20Mbps broadband cheaper than 10Mbps in SA

Afrihost is offering capped 20Mbps digital subscriber line (DSL) bundles for R14 cheaper than it is selling 10Mbps DSL bundles.

Capped DSL bundles typically include an allocation of data for a month, and the relevant DSL rental and access fee.

The additional analogue phone line rental fee paid to Telkom is usually not included in bundle prices.

Afrihosts’s prices for 4Mbps, 10Mbps, 20Mbps, and 40Mbps DSL bundles are compared in the table below.

Afrihost capped DSL bundles	4Mbps	10Mbps	20Mbps	40Mbps
75GB+75GB	R548	R668	R654	R764
100GB+100GB	R638	R758	R744	R854
300GB+300GB	R1,358	R1,478	R1,464	R1,574
400GB+400GB	R1,718	R1,838	R1,824	R1,934

Since one might expect an ISP to charge the same for 100 Gigabytes (GB) of DSL cap, regardless of the speed of the line it is used on, the anomaly in Afrihost’s pricing suggests that the bundled 20Mbps line access fee is cheaper than 10Mbps.

Looking at the DSL rental/access prices on the Vox website seems to corroborate this, with Vox charging R425 per month for a 10Mbps line, and R342 per month for a 20Mbps line.

A 40Mbps line with Vox at R428 per month is only marginally more expensive than a 10Mbps connection.

However, Afrihost’s DSL rental prices tell a different story. The DSL access prices from Afrihost, Telkom, and Vox are summarised in the table below.

DSL access	Afrihost	Telkom	Vox
4Mbps ADSL	R279	R299	R299
10Mbps ADSL	R399	R425	R425
20Mbps VDSL/ADSL2+	R425	R499	R342
40Mbps VDSL	R535	R599	R428

Asked about the anomaly, a spokesperson for Afrihost said that the discrepancy is an oversight that will be corrected.

“We recently dropped our 20Mbps and 40Mbps VDSL line rental prices and this appears to have been an oversight on our part,” Afrihost said.

“We will be reviewing 20Mbps Capped Bundle prices to ensure that they make sense. Clients can be assured that they will always get the prices that they signed up for though — so they needn’t worry,” Afrihost said.

Vox’s head of products, Craig Freer, explained that they are able to offer 20Mbps access at a lower price than 10Mbps because of wholesale price reductions from Telkom.

“Telkom has discounted its wholesale price for 20Mb and 40Mb lines, and we have taken the decision to pass these savings onto the consumer,” Freer said. The prices are not promotional, Freer said.

Article courtesy of MyBroadband