How quickly can you hit your cap?
Monthly usage limits or bandwidth caps (aka bitcaps) are a bone of contention for many South African broadband subscribers. These caps are typically restrictive and force users to watch their Internet usage – akin to dial-up services where users have to pay for every minute they use the Internet.
In a price sensitive market many users are initially attracted by a low monthly price, and the monthly usage limit is often not considered when signing up for a service.
In South Africa most broadband services carry bandwidth caps of between 500MB and 3GB per month, allowing for a fair amount of email and web browsing.
Telkom’s 4Mbps ADSL service typically carries a 3GB monthly usage limit which means that users will reach their monthly usage limit within 1.71 hours when used at full speed.
Vodacom and MTN’s HSDPA services are generally ordered with a 2GB usage limit, providing a usage time of 1.3 hours before the bundled bandwidth is depleted.
iBurst 40MB service is the broadband service with the lowest usage limit which is widely promoted as a broadband offering, and at R49 a month it is often considered an alternative to dial-up for price-sensitive consumers.
This service, when used at the full speed of 1Mbps, will last users just over five minutes, or 0.08 hours, to reach their monthly allowance.
International comparison
A study by the OECD investigated the time it would take a user to reach their bitcap at advertised speeds and some of the results made even iBurst’s 40MB offering look like a good value proposition.
According to the study, Australia’s BigPond ISP offered a 30Mbps service with a 200MB bandwidth cap. This meant that a subscriber would be capped within 0.014 hours if the service was used at full speed.
Equal second and third was Australia’s Optus ISP and New Zealand Telecom who both offered a 24Mbps service with a 200MB bandwidth cap. At full speed this monthly usage limit would be reached within 0.018 hours – not much surfing.
It should however be noted that this OECD study was conducted in 2007, and some of the usage limits may have increased since then.
Broadband caps – give your views
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