spanner2006
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- Feb 3, 2006
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Did you know that Cellular coverage in South Africa stretches around 650 000 km2 which is about 50% of the country’s geographical area?
Does anybody know what broadband is and exactly. Is it only about spread, wirelessness and what of this Voice over Internet Protocol – enables that video calling thing I guess but how can any of these new fangled things help in the connectivity of those areas that have bad connection or no signal at all. And this has nothing to do with rural vs urban, there are some areas in Gauteng surburbs where reception is almost non-existent one might as well be in the middle of nowhere --- If you’ve been in some areas around Boksburg or have been caught in the middle of Pretoria and Pretoria north you might know what I’m talking about.
The question now becomes, when cellphones came with their signal towers, why is it that these providers cannot share the issue of towers or base stations antennas or whatever they are called? We could all bounce off from the same source just like the TV channels issue right – we pay a tv licence just for having a set whether it works or not right, same price whether it’s a humongous screen you have carry with a crane or a black and white with some dodgy name - the competition would now only be about the service that one can get from a provider. All GPRS and map and ifind services would now serve as incentive – one would subscribe to x or y according to what x or y offers. The issue of getting infrastructure would be halved – like set up one company that overseas that – the one network coverage provider for South Africa and x provider can market specific services and even out-pitch each other on the quality they are able to offer. The world could run on cell technology and all this cabling issues on land based providers could be non-events –
The coverage provider could be government regulated, I don’t know how cellphone companies work out the money that goes into maintaining and expanding or bettering their Base stations. If a call costs 90c a unit, how much of that goes into the upkeep of that infrastructure that makes it possible and what about those pre-paid users who might never pay airtime. How did they rationalize the issue of connection lasting only 30 days like they had on the first sim packages?
If the cellphone game is about how many connected subscribers shouldn’t we sort the connection issue first before we start wooing people with a service they can only access if they stand on a tree or if they travel some 100km from their homes or wherever they are. I know I’m rambling, but I would like to get some thoughts on this. I know someone somewhere must have thought about this and if there is some sort of policy, I would like to know about it – educate some of us if you are in the know.
Does anybody know what broadband is and exactly. Is it only about spread, wirelessness and what of this Voice over Internet Protocol – enables that video calling thing I guess but how can any of these new fangled things help in the connectivity of those areas that have bad connection or no signal at all. And this has nothing to do with rural vs urban, there are some areas in Gauteng surburbs where reception is almost non-existent one might as well be in the middle of nowhere --- If you’ve been in some areas around Boksburg or have been caught in the middle of Pretoria and Pretoria north you might know what I’m talking about.
The question now becomes, when cellphones came with their signal towers, why is it that these providers cannot share the issue of towers or base stations antennas or whatever they are called? We could all bounce off from the same source just like the TV channels issue right – we pay a tv licence just for having a set whether it works or not right, same price whether it’s a humongous screen you have carry with a crane or a black and white with some dodgy name - the competition would now only be about the service that one can get from a provider. All GPRS and map and ifind services would now serve as incentive – one would subscribe to x or y according to what x or y offers. The issue of getting infrastructure would be halved – like set up one company that overseas that – the one network coverage provider for South Africa and x provider can market specific services and even out-pitch each other on the quality they are able to offer. The world could run on cell technology and all this cabling issues on land based providers could be non-events –
The coverage provider could be government regulated, I don’t know how cellphone companies work out the money that goes into maintaining and expanding or bettering their Base stations. If a call costs 90c a unit, how much of that goes into the upkeep of that infrastructure that makes it possible and what about those pre-paid users who might never pay airtime. How did they rationalize the issue of connection lasting only 30 days like they had on the first sim packages?
If the cellphone game is about how many connected subscribers shouldn’t we sort the connection issue first before we start wooing people with a service they can only access if they stand on a tree or if they travel some 100km from their homes or wherever they are. I know I’m rambling, but I would like to get some thoughts on this. I know someone somewhere must have thought about this and if there is some sort of policy, I would like to know about it – educate some of us if you are in the know.
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