Telkom cuts data rates

By Candice Jones for Telkom

Johannesburg, 09 Jun 2009

Telkom is stepping up its game in the data market by cutting out-of-bundle rates of local bandwidth.

The company has sent a notice to its TelkomInternet customers saying that, from the beginning of this month, rates for local data will be cut from R25.55 per GB to R15 per GB.

The company recently incorporated a free local bandwidth campaign, where customers who buy into the Internet package receive around 10 times the capacity in local bandwidth. The new pricing structure for out-of-bundle local data is for customers who overstep their cap.

Internet Solutions' bandwidth offer starts at R15 and Axxess DSL charges R10 for local bandwidth.

In 2006, the Independent Communications Authority of SA released regulations stipulating local access should not be capped. However, none of the local service providers adhere to this.

However, Telkom's free local bandwidth solution provides between 10GB and 40GB of free local access, depending on the package customers buy.

“Due to a regulatory change, we are required to change our current products to include local data. In essence, the regulatory requirement stipulated we are not allowed to cap our users on local data,” Telkom explained in its notice to customers.

This time last year, Telkom applied to have a 2.4% tariff increase across the spectrum of its products. This is the first real price cut its customers have seen in some time.