My rant today is on a very personal note. It has to do with the frankly horrendous tribulations of trying to cope with broadband in this country in which I live. It is now four days since I last posted on here, precisely because my Internet connection has been so poor in the last few days. Non-existent at most times, in fact. I have paid for this month, and must now consider having to go and sign on with a new provider. What nonsense.
The history of broadband in this country is beyond pathetic. South Africa for many years at the beginning of the broadband revolution was held tight in the stranglehold of one of our most coddled monopolies, namely the telecommunications company Telkom. As a result, our broadband access was either non-existent or severely limited - slow, fraught with breakdowns and often unreliable as a result. It did improve in recent years, but not to the extent that could be considered 'world class'. It is very revealing, I believe, that although this country has by far the biggest economy and supposed wealth of any country in Africa, we have nevertheless seen our broadband share of the African market fall from over 50% in 2000 to under 7% by 2008. And, even more tellingly, is that we now lag behind other African countries with the per capita rate of our population that has Net access. You have a better chance of having Net access in Tunisia or Nigeria than you do in South Africa. That's unacceptable to me.
In this day and age, Internet access is not a luxury, but a fundamental tool needed in this global 'New Economy'. I know what impact not having Net access for just a couple of days has for my work and my ability to network, etc. Fairly obvious, huh? Tell that to the millions of South Africans who continue to either have no access at all, sporadic access if they are lucky or then, like me, pay for bloody expensive access which, to top it all off, is 'CAPPED'. Capped? Yes, capped. When I try to explain this concept to people from the US or Europe or Taiwan etc, they look at me rather confused. As the word suggests, although I do pay a monthly subscription fee for my Internet service, it has a 'cap' on it as to how many gigs I can get - 1 gig, 2 gig, 3 gig, etc. And, yes, the more gigs you want, the more you pay. Oh, we're very capitalist down here on the southern tip of Africa.
I recently met my friend Charles for lunch. He is Taiwanese and used to live here in South Africa. He now lives back in Taiwan. I just had to ask him how Internet access works in Taiwan. Like Nirvana compared to the crap we put up with in this country. In Taiwan, as in most of Asia according to him, there are no 'caps' (i.e. limits) on how much access you have. What you pay for allows for unlimited access to the Internet. As it should be. Better still, he says, you can literally stop outside a store that has Internet access and, because they might have wireless and because there are no caps on their broadband, you can flip out your laptop and just pick up their wireless on-the-go. No one is either the wiser or even cares - because with no caps or limits, why should I care that you're tapping into my broadband, right?
That is the way it should be in this day and age. But not here in South Africa, a country in which the governments, both during the apartheid era and now in the post-apartheid era, have always bent over backwards to ensure that corporations and parastatals have made a killing off the backs of South African citizens. Big Business is so protected in this country, it's frightening. We are so uber-capitalist in this country, we put the United States to shame. And it gets on my bloody nerves like you have no idea. And this is just one more example of how big business in this country colludes with government and regulatory bodies to ensure that we, the South African consumer and public, are screwed right down the alley.
So, here I am stuck with yet another sub-standard, compromised service for which I have paid but which does not give me what I paid for. And so, as a result, my own digital productivity, like that of most of my country, just lags more behind the rest of the civilized world. Sound melodramatic, think about it...
Can you imagine if there had been 'caps' or serious limits on how much telephone use one could have had back when there were no cellphones and no Internet? Can you imagine what that would have done to any economy at the time?
Do you get my point?
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