Dear Breedenet Customer

We get a lot of enquiries about the new undersea fiber optic cable from Seacom and what effect this will have on our prices. Although the effect of this new cable will take time to filter through the market, we are already giving savings through to our customers which I will be discussing later in this letter. Please read right to the end because there are instructions on how and when to migrate to different packages.

We had an overwhelming response from our customers after our last letter where we asked for your input.  Apart from the online voting results, we received numerous letters, each of which I tried to answer personally. Most people didn’t want any change to their current contract in terms of speed and quality; instead, most of you indicated that you would prefer to see better pricing.

So, the Good News is that the current contracts offered will stay the same, apart from some additions that I will explain further down. We will also cater for customers who are not that concerned with the speed and priority service, but for whom price is the more important factor. These new contracts on offer also compare favorably with those of other service providers who are very cheap but don’t offer the same quality in terms of speed and reliability.  Remember, all our prices are VAT inclusive when you compare!

We will have 2 Price Categories. For Business : High Speed, High Priority;  and the Budget : Lower Speed, Lower Priority options. The high priority offers will be what you are currently used to, however, you get an extra 1GB Free/Pasella/Mahala/Gratis en Verniet! This excludes the previous Home user R295 package. The new budget options will be cheaper, slower, and priority will be given to the Business options during Office hours.

Business Options:

1. High Speed High Priority during Business Hours.
2. Free youown.co.za or yourown.com domain registration, renewal, webhosting and 10 e-mail addresses on our Hetzner Server worth R110 per month.
3. Free Fax to e-mail number.
4. Hard-capped or soft-capped option.
5. Additional bandwidth top-ups on a 3 month rollover. (Available from October 2009) Available on the hard-capped options only. The price of the top-ups will be between R75/GB and R100/GB depending on the size of the top-up.
6. Additional (out off contract) bandwidth at R100/GB charged at 500mb intervals. Available on the soft-capped options only.
7. Access to after hours Callback support via our 087 550 0380 support number.
8. VOiP Internet Telephony ready.
9. Additional connection from different premises under the same contract at R100/month.

Prices:

Budget Options:

1. Lower Speed Lower Priority during Business Hours.
2. Free Fax to e-mail number
3. Hard-capped or soft-capped option.
4. Additional bandwidth top-ups on a 3 month rollover. (Available from November 2009) Available on the capped options only. The price of the top-ups will be between R75/GB and R100/GB depending on the size of the top-up.
5. Out off contract additional bandwidth at R75/GB. Available on then the uncapped options only.
6. Additional connection under same contract at R150/month.
7. Prepaid option available with a basic monthly connection charge of R150.

Prices:

Some more good news is that in future we will have a reward program for customers who recruit new members in the form of a free 10GB Top-up voucher worth R750!

By now everybody is wondering how all this will work. It is very important that you understand this process so as to make the admin in regards to this as painless as possible.

These changes will take effect from 1 September 2009. The invoices with the new packages will be sent out on 21 August 2009 including billing for any excess usage in August. We will assume that everybody prefers to stay on their current package unless they communicate with us, in writing, before 18 August to request migrating to another package. Any request received later than this date will have to stand over to the next month’s billing cycle.

Please contact us if you have any questions or comments.

Regards

Dolf and the Breedenet team.

Hard-Capped: This is a Fixed Limit on a client's usage as per the Agreement with Breedenet . When the client reaches his limit for any given month, his internet connection will be disconnected at that particular point, until the expiration of that month. A top-up can be purchased prior to the cut-off limit which will extend the usage until the end of the month when the new month’s quota kicks in. The remainder of the top-up can then be spread over the next 2 months to allow for any further excess usage. Under this option the client manages his own bandwidth resulting in lower administration costs.
Soft-Capped: The client doesn't get cut off when he reaches his usage limit, but pays for all excess usage in 500mb increments. The price per megabyte is higher because of the higher administration cost. Here the client must also specify what his limit must be in case there is a problem and he uses excessive bandwidth. It stays the client’s responsibility to manage and monitor his own bandwidth usage.