Sentech 'not capping'

By Damian Clarkson, ITWeb junior journalist

Johannesburg, 22 Jul 2004

Telecoms company Sentech says its strategy of fair usage is there to advise consumers on acceptable download levels and is not a form of capping. However, Sentech says it will cut off users who exceed prescribed bandwidth usage.

Broadband wireless portfolio manager Winston Smith told a media briefing this morning that the company will monitor individual consumer usage, and contact those using excessive amounts of bandwidth, but adds that this does not constitute capping.

"If a consumer is using too much bandwidth, we will contact them about it. If they continue to do so, and we have to contact them frequently, they will be cut off from the service. But this is not capping - it is a fair usage policy."

Smith says the policy is not designed to be restrictive, but rather to benefit all Sentech consumers. "The problem is that 6% of our consumers are using up enough bandwidth for 10 users each, which slows down the service for not only themselves, but for everyone."

According to user information gathered by the company, the average consumer uses approximately 1.2GB per month, while excessive consumers are using up to 90GB per month.

The fair usage policy is not a new development, says Sentech marketing and sales group executive Marcel Raath, and has been part of the company's policy all along. "It has been mentioned in our contracts the whole time, but it seems many people were not aware of this stipulation. Maybe in hindsight we were naive in not setting up a clear scope for bandwidth usage, but we are now implementing a media awareness to solve this issue."

Sentech marketing GM Michelle Potgieter adds that the company has suffered from negative coverage in the media. "It seems to me like the press is out in full force, and has only focused on the negative, specifically the 'mywirelesssucks' sites, and has taken no notice of the positive things going on with the company," she says.

"Every company receives a degree of negative feedback, but there are ways and means of dealing with it. People must remember that our product is new, and as such we are dealing with certain growing pains."

Raath says the majority of consumers are actually happy with the service being offered. "It is only a few people complaining, but they have been very vociferous. We have placed these people on a 'baddie' list, and we monitor them separately. We have phoned many of our customers and most were happy with our service."

Raath adds that the criticism received is being put to good use. "We value positive criticism, and some of it is being used to improve our service. We actually appreciate it."