Us vs the UK!!! ding ding

[SpankDaMunkee]

Could someone please explain to me how ppl living in the UK can get a 110mbps line (unshaped, uncapped) for R241m!!! (coming march 2011, currently the the poor schmoes are "suffering" with 50mbps for less than that price I believe) and here we are paying R349m for 384kbps (heavily shaped with all sorts of strings attached).

Seriously, I look at the price/line difference and it makes me feel like I'm being raped with a 14inch strap-on!

So for a line that's almost x300 faster (with no strings attached) you pay less.... I mean c'mon who ****ed up where!??? There is simply no excuse good enough to out way the difference. even if you take Telkom's line rental out of the picture, the bandwidth is still almost the same price as the beast UK line!

You know when I'm sitting at home all comfy like with my big ass screen, 360 and a mean gaming pc rig, I almost forget I'm living in a 3rd world county, but holy damn, do these prices/limitations sure remind me. Imagine if everything was this badly unbalanced, a R700 game would cost roughly R20000, a R20000 TV would cost R6000000 lol

in order for us to have the same kinda line (110mps) as the UK boys, you'd have to rent over 27-28 unshaped 4mbps lines, at a lovely R2359m each (courtesy of Mweb), all-in-all costing a whopping R64872.50m, somehow magically get em all to network and mold as one, while UK ppl will be getting this for R241m, seriously... something ain't stirring the cool aid ppl!

I already knew Africa was the worst place in the world when it came to internet.... just was always afraid to actually check by how much, don't get me wrong I'm not saying we should all have 110mbps lines, hell I'd be creaming myself if I could pay R300m for a truly uncapped/unshaped (no strings attached) 1mbps line

Oh and here's where I found the info on the gawdly line coming to UKers in 2011 " http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ ". I'm sure I'll be flamed nicely for this, but quiet honestly I don't care, I've been pulling my hair out for years over this **** and am quite frankly blown away that it never seems to come up in message boards, especially those which contain ppl saying how grateful we should all be lol.

So yeah, please somebody... anybody, enlighten me.

 

[VioAdmin]

I have lived in both countries, US and UK for some years and I have to say by far the US has the right direction...when it comes to quality of service, support, and up-time. You cannot match it to any other place in the world, you just cannot.

Either way, it is great that the UK is getting 100mbps!! The US has 100mbps in select states/area...example, I think Louisiana has 100mbps, I was reading about it a few weeks ago...I think that was the location and in Michigan some neighborhoods/apartment complexes have been upgraded to 100mbps already.

Either way, ya here in SA/Africa we are getting completely ROBBED! Hence I am already saving funds for a lawyer and Visa!! I am impatient! Life is too short, we are going to be waiting for 10 years to reach 50mbps at a reasonable price, by that time, 100mbps will be free to all consumers in the other countries! It's the damn truth.

 

[Lycanthrope]

I have lived in both countries, US and UK for some years and I have to say by far the US has the right direction...when it comes to quality of service, support, and up-time. You cannot match it to any other place in the world, you just cannot.

Japan and South Korea come to mind?

Either way, ya here in SA/Africa we are getting completely ROBBED! Hence I am already saving funds for a lawyer and Visa!! I am impatient! Life is too short, we are going to be waiting for 10 years to reach 50mbps at a reasonable price, by that time, 100mbps will be free to all consumers in the other countries! It's the damn truth.

I couldn't agree more.

 

[cavedog]

Asia which would include Japa, South Korea , China , Hong Kong and Europe has the best internet.

Go to Latvia if you want good internet. Its insanely fast + insanely cheap.

 

[dsan]

HEY! The ANC and friends need to pay for their Rollers somehow...

come on, don't be stealing from those who fought in the struggle..

 

[Nanfeishen]

Well according to Netindex - S.A. only ranks in at no 84 , closely followed by Kenya at no 85

We are behind countries like Ukraine (19) , Ghana (32), Kyrgystan (38) , Kazakstan (44) and even Uganda (77)

The flipping Eskimoes in Greenland, and the Mongolian nomads can get faster internet in thier countries if they need it , Greenland is in at 58 , with Mongolia at 79

http://www.netindex.com/download/allcountries/

 

[ettubrute]

Hence I am already saving funds for a lawyer and Visa!!

Join the club!

 

[Icarium]

ISP's in the UK aren't paying R2500+ per mbps of international bandwidth since they aren't 8000+ kms from the next nearest developed nation. Even if telkom were to drop all charges (line, IPC etc) tomorrow we still wouldn't be able to match broadband prices in the US, UK, Europe or Asia.

Yes, we are being ripped a new one every day by Telkom - but our distance from the rest of the world (in terms of content) is the real achilles heel. Cacheing and Mirroring only goes so far to alleviate that.

 

[Nocturnity]

ISP's in the UK aren't paying R2500+ per mbps of international bandwidth since they aren't 8000+ kms from the next nearest developed nation. Even if telkom were to drop all charges (line, IPC etc) tomorrow we still wouldn't be able to match broadband prices in the US, UK, Europe or Asia.

Yes, we are being ripped a new one every day by Telkom - but our distance from the rest of the world (in terms of content) is the real achilles heel. Cacheing and Mirroring only goes so far to alleviate that.

Bull****. Australia? New Zealand? Even Mauritius!

 

[MJ INC]

I guess people in the US and the UK are also getting badly ripped off as in HK you can get a 1GB/s line for US$22?

 

[Uraeus]

HEY! The ANC and friends need to pay for their Rollers somehow...

come on, don't be stealing from those who fought in the struggle..

Yep. We also need to pay a few top knotch salaries these days.

We are jumping for joy with 4MB/10MB etc.. nothing compared to overseas bandwidth, they have that in their upload speeds alone!

 

[Icarium]

Bull****. Australia? New Zealand? Even Mauritius!

What's your point? Broadband services and pricing in Aus and NZ are nowhere near what you can get in the UK/US/Asia, and are indicative of where we would be if it were not for Telkom's inneficiency and monopolistic business practices. There is no reason we can't match those two countries for price and performance, but the OP wasn't comparing us to them. He was comparing us to the UK, where the simple fact is that they don't rely on our hideously expensive international links to provide thier services.

Can we match the UK in terms of speed? Yes - if ICASA grew some balls and allowed some real competition to Telkom.
Can we match the UK in terms of price? No - for the reasons already mentioned.
Are we being ripped off? Yes - back to Telkom and ICASA.

 

[jpmonster]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolo...in-to-roll-out-100mbps-broadband-service.html

Virgin, one of the leaders in UK are only rolling out 100mb this year. As it says in the article 4mb is the average across UK.

We live in South Africa, mighty far from the rest of civilization. In EU they dont need to maintain thousands of miles of cable across desert and undersea, each of those countries have there on telecommunication companies. We live in South Africa, we are one country not 50-70 countries. You cannot compare a country like Australia to South Africa, they are far better economically and they are also very close to the asian countries and US.

The other factor is that 50% of South Africans dont have electricity, let alone Telephones, so 100mb broadband, you guys are kidding. You only build an infrastructure if you going to make money out of it, how will 100mb broadband in SA help that 22million?lol

Tata have taken the first step and brought Seacom, then EASsy and next will be WACS. You need to take baby steps first before you can walk, but you guys want to run first. lol