WiMax rollout - when will consumers benefit ?

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gerasmus

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Has any company annouced plans to which towns/regions (and it which order) would the WiMax be rolled out + dates ?
Does one need a WiMax modem to receive WiMax, and what would prices be ?

I live on a farm way outside the reach of ADSL but within direct line of sight of the potential broadcast tower. Luckliy it's very flat area where I live.

I just returned from 10 years living in EU. I was used to TRUELY uncapped 16mb line, my data use was around 180Gb per month.

Now I'm stuck with the 'best' our area has to offer. I've had to settle for a commercial Wi-fi via dish (like the Pretoria Wireless User Group) provider. I get max of 19k p/sec. That means all the stuff I was used to like low latency (single digit or low very double digit pings for gaming), watching IPTV in HD, Youtube...all that impossible here ! It's not surprising that people I've spoken to doesn't even know about video on-demand etc (like Youtube) in S-Africa. It's no wonder, because bandwith is so expensive and so slooooooow.
Just after arriving back in S-Africa I subscribed to Vodacom HSDPA 2Gb... reached my cap within 4 days of just cusual browsing, aaaarghhh !
It feels to me like S-African broadband (pricing and uptake) is like Netherlands in 1996.

I live in Lephalale (Formerly Ellisras).
 
WiMax is a FAIL - you will not be able to use WiMax as an ADSL replacement, its going to be a new Cellphone mobile technology, so you will have to pay 3G prices for a 10mb/s wireless.

WiMax is just another technology that ICASA has managed to fumble into the hands of the biggest rip off fail artists we have to offer in this country, our beloved cell phone companies.

Im just glad that the consumer protection bill is in place an there isnt a hope in hell that i sign up any other contract until April next year, when the bill will allow me to shove their contract and high billing rates right up their Naught when the service sucks and i get billed R10 000.00 for downloading 9gb of data.

Its cheaper to buy a ticket on a first class flight around the world visiting 9 different countries and staying in a 5star hotel like the hilton for a year than it is to download 180GB a month. R230 000.00 a month if you want to use a cellphone provider as your ISP for 4G.
Which btw is WiMax Mobile, and which by the way is why telkom are no longer offering the stupid fail offering of their 30mhz band allocated fixed point WiMax.

Because that works as an ADSL line, i.e you buy an ADSL datapackage from any ISP and use it as a PPPOE connection.

WiMax Mobile requires a Simcard and will work as 3G.
Telkom will then offer WiMax mobile 4G instead of fixed line replacement, however will charge you the same data rates as 3G @ a R1.20 per mb best offer. Or R2400 for 10GB in bundle, which is the highest you can go.

So............ maybe its time to start digging your own cable system and pushing fibre down some PVC pipe. Buy all of it yourself, get the permits to lay the fibre filled PVC pipe along the side of the road, and bring it right to the door of the nearest SAIX NOC or Telkom exchange.
Then phone telkom and ask them for service.

Our beautiful developing country should be embarassed with our infrastructure, and we plan to host 2010.
Cant wait for the fibre optic cables to be cut during a game when some nogshlepper thinks he is making off with a 1inch copper cable running out of the maintenance shed of Soccer city and cuts off the HD Feed for the rest of the world.

What a fail. WiMax with a customer benefit..... Ya right. Maybe if you move back to the EU.
Not in this lame fail of a nation, not when incompetence and an elective backing gets you into your role not experience knowledge and some general idea about what you have to do.

FAIL FAIL FAIL
 
Thanks !

Wi-max is about the best I can hope for. The 1Mb uncapped from Screamer looks to be the cheapest option considering my geographical location and my usuage requirements for surfing (me and wife together each with at least 10 tabs each open on Firefox, online PC gaming, Youtube, Internet Radio, Skype Video conferencing).

Just before I left the UK I saw a clip on BBC news about residents in some remote island/village (whatever) of the Uk that had no prospect of ever getting proper broadband access. They formed a cooperation and the locals bought their own fibre optica cable, laid it and did all the work themselves. Farms in the middle of nowhere now have (probably) 50mb fibre to home !

Apparently there is already fibre optic cable right into our local phone exchange. I dunno how these things work but my understanding is that this exchange serves the whole district. A full 80km radius.
We live too far (5+ km) from the exchange for ADSL.

My guess is that the average person is not IT literate and has no idea about what ADSL caps are, they don't understand and the couldn't care less. As long as the can surf their webmail once a week they're happy. Most SA'ers don't even know about the wealth of information and capabilities that a truely affordable/fast/uncapped internet brings. I am sure small business owners are aware of the caps but they know to stay within the limits. Here where I live, employees generally don't have their own PC each , that cuts out casual browsing.

South Africans generally doesn't know of any better. That is why we pay the prices we do. What people here think of as cheap broadband would be considered extorsion in Europe.

My guess is that it would be 3 to 5 years before we see really E.U.like prices and uncapped broadband. Imagine the stares of European visitors for 2010 world cup when they visit hotels only to find Wi-fi at extortionate prices. They step back into the past. What I find ridiculous is that the rest of world would be watching HD socccer (and watching in HD IPTV too) but in S-Africa we won't be able to, due to bandwith price contraints.
In London and most of Netherlands one can find FREE wi-fi in just about any pub, restaurant or sit-down place of which there are many.
 
But you're not in the EU!

You'll have to wait quite a while to get what you had there, here.

Go for Screamer WiMax if you can.:D
 
rebel998 said:
But you're not in the EU!

You'll have to wait quite a while to get what you had there, here.

Go for Screamer WiMax if you can.:D
Click to expand...

Why would you recommend Screamer? I did initially, but of late the service has been so bad that I'm thinking it would be wise to go for one of the larger services providers.

In the 1st World Wimax would outperform 3G any day, but as you said... we're not in the EU.
 
Well I would recommend Screamer because I get good service from them and my WiMax connection runs like a swiss clock.:D
 
i Recomend if you can live in EU do so, i would rather work ina toilet scrubbing them each day in a pub in the UK then live as a doctor in SA, to bad i dotn have a passport to leave here, i did manage to stay in the UK for just over 2 years. best 2 years of my life. no caps no limits and no issues. God i miss that place
*cough* i mean i am proudly South-African... ye right.
 
Anuerism said:
WiMax Mobile requires a Simcard and will work as 3G.
Click to expand...

Actually, the EAP-SIM isn't required for Mobile WiMAX. EAP-TLS and EAP-TTLS are the more common options.

Perhaps you're thinking of LTE here?
LTE is not WiMAX.
 
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