Telkom launch commercial WiMAX products

Ntoele emphasised that customers will only be offered WiMAX as an alternative option if they reside within the WiMAX footprint.
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I hate WiMax already!!

Firstly it is flippen exspensive! All this time we have been told that it is cheaper! Secondly they will only offer this if there is no ADSL in the area?!?! or do I understand the quote wrong? :(:(:(:(
 
After a long period of silence, it is ushered into the light of day...

...methinks we'll have to wait and see how it goes.

How come no wimax product was offered to MyADSL for testing?
 
MielieSpoor said:
I hate WiMax already!!

Firstly it is flippen exspensive! All this time we have been told that it is cheaper! Secondly they will only offer this if there is no ADSL in the area?!?! or do I understand the quote wrong? :(:(:(:(
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Yup, think you're understanding it wrong :-)

What they're saying that they won't offer you wimax if you don't live in a wimax area.

Edit: oops, you were right. I missed this bit:

“Customers who apply for DSL will be offered Do Broadband Wireless if they reside in an area which is not DSL enabled and that falls within the coverage area of a WiMax base station,” Telkom said.
 
why is it so slow? I thought WiMax was fast? And why is it so expensive, when their are no lines now?
 
Question is whether R240pm is the cost of the modem, or an "access" rental.

Seems odd that one should have to pay to access fresh air. No copper involved.

So I assume R240pm is the cost of the modem,

Or will Telkom live up to expectations, charge for "access" and charge for a modem too?

And R490 for access installation? What? Do they break down a wall of your house?

Can you not self install? ie plug the modem into your pc/network?

512k access speed seems a bit retro, no?

But at least it is something new, and we desperately need something new.

If the costs given are the only cost involved, it is not too bad, comparatively, at least..
 
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The product offerings are as follows:

* WiMAX up to 512Kbps (stand alone access) for R240 per month.
* Do Broadband Wireless Level 1 consisting of WiMAX up to 512Kbps access plus Telkom Internet 1GB for R319 per month
* Do Broadband Wireless Level 2 consisting of WiMAX up to 512Kbps access plus Telkom Internet 2GB for R389 per month
* Do Broadband Wireless Level 3 consisting of WiMAX up to 512Kbps access plus TelkomInternet 3GB for R479 per month.
* Access installation for R 490-00
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So the R240 is line rental basically, even though it's wireless, wonderful.
 
lordrage said:
why is it so slow? I thought WiMax was fast? And why is it so expensive, when their are no lines now?
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Bear in mind you don't have to add in line rental. I'd be paying less if I could convert to WiMax.

Everywhere, except South Africa, wireless options are more expensive.

From Wikipedia
Limitations

A commonly held misconception is that WiMAX will deliver 70 Mbit/s, over 30 miles (48 kilometers). Each of these is true individually, given ideal circumstances, but they are not simultaneously true. In practice this means that in line-of-sight environments you could deliver symmetrical speeds of 10 Mbit/s at 10 km but in urban environments it is more likely that 30% of installations may be non-line-of-sight and therefore users may only receive 10 Mbit/s over 2 km. WiMAX has some similarities to DSL in this respect, where one can either have high bandwidth or long reach, but not both simultaneously. The other feature to consider with WiMAX is that available bandwidth is shared between users in a given radio sector, so if there are many active users in a single sector, each will get reduced bandwidth. However, unlike SDSL where contention is very noticeable at a 5:1 ratio (if you are sharing your connection with a large media firm for example), WiMAX does not have this problem. Typically each cell has a whole 100 Mbit/s backhaul so there is no contention here. In practice, many users will have a range of 2-, 4-, 6-, 8- or 10 Mbit/s services and the bandwidth can be shared. If the network becomes busy the business model is more like GSM or UMTS than DSL. It is easy to predict capacity requirements as you add customers. Additional radio cards can be added on the same sector to increase the capacity.
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With clear line of sight they should get at least 2Mbps.
It will interesting to see what speed Mweb, IS and Neotel offer.
 
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Is there ANYTHING that makes this more attractive than ADSL?
 
Again I say, the problem is not the R240, it's how little they give you for the R240. R240 will get you access to WiMax (*cough* oxygen rental), but you still have to buy your 1GB or 2GBs or whatever and it's only 512K. I guess you also have to shell out the R99 (R111) analogue line rental right? If so, my conclusion, this is another no show.
 
feo said:
Again I say, the problem is not the R240, it's how little they give you for the R240. R240 will get you access to WiMax (*cough* oxygen rental), but you still have to buy your 1GB or 2GBs or whatever and it's only 512K. I guess you also have to shell out the R99 (R111) analogue line rental right? If so, my conclusion, this is another no show.
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Either way, with or without the line rental, it still seems to really suck.
 
Do they at least give the [-]victim[/-] customer a free tub of vaseline with the modem for the shafting they are about to receive?
 
* Do Broadband Wireless Level 1 consisting of WiMAX up to 512Kbps access plus Telkom Internet 1GB for R319 per month
* Do Broadband Wireless Level 2 consisting of WiMAX up to 512Kbps access plus Telkom Internet 2GB for R389 per month.
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Well just to use Vodacom as a basis for comparison you can get 1GB for R289 and 2GB for the same price, yet you get much higher speeds, more mobility etc. And its not Telkom. :D Only advantage I can see with this is that presumably the per gig rates are cheaper at higher caps.
 
The R240 is to cover their installation and maintenance costs, obviously theres no such thing as air rental.

But even if those costs aren't as high as R240 (probably not) they would have to charge it simply because of the pricing structures in SA, they couldn't make it free or much less otherwise no one would need ADSL. If there was no line rental on ADSL then WiMax would be the same.

The WiMax thing was always going to be funny, everyone kept saying how amazing it is and why aren't iBurst rebuilding their whole infrastructure because they have a WiMax license. I could find the quote here where someone asked whats the point and the reply was 100MB vs 1MB. Heh 512kb... it can go higher, but not even by that much, max 2-5mb if it becomes saturated I'm guessing?
 
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But even if those costs aren't as high as R240 (probably not) they would have to charge it simply because of the pricing structures in SA, they couldn't make it free or much less otherwise no one would need ADSL. If there was no line rental on ADSL then WiMax would be the same.
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You can say what you want but it still doesn't justify that price for the rental!!! I think Syndre's comparison says it all...
 
Freaksta said:
Where do you come with renting air? They have to pay for the wi-max towers.. to maintain them etc..
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True but Vodacom, MTN et al. don't charge you a "line rental" as such, or when they do in the case of contracts or data bundles it actually includes something, I think people would feel differently if it was R240 base charge which included say 2GB of bandwidth etc.
 
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