Telkom do Uncapped ADSL: All the details

Summary: TelkomInternet do Uncapped accounts will come in “up to” 384kbps, 1Mbps, and 10Mbps variants, with a possible product between 1 and 10Mbps coming soon. Accounts are throttled during the day, shaped all the time, and subject to a fair usage policy.

Telkom launched a batch of uncapped products at the rAge 2011 gaming expo held in the Coca Cola Dome today (30 September 2011). In keeping with their existing “do” branding, they have named them “do Uncapped” packages.

Price-wise the lowest tier “do Uncapped 384kbps” account holds its own against the likes of Mweb. However, even Telkom’s promotional 1Mbps deal available only from 30 September to 2 October 2011 at rAge is more expensive than Mweb’s 1Mbps line-and-account bundle.

Where Telkom said they’ll be competing is in factors such as the quality of service and fair usage policy, explained Steven White, an executive from Telkom consumer and retail business.

Fair usage policy

Quizzed about what usage Telkom deemed as “fair,” White said that it is difficult to put an exact number on excessive usage, as it is about what effect high usage patterns has on other subscribers.

“500GB is probably excessive,” White said, “but if the rest of the pool allows it to happen, then it will happen.”

White added that hopefully the fair usage policy doesn’t need to be applied that vehemently with their throttling policies in place.

These throttling policies, detailed in a table below, reduce a subscriber’s speed depending on the time of day.

Why now?

Telkom has long held that users don’t need higher data usage limits or uncapped packages, because according to their information, most users didn’t use all of their cap every month.

White reiterated this point, but added that during Telkom’s data usage trial where they temporarily increased the caps on all of their accounts they found that customers used more data.

Their market research showed that users need more data and a higher quality connection, White said.

Uncapped is now sustainable and profitable

According to White, not being first to market with uncapped ADSL worked in Telkom’s favour as it has allowed the company to offer high quality uncapped sustainably and profitably.

Looking at “intermediate” offering

One thing Telkom’s uncapped offering lacks when compared to other uncapped ADSL providers is an affordable account between 1Mbps and 10Mbps, similar to Mweb’s 4Mbps uncapped account.

White said that they are working on such an offer, but that it wasn’t ready for today’s launch.

He said that they don’t believe in over-contending the service and want to be sure that when they launch such a product that they can do so at acceptable quality levels.

The table below, detailing Telkom’s new do Uncapped accounts, shows the massive jump in price from 1Mbps uncapped to “up to” 10Mbps.

rAge promotion

For the duration of the rAge gaming expo held at the Coca Cola Dome in Northgate this weekend (30 September to 2 October 2011), TelkomInternet is offering a promotional uncapped account for R782 per month – the do Gamers bundle – that includes 4/10Mbps ADSL line rental, a 1Mbps do Uncapped ADSL data account, a copy of Battlefield 3 (when it launches), and a 2TB external hard drive.

Telkom explained that the idea behind the deal is that gamers generally already have capped accounts that they game on, while they use uncapped for downloads. Most gaming traffic will also be local, White said, and on their uncapped accounts local bandwidth is unrestricted.

Discounted line-and-account bundles

It was also interesting to note that unlike Telkom’s “do Broadband” bundles, “do Uncapped” doesn’t offer a discount when you rent your line and get your ADSL account through TelkomInternet.

Telkom said that they are still looking at offering various types of bundles and deals, but they couldn’t yet say what form they would take.

Article courtesy of MyBroadband – Telkom uncapped ADSL: All the details

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