Massive DSL price cuts
According to the research firm Point-Topic the average price for DSL entry level services fell by 9.3% in the second quarter of 2006. Among the 18 DSL operators included in Point Topic’s tariff benchmark survey, 5 of them (primarily in North America and EMEA) reduced their monthly tariffs by up to 50%.
Bell Canada was the only operator to increase its entry level package by 16.9%. This is due to a service upgrade of its 256Kbps BASIC package to a faster 1Mbps download speed.
Overall, the average DSL monthly tariff was US$27.44, or R 189-00, with Chunghwa (Taiwan) still rated as the cheapest DSL provider. The surveyed DSL services are generally uncapped with speeds exceeding 1 Mbps.
Telkom announced a reduction of 24 % in its ADSL access charges earlier this year, the first such reduction since the end of 2005.
This reduction translated into an effective 12 % reduction as ADSL is a bundled service which includes ADSL access, line rental and ADSL ISP costs.
Telkom’s 1 Mbps DSL service with a 30 GB usage limit will currently cost over R 2400-00 when utilizing a cheap, shaped 30 GB account from a SAIX ISP.
This means that Telkom’s premier service is over 1200 % more expensive than the average in the Point-Topic survey. For an unshaped service this percentage will rise to well above 2000 %.
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