.. about who supplies you with your broadband access. In South Africa we have a single telecoms provider, Telkom, who is the sole international bandwidth provider for the entire country, and (what a surprise) they're also an ISP.
It's a government enforced monopoly busy making money hand-over-fist on the backs of an emerging economy. http://www.mybroadband.co.za/ reports that the average adsl bill is 110% of the average salary in South Africa, meaning it's a service that's only available to a select few who can afford it. The sick part is that goverment is the majority shareholder, and so does not have the people's interests at heart when it comes to accessable (meaning cheap) telephony and broadband.
So, at least you have choices and wide deployment.
We live in a country where communications are run by a single monopoly, Telkom. They control the entire POTS system and all internet pipes out of South Africa. They are notorious for charging crazy prices for bandwidth and internet access, as well as being a reseller and ISP (how uncompetitive can you get?)
We are in a battle to get the price of ADSL down in South Africa. We have a population of 45 million, and because of the high costs we have only seen 100,000 users sign up in the last 4 years. That's a grand total penetration of 0.22% ! We are battling to get support from government because they own 40% of the shares, and they are profiting dearly from Telkom's exthortion.
A 512k connection with a 3gig cap will cost you ZAR 819 a month, which is about $126!!
Slashdot Mirror
.. about who supplies you with your broadband access. In South Africa we have a single telecoms provider, Telkom, who is the sole international bandwidth provider for the entire country, and (what a surprise) they're also an ISP.
It's a government enforced monopoly busy making money hand-over-fist on the backs of an emerging economy. http://www.mybroadband.co.za/ reports that the average adsl bill is 110% of the average salary in South Africa, meaning it's a service that's only available to a select few who can afford it. The sick part is that goverment is the majority shareholder, and so does not have the people's interests at heart when it comes to accessable (meaning cheap) telephony and broadband.
So, at least you have choices and wide deployment.
We live in a country where communications are run by a single monopoly, Telkom. They control the entire POTS system and all internet pipes out of South Africa. They are notorious for charging crazy prices for bandwidth and internet access, as well as being a reseller and ISP (how uncompetitive can you get?)
We are in a battle to get the price of ADSL down in South Africa. We have a population of 45 million, and because of the high costs we have only seen 100,000 users sign up in the last 4 years. That's a grand total penetration of 0.22% ! We are battling to get support from government because they own 40% of the shares, and they are profiting dearly from Telkom's exthortion.
A 512k connection with a 3gig cap will cost you ZAR 819 a month, which is about $126!!
Check out http://www.mybroadband.co.za/ for more information about the situation.