South Africa’s biggest free Internet access service ended last week when Absa turned off its “freemail” Internet service, which appears to have left thousands of users in a virtual no-man’s-land.
Technical difficulties have stranded many users of this somewhat controversial deal, which was launched last year amid accusations from the country’s largest dial-up Internet service provider (ISP), M-Web, that it was “unsustainable”.
It seems this cost of providing dial-up access has trimmed Absa’s wings and it has resorted to charging for connecting, although it warned last year that it would do so and gave users a three-month extension to June 1.
Absa account holders can still use the service free but the estimated 40% of users who are not clients must pay R65 a month. New Absa account holders who sign on will pay R39 a month. This compares to the average of about R100 a month from the other big ISPs. Some smaller providers charge about R70.
Absa has been publicising that it will switch its “freemail” service to a “premium” paid-for one for several months and many of the users, it says, are trying to convert only now.
The problems users are experiencing are a combination of factors, says Dave Donkin, Absa group executive for e-business and information management, but result mostly from a “high demand to get on to the service”, which led to difficulties logging on and a flood of angry calls to Absa’s call centre.
During May between 160 and 180 people a day were registering for the service. This has risen to between 800 and 1 200 this month, he says.
However, one caller to the Mail & Guardian complained that he had registered in January but still had difficulty accessing the new service.
Donkin says subscribers had to complete the registration correctly and many used bogus or incomplete information. As such Absa could not “verify” their registration.
“We have also experienced a technical difficulty because the new system uses a high level of security that is not compatible with older browsers.”
Donkin says Absa has increased its call-centre staff and will educate the public via its website, while suggesting that users download new versions of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser.
Absa said its freemail service was ostensibly to provide free Internet access to South Africans, but it was clearly intended to boost its online banking users.
Absa grew its Internet banking users from 150 000 to 300 000, giving it 36% of the estimated 800 000 online banking market, according to its figures.