Openserve confirms free speed upgrades

Telkom’s wholesale division Openserve has confirmed that it will upgrade speeds and cut prices on its fibre and copper network.

The announcement comes after MyBroadband previously reported on an email Openserve had sent to ISPs, in which it said it would be implementing connection speed upgrades across its fibre and copper products.

“From 1 March 2021, Openserve will introduce further speed upgrades and price changes on our Openserve Fibre Connect and Openserve Copper Connect product offerings,” the company has stated.

The changes are effective across the board, with fibre packages from 10Mbps to 200Mbps, and DSL packages from 1Mbps to 40Mbps impacted.

Lower-end packages such as the existing 10Mbps fibre service will be upgraded to 25Mbps whilst remaining at the 10Mbps price, whereas existing 1Mbps and 2Mbps copper services will be upgraded to 5Mbps at the current 2Mbps price.

The fastest OFC and OCC packages will also carry reduced prices – with 200Mbps fibre lines now charged at the current price of 100Mbps connections, while 40Mbps copper connections will be charged at the 20Mbps rate.

In addition, Openserve is reducing rental prices on its Pure Connect product – also called Naked ADSL – from 1 April 2021.

The new prices will be as follows:

• OPC Lite – R155
• OPC 10Mbps – R220
• OPC 20Mbps – R350
• OPC 40Mbps – R400

Click here to view the full list of price changes as detailed in Openserve’s email to ISPs.

No additional cost to ISPs

Openserve said the speed upgrades will come at no additional cost to ISP partners directly related to this initiative as an incentive to enable them to easily upgrade their customers.

“We are encouraged by the positive feedback and excitement of our ISP partners on these new propositions,” the operator stated.

It added that it was continuing its strategy of upgrading Openserve customers within its existing footprint from current technology to fibre.

“This will improve efficiencies and allow more South Africans to have access to affordable broadband. Openserve is also offering further incentives to ease the transition process onto the Openserve fibre network for the impacted customers.

Much cheaper than mobile

Openserve said that the price per GB of data that end-users pay over fixed broadband connections compared very favourably to mobile data offers, even when compared to limited-time promotional offers from Mobile providers.

“The price per GB rate over our fixed Broadband is expected to drop even more once the price changes alluded to above, take effect and are passed on to end-users.”

The table below compares the per GB price a user on Openserve fibre would pay on a typical uncapped package from an ISP, to a typical promotional uncapped mobile data deal available on the market.

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