New ADSL packages hit the SA market
Datapro announced that they will now offer a product called “Datapro ADSL Online” which allows users to sign-up for and manage a usage-based package online.
According to Datapro product manager, Simon Butler, a major benefit of this offering is the added convenience of being able to do everything online.
“Users will be able to select their own account limits and change this via the on-line tool at any point in the month. Users will also be able to view their usage and account details for this interface,” said Butler.
Imaginet is another ISP that is offering innovative ADSL products to their customers.
Their package is called Freestyle and the company brags that this is the most flexible ADSL service on the market.
According to Imagnet this service is similar to a cellphone contract where the user purchases the bandwidth needed.
“You purchase a base amount of traffic (megabytes) that suits your needs best, but you’re not limited to the base. If you use more than the base, you are only billed for the amount of extra traffic you use in increments of 100mb.”
Traditional dial-up ISP’s are also getting in on this new trend.
@tlantic, a consumer dial-up company, is now also offering per mb-billing on a shaped ADSL package with a ‘self-managed cap’.
Users only have to pay for exactly the amount of data transmitted and received with a usage charge of 10c per MB (incl VAT).
Neil Meyer, general manager at @tlantic explains “our ADSL solution has no minimum amount of bandwidth and users will be billed for only the bandwidth they use and nothing else.”
To qualify users must have either the CasualHost3 (R35) or Host@300 (R19) with @tlantic and the contract term is 1 month.
These pay for only what you use packages are ideal for low end users but less ideal for bandwidth intensive subscribers.
Cost is the major factor for the high end user and whilst it is acceptable to pay for the bandwidth used the current South African model does not make allowances for this group.
Overseas the pricing model works on a sliding scale. So whilst the initial cost for all packages is a standard price as the user signs up for a higher cap package the price for bandwidth becomes cheaper.
In South Africa the price remains stable no matter how much bandwidth the user requires which in effect penalizes high end users heavily and restricts Internet access.
The result is that Internet users do not freely access web sites as they are counting the meter.
But for the low end user these new flexible pay-per-gig packages can be advantageous and they fill a very valuable gap in the marketplace.
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