Grinning through my road rage

In some cases I agree with you, but having just got back from UK and Australia I was really not impressed. In the UK on BT I had an unlimited 8meg broadband connection that in my opinion performed on a par with my 4med in SA.

As for Australia, Optus service and speed was really bad and my 8meg line there performed like a 512k or worse. Web sites constantly timed out. The service agents at the Optus shops, when asked the simplest of questions, hands you a phone routed to a call centre in an obviously foreign country, with a voice activated routing system that does not understand a South African accent.

Bar the pricing, I have generally been quite happy with my 4meg ADSL and having seen what some "first world" countries are getting in terms of speed I don’t think I will complain too much. No doubt USA, JAPAN etc are in a different league and much still needs to be done.
 
I was recently asked why South Africans don’t invent things like the social network site Facebook. Why don’t we have Google-like entrepreneurs in the country? Because we don’t have the same experience of being online as bandwidth-rich countries do.
[QUOTE/]

That is true. But it forces us to consider more economical approaches to solutions. I think we are short of many things here, with financial support being one of the major ones. However, when we do find a cheap solution to a significant problem, it has international appeal because everyone wants to pay less, be it for manufacturing or plain development. I remember reading that Mark Shuttleworth chose to start his security business because it was not as bandwidth-intensive as other possible ventures. We may be relatively poor, but we are inventive and do well with what we are given/have.
Click to expand...
 
I guess it also depends where you are. I have been places in the USA where there is no ADSL service yet, Only one sucky Cable provider and no good cell reception. Dial-up is still king in some areas. And I am not talking Western US... I am talking Eastern.

So yes, we want to jump on the bandwagon, but not everybody in the rest of the world is still better off than us.

I stayed with my Mom-in-law in Ohio, close to the Lake. She still gets her water from a well, and uses AOL dial-up. I was pining for my Telkom ADSL.
 
Leftfoot said:
In some cases I agree with you, but having just got back from UK and Australia I was really not impressed. In the UK on BT I had an unlimited 8meg broadband connection that in my opinion performed on a par with my 4med in SA.

As for Australia, Optus service and speed was really bad and my 8meg line there performed like a 512k or worse. Web sites constantly timed out. The service agents at the Optus shops, when asked the simplest of questions, hands you a phone routed to a call centre in an obviously foreign country, with a voice activated routing system that does not understand a South African accent.

Bar the pricing, I have generally been quite happy with my 4meg ADSL and having seen what some "first world" countries are getting in terms of speed I don’t think I will complain too much. No doubt USA, JAPAN etc are in a different league and much still needs to be done.
Click to expand...

Garyvdh said:
I guess it also depends where you are. I have been places in the USA where there is no ADSL service yet, Only one sucky Cable provider and no good cell reception. Dial-up is still king in some areas. And I am not talking Western US... I am talking Eastern.

So yes, we want to jump on the bandwagon, but not everybody in the rest of the world is still better off than us.

I stayed with my Mom-in-law in Ohio, close to the Lake. She still gets her water from a well, and uses AOL dial-up. I was pining for my Telkom ADSL.
Click to expand...


Finally some "happy" news.
 
Yeah true, but until then I have to make do with Telkom...
 
I was recently asked why South Africans don’t invent things like the social network site Facebook. Why don’t we have Google-like entrepreneurs in the country? Because we don’t have the same experience of being online as bandwidth-rich countries do.
Click to expand...

Thats not the only reason. Its because this country doesn't nurture and support developing talent. Its pathetic. I know from experience. I started a small software company eight years ago that specializes in travel and tourism technology. We're still plodding along without outside investment, but we could do so much more with a cash injection yet DTI can't be bothered.
 
gumph too. the gumph ratio is getting pretty high around here..
 
Soon I will be able to ditch my Telkom line and get real broadband, cheaply and problem-free, from a real telecoms company.
Click to expand...

Oh, so I guess you are moving to the US or to somewhere in Europe then?
 
Who remembers the bit where it was (theoretically /actually) proven that back then it was cheaper and faster to send 1 person to an internet cafe in Hong Kong, and return with 19Gig of downloaded content, than it was to have 4 simultaneous Telkom ADSL lines downloading in SA?

Does a speed test example like that still apply, now with a phantom Neotel theoretically operating in an assumed market?
 
Soon I will be able to ditch my Telkom line and get real broadband, cheaply and problem-free, from a real telecoms company. One that cares about its customers. That doesn’t artificially castrate our Internet experience because of its state-sanctioned profit margins. Keep digging.

I would first like to see it before I believe it.

But I am hoping :D
 
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