[NMMC] Rudolf Muller

Rudolf opens up by telling us that South African users need freedom to browse Internet without worrying about time and costs

He also shared the story of how the new logo for his website was developed: after spending hundreds of dollars to have it professionally designed, his users revolted and demanded he change it. Now the users developed the new logo for the site. So npw, the community tell us what they want, what they like. Communities are powerful, and they must be listened to. A conversation with your community is no longer a luxury.

Current State of SA Broadband

There are 1 million broadband connections in South Africa. (Note: connections, not users!)

Rudolf predicts that this year HSDPA growth will overtake ADSL growth. Right now, Telkom has 420 000 ADSL connections, Vodacom has 370,000 on 3G and MTN has 120,000 3G connections.

Vodacom and MTN are showing fastest growth in this area.

There are already more HSDPA users than ADSL users.

Internationally, 98% of all broadband connections are fixed line. In SAfrica, this is not true: we tend to wireless. (This is because ADSL is expensive and difficult to get).

The characteristics of International usage:

• affordable
• unlimited usage
• high speed
• high speed ADSl
• dial up is expensive

The characteristics of Safrican usage:

• dial up popular
• restrictive caps
• average to slow speed
• wireless is very popular

Some international scenarios:

In Asia, 100Mbps is standard, going up to 1Gig. In fact, one ISP in Hong Kong offers FREE dvd movies (latest releases). The catch? You only have 17 minutes to download the movie, so you need to sign up for a fast connection.

In Europe, you can get 20Mbps connection, free international calls to 26 countries, cable, all for under R200.

ADSL is considered a slow option overseas. People want fibre.

South Africa vs Morocco

South Africa has GDP per capita of $13,300 vs $4,600 in Morocco, but Morocco has a 20% Internet usage penetration, versus about 10% for South Africa. Why? In a nutshell, the slowest Internet connection that Telkom offers is 10,866% more expensive than the equivalent.

In the SAfrican market, if you take speed and usage into account, Vodacom offers the cheapest solution. if you just look at usage, the iBurst has cheapest offering.

The good news is that coverage can only get better. Big and small online players are starting to make money, because growth is unavoidable and inevitable. it is happening already.

How does the high-enf connection evolution happen?

1. Always on, high speed connections become available
2. Higher speeds
3. Initial bundled packages for broadband connection, voice and content
4. More enhanced bundled packages, flat rate
5. Triple play packages, bundling mobile

South Africa is at #2 and 3

What to expect from Neotel?

• High speed internet, voice and sms bundles
• Won’t be able to buy just broadband connection, only bundles
• Expect higher usage limit

Where to now?

• Expect 2 million broadband connection by 2010
• Wimax is a big mess in Australia
• HDSPA will move up to 100Mbps by 2010

Why should you care?

• Massive opportunities in e-commerce and online space
• Many companies are already doing great business
• online revolution has already started in South Africa

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