QUOTE
At the recent Telkom analyst day, Telkom’s Steven Hayward said that the fixed line provider has a soft cap, adding that they have not switched off any customers who exceeded their caps.
When asked whether the low usage limits, or caps, associated with ADSL are not at odds with Telkom’s intension of providing media rich content to their broadband subscribers, Steven Hayward, Managing Executive for Retail and Marketing at Telkom, made some dubious statement about the incumbent’s capping policies.
“We don’t have a hard cap on it, we have what we call a soft cap,” said Hayward. He further stated that “…in fact, we have not switched off any customers as long back as I can recall. So we don’t switch them off.”
Hayward further said that when a customer goes ‘way over’ the allotted usage limit that Telkom phones the customer, informs them about their high usage and then tells them that they have to pay extra to use this service.
These statements are however not in line with previous statements from Telkom or with TelkomInternet subscribers’ experiences. While Telkom does have a relaxed capping policy, TelkomInternet’s Rikus Matthyser clearly stated in 2006 that they “definitely hard cap users after the monthly threshold is reached”.
Telkom’s Lulu Letlape, Group Executive for Corporate Communication, reaffirmed Matthyser’s words saying that “…a service may be discontinued once the average usage for all subscribers has been reached.”
The last bit of proof comes from the TelkomInternet subscribers themselves who on a monthly basis report being capped without ever having received a phonecall from Telkom.
It is interesting to note that Telkom used to have a soft cap pre November 2005 where users were allowed unlimited local usage after reaching their limit, but that fell away when per-Gig billing was introduced.
It is not clear whether Hayward made these statements due to a lack of knowledge, poor communication within Telkom or another reason, but in a broadband environment where users are severely restricted these types of statements are a bitter pill for local users to swallow.
Trialing a soft-cap
Recent feedback from Telkom however suggests that they are trialing a soft-cap service where users exceeding their monthly allowance will still receive limited access to the Internet.
“Since December 2006 TelkomInternet has been trialing restrictive access versus hard capping. In the event when subscribers will be hard capped, we now will leave them online in order to send and receive emails, among other benefits,” said Letlape.
Comments
Listen to Steven Hayward’s Capping Discussion: http://mydrive.co.za/uploads/Steven_Haywar...om_ADSL_Cap.mp3
When asked whether the low usage limits, or caps, associated with ADSL are not at odds with Telkom’s intension of providing media rich content to their broadband subscribers, Steven Hayward, Managing Executive for Retail and Marketing at Telkom, made some dubious statement about the incumbent’s capping policies.
“We don’t have a hard cap on it, we have what we call a soft cap,” said Hayward. He further stated that “…in fact, we have not switched off any customers as long back as I can recall. So we don’t switch them off.”
Hayward further said that when a customer goes ‘way over’ the allotted usage limit that Telkom phones the customer, informs them about their high usage and then tells them that they have to pay extra to use this service.
These statements are however not in line with previous statements from Telkom or with TelkomInternet subscribers’ experiences. While Telkom does have a relaxed capping policy, TelkomInternet’s Rikus Matthyser clearly stated in 2006 that they “definitely hard cap users after the monthly threshold is reached”.
Telkom’s Lulu Letlape, Group Executive for Corporate Communication, reaffirmed Matthyser’s words saying that “…a service may be discontinued once the average usage for all subscribers has been reached.”
The last bit of proof comes from the TelkomInternet subscribers themselves who on a monthly basis report being capped without ever having received a phonecall from Telkom.
It is interesting to note that Telkom used to have a soft cap pre November 2005 where users were allowed unlimited local usage after reaching their limit, but that fell away when per-Gig billing was introduced.
It is not clear whether Hayward made these statements due to a lack of knowledge, poor communication within Telkom or another reason, but in a broadband environment where users are severely restricted these types of statements are a bitter pill for local users to swallow.
Trialing a soft-cap
Recent feedback from Telkom however suggests that they are trialing a soft-cap service where users exceeding their monthly allowance will still receive limited access to the Internet.
“Since December 2006 TelkomInternet has been trialing restrictive access versus hard capping. In the event when subscribers will be hard capped, we now will leave them online in order to send and receive emails, among other benefits,” said Letlape.
Comments
Listen to Steven Hayward’s Capping Discussion: http://mydrive.co.za/uploads/Steven_Haywar...om_ADSL_Cap.mp3
MyBroadband.co.za
I think we need to 
teleskum and show them what WE as the consumer thinks of their shitty ways!