Make yourself heard INTERNATIONALLY

[quik]

The BBC has a information technology segment called "CLICK ONLINE".

Their homepage is http://www.bbcworld.com/content/template_clickonline.asp?pageid=666

Click Online can be seen on BBC World TV at the following times (GMT):

Thursday 19:30 | Saturday 00:30 / 06:30 Mondayyy16:30|| Tuesday 00:30 / 07:30y| Wednesday 13:30

This week they had a discussion on complaints and aired some e-mails from people all over the world about poor internet services. Here is one in particular and their response on the show:

<font color="blue"><i>"In Bermuda we pay an astonishingly outrageous amount of money for Broadband Internet Access. For unlimited access at 128k we pay $89.00 and for 512k its $249.00. I don't know about everyone but I can't help but feel like I'm getting ROBBED! Please don't put my name out."

Ouch, that is quite expensive. Although to be fair don't forget that the cabling costs for a small island can be quite high, Bermuda has an area of about 21 square miles and a population of about 65,000, which means the running costs per user must be substantial. But it set us thinking - is that the most expensive ISP charge in the world? If you pay more let us know and we will start a league table. </i></font id="blue">

Anyways, the point is, they invited anyone from anywhere in the world to send them mail about their bad internet experience, whether it be slow speeds or high costs. This will be aired on BBC as they try to establish the country with the the highest cost internet service.

I think Telkom is a prime candidate and would rank quite high on their league table and having SA mentioned internationally could be a good thing.

SO, if you would like to make yourself heard, and maybe have your e-mail aired globally on BBC, heres the address:

clickonline@bbc.co.uk

 

[VQuest]

Good idea, thanks for the info quik.

$249 = approx R1600

As terrible as $249 is, please note that it is for unlimited usage. If you actually compare their pricing to ours, R1600 is equal to our phone line rental, our ADSL line rental and the purchase of 3 1/2 accounts (from Telkom), giving us about 10GB a month. (Costs are approximate.) So these guys are <b>still</b> better off than us.

If anyone is interested in reading up more about the ADSL situation in Bermuda, check out the link below.

http://www.bermuda-online.org/internet.htm


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United we stand!
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[quik]

I don't know about you, but I'd rather pay R1600 a month for unlimited access than R900 for a useless, port shaped 3GB capped <font color="red">rip off</font id="red">...

 

[Flyman]

The thing that freaks me the most quik, is the fact that as the consumers we don’t have a say in what we want, we are all spoon-fed like babes! I am at the moment sitting with a 3gb cap, of which I have used only 700 Mb international. The rest was a little bonus for Telkom which they stole from me thus I agree, it’s a rip-off . When are we just all “Companies and consumers” gonna stand up and say enough is enough! PLEASE!


<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">I don't know about you, but I'd rather pay R1600 a month for unlimited access than R900 for a useless, port shaped 3GB capped rip off...<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

The Bitterness Of Poor Quality Lingers On Long After The Sweetness Of Cheap Prices Is Forgotten

 

[VQuest]

In theory, absolutely, R1600 for unlimited would be better. But, speaking for myself, I can't justify spending R1600 just to have a decent connection to the internet. We should get just that with our R1000 of hard earned money we hand over to Telkom every month.

At least Bermuda has the option of a 128k unlimited connection for just over R550 a month. I know a lot of myadsl users will feel the same way. Give us the option of a slower connection for a lot less money. This may not suit everyone, but at least we will have a choice.


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United we stand!
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[quik]

I would definately go for something like that (128k fixed, uncapped) as this would at least ensure that my business is connected throughout the month, and I don't need to check my usage all the time trying to stick to 100MB average per day.

I mean just the last windows updates, checking mail and some of the guys playing online after work already exceeds this limit thanks to Telkom's great idea of including local downloads.

<font color="green">By the way, how does this usage mail from Telkom work and do you have to have a Telkom ISP account ??</font id="green">

 

[quik]

Here is my submission to Click Online, let me know what you think...

<i><font color="blue">Hi there Steven

I live in South-Africa and enjoy watching the show in the early morning hours, it’s really informative and I enjoyed the last segment on the 8th of April regarding complaints. Nice to see you are honest enough to take the good with the Bad.

Our country is fairly developed, but still in a monopoly situation regarding communications. Local communications company Telkom still promotes old technologies such as ISDN and Diginet, which are very expensive. For a 64kb diginet line, we pay around R4500 per month, which comes to about £400. All dial-up technologies such as ISDN are charged per minute, so running an ISDN line 24 hours would be even more expensive.

ADSL was only recently introduced at around R1000 (£90) for business users at 512k/s capped to 3GB total usage per month. After that the connection is transferred to a slower line which renders it useless. Even browsing becomes frustrating. We are being robbed blind while Telkom’s share price went up three fold since they listed on the stock exchange last year. Communications are continually being restricted further while prices are driven upwards. Let’s not even start on customer service.

I think creating a league table comparing different countries communication costs as you suggested, would be a great idea to shed some light on this subject as local powers seem powerless to do anything about the situation.

Thanks for a great show, keep it up #61514;</font id="blue"></i>

 

[rpm]

Hi Quik

I saw this show as well and forgot to send feedback regarding this issue…thanks for reminding me. I think it is a great idea if as many people as possible send emails to clickonline simply stating their feelings about the price and state of the ADSL service in South Africa. A mention on a high profile international show like ClickOnline can give our incentive a great deal of exposure.

The address is: clickonline@bbc.co.uk

Regards,

RPM
rpm@myadsl.co.za

 

[quik]

Pleasure

I will try and record the upcoming shows just in case...

A few hundred mails or so would probably make them take notice and respond.

 

[beyers]

I already sent a message too,

come on everybody, send messages to them and mention the price, and don't forget the CAP...

 

[John]

You know this forum is just beginning to amaze me.

Why on earth don't you people just set up a 5.8ghz parabolic
on www.is.co.za peering point for direct connection to the
internet?

Complaining about adsl is useless.

 

[Karnaugh]

um, because IS will charge the **** out of us anyway for bandwidth?

They have to pay telkom too you know...

- Colin Alston
colin at alston dot za dot org

"Warning: Use with extreme caution."

 

[quik]

John

Your idea of a community based network is great, but you have to generate interest and see what kind of response you are going to get from people.

The other thing is that as soon as you place a parabolic anywhere where it interferes with Telkom equipment or as soon as you project becomes large enough for telkom to take notice, you will encounter heavy resistance. They will take the community or whoever to court, and get court orders to have equipment shut down or removed.

Most wireless ISP's can attest to that, just look at Megawan and all the resistance they got from Telkom. I think it was one of the factors contributing to their demise.

Lastly, the infrastructure and costs involved would be substantial, which would require constant maintenance staff and reserves for equipment failures and problems. And with wireless networks there are plenty. Building a network to support everyone who is unhappy with Telkom would be a HUGE and daunting task, but I guess everything starts somewhere []

I think one of the main ideas with MyADSL is to address issues regarding bad service and high costs of internet and communications in South-Africa and of course new ideas and concepts such as yours is part of that. By attempting to make ourselves heard on BBC we are just furthering this cause.

 

[quik]

Saw part of the show last night...

Don't think they mentioned anything although it might be too early still. That gives anyone wanting to make a contribution more time to do so.

Please, if you are unhappy with service from Telkom, especially regarding speed, pricing and capping, do something about it. This is a great oppertunity to make Telkom take notice.

So send your mail to clickonline@bbc.co.uk

If you miss the show, which is on at strange times in SA, and are not capped yet, you can get the streamed version on their homepage at http://www.bbcworld.com/content/template_clickonline.asp?pageid=666 under the "See the show" links on the left.