Vodacom 3G , a big scam

[Pilgrim]

Don't get me wrong. For once I am not moaning. I really respect what the cell operators in this country offer us.

The thing I found funny was how everyone blames the insane prices of SAT3 bandwidth but very few realise just how expensive the backhaul links are. It must be pretty crazy for a company to decide to lay its own fiber costing billions of rands rather than use the supposed fixed line operator

What I do not like, however, is how bloody expensive bandwidth is in this country. Everyone is talking about Seacom but once Seacom lands ISPs, Cell operators and Fixed line operators are just going to start blaming something else where prices stay high. (I hope I am wrong here) Point to point links inside sunny ZA remain extremely expensive so I don't see how any number of international cables will force down prices.

Perhaps once a bunch of national fiber networks are completed the prices can come down or will there be some other excuse then?

Kudos to Vodacom for at least offering us something. (Not that I would rent online movies, download podcasts, buy music online or watch YouTube using them, it simply is not affordable.)

What is Web2.0?

 

[ToxicBunny]

Pilgrim : You don't need to wait for Seacom to land before they'll start blaming something else... I remember a story a few months ago where they mentioned Seacom wouldn't bring prices down that much due to something or other...

 

[Pilgrim]

Pilgrim : You don't need to wait for Seacom to land before they'll start blaming something else... I remember a story a few months ago where they mentioned Seacom wouldn't bring prices down that much due to something or other...

Sigh. Let me go find my vaseline.

 

[vodacom3g]

Pilgrim : You don't need to wait for Seacom to land before they'll start blaming something else... I remember a story a few months ago where they mentioned Seacom wouldn't bring prices down that much due to something or other...

Pilgrim is right though. Both local and international bandwidth must come down. Off-shore, projects like Seacom will make a big difference and nationally self-provision is now the preferred route for the bigger players.

But it will take many years to get the local networks to the same level of coverage of the local Telco.

At least the process has started.

 

[ToxicBunny]

v3g : I know this, much as I don't want to accept it really I also don't really see LLU actually happening anytime in the foreseeable future either, and therefore each player will have to either lay their own local network, or you'll find them joining forces to cover a region together (which as a solution makes lots more sense to me... )

Its just we've had years of people saying the Sat3 was the reason everything was so expensive.. and almost the second that the Seacom project became a real concrete thing, they started blaming other things and saying seacom won't make much, if any, difference to the costs.