Mauritius Aims To Be First Wireless Nation

Posted by Zonk on Sunday June 19, 2005 @04:26PM from the coast-to-coast dept.

hattan writes "This tropical island off the east coast of Africa is best-known for its white-sand beaches, its designer clothing outlets and its spicy curries. But tiny Mauritius is about to stake a new claim to fame. By year's end, or soon afterward, it is expected to become the world's first nation with coast-to-coast wireless Internet." From the article: "An undersea broadband fiber-optic cable, completed three years ago, gives the island fast and reliable phone and Internet links with the rest of Africa and with Europe, India and Malaysia. Many of the country's 1.2 million people--a mix of French, Indian, Chinese and African descendants--are bilingual or trilingual, speaking French, English and either Chinese or Hindi. The country is democratic, peaceful and stable."

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From someone who lives there... by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-19 18:09 · Score: 5, Informative

Hi, I live in Mauritius, the home of the extinct dodo.

Country's bandwidth to the Internet: 128 Mbps

Here is some information about Internet connectivity with the biggest ISP, Telecom Plus.
266 US$/month - Business ADSL 1024/128
147 US$/month - Business ADSL 512/128
78 US$/month - Business ADSL 128/64

40 US$/month - Residential ADSL 128/64
60 US$/month - Residential ADSL 512/128
266 US$/month - Residential ADSL 1024/128

Taken from
http://www.telecomplus.net/adsl_tariffs.htm
1 US$ ~Rs 28
VAT is at 15 %

Oh, forget about getting dedicated >1mbps connections, they cost over 2,400 US$/month last time I checked.

Also, Mauritius claims to home the most intelligent building in the world, the Ebene Cybertower.

See, this is a great place to live, all the peace and quiet is here but if you want to move here to enjoy cheap, fast and reliable internet connectivity, its the wrong place to be.

Information:
www.mauritiustelecom.com
www.gov. mu
alt.mauritius

Have a nice day.