It is well known that South Africa’s ADSL pricing is expensive when compared to international standards. There are however not many international studies which compare ADSL pricing on both speed and usage limit as most international fixed-line broadband services are uncapped.<\/p>\n
A recent OECD study reveals that only 36% of all observed broadband plans in the OECD regions had an explicit data cap. When operators do limit the amount of traffic that broadband subscribers can use each month, the average data transfer allowance is 27 gigabytes. This is significantly higher than the typical monthly usage limit in South Africa which is between 1 GB and 3 GB.<\/p>\n
South Africa’s ADSL offerings are not completely out of kilter in terms of price for very low usage. Telkom offers consumers a 384 Kbps service with a 1 GB usage limit for R 199 per month. This is better value for money than BigPond Australia’s 256 Kbps service with a 200 MB cap for R 196 per month, but this is where the good news stops.<\/p>\n
Telkom’s high end ADSL offering is a 4 Mbps service with a 3 GB monthly usage limit. Internationally a 3 GB cap is typically associated with entry level offerings while high end offerings are either uncapped or have usage limits of between 20 GB and 60 GB. International pricing for high end services are not many times more expensive than lower end offerings – something which is associated with high usage or unlimited ADSL accounts in South Africa.<\/p>\n
The following table provides a basic ADSL pricing comparison taking speed and monthly usage limit into account.<\/p>\n
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| \n Entry Level ADSL service<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n Company & Country<\/strong><\/td>\n | Speed<\/strong><\/td>\n | Usage Limit<\/strong><\/td>\n | Price in ZAR<\/strong><\/td>\n | Cost\/Mbps\/GB<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | Telkom SA<\/td>\n | 0.375 Mbps<\/td>\n | 1 GB<\/td>\n | 199<\/td>\n | 531<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | Bigpond Australia<\/td>\n | 0.25 Mbps<\/td>\n | 12 GB<\/td>\n | 391<\/td>\n | 130<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | Telecom New Zealand<\/td>\n | 4 Mbps<\/td>\n | 3 GB<\/td>\n | 206<\/td>\n | 17<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | BT UK<\/td>\n | 8 Mbps<\/td>\n | 10 GB<\/td>\n | 208<\/td>\n | 2.6<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | <\/td>\n | <\/td>\n | <\/td>\n | <\/td>\n | <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | \n | High End ADSL service<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n Telkom SA<\/td>\n | 4 Mbps<\/td>\n | 3 GB<\/td>\n | 554<\/td>\n | 46<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | Bigpond Australia<\/td>\n | 20 Mbps<\/td>\n | 60 GB<\/td>\n | 979<\/td>\n | 0.82<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | Telecom New Zealand<\/td>\n | 20 Mbps<\/td>\n | 40 GB<\/td>\n | 412<\/td>\n | 0.52<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | BT UK<\/td>\n | 8 Mbps<\/td>\n | Unlimited<\/td>\n | 324<\/td>\n | 0.41<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n | |