MWEB recently started a ‘free local bandwidth trial’ where ADSL subscribers are allowed unlimited local traffic after hitting their cap. <\/p>\n
The company said that during the trial, which began on 1 February, MWEB will pass the benefits of Telkom’s free local bandwidth promotion on to MWEB members. <\/p>\n
“In line with Telkom’s promotion, MWEB ADSL customers will continue to receive free local bandwidth after their monthly data cap is reached, enabling them to send and receive e-mail, surf any website hosted in South Africa and access Internet banking without having to purchase additional “booster” bandwidth,” said MWEB.<\/p>\n
MWEB is still monitoring the situation to ascertain the commercial viability of an uncapped local bandwidth solution.<\/p>\n
“It is still very early on in the trial and we only have one month’s stats to work on so far, but the browsing experience after switching to the local-only cap is in line with our expectations. We would like to continue the trial for a while longer before we take any decisions around a commercial local-only service.”<\/p>\n
MWEB does not want to commit to launching such a service, but it is clear that the company is in favor of offering their subscribers an unlimited local bandwidth solution.<\/p>\n
“There are some customer experience issues with the local-only product related to the definition of a 'local' website and the resultant errors experienced by the customer. But to answer the question: yes we do have plans for such a service, but only after we have a better understanding of customer patterns using the Local-Only service,” MWEB said.<\/p>\n
There is no official end date for the current trial, and MWEB indicated that it will run until they have enough information to build a commercial service.<\/p>\n