Some 'problematic' paragraphs:
In bandwidth rich environments – typically Europe, North America and some Asian countries – fast, uncapped broadband connections are commonplace. The cost of bandwidth is generally very affordable, making it possible to provide users with a ‘permanent pipe to the Internet’ rather than a limited amount of bandwidth per month.
Thought broadband was a 'permanent pipe' (so what do we have, improved dialup?)
The most likely reason is that some broadband providers in fact do not provision adequate network capacity for all their subscribers – especially when it comes to the international component. International bandwidth – and national bandwidth for that matter – remains very expensive in South Africa and if a provider is forced to cut costs this is an easy place to save some money.
Oh so we (with our non-permanent pipe) are being penalised for their 'inadequate provision.' (actually nothing to do with capacity.) Yes we pay a fortune but they don't use it to buy bandwidth; no, they prefer to spend it on (drum roll) advertising (or such.)
Now back to the iBurst example. With very low monthly usage limits – starting from as low as 40 MB – a large portion of the iBurst subscriber base will only engage in very basic Internet activities like checking their email, surfing the web and doing Internet banking.
Yup. Inadequate provision equals low usage: not because they choose it but because it is so damn expensive (oh why, because of failure to buy 'adequate capacity.')
With effective caching policies and heavy traffic shaping this ‘lower end subscriber’ will not notice that the company may have very limited international bandwidth resources as their content is either cached locally or prioritized when accessed overseas. This is most likely what companies refer to when saying that they protect the majority of their users against abuse from a small group of subscribers.
Yes our high prices protect 'other users' (who don't really exist cause its so expensive cause of inadequate capacity.) Ergo we must get more users not to use our service (by using our ripoff to market for more.)
These additional funds can come in handy when launching large marketing campaigns resulting in an increase in subscriber numbers, easily making up for the loss of a few high end users.
And with the ever present pressure of higher profits, this trend is not likely to change in South Africa until bandwidth prices are reduced. In countries with low bandwidth costs it is cheap enough to upgrade the network to keep customers happy, but with South Africa’s very high bandwidth prices the decision to try to cut corners on bandwidth provisioning is tempting.
Yes we cannot afford to upgrade infrastructure or in fact provide the things our customers paid for. Why? Because we are greedy little piggies that don't give a damn (but gee we want more customers.)
Whatever. Orwellian drama equals the most expensive internet in the world.
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