And You Thought Your Internet Bill Was High
from the stay-out-of-Africa dept
There have been plenty of stories about how much cheaper and faster broadband access is in places like Japan and Korea than in the US, but that doesn’t mean the US has the highest prices. A new report notes that Africans pay an average of $1,800 per GB, which could explain, in part, why only 1.5% of people there are online.
Comments on “And You Thought Your Internet Bill Was High”
Travel on the cheap
If I go to Europe, are there any places where I can watch nazis marching down the street, knights on horseback being shot with crossbows, or royal executions? Are there canals in Venice where maidens in silk robes dive into the canal to retrieve pearls? Are there churches that are at least 1000 meters tall? How about oil paintings that are worth at least $10 trillion, statues of naked men taking a shit, or a statue of the virgin mary that cries and makes Catholics scratch themselves bloody in religious frenzy? Are there places in the Vatican where I can give my girlfriend an abortion for xmas? Are there volcanoes that bury Italian cities at 3PM every day, or the Irish alps that require oxygen masks to climb, or blimps made out of Swiss cheese that fly over the Grand Mosques of France?
Unless there are better attractions in Asia. Are there any airports where levitating monks give rides on flying carpets? Are there live harakiri shows at 3PM every day, or airlines that serve dog brain sushi? Are there places where I can watch starving children with Bausch & Lomb Eye Infections, elephants destroying Indian villages, or Muslims blowing up nightclubs with lots of white people in it? How about the world’s tallest skyscraper on top of Everest, Buddhist temples built out of human bones, or Asians with 3 eyes singing karaoke?
But would there be more fun in North America, where I can watch herds of buffalo blocking highways? Are there regularly scheduled school massacres, or the Statue of Liberty being blown up at 3PM every day? How about Mexican illegal immigrants in holocaust camps, Canadians throwing spears at polar bears, or McDonalds that serve Improvised Explosive Devices? Is there a subway that goes from New York to LA, or a place to watch Hurricane Katrina victims swim across the misipipi, or whatever it’s called? Are there cities where religious police arrest anyone carrying a science textbook? Or helicopter tours piloted by Mrs. Bush? Are there sushi bars in Hollywood where Tom Cruise chops up babies, or places in the Grand Canyon where Cowboys and Indians have shootouts? Can I watch a KKK cross burning, or get a free nuclear weapon keychain? Are there Wal-mart stores that sell starving homeless children?
Re: Travel on the cheap
I don’t know about that, but in America you can see people go stark raving mad on the internet.
http://techdirt.com/article.php?sid=20060518/1348250#c20
Re: Re: Travel on the cheap
yup!
Um.... What?
Dorpus, a little off topic aren’t we? I would like to see concentration camps for illegals though… Cheers
Re: Um.... What?
Australias has something like that, called immigration detention centres, but the conditions are not too bad apart from the alleged beatings and being way out in the desert or on pacific islands.
Re: Re: Um.... What?
The US runs camps for minors who enter the country illegally. The kids are kept in cages without contact to the outside world, absolutely no education, no supervision, no legal assistance. The detainees are being deported as soon as they reach majority. It is illegal to treat a dog like that.
Re: Re: Re: Um.... What?
Camps for minors. We don’t send them all back when they reach the age of majority. We send some to Area 51 to tend the Alien Farms.
Re: Um.... What?
you are a faggot.
drugs are bad m'kay?
that hurt my head a little dorpus…
dorpus: nope
dorpus the dork
Dorpus; through your arty-farty pseudointellectual “poem” shines a bleeding heart idiot, who has never visited Europe, who does not understand the country you live in, and failing to realize that this world is made up of thousands of cultures that are all wonderful. The religious police exists in states you have never visited; but your grandchildren will live in one, if you don’t start realizing the stakes.
Your off-topic copy pasting revealed 386 results in goggle. You are an active idiot with an internet connection.
Re: dorpus the dork
yup!
Re: dorpus the dork
Thank God there are still intellectuals out there who will take the time and show everyday morons, that they are morons.
“Think of someone of “average” intelligence. Then think… half the world is dumber than that.”
WHAT THE F**K IS DORPUS SMOKING???
Please mail me some.
african internet
in south africa it is exorbitantly expensive. i’m surprised anyone gets on there, except to check email which very few even do. plus, the expense of a computer is also very high so what would be the point if no one else is hooking up their computers to the internet? how can you email/chat/buy stuff online if no one else is on there to supply the other parts
Re: african internet
I used to live in Pretoria, had a 512 kbit DSL connection. Fine, its nothing as to what I have now in Germany (4 Mbit DSL) but its not as bad as what some people here make it out to be. And its not because of lack of infrastructure or because “the expense of a computer is high” (a truly ridiculous statement).
The only reason South Africa has such expensive DSL rates is due to the Telkom monopoly. That`s another reason why I believe Network Neutrality would benefit not only the Europeans and Americans, but also the Africans.
then how are them nigerians always doing these fraud ebay bids?
^ lol
Just because the US doesn’t have the highest prices doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement.
I disagree with the argument of speed. I live in Japan and I have a “50M” broadband account. However, bandwidth speed tests from both the US and within Japan report my bandwidth to be between 2-4M which is slower than the 5.03M I got in Hawaii. These are down speeds of course.
Dorpus is off his meds today
It would appear that Dorpus is off his medication. I would suggest that he return to his mental facility ASAP. You are in need of electro shock therapy. I would suggest 1000volts applied to your right testicle and 1500volts applied to your left testicle and maybe you will appear normal for at least 5 Min….
Good Luck with that, and nice talkin to ya!!!
to africa
Im off to Africa.. set up a ISP 🙂
*Charges $20 a gig anw ats for income*
Personally offended
I was very offended by the “Bausch & Lomb Eye Infections” comment!! How dare you talk about such an icon of opthamological sophistication!
Anyway, what I think is really funny is that the comments are now all about the Dorpus post (except for a few) when Dorpus didn’t really say anything at all, even though it is signifigantly longer than the original post. Some people actually started sending him hate posts!
LOL
rude with tude
i’ve read several articles from techdirt and have yet to find a single intelligent comment, maybe it’s due to the fact that everyone here is still sucking on mammas big boob and still shitting green
Quote CNN – “Internet users in America pay $20 for one gigabyte of data per month”
I pay $40 a month for 10mb/down 5mb/up and my BW limit is 50GB.
…
This article says it all
http://www.homecomingrevolution.co.za/?page=2&category_id=93&related_id=1140
Botswana
I live in Botswana (the country just north of South Africa) and pay $400 USD per month for a 128 kb/sec connection and that’s as fast as it gets here. At least it’s just barely fast enough to play World of Warcraft! Sophacles, 60 Mage on Frostwolf baby!
To Spartacus
US or EU realms?
gprs on my cell phone is US$0.16 per mb
🙂
just subscribing for adsl costs $100
then $20 for 512kbps and after 3gigs download or upload it becomes 64kbps local and 0kbps international
iburst wireless internet is cheaper
and speed is 1mb
maximum speed available here 2mb
and really expensive
🙂
im moving!
p.s. ThePenguin until recently there was a law which allowed only 1 national provider, there will be a new one next year
Those figures are definitly for Kenya only.
I run an ISP in South Africa, and those prices don’t tie up with my experiences. If that price is for a 1Gb/s pipe then the same thing would cost me around $1.5 Million a month.
Usually mere mortals who aren’t part of a state owned monopoly get charged per Gig of actual data shifted each month, and at a reasonable ISP that will run you about $15/Gig a month for hosting and ADSL works out at around $30 per Gig.
Personally the high prices don’t bother me that much, what is really frustrating is that I can’t get anything better than 100Kbytes/sec downloads from any site in the US to my servers at any of the top collocation facilities in the country. (I’m paying top dollar for unlimited bandwidth)
As for the Nigerians…150+ accounts from Nigeria and I’m still waiting for a single legitimate Nigerian customer. If you use a stolen credit card clearly price isn’t an issue. (We block all signups from Nigeria now.)
Kev
US relm. My twink is on Crushridge, Sparticus, 30 Orc Warlock.
Wow...but I'm still complaining about U.S. rates
I wish had the capital to set one up over there…that’s a wide open market.
Lol
I have someone from south africa in my buddy list on msn, he’s only online in weekends and only has a bitchy 56k modem – but also a kickass pc 😮
Africa
Mike,
Like so many Americans you seem to forget that Africa is the second largest continent on the world. Its not one single country, but made up of quite a few countries. And a lot of people.
The CNN article is pertinent to Kenya, not the whole of Africa, there are other countries in Africa that enjoy better internet connectivity and better prices (such as South Africa, for example).
Re: Africa
Like so many Americans you seem to forget that Africa is the second largest continent on the world. Its not one single country, but made up of quite a few countries. And a lot of people.
I know this. It is unfair of you to say that I “forgot” this. Please read the article again. It pertains to all of Africa.
The CNN article is pertinent to Kenya, not the whole of Africa, there are other countries in Africa that enjoy better internet connectivity and better prices (such as South Africa, for example).
No. While the article was based on a talk given in Kenya, it clearly is discussing all of Africa. It’s true that prices are different in different parts of Africa, but the report is discussing an average price.
Re: Africa
I worked for four and half months in Kenya, and I can tell ya, internet ain’t cheap. I was trying to install high speed internet in one of the offices of the US Embassy–the cheapest was 256k–a $1200 setup and something like $200 a month. That was DSL and their landline infrastructure is, in a word, crap. I was told to expect about 50% downtime with no prorated costs. The most reliable system there is there “wireless”. An $1800 setup to erect an antenna and something like $600 per month. 128K ISDNs were several hundred a month a month. It’s crazy…internet cafe is the way to go there–my friend writes me from one and she only pays a few shillings per minute. It’s funny…60% unemployment in that country and Nairobi ranks as one of the most overpriced places (quality/quantity vs. cost) I’ve been in the world…and I’ve been a lot of places. That and the divide between the rich and the poor is incredible. That place survives, and likely their internet industry, by charging the plethora of US and European expatriates a ton of cash–usually funded by US/UK/EU governments or the barbarian horde that’s called the UN–it’s the largest UN hub in Africa. Anyway…
Africa by Mike on May 19th, 2006 @ 2:31am
I find it unfair of you to suggest people to stay out of Africa because of the price of connectivity.
And the article groups the whole of Africa into a single group. Which is what I find so disconcerting. Looking at the prices that http://www.hellkom.co.za publishes you could pay R463 for 3 GB of Data in South Africa. That`s about 77$ US. Or 26$ US for 1 GB of data. While that is still an exorbant amount, its nowhere close to 1800$ US for 1 GB.
The link below is my reference:
http://www.hellkom.co.za/tco.php?price=100&isp=Cybersmart&package=R100%20192kbs&url=http://www.cybersmart.co.za
So obviously the problem here is the fact that South Africa (and Egypt, Malawi, Namibia) was grouped with countries that had relatively poor infrastructure and net connectivity.
The average in such a case is not a good indication of the truth of the matter.
I`m not saying that the price of communication is not a problem in South Africa and other African countries (as it is also in Germany and in America I gather), I`m saying that it is unfair to average across the whole continent and then expect it to be a reasonable indication of the technological ability (in this case, internet connectivity) of any individual country.
Re: Africa by Mike on May 19th, 2006 @ 2:31am
I find it unfair of you to suggest people to stay out of Africa because of the price of connectivity.
Um. I never suggested people stay out of Africa. Where did you get that from?!?
Re: Re: Africa by Mike on May 19th, 2006 @ 2:3
from the stay-out-of-Africa dept
Fine, I might be taking it too seriously, but I`ve met too many Americans who refer to Africa as though its a single country. A just want people to understand that there`s more to it than the CNN reports on starvation and war.
Dorpus
I thought that was a jolly nice poem, Uncle Dorpus, and I’m going to hang it on my wall
Big fucking deal. I pay $6,100 CDN per gig on my cell phone’s internet plan. It’s a total scam.
-av
Its a good way to keep people dumb, at any rate. deny them the opportunity to inform themselves and nothing will change. its almost like china now.
Here in India I pay 27.99 $ per GB.
Hi from Africa
I live in Africa as you would call it, but the fact of the matter is that there are different countries in Africa. Thsi applies for South Africa which is a COUNTRY in AFRICA. There is no such thing as AFRICA, since it is a ontinent, and each county in the continent has their own billing system.
So, be specific and get your facts straight. This is all due to a monopoly in South Africa. We only have ONE telephone company, so there is the explination.
Trouble In Africa - What's new?
Sigh. It’s quite unsettling to hear that internet access, a luxury that most Americans, Asians, and Europeans openly enjoy daily, is inaccessible to a country that may need it most. I’m almost certain that the 1.5% mentioned is probably all concentrated in Johannesberg, or some wealthy part of South Africa.
Hopefully some kind of AFRICAN-BASED company will get enough capital to build some kind of virtual internet infrastructure or network in which they can charge Africans a bit less. It’s pretty sad that the only ones with money in Africa aren’t even African. Makes you wonder.
battery
It’s crazy…internet cafe is the way to go there–my friend writes me from one and she only pays a few shillings per minute. It’s funny…60% unemployment in that country and Nairobi ranks as one of the most overpriced places (quality/quantity vs. cost) I’ve been in the world…and I’ve been a lot of places. That and the divide between the rich and the poor is incredible. That place survives, and likely their internet industry, by charging the plethora of US and European expatriates a ton of cash–usually funded by US/UK/EU governments or the barbarian horde that’s called the UN–it’s the largest UN hub in Africa.
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Nice post. Please keep continue sharing your great ideas
Wanna try Cambodia for high prices, seriously ridiculous . . .