The truth about caps and shaping

[Nordic]

Why not rip up the tar roads while we are at it, because bankrobbers are driveing too fast during their escapes?

The plain truth is that 99% of the bandwidth hoggers are probably busy breaking copyright laws anyway.

Be that as it may...

If I allready have a cap... why should it be throttled as well... If I were to use it full speed it would take only a bit more than half a day before a whole 3gb cap for instance is gone... and in theory I could'nt bother anyone for the rest of the month....

How can they claim to sell 4mb accounts if the truth is it is actualy x kb for this and y kb for that.. oh and maybe you can get your email at 4mb, but I doubt that.... They cannot even allow constant bandwidth over my 384k connection...

 

[snugam]

Articles like this just shows that we will live in a third world, backward country for many years to come, if not always. We will never be able to compete with the modern world.

agreed

 

[general_koffi]

The article doesn't tackle the issues.

It's due to our "bandwidth-starved environment". What? Is that supposed to mean it's no one's fault? Does "bandwidth starvation" occur due to the weather here? Or the geography?

No, it's not iBurst's fault. It's the fault of the government and Telkom, to put it bluntly.

 

[Tns]

Correct!

but does Telkom actually care?

 

[StrontiumDog]

Not disputing that, was pointing out fair usage policies or "what consitutes abusive activity/traffic" are no different overseas than here.

Fair enough, but in the overseas context with the cap and speed restrictions not in existence for "non-abusive" traffic, a fair usage policy is a bit more tolerable than here...

 

[Velenoso]

I have something to say about the ridiculous internet service in South Africa. My South African cable (DSTV), internet and phone bill cost me as follows:

Telkom DSL384 + 5GB Web Africa = R 451
2 X Telkom Lines = R 222
Telephone and Fax Calls: = R 1000
DSTV = R 439

Total: R 2,112-00

Now at my appartment in New York I have a Road Runner triple play package at a fixed cost of about $ 140 per month which is about R 980, I get the following:

7mbps cable connection, uncapped and unshaped
1 X Telephone line with unlimited calls to US and neighboring countries
Cable TV with more than 300 channels and Pay per View
In this price is also included two extra channels I subscribe to.

I spend about half my time in the US and half my time in SA. Every time I come here, there is some sort of problem with my Telkom account. i.e in the past few days I got my account suspended for no reason.

It's actually not worth comparing Telkom to other telecommunication companies because they are not even in the same league.

After all, this is Africa so we can't really expect much better. We're lucky to have landlines in Johannesburg. I was in Zambia recently and a land line is a luxury reserved for big towns only.