SpottyGekko
Member
I've been a PC gamer since about 1990. From 1999 to 2004 I was living in various countries in Europe, and with the cheap/fast/stable/uncapped internet connections I had there, I ventured into online games (MMORPG's).
A whole new world opened up ! It was great fun, and I made online friends the world over.
Knowing that 99% of the time my internet connection would be up and running, it became a part of my life, and was usefull for much more than gaming. As an IT contractor, I moved around alot, and the net often allowed me to completely setup my life in a new city even before I arrived there. Things like online train/airline status reports, which shops, restaurants, etc. were in the area where I was going to live, watching news video clips on my PC...
Over a 2-year period in the UK, I had a total of about 72 hours of no net connection. Yeah, even redundant routing sometimes fails
Since my return to SA, I have very reluctantly had to learn to use the telephone and fax machine again. It's much slower and more expensive (not to mention frustrating), but it's the guaranteed way of getting things done.
My internet access in SA is a "nice to have", a pure luxury toy. It cannot be relied upon for anything remotely important, as I'm literally never sure when it will be working or not.
I could probably setup my own "redundant" connection for business purposes, i.e. 1x dialup acct., 1x ADSL acct, 1x HSDPA, 1x IBurst, etc., but it would be pricey indeed. And that would only ensure that I could CONNECT.
Given the frequent international and local (Telkom exchange/router faults) access problems that I have experienced, being able to connect is only half the battle.
Here in SA, we are on par, or even ahead, of many so-called first world countries in many areas, but internet use is definitely not one of them. We are at least 3-5 years behind, and falling further behind every day.
Now, does anyone have some nice cheese that I can have with my whine ?
A whole new world opened up ! It was great fun, and I made online friends the world over.
Knowing that 99% of the time my internet connection would be up and running, it became a part of my life, and was usefull for much more than gaming. As an IT contractor, I moved around alot, and the net often allowed me to completely setup my life in a new city even before I arrived there. Things like online train/airline status reports, which shops, restaurants, etc. were in the area where I was going to live, watching news video clips on my PC...
Over a 2-year period in the UK, I had a total of about 72 hours of no net connection. Yeah, even redundant routing sometimes fails
Since my return to SA, I have very reluctantly had to learn to use the telephone and fax machine again. It's much slower and more expensive (not to mention frustrating), but it's the guaranteed way of getting things done.
My internet access in SA is a "nice to have", a pure luxury toy. It cannot be relied upon for anything remotely important, as I'm literally never sure when it will be working or not.
I could probably setup my own "redundant" connection for business purposes, i.e. 1x dialup acct., 1x ADSL acct, 1x HSDPA, 1x IBurst, etc., but it would be pricey indeed. And that would only ensure that I could CONNECT.
Given the frequent international and local (Telkom exchange/router faults) access problems that I have experienced, being able to connect is only half the battle.
Here in SA, we are on par, or even ahead, of many so-called first world countries in many areas, but internet use is definitely not one of them. We are at least 3-5 years behind, and falling further behind every day.
Now, does anyone have some nice cheese that I can have with my whine ?
