Why TELKOM handles ADSL as it does..

[gripen]

The only reason telkom is maintaining this 3GB cap nonsense is to protect their 64k Diginet offering which is also overpriced. The international bandwidth story is nonsense. Lets just say there was suddenly a large number of ISDN subscriptions.. would there be less speed for all. I bet you NOT. All ISDN users get 7-8KB/sec most of the time.

Telkom knows that any business using the R5000 Diginet will jump to the R1500 ADSL if there were no cap. The cap is purely to extend their greed and not to 'prevent the majority of users from suffering'. We all know why one gets xDSL.. for downloading and for gaming. Yes, also the ability to do these things 24-7. Bur mostly we want speed and lots of it. The idea being to get rid of years of modem frustration.. not quite yet it seems..

I propose to Telkom that they should reduce the diginet cost down to say, R2000. I mean, yes it is still expensive and you will be paying for a dedicated guranteed throughput. By all means, R2000 will still be affordable for these businesses. Now Telkom can remove the cap and place a R1250 tag on business ADSL. Thats reasonable since ADSL is a residential type service.

Now for the home user. I guess Telkom can and should introduce levels of service. Ok ok this is a 4th world country so lets start slowly. What about R200 a month for 64 down/32 up ADSL? Then R450 for 256 down/128 up and then finally R650 for 512/256. Note that these are final prices including ISP and everything. I think these prices will be reasonable and competitive. I mean we have many thousands of modem users who will be willing to upgrade if it is affordable. I have not mentioned any caps because that is a stupid idea. Can you mention one other country with a cap (even a cap as low as 3GB)? And dont get me started on the issue of a static IP...

If they are so worried about their bandwidth (take note that there are fibres installed carrying our international bandwidth and each fibre can handle gigabytes / second) then by all means offer a cheaper and lower bandwidth solution. Many users dont mind a throttle (note: not CAP) as they will only browse and send email etc.

Please let me know what you think. [?]

Regards
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[bullstein]

That is one of the most sensible ideas i have ever heard. But we all know that telkom only cares about their bottom line. No matter who pays for it. We can only hope that they will see some sense.

 

[doekvoet]

The one principle I agree with, is a lower level ADSL service, perhaps 64/32 or 128/64, with no cap, and at a cost of around R450 - R500 per month. Download speeds should not be much higher than a good dial-up connection.

Many homeusers like myself have ADSL because of the 24/7 availability at a fixed monthly cost, and speed does not bother us that much, provided it is as good as what a good dial-up connection will give.

Even limit this type of service to home users if need be. What South Africa needs is an affordable internet access solution which can be used 24/7. Telkom certainly does not make it easy for school children to access the internet after school to search for information etc, simply because the costs are too high.

Even a flat rate a month dial-up service will solve this problem for many users, taking into account the high costs of an ADSL modem and installation fees

 

[Pumba]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by doekvoet</i>
<br />The one principle I agree with, is a lower level ADSL service, perhaps 64/32 or 128/64, with no cap, and at a cost of around R450 - R500 per month. Download speeds should not be much higher than a good dial-up connection.

Many homeusers like myself have ADSL because of the 24/7 availability at a fixed monthly cost, and speed does not bother us that much, provided it is as good as what a good dial-up connection will give.

Even limit this type of service to home users if need be. What South Africa needs is an affordable internet access solution which can be used 24/7. Telkom certainly does not make it easy for school children to access the internet after school to search for information etc, simply because the costs are too high.

Even a flat rate a month dial-up service will solve this problem for many users, taking into account the high costs of an ADSL modem and installation fees
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

I'll second that doekvoet.

 

[oomfloors]

I've read somewhere that SAIX pays something like R3000 per 64kbps of international BW?