Broadband, head-to-head

The South African Institute of Electrical Engineers (SAIEE) brought the five leading fixed and mobile broadband providers together in a "Broadband Shootout" this week.

The shootout was aimed at informing the public about current and future options, says SAIEE president Bea Lacquet. It involved MTN, Sentech, Telkom, Vodacom and Wireless Business Solutions (WBS).

"While broadband is used by millions of people around the world, SA has lagged in the adoption of fixed broadband technology. However, this is speeding up now with wireless, wireline, 3G mobile and other mobile services on offer," says Lacquet.

All the representatives of the broadband providers agreed broadband uptake is increasing, and with these increases, the prices of broadband would come down.

The relationship is one of economies of scale: "the more users, the less it costs", says Brian Seligmann, MTN senior manager of product management.

[VIDEO]The MTN Y'ello 3G offering was launched six months after its main rival, Vodacom, offered its 3G offering.

MTN was waiting for 3G uptake to reach critical mass, says Seligmann. This occurred during the massive 3G adoption in 2004.

MTN was also waiting for the 3G phones to look more like the 2G phones, he adds.

The MTN broadband offering has bit rates of between 160Kbps and 384Kbps; however, coverage is limited to the main metropolitan areas.

Users are only billed for the data that is transferred.

Seligmann says there are plans for super-3G, which could increase the data uptake to 2Mbps.

Sentech's latest My Wireless offering, Flexi, which was launched in July, includes six packages.

[VIDEO]The packages range from a 200MB cap to 10GB cap, with 24-month contracts priced between R299 and R2 099 a month. Additional MBs can be bought from R1.50 a MB on the 200MB package to R0.20 on the 10GB package, while connection speeds have been fixed to 128Kbps or 256Kbps.

Sentech's coverage sits at 33 base stations in Johannesburg, 11 in Durban, nine in Cape Town and one in Nelspruit. Each base station allows a 5km radius of coverage.

The WBS offering iBurst coverage is limited to the main cities of Johannesburg, Cape Town, Pretoria and Durban and the company has 38 base stations.

WBS offers monthly and 24-month contracts. Monthly contract prices range from R499 to R1 099, with data usage ranging from 1GB to 9GB.

[VIDEO]The 24-month contract starts at R599 a month on the 1GB package, while the 9GB package costs R1 229 a month.

"iBurst intends to do to the Internet what cellphones did to telephony," says Neysen Teckie, head of engineering at WBS.

The next phase for WBS is to get to 2Mbps speeds and then focus on the smaller cities, adds Teckie.

The WBS service was launched in April and it has 10 000 subscribers at present.

Vodacom's 3G package, the Vodafone option, was launched at the end of last year.

The monthly subscription for the 3G package is R599, which allows for 1GB of data retrieval.

Bundled packages range from 2GB to 10GB, with costs ranging from R1 198 to R5 990. Additional data can be bought at R2 per MB.

A few months ago Vodacom launched a bundled package, which includes the 3G card and a laptop, the cost of which is R799 a month over 24 months.

Telkom's recent price cuts are not the last, as "there is only one way prices can go and that is down", says Steven White, Telkom's product development executive.

Telkom has released the 1024 offering, which is a 1Mb service, while the slowest Telkom ADSL offering is the HomeDSL 192 (192Kbps), he notes.

Monthly rentals on the ADSL packages range from R270 to R640, depending on the connectivity speed.