General internet slowdown in the Western Cape??

D

Dutchuncle777

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My 20 year old son's friends own a popular internet cafe and they tell customers that there is a general slowdown, both in the Western Cape but also global.

I do know that my suburb is renowned for bad GSM coverage, yet my Cell C is running smooth. Vodacom's teams are out here and testing signals.

However, the general slowdown reportedly is on ADSL and 3G. There was a rumour of a fire at Telkom's hub in Bellville but I take that with a pinch of salt.

The internet cafe is owned and managed by qualified professionals. It is well-endowed with the proper technology and probably the only one in the area with legit software. It would surprise me if they start spreading rumours.

If, and I say IF, there is a general slowdown, what causes it? And why are my wife and I not being affected, as our Cell C phones are operating as smoothly as ever?
 
Those qualified professionals probably only use 1 ISP

I've been at many "qualified and professionally" run internet cafe's with well-endowed/proper technology. 90% of the time I find that these "qualified professionals" has no ****ing clue what they're talking about, yes, even those who comply with the law on legit software (really doesn't take rocket science to run/own an internet cafe)

Cell C has their own bandwidth vs MWEB who has THEIR own bandwidth and so on and so on. If there were a general slowdown in the whole of the Western Cape you would know about it.

Like I said re: my 90% observation. They're not as enlightened as they appear to be. And yes, rumors will be spread regardless of what hardware you run or how legit your software is.

(btw, I managed an internet cafe for 2 years, the owner had little-to-no clue on how everything worked (even though he had determination to learn) and also had legit software/well-endowed hardware and was seen as the "go to guy" for advice on anything IT related even though he was an accountant. The amount of crap we could tell people who BELIEVED us was awesome)
 
AcidRaZor said:
Those qualified professionals probably only use 1 ISP

I've been at many "qualified and professionally" run internet cafe's with well-endowed/proper technology. 90% of the time I find that these "qualified professionals" has no ****ing clue what they're talking about, yes, even those who comply with the law on legit software (really doesn't take rocket science to run/own an internet cafe)

Cell C has their own bandwidth vs MWEB who has THEIR own bandwidth and so on and so on. If there were a general slowdown in the whole of the Western Cape you would know about it.

Like I said re: my 90% observation. They're not as enlightened as they appear to be. And yes, rumors will be spread regardless of what hardware you run or how legit your software is.

(btw, I managed an internet cafe for 2 years, the owner had little-to-no clue on how everything worked (even though he had determination to learn) and also had legit software/well-endowed hardware and was seen as the "go to guy" for advice on anything IT related even though he was an accountant. The amount of crap we could tell people who BELIEVED us was awesome)
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The two owners are people with MCSE + MCP + Cisco. They have 3 uncapped, unshaped lines from different ISP's.

I have been in business - finance and ICT - between 1982 and 2001. My peers and I never would have disrespected people by feeding them lies. Some of us out here do have a conscience, values and integrity.

This post here was to show my son that his friends working at their mutual friends' venue, are creating rumours. I did check mybroadband and other sites even before I posted here.

There is a problem when we start lying as we see in Hollywood's garbage. ''White lies'', like any other form of bulldust, is untruth told. Let us return to having integrity.
 
deweyzeph said:
People still use internet cafes? Can't remember the last time I saw one.
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Deweyzeph: many internet cafe's in cape town as many young tourists use them. People on a shoestring budget. Prices R5/hour on the cheap & nasty ones, but up to R20/hour at the few decent ones. Wizards at V&A Waterfont charge/d R48/hour not so long ago and remained BUSY.

An internet cafe in Sea Point proudly boasts the ''official Pirate WindowsXP'' complete with a pirate logo.


Yes, their survival amidst cheap broadband baffles me as well!
 
Why would tourists use an internet cafe when:

1) Most of them have got smartphones and tablets

2) It's so easy to walk into any cellphone shop and buy a prepaid sim card and load a data bundle on it for far less than it costs to use an internet cafe
 
And I thought you could get free internet at a library. Probably very busy and you have to wait your turn, But R20 or R48 ph for internet is daylight robbery.
 
I'm living in Observatory, Cape Town. I'm using 8ta and for 2 days now the speed has been horrible! I thought it was an 8ta problem...
 
Hi sandylou

We have responded to your other post regarding this. If anyone has an issue with speeds etc, please complete our template so we can investigate?

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deweyzeph said:
Why would tourists use an internet cafe when:

1) Most of them have got smartphones and tablets

2) It's so easy to walk into any cellphone shop and buy a prepaid sim card and load a data bundle on it for far less than it costs to use an internet cafe
Click to expand...

1. Because most tourists do not have smartphones or tablets. Your making a wrong assumption about which tourists are visiting this country. You obviously only consider wealthy white Germans as tourists.

2. When last did you try and buy a SIM in this country? We have a legal requirement called RICA!

My mom brings tourists over from Australia 2-3 times a year and she has yet to activate data roaming on her phone or any of her tourists. Its not just the South African networks that nail you for OOB.

So yes, there is a big market for tourists.
 
Many guesthouses and backpackers offer wi-fi within the building and sell airtime via a voucher system. I have only been involved in helping to distribute the signal better within the building. About 2/3 of the guest houses I looked at were using iBurst on account of value for money. CellC and 8ta were too unreliable. The visitors who stay at these places are not downloading programs, they are sending email and pictures home and talking to their overseas family.

I have never had a general complaint about slow speeds. I have read many disparaging comments about iBurst on this forum, but not one customer has complained to me about it.
 
Can confirm it has been slow in CT in different areas, a lot of the time it's still on HSDPA or WMCA and then it'll just lose connection somehow, can't get more than one bar or two. My files are corrupting, it's been like this for the last 2 months or so, slowly getting worse each day. A lot of the time it is just unusable. Can't do http downloads only torrents and even then it'll lose connection. Even before the problems it was a very average service.... it's coming close to the time for renewing my contract you can forget about it.
 
The internet cafe won't run off 3G as it is too expensive. They probably run off ADSL and their ISP is throttling them.
 
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