I have a slightly different take on when the watershed moment for SA internet came and that is when Vodacom was unbundled out of Telkom. Suddenly the cash-cow was gone and Telkom realised it couldn’t stand on its own two fee as it was. 23 November 2009, Reuben September acknowledged that competition was starting to bite into the underlying Telkom business.

Uncapped is important because it shifts the focus away from selling data packages and forces people to work out a quality service which brings me to my final point… iBurst and Neotel get a lot of criticism about their uncompetitive offers and technology. For large-scale users they’re probably not the best tech around but for the oke who runs a small SME they’re not bad and they do provide an alternative. As they gain traction and demand for internet services increases they will gain traction.

Gonna be an interesting space for the next few months methinks

@McT – Nyanda is *much* better than Poison Ivy ((c) Ivo Vetger) so we should acknowledge that. But yes, we need him to keep the eye on the ball as you rightly say.

@Romany – it saddens me that your story is all too common.

@chris – spot on. Telkom is really the only option for most – iBurst and Satellite have poor latency and lumpy throughput.

@chrisrawlinson – the reality with mobile broadband via GSM is that it is getting increasingly lower through-puts in major metropols as demand increase (much like other wireless techs), which is part of the reason mobile operators dont slash their rates by more – supply / demand issue.

@masked mahogony – IS latency: not sure where you get that from. We are the only STEAM hosters on the continent. Are you authenticating by an IS DSL? If not, that is your issue (IPC), if so, mail me and I will connect you with right people.

@stevesong – you are 100% right – national backhaul is also chronic, but I think there will be a fibre glut (MNOs, DFA Neotel, Municipals, etc) circa 18 months which should solve that

But I have to agree about the “Telkom Tax”. It’s completely ludicrous that we are forced to pay for an analogue voice line rental IN ADDITION to the ADSL line rental in order to have ADSL. I’d hazard a guess that the majority of ADSL users in SA don’t even use their analogue lines (I don’t) for voice.

I just wish Telkom would separate the two components. Charge for ADSL and disable the voice component if all people want is ADSL. WHo knows, it may even give us poor 384kbps users motivation to upgrade to 512k or 4mbps – not that 384 or even 512 can be considered “broadband” to begin with.

But that would be too easy woudln’t it? It’s basically free money for Telkom, which – in understand – makes a loss on line rental anyway.

Pity the likes of Neotel aren’t offering any form of credible compeition at all.

So when does it end? Who will be the hero/ine who will champion the cause and truly free the internet, because the “good” General is way too focused on his own financial affairs and wealth creation, that his appointment is wasted. His legacy in reality could become no better than his predecessor.

I agree that’s still too much, but that 4mbit will soon be bumped up to 8 or 10mbit for the same price (assuming history repeats itself) – and over time hopefully the telkom portion can creep down to 1/2 of what it is, and then we’ll have what I consider decently priced internet. As for the contentions and funny pseudo-uncapped rules; it’s been less than a month since the “uncapped revolution”, it’ll take a while for the ISPs to re-balance their backbones to user habits, and I’m sure the experience will get a lot better on the accounts that are currently grim.

Am sure times will change, it cant be long till Telkom realise they can’t continue to take us from behind forever.
At present my costs are near R750 for my telkom 4mbps line with a land line, and then R497 a month uncapped bandwidth from the legends at Afrihost.

If only Vodacom etc would reduce data costs then I would just go mobile, and at higher speeds too !

However, I still disagree with you on uncapped. The vast majority of UK subscribers are on uncapped plans (yes, with contention ratios and AUPs, but generally users don’t care and much prefer them to (even large) capped plans. It is the dominant model. Do you have stats to back up your assertion that users preferred capped, because I’ve travelled widely, and the only place I’ve ever seen it a lot, apart from SA, is in hotels, and airport wifi. And people hate it there.

Oh, and Scandinavia is a dense geography? Really?

For the last few months I have been feeling like the dumbest blonde on the planet in South Africa because of this whole disgusting internet escapade and I agree with you that if the people don’t take a stand nothing will change.

The internet creates great opportunities for businesses and great opportunities for people to earn money online, It has created an equal opportunities and business without borders market.

I have been living in the UK for the last few years, I pay around R500 a month for unlimited broadband and this includes my telesphone and my calls. My broadband is £38 per month to be exact and it is business broadband.

My entire business is on the internet, if I don’t have internet, I don’t have a business.

From Nov last year to date, end of March I spent around R6,500 on internet to run my business excluding landline costs and excluding telephone calls. If I stayed in the UK it I would’ve spent £250 over this period, this would’ve included my calls and my landline.

I have looked at every possible avenue looking at the uncapped offers but still amiss is the fact that while it is great to have these offers, either it is on a very low basic speed/bandwidth package or I still have to consider my costs to Telkom whichever way I loose. On average I am using about 10 Gigs a month.

I went on a rampage and got a petition set up and started speaking to people and I was shocked at the feedback from people to a point that I thought “you know what, if you are happy paying those prices then stuff it, why should I bother, I’m going back to the UK after all”. The general responses were, This is Africa and things run differently, “So does that mean you want to pay those prices, is that what you are telling me. Are you telling me then, that you are happy to make Telkom richer and richer, laughing all the way to the bank.”

The other big reponse is “oh but the prices are coming down”. “Pah” is what I say, “I bet it was a rumour started by Telkom, Vodacom, and all those others, to keep the carrot dangling in front of your face”. A year down the line when I come back, people will still be saying to me, “oh but haven’t you heard, the prices are coming down.”

So you know what, I’m back in the UK, I don’t have to sit and worry about how much I’m spending, uploading, downloading, uncapped, capped, all this confusing nonsense. I don’t have to feel like I’m being constantly RIPPED OFF.

I can’t wait for the day when people finally wake up, take a stand and fight Telkom, Vodacom and all the others for prices do come down in South Africa.

Internet has become a human right in some countries.

Internet is an integral part of life. It is a free learning centre for those who do not have the money to pay for college or varsity fees, it creates job opportunities and it creates business opportunities.

Uncapped ADSL services give consumers more choice, and that is a good thing. Consumers will quickly learn that you get what you pay for in bandwidth terms – anything between a lot of low-quality bandwidth for cheap, to a few Gigs of quality at a premium price. As an ISP, you simply cannot create bandwidth out of nothing and give it away for “free”. Einstein was right after all…