Hi guys,
I can pretty much give you the story of what is happening at this point in time in North America.
There are two main technologies involved in broadband. Cable and DSL. Satellite internet is available across the United States and a lot of Canada, but latency is a big issue and it is relatively slow, meaning 512 kbps.
Cable has the advantage that for most part the infrastructure is already in place. In addition to water, electricity, gas, and telephone lines, the vast majority of homes in North America comes with cable. The original intent of cable was for TV. Cable companies then started thinking how they could utilize the extra bandwidth on the cable lines, and they came up with the DOCSIS standard for cable modems.
Cable internet is offered by most cable companies.
DSL is offered by telephone and other companies. I don't quite understand how it works in South Africa, that you have to pay the telephone company for DSL if you have a different ISP, but over here it is different. The telephone company has nothing to do with the DSL, except if you use them as the ISP.
The advantage of DSL is that there are many more companies that can offer it. For example, we have 4 big cable companies in Canada (Rogers, Cogeco, Shaw, and Videotron), but several hundred DSL providers, ranging from the big telcos such as AT&T, Bell, Sprint, to the smaller ones.
That said, the competition between DSL and cable is quite fierce. DSL companies would try to win you, even if you go with a different ISP. They consider it a victory if they can turn you away from cable, and likewise for the cable companies.
Now, my town of Georgetown has about 50,000 people. My county has one major city, and a whole bunch of farmers surrounding it. Total population is about 110,000 for the county. The county is served by ONE cable company, ONE local telephone company (Bell), and any of the hundreds of long distance carriers (for telephones). The reason we have only one local telephone company is because there is no margin on local services unless there are businesses. Georgetown is mainly a residential area, and most people go to Mississauga or Toronto to work. In those areas you have a wide selection of local phone companies, plus the choice of long distance companies.
So yes, my cable company is Cogeco, and I buy cable internet and basic cable from them. I could buy premium TV from them, but I don't... more about that later.
My local carrier for telephony is Bell Canada. I basically have one line (my parents really), pay the line rental + caller ID, and that is it for Bell. They are awfully expensive for long distance. (Local calls are free of charge.)
My long distance carrier is, at the moment, Primus Canada (AT&T). *frown* The problem is that there are so many to pick from, and my parents make a lot of international calls and a lot of the deals are for U.S. and Canada calling. For example, MCI has a package in the United States called "the neighborhood" in which they offer you local service + call waiting, caller ID, 3-way calling, and speed dialing, plus unlimited long distance in the United States, plus voicemail, for $49.95 a month. That includes line rental.
Other companies specialize in other areas. For example, one of the companies I worked with (I did their rate plans for them) had a Unlimited U.S. and Canada for $29.95 a month, Unlimited Europe for $49.95 a month, and Unlimited Mexico and Caribbean for $69.95 a month.
My main TV provider is DirecTV, which is satellite. I like satellite because they have to cater for the entire continent. As a result, most channels have an EAST and a WEST version, where the WEST version is exactly the same as the EAST channel but with a 3 hour delay. That means if you miss something at 8pm on the EAST channel, you can watch it at 11pm on the WEST channel.
Now for more of a comparison. My cable company offers two internet packages. A standard version and a professional version. Both are 4 Mbps down. The standard one is 320 Kbps up, and the professional version is 640 Kbps up (double). There is a theoretical cap of 20 GB per month, but the technical support guy told me that it was tehre merely to cover their ass in courts. In the past three years I've never actually had them complain about the amount I use, and I know some months I use in excess of 100 GB. (heh) Service wise, well I can't complain. I have 99.99% uptime, I always get the maximum speed (500 kb/s, sometimes more), and I really like their quality of service. Pricing wise, the standard package goes for C$39.95 (ZAR 220) a month, and professional package goes for C$64.95 a month (ZAR 360). There are no other costs. No line rentals, no line usage, nothing.
Cogeco (my cable company) serves, and has a monopoly of sorts, in Georgetown. But, I think they're a nice company. About two years ago they installed a brand new 2.4 Gbps line to a hub in Toronto, in addition to the existing lines. My county of 100,000 people has seveal Gbps serving it. Most of the local nets in neighborhoods, cable I mean, has up to 700 Mbps available on the cable. I guess that is why they can afford to give out 4 Mbps lines. This is one monopoly I'm not complaining about.
Rogers, another cable company, offers a "lite" package (128 Kbps down, 64 Kbps up) for C$29.95 (ZAR 165), and a standard package (1.5 Mbps down, 192 Kbps up, no cap) for C$44.95 a month (ZAR 250). The only reason why I think anyone would want the lite package is because it is a 24/7 connection and no extra phone line needed. I dislike Rogers because they're expensive and slow.
Bell Canada's DSL is 1 Mbps. Eh. They had the brilliance of putting a 5 GB monthly cap in, and enforcing it. Now, 6 months later half their customers switched providers and even worse, some turned to cable. As a result, other DSL companies got mad. August 1, 2003, the cap will be lifted and the speed will be upped to 1.5 Mbps, which seems to be the standard for regular DSL with the other providers. All that is C$39.95 a month (ZAR 220).
That is basically a very brief summary of the situation in North America.
Have a great day.
Pic: http://home.cogeco.ca/~johannj/net_stuff/download2.jpg
BTW, I'm also a writer in my school's newspaper. I'm thinking of writing about this stuff and specifically mentioning England and South Africa, just because you guys actually speak English. Ugh. I have yet to figure out how to research countries such as Mexico and Russia.
]). It's good to know that we're not naive by expecting good delivery of services. If it is provided in other countries, it can be provided in South Africa. I don't think we're expecting it by tomorrow, but we do want an active effort from the people to whom we entrust our money every month.