The point of Internet Broadband

After watching the brilliant Ewan Sutherland presentation, one really gets to grips with the possibilites of broadband and if we want change we need to carry on pushing government for it. The funniest part of it was Ewan mentioning that Telkom's market is quote "tiny, tiny" and that it only applies to "Mercedies drivers". Very cool him saying that. The point of Broadband, ladies and gentleman is CONTENT. What is the point of having the best infrastructure in the world and not having any content across it.

Prehaps Telkom should kill ADSL off completely, until such time as the market has developed sufficent applications to use it effectively.

The convergence bill will hopefully be addressing the content and access posibilities of broadband in South Africa. Local websites and archives is needed in this country, but no one wants to put up a website that is not inline with international web-hosting charges.

Next point, South Africa does not have TV-streaming across any IP network and is important for driving content. Local TV programs should be able to be downloaded from the Internet.

I don't think that South Africa is ready for what Broadband entails as it is so much more than web-surfing and email.

in terms of streaming tv stations, s.a. only has a 6 or 7 minute clip of the 6 oclock news available for viewing, once a day (and it isnt live, it is archived) compared to zimbabwe which has 3 streaming tv stations.
(at least, thats the feeds I can receive from my little online tv program)

R4tt3xx said:

Prehaps Telkom should kill ADSL off completely, until such time as the market has developed sufficent applications to use it effectively.

The convergence bill will hopefully be addressing the content and access posibilities of broadband in South Africa. Local websites and archives is needed in this country, but no one wants to put up a website that is not inline with international web-hosting charges.

Click to expand...

It's a bit chicken and egg though isn't it - if only say 2% of the population can afford broadband what entity in their right mind will roll out true BB content/applications (especially WRT to the cap) when access to it is so expensive?

That said there's more than enough content internationally - and the internet is afterall a medium sans boundries.

As for the convergence bill - I think it's bald-faced attempt at state control of the internet - it certainly isn't going to make for good content.