have telkom lines. And probably will never get, so why are these companies not jumping a this? Just a cost and rollout issue?

 

[CalmD]

Does this mean the pricing is same as ADSL? This might be just what I need seeing as I don't have Telkom's copper in my area.

 

[Terencek]

It's not just that Wimax is too expensive, as suggested above. Even where it is available it's often impossible to persuade the likes of Screamer to 'permit' you to be a customer!

I've been knocking on Screamer's door to be added to their subscriber list for access from their nearest tower (Nooitgedacht, NWP) for over a year now, and I keep being told the list is full and they can't take any more customers. Great business model, guys....

 

[daffy]

Spectrum.
No-one has Spectrum to offer WiMAX services.
Sentech, Neotel and iBurst are the only guys with any spectrum, but there isn't nearly as much competition in the market to bring prices down.

 

[EasyUp Web Hosting]

Maybe the question should have been why are there no retail wimax offerings. (the few there are are either unaffordable, or just not worth the effort)
There are almost countless complexes and houses that do not have telkom lines. And probably will never get, so why are these companies not jumping a this? Just a cost and rollout issue?

+1

Spectrum.
No-one has Spectrum to offer WiMAX services.
Sentech, Neotel and iBurst are the only guys with any spectrum, but there isn't nearly as much competition in the market to bring prices down.

Sentech is useless, Neotel does offer, but only uncapped unshaped services and that's if they want to help you and afaik, Ibursts' wimax are currently only for businesses.