re: Monday's Podcast: Sprint's Data Plan

aka What happends when you have a telco monopoly

I love listening to BOL but I get a sick feeling every time I hear you guys complaining about the cost of your bandwidth! Our local South African telco controls all our ISP's access to our overseas loop. To give you an idea as to how we compare here are are local connection costs:

ADSL 1024k approx 90US$ (does not include any bandwidth)

3Gb ISP download Approx 30US$, we are hard capped and have to pay +-10US$ per GB

So for a 1024k line with 5Gb of bandwidth it will cost 140US$

- 1024k connections are the fastest connection available with a 192k connection being advertised as the ideal home connection

Wireless Connectivity is even more expensive
1Gb over 3G/EDGE/HSDPA will cost you 100US$

We also have port shaping so as to make P2P sharing and VOIP more difficult. Worst thing is that we are only using 30% of the capacity on our undersea cable so there is no reason for us to have such high costs except for profit.


Have a look at our local http://hellkom.co.za/ Telkom hate site for more info on how we are being ripped of in South Africa.


Worst thing is that only 30% of the capacity of our undersea cable is used

Until last month when our network was opened to not only competition but also a regulator who found our duopoly was also working in an anti-competitive manner.

Suddenly the price fell by $100 and we were better off.

Now we have to wait a couple of years while they work on the adsl. currently a monopoly, but its about to be opened.

I fell your pain, and we are coming out of the same dark ages, just very slowly, but I also know that some are dragging their heels trying to slow the process and it frustrates me.

Hope your situation improves man

New Zealand could be transformed from a broadband laggard to a leader in just a couple of years, an OECD expert says.

"There is a huge opportunity here," said Taylor Reynolds from the information and communications technology policy division of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development ? but only if the change is handled right.

Dr Reynolds will be a keynote speaker at a one-day Telecommunications Users Association conference in Wellington today. Given that other speakers include Telecom chief executive Theresa Gattung and Communications Minister David Cunliffe on their vision for the future of the industry, interest is bound to be high.

The Government decided three weeks ago it would open up Telecom's network to competition. One of the main reasons was New Zealand's consistent near-bottom OECD ranking for the past few years. Dr Taylor said the key to achieving better broadband was competition.

"Once you get competition you get innovative challenges come in, and they force the incumbent to respond."

Working for the OECD and living in Paris, Dr Reynolds cites France as a place where the effects of competition have had a radical effect.

A few years ago France rated poorly for speed and cost of broadband. Now Dr Reynolds enjoys a residential service that includes broadband at 20 megabits a second, 100 TV channels and free phone calls within France and to 14 other countries, all over the one connection for $NZ57 a month.

"And that has been the result of local loop unbundling. It has been an absolute success in France."

That could be New Zealand in 2009, he said

The previous article is the property of the dominion newspaper, new zealand. I accidentally posted it and not the link and the page cannot now be edited.

I violated this copyright statement.

Hmmm...I've been looking at the wireless mobile data plans carefully over the last week or so. Although the SprintPCS data plan looks good on the surface (Flexible Data Plan for Phone as Modem) for $25/month (with a voice plan)
http://www.sprintpcs.com/common/popups/pop-HandsetAsModem.html
there's a worrying part.

Specifically...
'Unlimited usage for the first month. After one month, use the MB included in your plan.'

But I can't find how many Mb are included in the plan....