Gigabit Internet

Governments like that dont have drought and poverty to worry about all that much.

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"Since light travels faster than sound, people appear bright until you hear them speak."

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Now hold on a minute - unfair and not particularly justifiable to excuse a lack of innovation on the basis that other priorities exist. Every country/nation has its own set of priorities, not least the Netherlands (sea encroachment, etc.). Admittedly, equable resources do not exist, nor is there necessarily a set of common problems between nations, but this does not excuse poor decision-making and downright maladministration, particularly when it comes to innovation - after all, innovation is a salient factor for societal progress, and should be promoted as far as possible.

I'm reminded of the analogue satellite service offered by the SABC a while ago 'because it was cheaper', when the digital alternative already existed - if ever there was an example of misplaced and idiotic decision-making, this was it. I can't help thinking that Telkom are guilty of the same type of thing, particularly given that they're now promoting their crippled offerings into Africa (SpeedStream)! The point is that irrespective of the broader societal concerns that exist, particular state organs/ministries/departments have been tasked with a particular set of tasks/accountabilities/responsibilities, and their service delivery must be of the best available or able to be achieved - this does not mean settling for a sub-standard service offering, in my book.
 
Our government is here to serve the masses (its voters as well, else it wont be around after next election day). If we aren't already there, we are moving towards a predominantly socialistic society. This is where the cost effective analogue solutions come in to play. Telecommunication operators have a social obligation to the underprivileged and have to implement very cost effective, heavily subsidised, 'vanilla' solutions to start off with.
 
I still don't buy into the contention that deployment of supposedly cheaper analogue solutions are the way to meet service obligations, whether as a 'start off' point or not. In point of fact, this is *not* meeting the 'social' obligation, as you are potentially isolating and constraining societal development through the promotion of crippled social interaction through inadequate analogue solutions, and even potentially denying/preventing any interaction at all.

All you have to do is take a comparative look at Telkom's ADSL offering - whilst this is admittedly all digital, methinks there is some 'analogue' and paternalistic thinking behind the decision-making to date, typically founded on the unacceptable precept of the 'ignorant masses'. Sure, I don't have the facts and figures to hand, but it seems to me that initial investment in outdated and antiquated technology, only for it to be replaced later (without necessarily extinguishing the costs beforehand), is just blatant mismanagement, never-mind the pressing need to deliver services. The electorate is not stupid - it's a tragedy that the powers-that-be don't realise this. It's a basic service industry principle that client satisfaction is assured through service excellence, and not through providing an inadequate service. I'm afraid that analogue solutions fall into the latter category, in the presence of alternative digital offerings...
 
Interesting debate.

Well this just puts the Netherlands on the list of countries to emigrate to.

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Nah - don't: I've heard that the minuses outweigh the plusses, if you're from ZA, the weather being the main issue. It's also got a lot of fleas, apparently...[:p]
 
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by mbs</i>
<br />It's also got a lot of fleas, apparently...[:p]
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The fleas can be dealt with, but a monopolistic telecommunications operator which doesn't listen to its customers and rips them off, is a much larger problem.[xx(]
 
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