I just thought I would provide some comments about the US internet situation vs. South Africa. Sometimes cultural differences can be shocking 
First of all there are several methods of High Speed connections. The most popular and best by far is a cable connection. For those who can't get a cable connection (only the most remote areas in the US) people settle for DSL since they at least have copper phone wire going to the house. The only people I know personally who do not have a high speed connection are those who basically have no need for the internet at all other than their family makes them tie on for email Most areas with large populations / high eduction / several universities have most everyone with a high speed connection. Some people also have satellite with slow upload but high download speeds and some are getting cell type wireless connections so they can travel anywhere with a laptop, but the majority are cable. Cable is also merging the cell phone internet connection for a smart PDA phone with the home internet so you can get that on the same service too. So the line between hard line cable and over the air signal is blurring. Basically, it can now be different methods of delivering the same service from the same company. You can pay a little extra if you want your internet to travel with you away from your home connection.
The internet is so prolific that you almost don't have to pay for it Wherever I go with my laptop, I find dozens of wireless routers in my list, some of which are always unprotected. While I don't encourage jumping on other people's internet connection, I have on occasion gone on to do a quick lookup or send an important email. In my neighborhood of average sized houses (2600 square feet or more), there are 10 other wireless routers in range.
Most of us are pretty much all cable / all digital at this point. For example, you can get high speed internet, VoIP phone, and digital high-def television with a couple of hundred channels all from one provider if you want. All this for between $100 - $200 per month (R750 - R1500). Its nice to have 1 cable coming into the house and everything run off of it. The only downside is that if someone digs where they aren't supposed to and cuts a cable, everything goes out. Also, in the age of VoIP phone, they require power for the phone and the router it runs through. The POTS line phone runs off the phone company's DC power system, so even if we have a hurricane and some people lose power with all the trees falling through the wires that aren't yet underground, the old style telephones almost never go out.
Cable in the US usually has 3 tiers of service, lite, regular and turbo. Lite is 1.5 Mbps down and 256 Kpbs up. Regular is 5 Mbps down / 384 Kbps up, and turbo is 8Mbps / 512 Kbps.
I have turbo and personally don't usually see much difference between regular and turbo. Sometimes the internet itself is slower than turbo so I'm paying for performance I'm not getting The big deal is for people downloading a lot of music or movies or who need that level of service for business.
Regular cable internet service (such as Road Runner) costs about $35 per month (R263). I'm not sure how that stacks up against personal income, but most American's earn above $30,000 (R225,000) if they are employed full time. Most people in my area have both husband and wife working and I would say the average income is $80,000 to $130,000 per year for a 2 income family (R600,000 - R975,000).
The big shocker as someone in the US looking at the pricing of SA broadband is that your ISP are charging by usage. Keep in mind that the internet in the US is UNLIMITED. In my house, we have a partly wired and partly wireless network of 5 desktops and laptops. Each person in the house has 1 computer. We are always connected and do a lot of surfing and downloading at random times. The kids subscribe to iTunes and are constantly downloading music for their iPods. So having to pay for how much you upload and download is just not competitive. For one thing, how can you possibly monitor how much you are downloading? And imagine trying to keep a teen from downloading too much. I understand that model comes from cell phone billing where they charge for air time, but the internet really needs to be unlimited, just like local phone usage is here in the US.
I work from home often and have to upload and download very large projects and also use remote desktop software to take control of several machines at the office. With the high speed connection, there isn't much difference operating software from my machine or running it on a remote client machine from home or a hot spot.
Back to the phone system. That also differs from SA. Normal POTS lines allow unlimited local calling and charge for long distance. VoIP phones charge for minutes, but all long distance is included in those minutes. Of course you can get unlimited VoIP also where you can call anywhere in the US, Mexico, or Canada and talk for as long as you want.
Well, that's my quick, non-scientific synopsis of the differences in being wired in the US and SA. It will be interesting to see how things change as SA grows and business competition brings down prices.
First of all there are several methods of High Speed connections. The most popular and best by far is a cable connection. For those who can't get a cable connection (only the most remote areas in the US) people settle for DSL since they at least have copper phone wire going to the house. The only people I know personally who do not have a high speed connection are those who basically have no need for the internet at all other than their family makes them tie on for email
Most areas with large populations / high eduction / several universities have most everyone with a high speed connection. Some people also have satellite with slow upload but high download speeds and some are getting cell type wireless connections so they can travel anywhere with a laptop, but the majority are cable. Cable is also merging the cell phone internet connection for a smart PDA phone with the home internet so you can get that on the same service too. So the line between hard line cable and over the air signal is blurring. Basically, it can now be different methods of delivering the same service from the same company. You can pay a little extra if you want your internet to travel with you away from your home connection.The internet is so prolific that you almost don't have to pay for it
Wherever I go with my laptop, I find dozens of wireless routers in my list, some of which are always unprotected. While I don't encourage jumping on other people's internet connection, I have on occasion gone on to do a quick lookup or send an important email. In my neighborhood of average sized houses (2600 square feet or more), there are 10 other wireless routers in range. Most of us are pretty much all cable / all digital at this point. For example, you can get high speed internet, VoIP phone, and digital high-def television with a couple of hundred channels all from one provider if you want. All this for between $100 - $200 per month (R750 - R1500). Its nice to have 1 cable coming into the house and everything run off of it. The only downside is that if someone digs where they aren't supposed to and cuts a cable, everything goes out.
Also, in the age of VoIP phone, they require power for the phone and the router it runs through. The POTS line phone runs off the phone company's DC power system, so even if we have a hurricane and some people lose power with all the trees falling through the wires that aren't yet underground, the old style telephones almost never go out.Cable in the US usually has 3 tiers of service, lite, regular and turbo. Lite is 1.5 Mbps down and 256 Kpbs up. Regular is 5 Mbps down / 384 Kbps up, and turbo is 8Mbps / 512 Kbps.
I have turbo and personally don't usually see much difference between regular and turbo. Sometimes the internet itself is slower than turbo so I'm paying for performance I'm not getting
The big deal is for people downloading a lot of music or movies or who need that level of service for business.Regular cable internet service (such as Road Runner) costs about $35 per month (R263). I'm not sure how that stacks up against personal income, but most American's earn above $30,000 (R225,000) if they are employed full time. Most people in my area have both husband and wife working and I would say the average income is $80,000 to $130,000 per year for a 2 income family (R600,000 - R975,000).
The big shocker as someone in the US looking at the pricing of SA broadband is that your ISP are charging by usage. Keep in mind that the internet in the US is UNLIMITED. In my house, we have a partly wired and partly wireless network of 5 desktops and laptops. Each person in the house has 1 computer. We are always connected and do a lot of surfing and downloading at random times. The kids subscribe to iTunes and are constantly downloading music for their iPods. So having to pay for how much you upload and download is just not competitive. For one thing, how can you possibly monitor how much you are downloading? And imagine trying to keep a teen from downloading too much. I understand that model comes from cell phone billing where they charge for air time, but the internet really needs to be unlimited, just like local phone usage is here in the US.
I work from home often and have to upload and download very large projects and also use remote desktop software to take control of several machines at the office. With the high speed connection, there isn't much difference operating software from my machine or running it on a remote client machine from home or a hot spot.
Back to the phone system. That also differs from SA. Normal POTS lines allow unlimited local calling and charge for long distance. VoIP phones charge for minutes, but all long distance is included in those minutes. Of course you can get unlimited VoIP also where you can call anywhere in the US, Mexico, or Canada and talk for as long as you want.
Well, that's my quick, non-scientific synopsis of the differences in being wired in the US and SA. It will be interesting to see how things change as SA grows and business competition brings down prices.
) South African?
