The first local Google POP is being built in Cape Town as we speak. It is meant to be live by the end of the year as far as I understand.
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Yeah I mean Virgin mobile only charge u 0.35c per MB on gprs? How in blueblazes do vodacom and MTN charge so much R1.20 to R2.20 per MB?
Will that include local access to GMail? - my understanding is that Stafford Masie [in his blog] denied ever saying that there will be local access to GMail, it would be great if Stafford Masie could register here & provide some clarity on what Google SA does intend to provide - locally.
Has VM reduced it pricing recently
- was always ZAR0.50/MB.
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eltherza
Expert Member
Broadnand, because SA's internet is not true broadband.
risingtide
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How about some figures about how far these networks are?
Wasn't there a report that Vodacom or MTN (can't remember which one) has completed the fiber ring in Gauteng? If that is the case why can't they have more speed/bandwidth at lower cost?
Now that Neotel will also launch in Cape Town they surely have plenty of backhaul capacity between CT and JHB?
AFAIU, the Neotel's network is and open network and other providers can lease capacity from them. What's going on there?
Can someone explain this?
Our problem I believe is a shortage of international bandwidth. If that is the problem why
isn't local bandwidth free? Why not cache everything local users download locally and use that too? Or is the problem the actual connections between 3G towers? Is that the problem? Or is it everywhere, ie lack of international pipe and lack of local connectivity?
Also why is Telkom charging line rental fees? How does that pay for the bandwidth except
create an artificially expensive ADSL price thereby limiting customers' ability to purchase
more bandwidth?
Finally why is broadband cheaper in other countries in Africa? Is it because fewer people use it
anyway because overall everyone is so much poorer over there?
Our problem I believe is a shortage of international bandwidth. If that is the problem why
isn't local bandwidth free? Why not cache everything local users download locally and use that too? Or is the problem the actual connections between 3G towers? Is that the problem? Or is it everywhere, ie lack of international pipe and lack of local connectivity?
Also why is Telkom charging line rental fees? How does that pay for the bandwidth except
create an artificially expensive ADSL price thereby limiting customers' ability to purchase
more bandwidth?
Finally why is broadband cheaper in other countries in Africa? Is it because fewer people use it
anyway because overall everyone is so much poorer over there?
Yes, when the suply is more than the demand
Or in other words, "never, suckers!"
Yep. I agree with this...
They don't have the capacity, but are talking about making it cheaper, so there is even LESS Capacity?
I don't understand.
They charge so much, but are unable to provide?
Don't telkom have enough money to launch their own little blue and green Satelite into orbit or something, every few months? this is rediculous.
Telkodemonopolies has been limiting the supply of SAT-3 bandwidth in order to maximise its profits - the joys of being a monopoly.
That is only one of several key problems, local bandwidth is in fact a major problem - which both Vodacom and MTN have been experiencing for several years since they launched their HSPA networks - Telkodemonopolies is incapable or unwilling [or both] to keep supply in step with the demand for local bandwidth - what Vodacom and MTN refer to as backhaul bandwidth that links base-stations to the core networks.
Probably bcos it costs a lot of money to dig up roads and lay fibre and pay South Africans a lot more to do the work than it would in India or China.
Local Bandwidth is not a cache, it is physical links between A and B and C ... Z etc. Content can and does get cached by transparent proxy servers by ISPs, but physical links are still required to transmit the data to and from wireless base-stations - very few base-stations use microwave links - and only when it isn't possible or feasible to wait for physical links.
You should know by now that Telkodemonopolies is still the de facto wired fixed line monopoly in SA - it does whatever it wants bcos it is a semi-privatised parastatal protected by guavamentalists like Poison Ivy.
See my previous reply about guavamint protecting Telkodemonopolies.
The problem is they slept for the last 10 years just like Eskom... Now they are waking up and they have to "trek finger"... Arent you suppose to have a 1 year plan, 5 year plan and 10 year plan?
Did these people that get payed millions sit in a room somewhere ten years ago and thought to themselfs... Ten years from now, the infrastructure we have now should be fine... I mean it doesnt take a flippen High School kid to figure out it wouldnt be...
But less they spend on backhaul/infrastructure the more they get in bonusses, now I hope they get salary cuts... Dit was darem net te lekker... Now they are the ones going O crap we need to drop prices? They should have thought about that ten years ago...
Did these people that get payed millions sit in a room somewhere ten years ago and thought to themselfs... Ten years from now, the infrastructure we have now should be fine... I mean it doesnt take a flippen High School kid to figure out it wouldnt be...
But less they spend on backhaul/infrastructure the more they get in bonusses, now I hope they get salary cuts... Dit was darem net te lekker... Now they are the ones going O crap we need to drop prices? They should have thought about that ten years ago...
Agree. They have known about the internet since middle 90's. I can remember my 14400 bps PCMCIA modem on my dx2-100 notebook in 1996. More than ample time to plan ahead. Well maybe AHEAD is the key word in SA.
sunsoffun
Expert Member
I live in durban, the only thing getting dug up here is the thieves stealing telkoms copper!
Each SMS message is like 200bytes. SMS'es are a money making scheme,
imagine how many you can send per megabyte, and a megabyte costs what
R2 out of bundle?
Yes, since 2002, and Telkodemonopolies seems to believe that it personally invented ADSL and can therefore charge oodles for it's phantom R&D spend...
If Telkodemonopolies could have stuck to narrowband [analogue] connections and never offered an ADSL service, it would have done so in order to protect its analogue voice revenue, however there are some things that even Telkodemonopolies cannot put off indefinitely, and one of them that Telkodemonopolies has put off for far too long - massive fibre optic bandwidth rollouts across the country, is now boomeranging back to make Telkodemonopolies even more impotent than it usually is - customers tend not to stick around for long given the choice between the smell of a dying beast and its sweeter smelling competitors.
That would of course be excellent if it ever happens - I have my doubts - especially considering the contradiction that Stafford Masie's blog entry represents, and then there is the soon-to-be-realised additional bandwidth from SEACOM and EASSy that might just make running local services something of a pointless exercise.
The "backhaul" capacity problem is not a new one. It's been an excuse of theirs for a very long time. The main problem in this country is the fact that big business does not lobby the government for change, allowing them to get away with dragging their feet on matters such as licensing legislation, policy directives for VANS licensees, etc. Companies like Vodacom seem more keen to keep the government happy with their BEE policies than they are to fight for better governance.
Besides all that, the fact is Vodacom is 50% owned by Telkom... you're telling me old Alan Knott-Craig couldn't get into his limo and schedule a meeting with his Telkom overlords and come to a better arrangement than their current one? Not to mention the government has its hairy little fingers in there as well.
For years we've been reading articles such as this one. The carrot has been dangled in front of us for over a decade now, and still we blindly believe it when the multi million dollar company tries to sell us on the "our hands are tied" argument. It's always about the money - and Vodacom make plenty of that.
So yes, I think you're going soft for not criticising these big guys more. With all due respect of course.
marine1
Honorary Master
We not allowed to criticise the people advertising here. 