Broadband prices plummeted over the last decade, but the same cannot be said for many other products. Rudolph Muller from www.mybroadband.co.za investigated and stumbled upon a few interesting numbers.
ADSL and mobile data prices have plunged over the last decade. The total cost of an ADSL service dropped by over 50% since it was launched in 2002 while mobile data costs decreased by 96% over the last 10 years.
In 2002 a basic 512 Kbps ADSL service cost residential customers R966.72 per month (R67.72 for analogue line rental, R680 for ADSL access and R219 for a 3GB data bundle). In comparison, the price for a 384kbps connection with 5GB of data is now priced at R358.97 (R219.00 + R139.97).
Even more significant price cuts are visible in the mobile data market. In 2002 a 10MB data bundle from Vodacom cost R200 (hence R20 per MB). Today users can buy a 1GB data bundle from the same company for R99 (10c per MB).
Broadband prices have seen price cuts of between 50% and 95% over the last decade. These price reductions were partly fuelled by lower international bandwidth prices made possible by SEACOM.
When compared with products such as petrol and food, broadband stands out as having bucked the trend of price increases.
The following table provides an overview of the price changes of a few products over the last 10 years.
| Service | 2002 | 2012 | Change |
|
Telkom ADSL |
|||
| Consumer ADSL access (512kbps/1Mbps) | R680 | R289 | -58% |
| Business ADSL access (512kbps/1Mbps) | R800 | R289 | -64% |
| 3GB of blended ADSL data | R219 | R59.4 | -73% |
| Analogue line rental | R68 | R140 | 107% |
|
Vodacom mobile data |
|||
| Out of bundle | R45 | R2 | -96% |
| MyMeg 10 | R200 | R9 | -96% |
|
MultiChoice pay-TV |
|||
| DStv premium | R349 | R590 | 69% |
|
Fuel |
|||
| Petrol | R4.26 | R11.77 | 176% |
|
Big Mac |
|||
| McDonald’s Big Mac burger | R9.00 | R20.95 | 133% |
Until now free internet access to the US Library Services’ subscription based electronic resources were managed by a setting in users’ browsers.
Since this morning (Thursday 17 May) a number of e-mails have been delivered into University accounts with a subject line of “USPS Shipment Info for 2351 3200 0122 9268 0611 3688”. The mail contains a cleverly disguised executable disguised as a web page or a document that when clicked or opened (the attachment) will modify the security settings in your Internet Explorer browser settings to allow criminals to gain access or control to your computer. If you get any mail with these sort of characteristics (often disguised as a USPS, UPS or international postal or courier services notification) please delete or quarantine the file. (Information supplied by David Wiles, Gerga)
The second you connect to the internet you put yourself at risk. Scary thought, but we tend to forget just how vulnerable we are and the easy targets we become when we’re not careful about our safety on the internet.