Our broadband is dismal
by Andrew Smith on 26/11/07 at 10:27 pm
No comments
After reading Arthur Goldstuck’s article on the Thought Leader site, entitled “Facebook winner but broadband loser“, I installed the Facebook Application called “Broadband Speed Challenge“. This app measures the speed of your connection to the internet, and allows you to compare it to your friends. It’s a clever use of the Facebook platform by Australia’s ZDnet.
Unfortunately it highlights what we already know – broadband in South Africa really sucks. Results from all countries are compiled on this list. The current leader is Switzerland, with average speeds of 20mbps. Close your eyes and day-dream about that for a minute. That’s about 5 times faster than the “experimental” 4mbps ADSL lines from Telkom. My 4mbps line managed 0.4mbps at 10pm. Mmmm.
South Africa is currently ranked 91st on the list, behind technologically advanced countries like Jamaica, Morocco, Guatemala and Namibia.
What erks me the most about this is that I realised that I was starting to believe the ridiculous excuse that our internet is slow because South Africa is so far away from the rest of the world. By my quick analyses of Google Earth I’d say that you can’t get much more remote than New Zealand on the map, and yet they come in at a respectable 35th place, and manage average speeds of 10 times what South Africa gets.
The internet has the potential to be a great uplifter of small business in developing countries because it gives us the same access to world-class tools as everyone else, and usually small businesses can adopt these technologies quicker than beaurocratic corporates.
Access to cheap, fast internet is crucial… and it’s coming. Take heart! There is some red-tape to get over, and a monopolostic legacy to unwind, but I have faith that we will eventually catch up. And when it comes, I want my small business to be skilled-up and totally ready to take advantage of it. Will you be?
Andrew Smith is the pedantic systems guy behind Live Alchemy, a SA e-commerce company. Andrew writes for Ideate in an attempt to make the world a more efficient place. View more articles by Andrew Smith.
