Vumatel suspends fibre price increases

Vumatel has suspended wholesale fibre price increases until after the national state of disaster is terminated.

The fibre network operator notified South African ISPs of a wholesale price increase for fibre lines with speeds of below 100Mbps earlier this year.

This resulted in a number of ISPs announcing price increases for Vumatel packages, passing on some of the cost to their consumers.

Wholesale prices for fibre lines with speeds greater than 100Mbps were slightly reduced, allowing ISPs to drop prices for these products.

These price changes would have come into effect on 1 April, but Vumatel said it has now suspended price increases.

“We have undertaken to suspend all wholesale price increases that were initially communicated at the time,” Vumatel said.

“This will remain in effect until such time as the Disaster Management Act is halted.”

“The decision to halt these increases is in keeping with our commitment to assist our ISP partners and their customers during this time, as well as in line with provisions made by the Disaster Management Act,” Vumatel said.

Line speed upgrades

In addition to suspending these price increases, Vumatel has also implemented free speed upgrades through partnered ISPs, giving customers up to double their package speed at no extra charge.

Vumatel first announced that it would upgrade the line speeds of existing users on its fibre network at no additional cost from 1 April until 31 May 2020.

These upgrades have since been extended and will last until the end of June 2020.

For new customers who are in the process of installing fibre, the company will waive its monthly line rental over the next two months together with participating ISPs.

South Africa’s largest ISPs, including Afrihost, Axxess, Webafrica, Cool Ideas, RSAWEB, Vox, and MWEB, all confirmed they would offer speed upgrades to their subscribers.

Vumatel fibre subscribers will receive the next-higher line speed on its network, as listed below.

Now read: Good news on Vumatel fibre speed increases – Upgrades extended