Next phase of ADSL speed upgrades begin

I'm up. Goodbye and good riddance to 384!

If you want to get upgraded early, call 10210, go to DSL support and ask them to refresh/reset your ADSL profile. If they sound confused, tell them your ADSL should be syncing at 1mbps but is only syncing at 384. If they still don't understand, hang up and call again in the hope that you get a proper consultant.
 
okuhle94 said:
Yeah! 384Kbps will die soon enough!!
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Graal said:
I'm up. Goodbye and good riddance to 384!
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It might not be the popular opinion, but it really should not be happening this way. There will always be a demand for low speed DSL.. Are our grandparents supposed to fork out more for basic internet access now? 384 is the ideal speed for a basic internet connection. The UK still runs a 256 kbps connection for this reason; Telkom is simply out pricing a lot of users now...

Sure, drop the price of 1 Mbps to that of current 384 kbps. That's a great thing. And then drop the price of 384 to more affordable levels. But drop 384 altogether? Stupid, backwards move, IMO.

On the other hand, my folks' internet will finally be at 1Mbps! Yay! :D
 
Dude, you are aware that 56k is still available in many areas, right? 384 will likely become a legacy product.

Besides, you can't hold the entire country back on crappy speeds because of a few old people. Upgrading accounts for free is the easiest and fastest way to raise the internet quality in a country.
 
Graal said:
Dude, you are aware that 56k is still available in many areas, right? 384 will likely become a legacy product.

Besides, you can't hold the entire country back on crappy speeds because of a few old people. Upgrading accounts for free is the easiest and fastest way to raise the internet quality in a country.
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Are you serious?

So we should rather put them on a different, too slow infrastructure? 56k is too slow to open typical sites like facebook, gmail, and other flash sites. Besides that, it runs up your phone bill. Seriously, that's just a silly suggestion. What's wrong with keeping 384 as an option? And how would my suggestion "hold the entire country back"?

What will happen now is that users who should be on 384 are on 1 Meg. This takes up valuable concurrency. That means you'll have loads of unused speed in the international pipelines. It means we'll have lower number of total broadband users -> less penetration. That holds the country back.

We need an entry level fixed line internet cheaper than 1 Mbps.

And not 56k.

Never 56k.

EDIT: Also, 384k is being removed completely, not being made a legacy product. That's the whole issue here.
 
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If you cannot afford 1Meg, then you don't need ADSL... seriously... It's the same price 384k was, should they now re-introduce 384k at a lower cost? I say HELL NO! Onwards and upwards...
 
You are aware that Telkom also still offers 128k ISDN, right?

You are also aware that there's nothing stopping ISPs from still offering 384 packages, right? Like WebAfrica.

http://www.webafrica.co.za/adsl/

Not to mention that for old people who use little bits of data there's 3G, which will work them out a lot cheaper than ADSL.

There's a lot of options for people who don't want 1mb.
 
Graal said:
You are aware that Telkom also still offers 128k ISDN, right?
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And how does this affect the availability of 384? It's already been removed from the available products.

Graal said:
You are also aware that there's nothing stopping ISPs from still offering 384 packages, right? Like WebAfrica.

http://www.webafrica.co.za/adsl/
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Oooooh, that's great news, it means I can pay more for the line than necessary, since I'll be limited by the package! :rolleyes:

That's idiotic, and it just shows that there is a need for a 384kbps price point in the lines as well.

And since the ISP's resell the Telkom lines, the 384 lines will disappear from there as well, soonish. Like Mweb.

http://www.mweb.co.za/productspricing/2/Home/adsl3g/CappedAdsl.aspx

Graal said:
Not to mention that for old people who use little bits of data there's 3G, which will work them out a lot cheaper than ADSL.

There's a lot of options for people who don't want 1mb.
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It doesn't. It just doesn't. I've been looking for ~1Gb per month usage on 3G for a retired couple, and it simply is more expensive. Link me up if you know of something cheaper, but I seriously doubt that you'll be able to.

Tsar said:
I checked on their notice thing where you put your number in. :-/
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I was talking to TBlaar, you muppet :p It just means you're not upgraded for now, so don't panic yet ;)
 
Graal said:
Uhm...

http://www.vodacom.co.za/personal/phonesandpackages/deals?dealId=1852

http://www.vodacom.co.za/personal/phonesandpackages/deals?dealId=1955

Compare that to the R350+ you're going to pay for ADSL with line rental, voice line rental and data costs.
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R350? More like R175.. But point taken, and thanks very much for the links, I really have been looking for something like the first link. It doesn't quite sway my opinion, though, that for the 384 kbps should stay the entry point for the consumer broadband market.

Graal said:
You are also aware that Telkom aims to have everyone on at least 2mb by 2015, right?
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I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish with this point.. Telkom plans that, yes, so it must be the right move?

My entire argument here is that I believe that Telkom are making a mistake in pushing the speed of the entry point up, rather than dropping prices all round. Raising everyone to a higher speed will waste valuable contingency, that could've been spent on giving another family dsl access. IMO, we need to get internet to more people as well as raising the maximum speeds, and their move is going against that.

Again, I'd like to emphasize that it's a step in the right direction from Telkom, just one that could have been better planned and spent.
 
Im upgraded to 1mbps, I just asked them to reset my ports, then the telkom guy said that my exchange is upgraded to 1mbps, then he did the upgrade
 
Avatar said:
I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish with this point.. Telkom plans that, yes, so it must be the right move?
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Not trying to accomplish anything with the point, just asking whether you're aware that even 1mb/s is going to fall away. Telkom is trying to up broadband quality in the country by improving the entry-level broadband. They're trying to improve the overall bigger picture. Can kind of understand why they don't want to keep 384 when they're aiming to improve entry-level uncapped.
 
Fortunately I allow WA to manage my line, and they in turn have given my the facility to reset my port if needs be.
 
Yeah, but you have to pay R10 extra to get the 1mb data while the rest of us get it for free.

Unless your main ADSL account is through another provider?
 
What is with South Africa and their silly goals. First we had inflation targeting which is even relevant for a developing economy. Then we had to have the E-toll system to further screw us over, despite the fact they have a fund that could have paid for the entire upgrade in CASH.

Now we have a mandate to provide 2mg lines to the entire county. Rather make it cheaper and have the switch over to the equivalent line but don't abandon the old options. Most people will never use a 1mg line to full capacity so it won't make sense to hold that line when they could have it cheaper rather.
To me it looks like they want to improve our stats without actual work, very easy to say average is 2mg even though there aren't slower options available, options that could be cheaper and better suited to penetrate the market.
 
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