ECN suggests setting the final interconnection rate at 25 cents as opposed to 40 cents.
The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) recently said that they will publish their much anticipated wholesale call termination rate regulations next week.
Techcentral reported that “the long-awaited regulations that will determine wholesale call termination rates in SA are ready and will be published next Friday [29 October 2010].”
This announcement came shortly after ECN CEO John Holdsworth slated ICASA at the 2010 MyBroadband conference on 20 October for not doing enough to bring about a more reasonable interconnect regime in South Africa.
Not low enough, says ECN
In April this year ICASA was applauded for suggesting significant interconnect rate cuts which were supposed to kick in during July 2010:
- Mobile termination rates were proposed to be reduced to R 0.65 from July 2010 and further reduced to R 0.40 from July 2012.
- Fixed termination rates were proposed to be reduced to R 0.15 from July 2010 and further reduced to R 0.10 from July 2012.
The July deadline came and went and apart from public hearings into the matter ICASA has not said much about the interconnect issue.
Holdsworth feels that ICASA should not only be more proactive to lower interconnect rates, but also that an ultimate mobile interconnect rate of 40c is just not low enough.
“The proposed interconnection rates may not be low enough. ECN suggests setting the final interconnection rate at 25 cents as opposed to 40 cents,” said Holdsworth at the 2010 MyBroadband Conference.
Holdsworth further feels that a distinction between fixed line and mobile termination rates is unnecessary. “This target rate [25c per minute] should be applicable for any voice service regardless of the protocol and/or technology used,” said Holdsworth.
“ECN also supports the removal of peak and off peak interconnect rates – this is a retail issue,” Holdsworth said.
Incumbent operators however argued that a drastic intervention in interconnect rates can hurt current business models and will not give them time to adapt. This in turn, they argue, will hurt the industry as a whole.
Other arguments include that there will be a Waterbed effect where profits will simply be made elsewhere to make up for lost revenue and that poor rural cellular users, who typically only receive calls, may suffer because of lower interconnect rates which subsidize their connections.
Holdsworth however said these arguments should be dismissed as the benefits of lower interconnect rates and increased competition far outweigh any negative effects.
- compliments of My Broadband
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Monday, October 25, 2010
Voice over Broadband gaining momentum
More than one in five consumer broadband lines now come with VoIP
Voice over IP is becoming increasingly important to service providers and achieving significant penetration of the consumer market according to the latest figures from leading industry analysts Point Topic.
“Over 22% of consumer broadband lines worldwide now come with a voice over IP service. Passing 100 million subscriptions by the end of 2009 VoIP has continued to grow adding another 12 million subscribers in the first half of 2010,” said Point Topic’s Senior Analyst John Bosnell.
There are some markets now where it is very difficult and not generally cost effective to subscribe to broadband without a VoIP service thrown in. France Telecom for example offer one relatively low speed consumer stand-alone broadband subscription but a wide range of higher speed bundles.
“France is a stand out example. Fierce competition has been encouraged and ISPs like Free, who only offer bundled services which include VoIP, have helped drive consumer perception towards the expectation of low cost add on services from their ISPs and VoIP is relatively easy and cost effective solution,” said Bosnell.
This trend has meant that over 70% of French households now have a VOIP service available to them and saturation is now a significant factor. Other markets have more headroom.
“China, the largest broadband market, has only one in 20 broadband subscriptions with a VoIP bundle. The US which is currently the largest VoIP market in absolute terms is closing in on one in three mainly due to cable companies offering their customers a voice service based on VoIP. So there’s plenty of headroom there and around the world,” added Bosnell.
At the end of 2009 just under $15 billion a year was being generated by VoIP most often as part of a bundled subscription. This is almost double the revenue generated by Security the next nearest value added service.
“VoIP has come a long way in a short time. It’s attractive to consumers as it is priced very competitively in terms of subscription and call charges. It’s attractive to operators as it’s a straightforward implementation that offers a chance for them to differentiate their services. There’s no reason to believe growth is going to slow significantly until a market reaches saturation and we could reasonably expect to see 200 million subscribers by 2015,” concluded Bosnellb.
- compliments of my Broadband.
Voice over IP is becoming increasingly important to service providers and achieving significant penetration of the consumer market according to the latest figures from leading industry analysts Point Topic.
“Over 22% of consumer broadband lines worldwide now come with a voice over IP service. Passing 100 million subscriptions by the end of 2009 VoIP has continued to grow adding another 12 million subscribers in the first half of 2010,” said Point Topic’s Senior Analyst John Bosnell.
There are some markets now where it is very difficult and not generally cost effective to subscribe to broadband without a VoIP service thrown in. France Telecom for example offer one relatively low speed consumer stand-alone broadband subscription but a wide range of higher speed bundles.
“France is a stand out example. Fierce competition has been encouraged and ISPs like Free, who only offer bundled services which include VoIP, have helped drive consumer perception towards the expectation of low cost add on services from their ISPs and VoIP is relatively easy and cost effective solution,” said Bosnell.
This trend has meant that over 70% of French households now have a VOIP service available to them and saturation is now a significant factor. Other markets have more headroom.
“China, the largest broadband market, has only one in 20 broadband subscriptions with a VoIP bundle. The US which is currently the largest VoIP market in absolute terms is closing in on one in three mainly due to cable companies offering their customers a voice service based on VoIP. So there’s plenty of headroom there and around the world,” added Bosnell.
At the end of 2009 just under $15 billion a year was being generated by VoIP most often as part of a bundled subscription. This is almost double the revenue generated by Security the next nearest value added service.
“VoIP has come a long way in a short time. It’s attractive to consumers as it is priced very competitively in terms of subscription and call charges. It’s attractive to operators as it’s a straightforward implementation that offers a chance for them to differentiate their services. There’s no reason to believe growth is going to slow significantly until a market reaches saturation and we could reasonably expect to see 200 million subscribers by 2015,” concluded Bosnellb.
- compliments of my Broadband.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Trillion Dollar mobile voice and data business
Gartner says mobility will be a trillion dollar business by 2014
Worldwide mobile voice and data revenue will exceed one trillion dollars a year by 2014, according to Gartner.
Mobile will generate revenue from a wide range of additional services such as context, advertising, application and service sales, and so on. Each of these will be a significant business worth several tens of billions of dollars per year.
Gartner analysts outlined the future of the mobile industry at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2010, being held here through today and on 8-11 November in Cannes.
“We see three major eras of mobility,” said Nick Jones, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner.
“The device era was characterised by iconic devices such as the Motorola RAZR and was dominated by device manufacturers. This was followed by the application era which arrived with the iPhone, popularising application and media stores. Going forward, the service and social era will build on the application era, but it will be characterised by cloud services and streaming media. Applications will survive, but often as a component of a more complex end-to-end experience involving the cloud.”
In mature markets, smartphones will dominate device sales for the foreseeable future. However, the dominant mobile device type shipped globally will be feature phones without an identifiable operating system (OS) because emerging markets dominate handset demand.
Organisations operating in emerging markets should assume smartphones will be a niche device beyond 2014.
Many new device types such as tablets and e-book readers will emerge through 2012 and some will find a role in corporations.
However, none will achieve a market share comparable to smartphones or laptops, which will remain the dominant corporate mobile devices. Mobile knowledge workers will require both a PC and a smartphone through 2014.
The smartphone platform space is very competitive, and the leaders will change through 2014 with Symbian is losing share to Android and iPhone OS (iOS). Android is gaining ground fast and will appear on consumer electronics and non-handset devices such as tablets.
“As the platform wars rage, a variety of new tools are becoming ‘platforms’ in the sense that they provide a user experience and framework for delivering applications,” Mr Jones said.
“These include the mobile Web, where HTML5 will be very influential, OS independent ‘platforms’ such as Flash, and scriptable tools such as augmented reality browsers and mapping systems. In the long term, some will be absorbed into the OS or browser.”
Gartner said that context will be a defining principle of mobile business for the next decade. It will play a key role in many areas of mobile business, especially advertising and marketing.
“In 2010, we are seeing the beginning of simple context using location to suggest interests and to guide searching,” Mr Jones said.
“Context will also be a key criteria for the selection of partners. Many mobile business systems will exploit contextual cloud services hosted by others. It will also be a major commercial battleground with powerful vendors such as Nokia, Google, and Apple striving to own the consumer’s context. Context will also be bound up with social relationships and social networks, illustrated today by services such as location-tagged posts to Facebook and Twitter.”
Mr Jones advised organisations to develop a high-level mobile strategy based on technology-independent management goals and styles, rather than detailed device, platform or application policies.
Traditional mobile strategies were designed to support well-defined requirements with devices, applications and services provided and managed by IT professionals. Requirements of this type will persist, but it will not form the majority of corporate mobility by 2015 because of changes in user requirements, technology, and the nature of work itself.
- compliments of My Broadband
Worldwide mobile voice and data revenue will exceed one trillion dollars a year by 2014, according to Gartner.
Mobile will generate revenue from a wide range of additional services such as context, advertising, application and service sales, and so on. Each of these will be a significant business worth several tens of billions of dollars per year.
Gartner analysts outlined the future of the mobile industry at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2010, being held here through today and on 8-11 November in Cannes.
“We see three major eras of mobility,” said Nick Jones, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner.
“The device era was characterised by iconic devices such as the Motorola RAZR and was dominated by device manufacturers. This was followed by the application era which arrived with the iPhone, popularising application and media stores. Going forward, the service and social era will build on the application era, but it will be characterised by cloud services and streaming media. Applications will survive, but often as a component of a more complex end-to-end experience involving the cloud.”
In mature markets, smartphones will dominate device sales for the foreseeable future. However, the dominant mobile device type shipped globally will be feature phones without an identifiable operating system (OS) because emerging markets dominate handset demand.
Organisations operating in emerging markets should assume smartphones will be a niche device beyond 2014.
Many new device types such as tablets and e-book readers will emerge through 2012 and some will find a role in corporations.
However, none will achieve a market share comparable to smartphones or laptops, which will remain the dominant corporate mobile devices. Mobile knowledge workers will require both a PC and a smartphone through 2014.
The smartphone platform space is very competitive, and the leaders will change through 2014 with Symbian is losing share to Android and iPhone OS (iOS). Android is gaining ground fast and will appear on consumer electronics and non-handset devices such as tablets.
“As the platform wars rage, a variety of new tools are becoming ‘platforms’ in the sense that they provide a user experience and framework for delivering applications,” Mr Jones said.
“These include the mobile Web, where HTML5 will be very influential, OS independent ‘platforms’ such as Flash, and scriptable tools such as augmented reality browsers and mapping systems. In the long term, some will be absorbed into the OS or browser.”
Gartner said that context will be a defining principle of mobile business for the next decade. It will play a key role in many areas of mobile business, especially advertising and marketing.
“In 2010, we are seeing the beginning of simple context using location to suggest interests and to guide searching,” Mr Jones said.
“Context will also be a key criteria for the selection of partners. Many mobile business systems will exploit contextual cloud services hosted by others. It will also be a major commercial battleground with powerful vendors such as Nokia, Google, and Apple striving to own the consumer’s context. Context will also be bound up with social relationships and social networks, illustrated today by services such as location-tagged posts to Facebook and Twitter.”
Mr Jones advised organisations to develop a high-level mobile strategy based on technology-independent management goals and styles, rather than detailed device, platform or application policies.
Traditional mobile strategies were designed to support well-defined requirements with devices, applications and services provided and managed by IT professionals. Requirements of this type will persist, but it will not form the majority of corporate mobility by 2015 because of changes in user requirements, technology, and the nature of work itself.
- compliments of My Broadband
Interconnect regulations ready to go
The telecommunications industry is set for another big shake-up as the Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) commits to publishing the final version of call termination regulations on Friday, 5 November.
The highly contested regulations have been in the pipeline for some time now, as the authority sought to cover all procedural bases. This included opening the draft regulations up to public comment, holding public hearings, and most recently, conducting private meetings with specific players within the industry.
With all these milestones completed, ICASA spokesperson Jubie Matlou says the authority will publish the regulations ahead of its regular meetings with Parliament, which is scheduled for 9 November.
Matlou would not, however, comment on the degree to which the interconnect rates will be cut or over what timeline.
However, regardless of the interconnect rate levels contained in the new regulations, consumers should not get too excited, as it was earlier revealed that a reduced termination rate has no direct impact on retail pricing.
WWW Strategy MD Steven Ambrose explains that there was never any correlation between the interconnect and the cost of cellular calls, and the Department of Communications was simply being populist in its advocacy of having these cuts in the name of lower telecommunication costs.
The only real impact of rate cuts would be on off-net costs, which will, in turn create competition, eventually resulting in consumer savings, but this is still years away.
The proposed regulations have been met with mixed reaction from industry, as smaller players advocate for increased competition, while bigger players argue that the proposed cuts are too drastic.
Mobile operators will have the most to lose if the proposed regulations are passed, as they are, into final format, since they will be forced to drop the interconnect rate by 50% this year alone, including a voluntary rate cut from R1.25 a minute to 89 cents, in March.
Further to the voluntary cuts, the draft regulations proposed that the rate again be cut to 65c, in July, with a glide path leading to 40c by July 2012.
However, the July reduction was delayed after mobile operators voiced their concerns at public hearings, arguing that the proposed glide path was far too drastic and would likely shock existing business models.
It is not yet known whether the authority will heed these concerns or if it will still enforce the rate cut to 65c a minute this year. The latter option, however, has been met with much resistance from industry.
During its last interim results presentation, Vodacom reported close to R400 million in lost revenue, due to lower mobile termination rates, which is why the operator has been opposed to yet another cut this year.
At the time of the hearings, Vodacom MD Shameel Joosub noted: “The proposed glide path is steep and unprecedented, to such a striking degree that, if not modified, the shock to existing business models will be devastating.”
Joosub explained that an eco-system exists around the current mobile termination rates, noting that further cuts this year do not create space for business plans or planned capital expenditure programmes to be revisited.
MTN echoed these concerns and pointed to the effects of the voluntary rate cut in March, which resulted in a 30% reduction in the company's 2010 capex, resulting in MTN cutting jobs and seeing an impact on its channel.
ICASA hit back at the time, arguing that a regulator is not compelled to offer a glide period; however, this structured approach is to offer the industry time to adjust and compete in the new environment.
The regulator pointed out that mobile operators are suggesting that the regulator, in effect, delay the proposed consumer benefit for four years.
- compliments of ITWeb
The highly contested regulations have been in the pipeline for some time now, as the authority sought to cover all procedural bases. This included opening the draft regulations up to public comment, holding public hearings, and most recently, conducting private meetings with specific players within the industry.
With all these milestones completed, ICASA spokesperson Jubie Matlou says the authority will publish the regulations ahead of its regular meetings with Parliament, which is scheduled for 9 November.
Matlou would not, however, comment on the degree to which the interconnect rates will be cut or over what timeline.
However, regardless of the interconnect rate levels contained in the new regulations, consumers should not get too excited, as it was earlier revealed that a reduced termination rate has no direct impact on retail pricing.
WWW Strategy MD Steven Ambrose explains that there was never any correlation between the interconnect and the cost of cellular calls, and the Department of Communications was simply being populist in its advocacy of having these cuts in the name of lower telecommunication costs.
The only real impact of rate cuts would be on off-net costs, which will, in turn create competition, eventually resulting in consumer savings, but this is still years away.
The proposed regulations have been met with mixed reaction from industry, as smaller players advocate for increased competition, while bigger players argue that the proposed cuts are too drastic.
Further to the voluntary cuts, the draft regulations proposed that the rate again be cut to 65c, in July, with a glide path leading to 40c by July 2012.
However, the July reduction was delayed after mobile operators voiced their concerns at public hearings, arguing that the proposed glide path was far too drastic and would likely shock existing business models.
It is not yet known whether the authority will heed these concerns or if it will still enforce the rate cut to 65c a minute this year. The latter option, however, has been met with much resistance from industry.
At the time of the hearings, Vodacom MD Shameel Joosub noted: “The proposed glide path is steep and unprecedented, to such a striking degree that, if not modified, the shock to existing business models will be devastating.”
Joosub explained that an eco-system exists around the current mobile termination rates, noting that further cuts this year do not create space for business plans or planned capital expenditure programmes to be revisited.
MTN echoed these concerns and pointed to the effects of the voluntary rate cut in March, which resulted in a 30% reduction in the company's 2010 capex, resulting in MTN cutting jobs and seeing an impact on its channel.
ICASA hit back at the time, arguing that a regulator is not compelled to offer a glide period; however, this structured approach is to offer the industry time to adjust and compete in the new environment.
The regulator pointed out that mobile operators are suggesting that the regulator, in effect, delay the proposed consumer benefit for four years.
- compliments of ITWeb
Monday, October 18, 2010
Welcome SA's 4th Mobile Operator! 8ta powered by Telkom: Pricing and other details
Telkom today launched the country’s fourth mobile operator, 8ta. Here are all the details on pricing, speeds and more.
South Africa’s cellular market tonight welcomed its fourth mobile operator, 8ta. 8ta is ‘powered by Telkom’ and was commonly known as Telkom Mobile before the launch tonight.
Telkom is confident that 8ta will make waves in the local mobile space, and the company’s executives claimed their services will be regarded in South Africa as the one that will “get people to talk more.”
Managing Executive of Telkom Mobile (branded as 8ta), Amith Maharaj, said “We will provide the platform for South Africans to communicate more. I’m not exaggerating when I say that this is the start of a new era in mobile phone communication in South Africa. Consumers will at last have a real choice.”
Maharaj promised that 8ta products would offer more value than any other network provider. “For the first time in South Africa, all prepaid customers will benefit from free talk time to any network every time they receive calls from a mobile phone – 1 free second of airtime for every 3 seconds of call received,” said Maharaj.
Telkom Group Acting CEO Jeffrey Hedberg said the launch of 8ta was a watershed event. “We are able to mobilise the reliability of fixed-line and the agility of mobile to provide products that South African people really want.”
8ta said that consumers can expect the following from the company:
1.At launch, 1 pre-paid voice and 1 pre-paid data offering.
2.Ultimately, 2 pre-paid, 4 post-paid and 3 data offers, vs. hundreds of options from competitors.
3.Same on-net and off-net rates on pre-paid.
4.No hidden costs - simple and transparent pricing.
The network 8ta has constructed 800 base stations across the country, and plans to construct a further 3 200 base stations over time to improve coverage and connectivity. Whilst 8ta is still growing its network the operator will have full national coverage, given their roaming agreement with MTN.
The Radio Access Network supports HSPA and is configured for downlink speeds up to 7.2Mbps and can be provisioned to support download speeds of up to 21Mbps. In addition, the network hardware that is deployed allows for a seamless migration to LTE.
A further advantage of the selected dualband network infrastructure is the significant power efficiency realised over other legacy systems (30% improvement). This translates into a very cost effective, sustainable and environmentally friendly network deployment.
The network architecture deployed is a fully IP based network from base station to core. It allows maximum efficiency of the back-haul while providing the relevant prioritisation of mobile service flows, translating into a better quality of service and overall experience for the customer.
“The 8ta network aims to further differentiate itself from its competitors by offering services never before seen in South Africa. In support of this the Core, Applications and Services network makes use of cutting edge technology that is IP based which enables flexible, and innovative capabilities that provide 8ta the ability to quickly introduce new services to the market,” said 8ta.
Voice pricing
According to 8ta calls from them to fixed line will cost 60 % less than typical market rates for similar calls. Calls from an 8ta mobile phone to both Telkom and Neotel fixed lines will be priced at 65c per minute, independent of the time of the call (hence no peak and off-peak rates).
There will also be a flat rate of R2.50 per minute for calls from an 8ta mobile phone to over 100 international destinations.
Mobile to mobile calls will be charged at R1.50 per minute independent of which network is called or which time of the day the call is made.
Users will further be rewarded for receiving calls by getting one second of talk time free for every three seconds which they spend on the phone when someone calls them on their 8ta number.
SMS and MMS
Both SMSs and MMSs are priced at 50c each, but 8ta subscribers will also get 50 bonus SMSs at no extra cost to use that same day if they send 5 SMSs per day.
Data costs
8ta prepaid internet customers will get an out-of-bundle rate of R1 per megabyte, while prepaid data bundles can be purchased for as low as 25c per megabyte.
The prepaid data bundles which will be available at launch are:
1.100 MB for R50.
2.250 MB for R100.
3.500 MB for R150.
4.1 GB for R250.
The prepaid data bundles purchased in a certain month will last until the end of the following calendar month. Real time billing also comes standard, both for prepaid and future contract customers, 8ta pointed out.
Availability and future plans
8ta will initially only offer prepaid services through a countrywide sales network that includes the major consumer retailers and mobile wholesalers, as well as 132 Telkom Direct outlets across South Africa and the 8ta flagship stores. “At launch we will be available at Edgars, Jet, CNA, Altech, and Smartcall. Other large retailers, such as Shoprite and Pick ‘n Pay, will be rapidly brought on stream shortly,” 8ta said.
8ta said that they plan to introduce several tiers of devices - low-end, feature phones and smartphones from all the major manufacturers.
8ta said they have plans to bring Android and Blackberry to the market by the end of the year, and are actively working on the plan for an iPhone introduction with their channel partners.
Postpaid 8ta services will be made available in November.
Questions about 8ta? See the 8ta FAQs here: http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php/276090-8ta-FAQs
- courtesy of My Broadband [url=http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php/276090-8ta-FAQs][/url]
South Africa’s cellular market tonight welcomed its fourth mobile operator, 8ta. 8ta is ‘powered by Telkom’ and was commonly known as Telkom Mobile before the launch tonight.
Telkom is confident that 8ta will make waves in the local mobile space, and the company’s executives claimed their services will be regarded in South Africa as the one that will “get people to talk more.”
Managing Executive of Telkom Mobile (branded as 8ta), Amith Maharaj, said “We will provide the platform for South Africans to communicate more. I’m not exaggerating when I say that this is the start of a new era in mobile phone communication in South Africa. Consumers will at last have a real choice.”
Maharaj promised that 8ta products would offer more value than any other network provider. “For the first time in South Africa, all prepaid customers will benefit from free talk time to any network every time they receive calls from a mobile phone – 1 free second of airtime for every 3 seconds of call received,” said Maharaj.
Telkom Group Acting CEO Jeffrey Hedberg said the launch of 8ta was a watershed event. “We are able to mobilise the reliability of fixed-line and the agility of mobile to provide products that South African people really want.”
8ta said that consumers can expect the following from the company:
1.At launch, 1 pre-paid voice and 1 pre-paid data offering.
2.Ultimately, 2 pre-paid, 4 post-paid and 3 data offers, vs. hundreds of options from competitors.
3.Same on-net and off-net rates on pre-paid.
4.No hidden costs - simple and transparent pricing.
The network 8ta has constructed 800 base stations across the country, and plans to construct a further 3 200 base stations over time to improve coverage and connectivity. Whilst 8ta is still growing its network the operator will have full national coverage, given their roaming agreement with MTN.
The Radio Access Network supports HSPA and is configured for downlink speeds up to 7.2Mbps and can be provisioned to support download speeds of up to 21Mbps. In addition, the network hardware that is deployed allows for a seamless migration to LTE.
A further advantage of the selected dualband network infrastructure is the significant power efficiency realised over other legacy systems (30% improvement). This translates into a very cost effective, sustainable and environmentally friendly network deployment.
The network architecture deployed is a fully IP based network from base station to core. It allows maximum efficiency of the back-haul while providing the relevant prioritisation of mobile service flows, translating into a better quality of service and overall experience for the customer.
“The 8ta network aims to further differentiate itself from its competitors by offering services never before seen in South Africa. In support of this the Core, Applications and Services network makes use of cutting edge technology that is IP based which enables flexible, and innovative capabilities that provide 8ta the ability to quickly introduce new services to the market,” said 8ta.
Voice pricing
According to 8ta calls from them to fixed line will cost 60 % less than typical market rates for similar calls. Calls from an 8ta mobile phone to both Telkom and Neotel fixed lines will be priced at 65c per minute, independent of the time of the call (hence no peak and off-peak rates).
There will also be a flat rate of R2.50 per minute for calls from an 8ta mobile phone to over 100 international destinations.
Mobile to mobile calls will be charged at R1.50 per minute independent of which network is called or which time of the day the call is made.
Users will further be rewarded for receiving calls by getting one second of talk time free for every three seconds which they spend on the phone when someone calls them on their 8ta number.
SMS and MMS
Both SMSs and MMSs are priced at 50c each, but 8ta subscribers will also get 50 bonus SMSs at no extra cost to use that same day if they send 5 SMSs per day.
Data costs
8ta prepaid internet customers will get an out-of-bundle rate of R1 per megabyte, while prepaid data bundles can be purchased for as low as 25c per megabyte.
The prepaid data bundles which will be available at launch are:
1.100 MB for R50.
2.250 MB for R100.
3.500 MB for R150.
4.1 GB for R250.
The prepaid data bundles purchased in a certain month will last until the end of the following calendar month. Real time billing also comes standard, both for prepaid and future contract customers, 8ta pointed out.
Availability and future plans
8ta will initially only offer prepaid services through a countrywide sales network that includes the major consumer retailers and mobile wholesalers, as well as 132 Telkom Direct outlets across South Africa and the 8ta flagship stores. “At launch we will be available at Edgars, Jet, CNA, Altech, and Smartcall. Other large retailers, such as Shoprite and Pick ‘n Pay, will be rapidly brought on stream shortly,” 8ta said.
8ta said that they plan to introduce several tiers of devices - low-end, feature phones and smartphones from all the major manufacturers.
8ta said they have plans to bring Android and Blackberry to the market by the end of the year, and are actively working on the plan for an iPhone introduction with their channel partners.
Postpaid 8ta services will be made available in November.
Questions about 8ta? See the 8ta FAQs here: http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php/276090-8ta-FAQs
- courtesy of My Broadband [url=http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php/276090-8ta-FAQs][/url]
Monday, October 11, 2010
WhichVoIP* Provider do you think is most competitive?
Of all the VoIP Providers in South Africa, which do you think has a compelling and sustainable Business model, and is most competitive, not only in price, but effective in Market awereness, Coverage, Services and Value Add Applications?
Most of the Group users either represent the respective VoIP providers or are resellers of VoIP services. Why dont you share your experiences with the other members on what you consider to be your (VoIP Providers) competitive advantage?
If you are a VoIP provider trying to benchmark your services, or a reseller of these services in which case your customers are reliant on you to guide them in partnering with a provider that best suits their business, why dont you click on the link provided below. WhichVoIP.co.za is a repository for all things VoIP, and the main function is to extract (free or paid) Research Reports on Most of the VoIP providers out there today.
Reports include:-
• Provider Profile, BEE Credentials, Competitive Advantage, Estimated number of users
• Value Added Features & Functionality offered with their Packages
• Billing Access, Cost Saving Tools, and Payment Options
• Extended Call Costs to include Inbound Rebates, Off-Net VoIP and cost to call from a Telkom landline and Mobile Network
• Interconnect details, VoIP protocols and codecs, Providers view on Quality of Service, preferred method of connectivity, Implementation pre-requisites, and much more…
http://www.whichvoip.co.za/, go for it.
Most of the Group users either represent the respective VoIP providers or are resellers of VoIP services. Why dont you share your experiences with the other members on what you consider to be your (VoIP Providers) competitive advantage?
If you are a VoIP provider trying to benchmark your services, or a reseller of these services in which case your customers are reliant on you to guide them in partnering with a provider that best suits their business, why dont you click on the link provided below. WhichVoIP.co.za is a repository for all things VoIP, and the main function is to extract (free or paid) Research Reports on Most of the VoIP providers out there today.
Reports include:-
• Provider Profile, BEE Credentials, Competitive Advantage, Estimated number of users
• Value Added Features & Functionality offered with their Packages
• Billing Access, Cost Saving Tools, and Payment Options
• Extended Call Costs to include Inbound Rebates, Off-Net VoIP and cost to call from a Telkom landline and Mobile Network
• Interconnect details, VoIP protocols and codecs, Providers view on Quality of Service, preferred method of connectivity, Implementation pre-requisites, and much more…
http://www.whichvoip.co.za/, go for it.
Friday, October 1, 2010
Who is your VoIP Carrier?
Seeing that there are so many providers out there... wait, actually there arent many - it just appears that way doesn't it. The reason for this is that many of the Carrier providers offer their VoIP service on a wholesale model which allows their partners to whitelabel or rebrand the service as their own.
Whilst there are Pro's and Con's for this model, the biggest question is where the level of accountability resides? As I am writing this a few names come to mind (ICtel, OpenVoice, Sky-Connect, Storm) some were Carriers, some Wholesalers, all of which were involved in the earlier days of VoIP.
In todays market it's about differentiation, and I think Carrier providers rely on their Wholesalers to come up with different models and marketing stints with the hope of attracting more traffic - afterall the Carrier is really after the minutes.
In a Market like that, you are bound to see many (wholesalers, resellers) come and go.
Tier 1 Service Providers are limited, and naturally; backing those horses will ensure some level of continuity (VoIP numbers, hardware, access).
So what am I on about?
Have a VoIP number and want to know who the Carrier is? Maybe you're an End User and are struggling to get support from your Reseller or Wholesaler?
WhichVoIP.co.za is a repository for all things VoIP in South Africa, and offers users the ability to query a VoIP Carrier by inserting your VoIP number. The results are instant, and once you know who the provider is, you can visit the VoIP Directory and get in contact with them, or another Service Partner who can assist you with your enquiries.
Whilst there are Pro's and Con's for this model, the biggest question is where the level of accountability resides? As I am writing this a few names come to mind (ICtel, OpenVoice, Sky-Connect, Storm) some were Carriers, some Wholesalers, all of which were involved in the earlier days of VoIP.
In todays market it's about differentiation, and I think Carrier providers rely on their Wholesalers to come up with different models and marketing stints with the hope of attracting more traffic - afterall the Carrier is really after the minutes.
In a Market like that, you are bound to see many (wholesalers, resellers) come and go.
Tier 1 Service Providers are limited, and naturally; backing those horses will ensure some level of continuity (VoIP numbers, hardware, access).
So what am I on about?
Have a VoIP number and want to know who the Carrier is? Maybe you're an End User and are struggling to get support from your Reseller or Wholesaler?
WhichVoIP.co.za is a repository for all things VoIP in South Africa, and offers users the ability to query a VoIP Carrier by inserting your VoIP number. The results are instant, and once you know who the provider is, you can visit the VoIP Directory and get in contact with them, or another Service Partner who can assist you with your enquiries.
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