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Telcos - How Do Developed Countries Compare?
armondf asks: "I live in South Africa and we are currently laboring under one of the most draconian Telecoms companies in the world (Telkom). Most South African geeks hate this company more than Microsoft. Here, basic ADSL services from our Telecoms provider are charged R270 - R480 - roughly $US40 - $US72 (and that's just for the *line rental*) - that excludes our ISP costs (at least another R200 or $US30) and there is a 3 Gig cap. Our Telecoms provider simply threatens to stop the service if our regulators impose stricter regulations. How do developing countries (like South Africa) become competitive with provision of Internet Services - such as ADSL as compared to Developed countries Telcos? Are there any other developing countries failing to implement affordable broadband solutions to the masses? Did developing countries go through the same teething problems?"
ADSL services from our Telecoms provider are charged R270 - R480 - roughly $US40 - $US72 (and that's just for the *line rental*) - that excludes our ISP costs (at least another R200 or $US30) and there is a 3 Gig cap.
Aside from the 3gig cap, that's not too bad of a deal. With Qwest, you could get something like 256kbps for $30 or so per month. If you want a real ISP with some amount of freedom and no connection resets every couple of hours, it would probably cost you about $70/mo for a 768kbps line from the phone company and maybe $80/mo for the service from an ISP. So about $150/mo for 768kbps DSL.
Or if you went with cable, it would be about $65/mo for 6mbit/768kbps. Of course, you're unlikely to ever get those speeds since al of areas are incredibly saturated. I get about 2mbit if I'm lucky (with Comcast) and it's entirely to do with saturation, because when everyone is gone on particular days, I'm able to almost max out my bandwidth.
Just becuase the US is a "developed nation" doesn't mean our broadband is. In fact, it most certainly is not. There are a LOT of places where you can't get anything but dialup with really dirty lines (probably more people can NOT get broadband than CAN). And since there are usually monopolies in the area, they can charge whatever the hell they feel like. For example, cable has to compete with DSL. cable does not have to compete with other cable providers. And DSL lines are provided by your phone company. Period. So they can charge whatever *they* want for the wire.
ADSL monthly subscription fees from the biggest telco in the Netherlands (KPN), no hard caps ("Fair Use Policy"):
800/256: 21,95 Euro
1600/512: 29,95 Euro
3200/768: 49,95 Euro
8000/1024 74.95 Euro
You do need to lease a landline (minimum around 10 E per month). Usually they throw in some promotion discounts (1st month free, free WIFI modem/router, etc.). Two or three years back it was much more expensive, probably twice or thrice the price, but competition has unleashed a pricewar of some sorts.
In Morocco, there is still a monopoly on the ADSL broadband supply, that makes the prices to be relatively high for a country like morocco,so we pay for 256K, 30 dollars for the Line and the ISP, there is only 100 000 ADSL subscribers,the telecom regulation authority said that there is a potential of 500 000 in the next years. Recently there is a licence which was attributed to a second telecom provider that planes to provide low cost broadband with wimax, by establishing a nation wide wireless network combined with optical fibre. There are also two 3GPP licenses that will be attributed at the end of year, so i guess that is a reason more to make broadband prices to drop. I really don't know what is best suitable for a low cost broadband in developing countries Wimax or 3GPP or classis technologies?