ADSL versus HSDPA
The ongoing battle in the mobile broadband market has seen dramatic price cuts in data tariffs and early technology adoption by both Vodacom and MTN.
With the rollout of HSDPA and HSUPA, local mobile broadband speeds rival the fastest ADSL service in downlink speeds and has surpassed it threefold in uplink speeds.
The looming 7.2 Mbps HSDPA upgrades will mean that ADSL will also fall behind in download speeds, something not often encountered in the developed world.
Even on the pricing front Vodacom and MTN competes favourably with Telkom’s ADSL pricing on lower usage limits – typically 2GB or less per month.
Unsurprisingly Telkom has been losing significant market share to the wireless broadband providers over the last few years, dropping from 83% in 2004 to 68% in 2006 to just 41% in 2008.
Broadband Subscriber Numbers
Vodacom and MTN’s combined HSDPA subscriber numbers add up to 490 000, significantly higher than Telkom’s 412 000 ADSL subscribers.
Over the last six months Telkom’s ADSL subscribers grew by an average of 12 847 users a month. In comparison Vodacom grew its HSDPA subscriber base by 17 333 users a month.
If this trend continues, which is likely to happen, Telkom will have 527 815 ADSL subscribers by the end of 2008. Telkom’s official aim is to reach 592 000 ADSL subscribers by March 2009, a growth rate of 15 000 per month.
At a growth rate of over 17 000 per month Vodacom will reach 525 997 subscribers from its current 370 000 users, on par with Telkom’s subscriber numbers. Unofficial reports however suggest that Vodacom is currently signing up around 20 000 new HSDPA users per month which will see Vodacom surpass Telkom in broadband subscriber numbers towards the end of 2008.
South Africa is in a very unique situation where mobile broadband services compete head-on with the county’s fixed-line broadband offering.
This anomaly itself is interesting to analyse, but the fact that the mobile providers are actually winning the battle suggests both a poor performance by the fixed broadband provider and a great performance by the mobile providers.
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