Why the Data and Speed Limitations on Fibre?

porchrat

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Lately I've started seeing offers from fibre providers and while the increased speeds are impressive I'm not all that impressed with the prices one pays for those speeds and the cap one gets with them.

I thought it would be more in line with what people in developed countries receive.

I thought the whole purpose of fibre was to have a network out of Telkom's control and the jacked up prices that come from that stranglehold.

My question is why, when we have these fibre networks rolling out, are we still subject to restrictive caps at relatively high prices when compared internationally?
 
Some of the pricing is not bad actually. From http://mybroadband.co.za/news/adsl/140978-uncapped-data-prices-fibre-vs-adsl.html fibre is already winning even though it's still new and limited to a few areas. It can only get better as more and more people have access and the costs get spread across more people. I don't think they will be throttling us as bad as it is on ADSL seeing the costly IPC is not needed on fibre
 
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Ye, fibre is pretty affordable in areas where neighbourhood-wide rollouts are happening. The cost is normally prohibitive when you need to get fibre laid into an individual premises.
 
At R500/m to lay new fibre (minimum and often far more than that), it's not the bandwidth that is expensive. Fibre pricing will come down once the market matures and the initial capital investments have been recovered fully. One however does have to pay for the international and local bandwidth (that isn't peered settlement-free or on-net)...
 
One however does have to pay for the international and local bandwidth (that isn't peered settlement-free or on-net)...

Aside from the cost of the fibre itself I'd say this is the biggest contributor to cost.
 
R599 / month for a 10Mbps uncapped Fibre line is cheap IMO. Compared to what you would pay if it was ADSL... (ADSL + Analogue line rental)
 
OK I get what you guys are saying. Costs will come down as fibre networks expand.

R599 / month for a 10Mbps uncapped Fibre line is cheap IMO. Compared to what you would pay if it was ADSL... (ADSL + Analogue line rental)
It is cheaper relative to our ADSL sure but our ADSL prices are a product of the history of our telephonic infrastructure and Telkom's monopoly while fibre shouldn't be as far as I understand it. I mean why are we even seeing caps on fibre offerings at all...
 
I think the prices are pretty decent.

Also you have to realise that we still have the problem of all the content being in the US/Europe so almost all of our big traffic is on the undersea cables.

Overseas they are accessing local content most of the time
 
OK I get what you guys are saying. Costs will come down as fibre networks expand.


It is cheaper relative to our ADSL sure but our ADSL prices are a product of the history of our telephonic infrastructure and Telkom's monopoly while fibre shouldn't be as far as I understand it. I mean why are we even seeing caps on fibre offerings at all...

Quote Originally Posted by DJ... View Post
One however does have to pay for the international and local bandwidth (that isn't peered settlement-free or on-net)...
 
At R500/m to lay new fibre (minimum and often far more than that), it's not the bandwidth that is expensive. Fibre pricing will come down once the market matures and the initial capital investments have been recovered fully.

Yeah, that theory didn't work with the network operators who socked us high pricing when they built their networks, and then never reduced it...
 
I think the prices are pretty decent.

Also you have to realise that we still have the problem of all the content being in the US/Europe so almost all of our big traffic is on the undersea cables.

Overseas they are accessing local content most of the time
Yea but those undersea cables aren't even close to capacity. Last I checked we were using what... 10% of seacom?

In the past the bottleneck has been blamed largely on Telkom. I'm asking where is the bottleneck now?
 
Yeah, that theory didn't work with the network operators who socked us high pricing when they built their networks, and then never reduced it...

Which combined national and last mile backbone networks are these that haven't come down in price?
 
Ya, we need to up our usage so they can buy more capacity.

Ftth will drive this
People are already being shaped and capped ATM. You can't go a week without someone complaining about it on the forum. How is inadequate usage the problem?
 
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