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Olympic Media Village – Most Expensive Internet In the World?
An anonymous reader writes "Working for the Olympics as an IT contractor, I recently moved to the Media Village (where all of the reporters live) and was surprised the there was no free internet. BOCOG (Beijing Organizing Committee of the 2008 Olympic Games) is charging a ridiculous amount of money for ADSL service: for 512/512 it costs 7712.5 RMB (1131.20 USD); for 1M/512 it costs 9156.25 (1342.95 USD); for 2M/512 it costs a whopping 11,700 RMB (1716.05 USD). That is for only one month! For extra features like a fixed IP? That costs an additional 450 RMB (66 USD). I just can't believe that not only do I have to deal with the Great Firewall of China, but also pay through the nose to use it!"
how comes your company doesn't pay for it?
It's like any other event of this nature, everyone gets put in the vice for money. For example, apartment rentals near the Democratic Convention in Denver are topping out at (yes!) $30,000. But I'll bet it will keep the "illegal" bloggers down...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
I remember getting insulted at a hotel because they wanted to charge me $10 a day for internet access. I certainly sympathize...
...However, one must also understand the economics of the situation. For our cable modems and DSL lines, the long-term subscriptions allow the initial investment to be recaptured over time. Does the same apply at the Chinese Olympics?
No, I will not work for your startup
deep packet inspection and analysis for all your communication is expensive.
Communists overcharge CAPITALISTS...
;-)
You're a rich American, remember? I think they're putting the screws to you and pulling your leg; a coworker of mine just got back from China about 3 weeks ago and he said his hotel in Beijing had free wireless. Sneak into a hotel and give that a shot. What's the worst that could happen
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
you went to the Olympics as a contractor to make money. now you find out tool you need for the job actually costs money instead of being free, a lot of money. well, so you assumed and fucked up. Are we learning yet?
Every single person in the media village is attached to one of the media organizations covering the Olympics. That means every penny they spend will be 100% reimbursed by the corporation that has them out there. The company's already spending millions to send the manpower and equipment over there, what's an extra $1k here or there? And of course it's only for 1 month, that's how long the Olympics are.
This is the same as all business hotels. Your run of the mill Best Western, Days Inn, etc family chains all have free Wifi internet. Minute you go to any "business class" hotel or go within a block of a convention center, you start getting charged $10/day to $10/hr. It's all reimbursed through their company so the person staying doesn't care, and a company's not going to reasonably tell employees not to pay $10 to access their e-mail and work an extra hour from the hotel when they're paying $200/night anyway.
This is Dubai. Notice anything, moron?
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
News flash: China has spent the last 15-20 years transitioning to capitalism.
Depending on how you want to look at it, they're almost as free (some would say more free) in that respect than we are in the US.
Maybe not
Notice anything? Hmm, I notice a bunch of buildings built upon the backs of slave labor in the middle of a desert with zero natural resources. A drain on both the environment and society.
Dunno, it seems to me more like good old, capitalistic smelling when you can fleece someone. Just like, say, buying stuff on an airport might be more expensive than at the mall down the road.
Basically, those journalists don't have many other choices, since their readers and viewers expect coverage of those events. So as long as you price it just high enough so it's not worth it to find some other way, they'll pay.
Plus, it might come as a shock to some people, but some resources do cost more in other countries. I'll take a guess that China's broadband infrastructure is _probably_ in an even worse state than the USA's. So to give a few thousands of journalists 512 MB/s full time, no throttling, they have to throttle the already poor connections of a few million other people. It will cost you.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Dubai has existed for centuries as a thriving port city and I don't remember there being a massive automobile industry in the 1700's. It has an excellent location for trade. But what, anyway, is the point of saying "yeah, but if it wasn't for the oil industry it wouldn't be like that..." It does have an oil industry and the people who live here are justified in using it to improve their living environment, are they not? Or perhaps you feel that they shouldn't. This is shifting, by the way. Dubai is now one of the worlds financial capitals. Not all business needs to be pulling things out of the ground and sticking them together anymore (thankfully).
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.