Question.. What is internet access like in SA

[Rabs]

Hello,


Just a quick question..

What kind of internet speeds are available in SA? And whats the cost?

All of ths ISP's here now cap downloads which is a shame as just a few years ago most of the broadband connections were unlimited.. But I think now up to 16mbps is available... (most people have about 2.2)

Cheers,


Rabs.

[wir]

http://www.hellkom.co.za/ispprices/

Prices might be a little outdated, but they're close enough.

Speeds availible(AFAIK) :
384kbit
512kbit
1mbit(or was it 2mbit?)

[Chevron]

I don't think you get 1M/bit anymore. It's 4M/bit now.

[Rabs]

**** ! So from that you guys have to pay for the downloaded info as well as a monthly subscription? :o0 My god thats crazy prices.. Over here we just pay per month, I pay £18.99 for 2.2mbps and is capped to 30gig a month which I find I never use up.

[Azimuth]

Welcome to the third-world rip-off.

[Icenflame]

yeah well we only have one Telecommunications service provider so "so much for choice".
At least we have connections now and they are "slightly" and I mean "slightly" affordable for the average tech geeky kind of person...

[Boggle24]

Funny thing, as soon as I clicked on this thread I got a 'cannot access server' error, right after I got a gateway timeout. :/

I just found that quite ironic, considering the subject matter.

Yeah we're all waiting on Neotel (* SNO *) to see what, if any, improvements they might offer.

[R4mzy]

Hopefully, there will be some improvements. Though at the moment I'm quite happy with iBurst (wireless internet, so we don't have to rely on Telkom replacing stolen cables anymore).

[wir]

SNO Telecommunications.
They have a website, I believe.
www.SNOTelecom.co.za
SNOT, for short.

[Chevron]

www.neotel.co.za actually

[wir]

SNOT was the old one I think.

[Frozenfireside]

I don't know about anyone elses internetz connection today but mine was shockingly awful!

[Aesir]

I got kicked off once but nothing to shout about.

I'm getting my 1.5 gig cap on the 1st of September!!! Can't wait, usually my 512 is finished by the 12th, but now I can play online every night, Yipeee :)

[Rabs]

Ok so im in for a bit of a shock when I move over to SA, well internet connection wise anyway..

And I was so loving those movies downloads ;o)

[MrDeVil_909]

Yeah you can kiss those goodbye. Problem is that there is only one undersea cable out of SA atm and Telkom has a monopoly on this. We do have the highest telecommunications cost in the world, last I heard.

[wir]

We do have the highest telecommunications cost in the world, last I heard.
Wasn't it 2nd or 3rd highest?

[MrDeVil_909]

Could be right, I probably heard it on the radio while driving. ;) sucks anyway.

[Chevron]

I still remember I saw an article in the paper that said that if you wanted to download a 100gigs off the net, it'd be cheaper and faster to buy a plane ticket to south korea and go to an internet cafe instead of using telkom's packages.

I must say I was quite shocked.

[cYn]

Hong Kong.
But don't get too excited about Neotel. They've made it clear that they wont be competing with Telkom on a price level, but more on service or some crap.

[Gldm]

There are two undersea lines, not one. They're about 25% used at the current time. Every DSL user in SA spending an entire 3GB cap on pure international traffic couldn't amount to 1% of the line capacity. The problem is in the peering agreements with the other ends of the cables.

And I believe it was 2nd highest cost in the world, not quite sure who's higher.