South Africa’s broadband consumer lobby group MyADSL on Friday said Telkom’s new ADSL pricing structure would result in local subscribers paying 1Â 000% more than other subscribers around the globe for a similar service.
The new billing structure, introduced on November 1, is on a per-usage system. However, it does not apply to the Cape Town-based internet service provider (ISP) Dotco, as the High Court is yet to make a ruling following the ISP’s complaint against the introduction of the new billing structure.
“Telkom will enable ISPs to reduce the cost of providing ADSL services by up to 50% as a result of usage-based billing,” Telkom spokesperson Lulu Letlape argued.
“Usage-based billing provides ISPs with flexibility, and it enables them to create their own ADSL packages. ISPs can save money if they analyse their customer base and establish how many users use more than one gigabyte per month. In such cases, they can charge the customer for that amount only. In this way, the customer is happy and the ISP saves the cost.”
MyADSL’s Rudolph Muller expects the per-usage system to deter consumers from using ADSL as a broadband service.
“What is needed in South Africa is a massive uptake of ADSL and the increased use of the internet for various purposes like research, gaming and online radio. The new ‘small cap’ accounts forced upon users — due to price constraints — through the new pay-per-gig billing system will kill the true enjoyment of ADSL as experienced in other countries,” he added.
According to MyADSL, the new structure means that a 30GB unshaped account using a one-megabyte-per-second ADSL connection costs almost R4Â 000 — with ISP profit margins added, it would cost end users even more.
Letlape noted that prior to the introduction of the per-usage billing, ISPs were forced to buy 3GB accounts to resell to their customers “because this is what Telkom offered, although some subscribers ended up using only 1GB, which thus led to the concerned ISP paying for an unused 2GB”
However, average users consume 6GB per month.
Given the hard capping that comes with the new structure, users would not be able to access local content when they reach their cap, Muller asserted. This is in contrast to the regulator’s findings on Telkom’s ADSL, he added.
Waiting or flying?
An e-mail doing the rounds in South Africa provides a comparison of South Africa’s telecommunications charges to those of Hong Kong.
The costs involved in downloading 100GB of data, with Telkom’s fastest ADSL offering (1MB per second) was compared with the costs of flying to Hong Kong and downloading 100GB of data at an internet café, at its fastest speed (1GB per second), and then flying back.
Telkom
Line speed = 1MB per second
Download size = 100GB
Estimated download time = 9,5 days
ISP (34 x 3GB accounts @ R269) = R9Â 146,00
Line rental (ADSL) = R680,00
Line rental (residential voice) = R92,28
Total = R9Â 918,28
Hong Kong
Line speed = 1GB per second
Download size = 100GB
Estimated download time = 13 minutes
Flight (South African Airways) = R7Â 942,00
Internet café (average cost @ HK$20) = R17,43
Total = R7Â 959,43
Difference: Hong Kong is cheaper by R 1Â 958,85
However, the Mail & Guardian Online has been unable to verify whether the comparison is correct.
A spokesperson from Telkom, who did not want to be named, simply said: “Not many people would use that many gigabytes in South Africa.”
A comparison between Hong Kong and South Africa can’t really be made, said the spokesperson, but declined to comment further when asked whether the findings are correct.
She added that it is not wise to use ADSL as the correct download medium if one wants to download such a huge amount of data.