Internet service providers see red

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Published Apr 20, 2011

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There’s just something about the colour red. It’s sexy, dramatic, intense – all the things other colours wish they were. And if the marketing maniacs who work for Vodacom and WebAfrica have their way, it will also be the colour of… well, bandwidth. Or at least the colour you associate bandwidth with.

Earlier this month, Vodacom rebranded and ended up rather red-faced.Literally. Then Cell C, unsurprisingly, launched an anti-red ad campaign where Trevor Noah basically says: “Okay, so you’ve repainted but what’s under the hood? Same old broken parts?”

Turns out Vodacom hasn’t announced any major changes, save to promise great new features and upgrades. We shall see.

Anyway, while Trevor Noah was chuckling to himself at his own cleverness, an ageing service provider with a bad back (Web-Africa) saw the ‘red’ idea and instinctively knew that the colour would be their saving grace.

Or as WebAfrica CEO Matthew Tagg puts it: “We had an extensive look at the industry and concluded red must be the way of the future. Our previous branding is unsustainable in comparison, so we have decided to join the ‘redvolution’.”

So far, it looks like they were right. They changed their name to RedAfrica, rebranded, upgraded their services and threw in a few catchy specials that actually sound good.

Now there are a lot of service providers out there, and more to come, so if you’re going to go to RedAfrica, they should at least offer something others don’t. So here’s what I liked:

l An inclusive package that includes a DSL line so you don’t have to deal with Telkom (that’s a winning option);

l Doubled bandwidth from midnight to 6am every night – which effectively means you’ll get hundreds of MBs free;

l Unlimited free bandwidth from select servers and FTP sites – what this means is that some sites will not require or use up any of your bandwidth. Usually it’s the Home Page or Client Zone, but RedAfrica promises free gaming and entertainment content;

l Access to high-speed internet from under R500 a month. (okay, it’s R500 for 5GB, which is not a lot, but the 10GB option is only R599, which is not bad;

l Free transfer and 1GB free if you switch to them.

Not too shabby, really. I spoke to a former Web-Africa client, who said, “I joined them initially because they were cheap, but then they suddenly almost doubled their prices, so I moved on to Afrihost.”

When I presented him with the new look RedAfrica and pointed out the changes and cheaper prices, he said, “I would be impressed enough to move over if they threw in some free GBs. It’s all about price for me because ultimately ADSL is ADSL, and in our country speeds are not that great anyway. But the service is good at RebAfrica.” - Sunday Independent

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