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Free Internet Access Is Profitable In Egypt
prostoalex writes "With the demise of free Internet access providers, it's interesting to see this model working in Egypt, where the state-owned telecom allows people to dial-up for free as long as they pay the regular phone access fees. Associated Press quotes the phone line charges being 25 cents per hour. The ISPs that promote free Internet access from Telecom Egypt are then given their share of the profit."
The same strategy is being used in India, and its quite successful. Its not exactly free, as you pay for phone access plus more, but there's no account setup, username/password and so on. Its extremely convenient, you get charged for what you use with your phone bill.
Their per capita GDP is $3000 per person, about 1/11 of the US, and the distribution of wealth/income is not unreasonable. So lets say that is the equivalent of $3/hour in terms of local purchasing power. That compares favorably to the way dialup ISPs used to work before flat rate plans became commonplace, and they are not committed to any monthly bill, they only have to pay for what they need. Internet Cafes are also popular in Egypt, another way that the general population has affordable access to the net.
The real fact of the matter is that the service isn't free.. It's just being paid for through your phone bill.
Because I get my ADSL from my phone company (Telus) I can also pay for it through my phone bill... Does this mean that I'm getting my ADSL for free too?
(at $40CAN/month ($25US) for 1.5megabit down and 500kbit up, some people might claim that I really do)
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
What's dumb about this thing in egypt is that it seems people think "gee, why doesn't that work in america then?".
Simple. We pay a flat-fee for our telephone line. We use it as much or as little as we want. It's our phone line. We're paying for it every month.
In a region where you have to pay per minute for phone usage, it's in the phone company's best interest to find encouraging reasons for you to spend more and more time on the telephone. This is just a service they can spend to get you to stay on. Sort of like BBS's of past where you paid for time on an account and then they installed MUDs and doorgames to make you spend your time up (and, thus, buy more time).
In America, if you got the ISP access for free but had to pay for the phone time (forgetting the fact that a dial-up account is a horrible HORRIBLE way to live), it would cost a hell of a lot for. Since I tellecommute, this would be doubly so.
Let us see. I wake up around 6am. Get online. Stay online until about 1am. Go to bed. Still am downloading/serving stuff for the five hours in between while I'm asleep.
25 cents per hours. Six bucks per day. 186 bucks per month. Hm. I get 640k up and down on a DSL line with half a dozen static IP's and no limitation to what I can use it for (servers, web hosting, email servers - whatever I want to do) for about $135/mo.
It's not just Egypt, it's any place with no flat local phone rates, i.e. basically everywhere except North America . Example: it's the standard in Switzerland.
(See also Estonia, Brazil, Portugal, India, Ireland, Argentina, Guatemala, England, Poland, ...)
Slashdot editors need to get out more.
Timeo idiotikOS et dona ferentes
Free Internet can work anywhere that people are already paying per-minute for local phone calls. It doesn't work in the US where unlimited local calls are free.
I think it would be more appropriate to call it "Free Internet Fails in USA, works everywhere else"
Anyone know why Egypt is getting singled out?
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