Regarding internet access in Africa

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Velenoso

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Hi guys,

I trust all of you are enjoying the festive season.

I'm in Zambia at the moment and I'm becoming increasingly frustrated with the internet situation over here.

The only options seem to be:

1. VSAT which as far as I have been able to research, costs around $200 for a reasonable connection, the catch here, is the equipment one of these companies here wants to charge me costs $2000. I can't justify spending this sort of money for an internet connection I'll be using two to three times in a year when I'm over here. Does anyone know more about this technology and what its about?

2. GPRS - Slow as hell and expensive as well, around $1 a meg. (This is what I'm using at the moment)

3. Some sort of CDMA service which is slower than GPRS!

So what other options are available to me here? I have searched the forum for satelite internet, and it came up with some info on Tiscali satelite internet, but I couldn't get much info.

It looks like I will be spending around two to three months of the year up here and I'm really beginning to struggle without proper connectivity.

Any chance on a wi-fi link to my office in JHB? :D

Thanks in advance guys.
 
Velenoso said:
Hi guys,

I trust all of you are enjoying the festive season.

I'm in Zambia at the moment and I'm becoming increasingly frustrated with the internet situation over here.

The only options seem to be:

1. VSAT which as far as I have been able to research, costs around $200 for a reasonable connection, the catch here, is the equipment one of these companies here wants to charge me costs $2000. I can't justify spending this sort of money for an internet connection I'll be using two to three times in a year when I'm over here. Does anyone know more about this technology and what its about?

2. GPRS - Slow as hell and expensive as well, around $1 a meg. (This is what I'm using at the moment)

3. Some sort of CDMA service which is slower than GPRS!

So what other options are available to me here? I have searched the forum for satelite internet, and it came up with some info on Tiscali satelite internet, but I couldn't get much info.

It looks like I will be spending around two to three months of the year up here and I'm really beginning to struggle without proper connectivity.

Any chance on a wi-fi link to my office in JHB? :D

Thanks in advance guys.
Click to expand...

Why is the CDMA service slower than GPRS? It should be slightly faster or around the same speed. And even GPRS/Edge should get you up to around 500 kbps at the max.
 
Garyvdh said:
Why is the CDMA service slower than GPRS? It should be slightly faster or around the same speed. And even GPRS/Edge should get you up to around 500 kbps at the max.
Click to expand...

I'm not entirely sure, the modem I'm using for the CDMA is a huawei ets1000. I received it for free from an ISP here called Zamtel. Late at night it is reasonable, but when I say reasonable I mean MAYBE 5kb/s. Usually (during the day) a page takes around 5 minutes to load.

GPRS gets around 2-3k/s max.
 
Velenoso said:
I'm not entirely sure, the modem I'm using for the CDMA is a huawei ets1000. I received it for free from an ISP here called Zamtel. Late at night it is reasonable, but when I say reasonable I mean MAYBE 5kb/s. Usually (during the day) a page takes around 5 minutes to load.

GPRS gets around 2-3k/s max.
Click to expand...

Aaaah, I see. I will tell you what is happening. GPRS and CDMA speeds are dependent on the number of users accessing the same Cellular Tower. There are just too many users in your area.... they are all sharing the same bandwidth. some of them go to bed later at night so your speeds improve somewhat... but until they build more towers (and improve backhaul capacity) you are stuck.

Therefore I suggest that you look at technology which is not cellular dependent. Can you buy the satellite/VSat equipment and re-sell it when you are finished there?
 
Are you looking at 2-3 months fulltime and then no more? Or occasional visits every year? For occasional use I think satellite's going to be pricey. Your best bet unfortunately will be what the cellular provider(s) offer. I have no experience of Zambia but in Botswana they have a good EDGE service and now 3G in Gaborone, but you have to work a bit to get it set up. Then it's the equiv of R4.50/MB.

Alt, if you have fixed premises there, ask if there's an ADSL offering. Line rental would be a fixed cost but could be cheaper than satellite.
 
Unfortunately my location is quite remote. There appears to be an ADSL service in Lusaka (the capital here), however it isn't available where I'm based. I will be here two or three months of every year for the next foreseeable future as there are several ventures I'll be entering into here.

Gary, thats a pity because I find these services almost unusable. It seems some sort of satelite connection is my only option here.

Nod, what are you paying for your service if you don't mind me asking?

This is a quote I received from a provider in Lusaka, it says it's for satelite internet, but I doubt it looking at that equipment? A 1.2 meter antenna? I thought satelite internet would use satelites, no? :confused:

This is it: http://mybroadband.co.za/photos/showphoto.php?photo=8919&cat=500

That quote comes to over R40,000 the Rand to the ZMK is around 500.

Could I buy the equipment in JHB for instance, hook it up and subscribe with these guys? I'm assuming I could get that equipment somewhere cheaper!

There must be a better option than that!

Anyway, it isn't urgent now, I'm probably heading back to the states on Monday, I just wanted to research a little, and of course there is no better place than mybroadband to do that. :D I'd like to have the equipment or whatever ready when I come back next time...

Thanks as always guys.
 
Sheesh, man... that sucks. Buy an MviX and just copy a bunch of movies onto it. I would not use the internet for those three months!

Solitude FTW!!! ;)
 
Update: One of the mobile operators here, Zain (www.zain.com) offers EDGE, however the signal here is very poor. Does anyone know of some sort of signal booster I could buy (or better yet build here) which could boost my signal enough to use EDGE. The rate also works out to K1000 (R2) per mb. I could live with that...
 
Velenoso said:
Update: One of the mobile operators here, Zain (www.zain.com) offers EDGE, however the signal here is very poor. Does anyone know of some sort of signal booster I could buy (or better yet build here) which could boost my signal enough to use EDGE. The rate also works out to K1000 (R2) per mb. I could live with that...
Click to expand...

Yes, go to www.poynting.co.za
 
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