Broadband - Hype versus Reality

im so tired of reading all this. nothings ever gonna change. we might as well shut down myBB and go live under a tree.
 
Marius Vermeulen (Tarsus) need to do some homework before making grand statements.

While it is well known that our DSL infrastructure is way (way) behind the ROW, it's as well known (to some at least) that SA's mobile operators are on the leading edge of mobile broadband. And they often push the envelope. People who travel to other countries, do not get a DSL line there for their 2-week stay....:rolleyes:

They get mobile broadband, and often the experience is quite cr@p.

A recent article on myBB showed that the average speeds on the MTN/Vodacom/Cell-C networks exceed that of most international mobile broadband providers.

He also seems to have missed that broadband, as a term, has been defined.

Typically the 'hype' is mostly caused by the same 'journalists' and 'analysts' that later lambaste the industry for not providing it in the first place.
 
My 4Mb line is ****ing useless these past few weeks, and the worst is I stuck with Web Africa and the 20GB limit so that I could rather enjoy higher speeds with less download capacity. I'm tired if this ****. As much as I realize that "uncapped" should be considered as just that, each time I see ISP statistics of people downloading 700GB+ a month I want to kill a mother****er. Yes I know, they shouldn't be blamed and all that crap... but still ... ever since these uncapped offerings it's become pretty clear that the good old ADSL days of 400Mb/s downloads are all but gone for most of us. We all know there's a lot of problems in SA at the moment, but as much as I can still absorb these issues there's one thing as a Web Developer I cannot take anymore and it's the dismal performance of our online connections. So **** Malema, **** Zuma and **** these asswipes who think it's cool to download all the BluRay rips they can find, I need better connectivity soon, or I'll have no other choice but to leave this place and find a job somewhere else where my skills and potential can be truly put to the test without having to use words like "buffering", "delay" and "timeout".
 
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Today even USA service providers are capping their offering albeit it is at 250 Gbps compared to Telkom's top offering of 9 Gbps locally.
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I wish that was true: that Telkom would "cap" my account at 9 Gigabit/second :D

Currently the biggest let down is Telkom's 10Mbps upgrades, which sounds to me like its only to the advantage of a few (100 or less), and is drastically degrading the performance of the other users who were previously capable of having stable 4Mbps connections at least.
 
Petition your local councilor to get government / local government involved in providing the necessary infrastructure.

Also, it might be a good idea to cancel your IS and MWEB accounts - vote with your wallet.
 
RaptorSA said:
My 4Mb line is ****ing useless these past few weeks, and the worst is I stuck with Web Africa and the 20GB limit so that I could rather enjoy higher speeds with less download capacity. I'm tired if this ****. As much as I realize that "uncapped" should be considered as just that, each time I see ISP statistics of people downloading 700GB+ a month I want to kill a mother****er. Yes I know, they shouldn't be blamed and all that crap... but still ... ever since these uncapped offerings it's become pretty clear that the good old ADSL days of 400Mb/s downloads are all but gone for most of us. We all know there's a lot of problems in SA at the moment, but as much as I can still absorb these issues there's one thing as a Web Developer I cannot take anymore and it's the dismal performance of our online connections. So **** Malema, **** Zuma and **** these asswipes who think it's cool to download all the BluRay rips they can find, I need better connectivity soon, or I'll have no other choice but to leave this place and find a job somewhere else where my skills and potential can be truly put to the test without having to use words like "buffering", "delay" and "timeout".
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Don't you think it would be better to move to China or USA or wherever you feel the best internet is? Then you can happily download @ 1GBps if you want to.
 
RaptorSA said:
My 4Mb line is ****ing useless these past few weeks, and the worst is I stuck with Web Africa and the 20GB limit so that I could rather enjoy higher speeds with less download capacity. I'm tired if this ****. As much as I realize that "uncapped" should be considered as just that, each time I see ISP statistics of people downloading 700GB+ a month I want to kill a mother****er. Yes I know, they shouldn't be blamed and all that crap... but still ... ever since these uncapped offerings it's become pretty clear that the good old ADSL days of 400Mb/s downloads are all but gone for most of us. We all know there's a lot of problems in SA at the moment, but as much as I can still absorb these issues there's one thing as a Web Developer I cannot take anymore and it's the dismal performance of our online connections. So **** Malema, **** Zuma and **** these asswipes who think it's cool to download all the BluRay rips they can find, I need better connectivity soon, or I'll have no other choice but to leave this place and find a job somewhere else where my skills and potential can be truly put to the test without having to use words like "buffering", "delay" and "timeout".
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No RaptorSA don't leave the country, without you the economy would collapse our power would go out and food will become scarce. You of all people should know that the world can't do anything without web developers.
 
SoftDux-Rudi said:
Don't you think it would be better to move to China or USA or wherever you feel the best internet is? Then you can happily download @ 1GBps if you want to.
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china you will get 1GBps of filtered internet.
usa you might get 1GBps of monitored internet.
 
Our situation is indeed dismal. Funny how it always comes back to only one problem child really, Telkom. Lack of proper leadership (IMHO), no vision with regard to their clients needs, and feeble infrastructure growth planning. Let me not even get started on their pathetic fault solving protocols and procedures (or lack thereof).

Judging by the comments made in the article, I hold little hope that we will enjoy true broadband any time soon.
 
There is demand for better services and lower prices, yet while other less-developed countries seem to get it right our situation doesn't seem to improve at the same rate. The technology is the same the world over so there's no real reason for us to lag behind. Maybe its also because we have the biggest mamparras as our comms ministers. Remember Ivy the terrible? May she rot in peace. And that crook Sipiwe is more interested in the tenders his position can bring to his companies than anything else. Telkom needs to get its act together instead of making false claims about it supposed world-class network, for example where's the promised improvements of the new generation network as was promised in the pre-worldcup sky-train ad? Icasa .. pretty useless as an independent regulator.

My point is the major roleplayers all seem to be lethargic to the point of being counterproductive.
 
$n@k3 said:
No RaptorSA don't leave the country, without you the economy would collapse our power would go out and food will become scarce. You of all people should know that the world can't do anything without web developers.
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Do you have any idea of the impact that high speed, stable and redundant internet access can make to a developing country like ours? Do you have any idea how much of the cost of products we as consumers have to absorb to make up for the fact that giant companies like Tiger Brands etc. have to pay incredibly high prices for stable and fast inter-site connections? The advertising company I'm developing a system for is currently dumping about R1M per month into bandwidth costs to keep the system running.
I don't think you have a clue. Just look at what an impact internet penetration is having in places like India, where the majority still doesn't have access, but whatever connections they have are being used to their full potential by creating jobs and assisting education.

We need to wake up here. Even Evolution by natural selection is faster than our government's ability to increase ADSL connections and bandwidth capacity in SA. Not to mention IT education that could make a huge difference towards empowering people and alleviating poverty, but no, what we actually need is more political infighting, pointless expensive tender fixing and Media Tribunals... :erm:
 
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RaptorSA said:
Do you have any idea of the impact that high speed, stable and redundant internet access can make to a developing country like ours? Do you have any idea how much of the cost of products we as consumers have to absorb to make up for the fact that giant companies like Tiger Brands etc. have to pay incredibly high prices for stable and fast inter-site connections? I don't think you have a clue. Just look at what an impact internet penetration is having in places like India, where the majority still doesn't have access, but whatever connections they have are being used to their full potential by creating jobs and assisting education.

We need to wake up here. Even Evolution by natural selection is faster than our government's ability to increase ADSL connections and bandwidth capacity in SA.
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You're absolutely right. This country is going down in flames cause we don't have 100Mbps connectivity! Man, you should see how many beggers with internet-less PC's are all over town at the moment. But, it's so nice to be able to type out this message online, from my spot here in Johannesburg, where we actually have internet. And it's fast. I can't even type as fast as this page loaded.

Stop bitching in moaning, and start your own tellecoms company. No-one is stopping you. Then you can build your own super-redundant, super-stable, super-cheap 1Gbps network and train your own staff to be super-client-orientated and delivers best & fastest service in the world. I'm sure the rest of the first world countries will soon knock on your door to find out how you did it.
 
SoftDux-Rudi said:
You're absolutely right. This country is going down in flames cause we don't have 100Mbps connectivity! Man, you should see how many beggers with internet-less PC's are all over town at the moment. But, it's so nice to be able to type out this message online, from my spot here in Johannesburg, where we actually have internet. And it's fast. I can't even type as fast as this page loaded.

Stop bitching in moaning, and start your own tellecoms company. No-one is stopping you. Then you can build your own super-redundant, super-stable, super-cheap 1Gbps network and train your own staff to be super-client-orientated and delivers best & fastest service in the world. I'm sure the rest of the first world countries will soon knock on your door to find out how you did it.
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Wow, congrats with all the assumptions, red herrings and piss poor attempts to divert from my initial point. With this type of black and white thinking I can just see us having a meaningful discussion about this topic :rolleyes:

SoftDux-Rudi said:
start your own tellecoms company. No-one is stopping you. Then you can build your own super-redundant, super-stable, super-cheap 1Gbps network
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What do you think so many ISP's are trying to do these days!? But, there's no way they'll ever have the initial cash flow to accomplish this and still have enough market penetration to sustain the costs, therefore the only other option is to make use of LLU to work as a stepping stone for other competitors working towards upgrading our infrastructure. But NOOOO ... you can forget about LLU happening anytime soon, and the black hole that is Telkom will just keep feeding us tit-bits to keep people like you from making a fuss about it. Also, apparently the fact that we the tax payers who paid for the infrastructure Telkom is using still means we have no say in the matter.
 
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RaptorSA said:
Wow, congrats with all the assumptions, red herrings and piss poor attempts to divert from my initial point.
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The point I'm making is:

1. We're NOT any other country with better internet. We're South Africa. If you don't like it, move to China or something.
2. We actually do have decent internet. And in the past 5 years our internet has considerably improved. I can download full 4.5GB ISO's in a day or 2. Sure, I would also have liked to have it in 5 seconds, but I still get it in reasonable amount of time. We watch streaming movies at home every evening and have a wide selection to choose from. And I don't have any spikes or buffering happening. This is on a 4MB line, which most people in this country has.
3. If you don't like what is on offer, then do something about it. Stop bitcing and moaning about one company's offerings. They have in fact done far more than you every can.



I would also like to see a PC with 50TB storage in every dwelling all over this country, with 20Mbs lines going to everyone of those PC's. But until someone actually does something about it, it won't happen. If one company can't deliver then another one should take the opportunity todo something about it. Negativity (which seems to rule on this forum) won't fix the problem.
 
RaptorSA said:
Wow, congrats with all the assumptions, red herrings and piss poor attempts to divert from my initial point. With this type of black and white thinking I can just see us having a meaningful discussion about this topic :rolleyes:

The point I'm making is that you see THIS as a problem in the country because of your profession. Someone in finance sees a different problem and so on. Also it seems that you blame all the poverty in the country on the speed of our lines. And from you first post (where some started getting sarcastic) you weren't discussing the topic either. It was more a "I don't get the line speeds I want so I'm leaving the country" post.

But I have to agree about the telecommunication systems that India has implemented. They have done a grate deal to better it and thus it produces a big income for them now.
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