Absa announces preferred ISPs

Johannesburg, 03 Dec 2001

Absa has delivered on its promise to negotiate special deals with South African ISPs for users of its free Internet offering who are not Absa customers and will soon be dropped from the bank`s service.

The deals on offer come from M-Web, Telkom and ICL. Notably missing from the ISPs listed by Absa is World Online, which sent a mail entitled "No E-mail, No Internet?" to Absa Freemail users last month without Absa`s permission.

"They`re a little upset with us," admits Graeme Victor, MD of World Online, whose e-mail to Absa clients contained the cheeky slogan: "Today, tomorrow, forever."

Of Absa-vetted ISPs, ICL comes in cheapest at R59 a month, Telkom for R79 a month, and M-Web is the most expensive at R119 per month. "Services will vary according to price," says Absa. ICL`s offering will use the Internet Solutions infrastructure, costing ICL a purported R30 a month, leaving the company R29 per user a month to supply a support infrastructure.

"I`m not sure they`ve thought this through," says Victor, who believes that the support will cost ICL more than it is charging subscribers. ICL was contacted by ITWeb but had not responded by time of publication.

Current users that are not Absa clients will still be able to use their accounts until 1 March 2002, following the recommendations by Absa`s e-business Task Team. The bank will not accept new subscriptions over December, apparently because it needs to "facilitate the data verification process for existing subscribers".

The Task Team will continue to review free Internet access on a regular basis and will make further recommendations regarding the roll-out of future Internet access and online banking value offerings by the end of May next year.