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South Africans in Cape Town and Johannesburg Pay Much More For Internet Usage Than New Yorkers (qz.com)
South Africa may have some of the world's cheapest cities to live in, but using the internet in Cape Town and Johannesburg is surprisingly expensive by global standards. From a report: South Africans living in the country's two major cities spend more on their monthly internet costs than people living in New York, Tokyo, and even the perennially expensive Zurich, according to a report by Deutsche Bank. When comparing life in the global financial capitals, most other things, from rent to the cost of a cappuccino, were far cheaper in Johannesburg and Cape Town, making the cost of getting online even more of a shock to the pocket. Out of 50 cities surveyed, Joburgers spent the second most on monthly internet, beaten only by oil-rich Dubai. The amount shelled out by Capetonians ranked seventh behind Dublin, San Francisco, and Auckland and Wellington in New Zealand, according to the report, which compared daily prices and living standards of cities around the world.
Sounds like the antithesis of paradise to me.
Better just to enjoy that cappuccino than hanging out on teh intart00bs, eh.
Internet in NYC is cheap, like $42/mo for an unbundled 100mb Verizon connection. Many other parts of the US pay much more, or require bundling with cable/phone, for the same service.
Switzerland has a 90% penetration rate of internet users, while South Africa has a 50% rate. Next, South Africa is connected to the rest of the world by relatively expensive internet connections on a per-user basis due to the position in the globe and usage. This results in a higher cost per user when actual expenses are accounted for as compared with a location like NYC or Zurich. This is simple economics.
Are there reasons why the cost would be more in South Africa or Dublin? I could understand the argument in that they may not be as much demand (subscribers) in SA to spread the costs across, but Dublin? Installs should be relatively easy (no major geographic barriers).
A single place where internet costs more than the USA for comparable service does little to help the fact the three American cities on the list are among the most expensive. Americans pay far more for slower internet than the vast majority of the world. The repeal of net neutrality just made overall costs worse, expect to pay even more for services in the future as companies take fast lane fees and pass them back to consumers.
Yummy joburgers taste far better.
This is going to sound impolite but it's because their government has absolutely no experience governing and has no idea what they're doing. They can't stop crime, inflation, grow food, or do basically anything. It's a complete free for all over there.
Reason being that as part of the deal to allowing Mandela into power, the ANC had to 'liberalize' the South African telecom market. Basically sell it off at bargain basement prices to foreign 'investors', who operate an effective monopoly. For example, the UK company Vodafone and 'Thintana Communications' out of Texas.
Atlanta $110/month 25/5 Mbps Comcast Biz. I'm staring at the bill.
Called last fall and got a verbal quote for GigE from Comcast for $800 installation and $499/month.
So how much do South Africans pay for New Yorkers?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Listen, on a side note: if someone from Johannesburg is a Joburger then I think it just goes that someone from Capetown should be a Capeburger. It has a nice ring to it.
How the fuck is this news?
When I lived in SoCal, I paid more that twice as much for internet service at half the speed than when I lived in Germany.
Is that in the news?
Seriously, what a stupid fucking story.
I pay only 10â / month for uncapped 200mb fiber access.
For 4g it's only 5â for 30gb + unlimited calls.
There is a real competition between providers,ðY
If the government doesn't go after criminals, companies can charge you through the nose for operating in a dangerous place where most people don't want to set up shop.
Blame the criminals.
Blame the soft enforcement of laws.
Well, that's an interesting theory that has no resemblance to reality.
Over here in reality, South Africa's Telekom is over 50% owned by the Republic of South Africa (roughly 40% directly and 11% through the Public Investment Corporation), and no other shareholder holds more than 5%. And specifically, Thintana's minority stake was sold off back in 2011 and Vodafone's minority stake was sold off in 2016.
So, if the problem in South Africa is a telecom monopoly that exploits customers, the problem isn't foreign investors, it's the state-owned, state-controlled telecom monopoly.
only till the next saa bailout.
oh, and it was malaysia telkom that owned the big chunk late 90's on
When you want to kill whitey so bad, internet costs more. Inside secret.
Pricing here is a joke, if we are fair in our comparisons internet access here is even higher than it should be. 10MB ADSL here (which is mostly the best you get) for an uncapped connection will cost you around ZAR 3 500.00 or USD 258.76. For a 20MB Fibre connection to our office we were just quoted USD 2 217.90 for installation and USD 701.62 per month. This is for a 1:1 Uncapped Fibre 20MB with five dedicated IPv4 addresses. Taking into consideration that an average household income here is only about USD 700 per month (And even those figures are unrepresentative) you begin to get a picture of how extremely expensive connectivity is here. Home use internet with extremely stupid shaping and so-called "soft-capping" at about 300GB you are paying about USD 67 per month for an 8MB ADSL connection.